“I was trying to remember today how the colours are banded on the puffin’s curious triangular bill: was it red-yellow-blue or blue-yellow-red? “These gay little auks fly in wide ellipses between cliff and sea, seeming without purpose and indefinitely, but it is not easy to follow an individual puffin for their whole circuit of a teeming merry-go-round. UCC’s Dr Mark Jessop, an Australian zoologist, has worked with colleagues to track the winter travels of Irish puffins, their bright summer colours dulled or discarded. On the Great Saltee Island – a special area of conservation for birds – predation by rats has reduced breeding puffins from 2,000 to 50 birds. The single chick, however, takes its crucial first journey to the sea under darkness, having been left alone to get hungry.

Source: The Irish Times June 27, 2020 05:00 UTC