People In Iceland Are Collecting Baby Puffins In The Streets And Throwing Them Back Into The Ocean

Even though Iceland’s national bird is the magnificent Gyrfalcon, the Atlantic puffin has become the most precious bird and even attraction there.

In the small town of Vestmannaeyjabaer (the Westman Islands), located on a roughly five-square-mile island off the southern coast of Iceland, it's perfectly normal to see baby puffins being thrown off cliffs each year. This unusual old tradition brings the whole community together.

More info: Kyana Sue Powers

Iceland has become home to more than half of the world’s puffin population. Funnily nicknamed ‘Sea Parrot’, ‘Penguin of the North’ or even ‘Clown of the Sea’, these cute little birds come crashing down each year (in late August or September) on streets and near residential homes, being misled by bright city lights which remind them of the moon.

The baby puffins, better known as pufflings, are often seen waddling down the streets, stuck in small cracks or lost in neighborhood gardens. Therefore, it's very commonplace to see groups of kids, adults, and families wandering the streets collecting pufflings into cardboard boxes.

"The pufflings’ wings are too weak to take off again, so they end up stranded on the island," explained Kyana Sue Powers, who's an outdoor photographer specializing in adventure and lifestyle. "People of all ages wander the streets every night searching for puffins to rescue. It is common to see families walking or driving around with a cardboard box full of pufflings. While the streets aren’t littered with puffins, any given search team can easily find 4-10 pufflings a night," she added on her blog called Inspired by Iceland.

The woman mentioned that picking the adorable babies up does not harm them and they are only kept in a box until the next day, since releasing birds at night could cause them to go back to the town.

According to Rodrigo A. Martínez Catalán, who works at Náttúrustofa Suðurlands (South Iceland Nature Research Center), this beautiful human tradition has become truly vital to the survival of puffins, because they mate for life, only incubate one egg per season and don't lay eggs every year.

"If you have one failed generation after another after another after another, the population is through, pretty much," he said.

Families on the island love to get their kids involved in patrolling for pufflings. The search for cute babies starts around 9 p.m. and can last until as late as 3 a.m.

The entire community helps to collect data each year for scientific purposes. Every single person there is encouraged to put the information of each catch on a website.

While the locals are already familiar with this annual attraction and don't seem to get too emotional while freeing the birds, for the people doing this for the first time, it's a very special moment.

"It's a great feeling because you just rescued this little guy. And when you bring him to the cliff - it's the first time in his life he's seeing the ocean, and he's gonna live there for the next few years," Kyana shared. "I'm always like, 'Bye buddy, have a great life, I can't wait to see you again," she added.

According to some researchers, puffins cannot fly unless they have a view of the ocean; that's why the best way to rescue the babies is literally to throw them off the cliffs. Once they hit the air, their wings flap rapidly and they take off towards the water.

To get in the air for these birds, locally called lundi, is a bit of a struggle since they beat their wings 300-400 times a minute just to stay in flight. Yet puffins can perfectly use them to ‘fly’ underwater: they are incredibly good divers who can reach depths of as much as 60 meters in search of food.

Only 29-34 cm in length, puffins live for around 20 years, bonding with one partner for a lifetime and return every year to the same burrow.

Spending most of their lives at sea, these magnificent birds only return to land to breed.

Nowhere is as important to rescue puffins as in Vestmannaeyjar, which is home to the largest puffin colony in Europe.

Declining fish populations, rising ocean temperatures, oil spills and light pollution are causing huge danger to the birds but, thanks to the long-lasting tradition and amazing community, Westman Islands puffins’ future looks hopefully bright.