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Getting into the Puffin Groove
Sun 13th Apr, 2025
As I write this our towering cliffs on the Yorkshire coast and offshore islands on the Northumberland coast are alive with thousands nesting seabirds. Atlantic Puffins are not surprisingly one of our most popular must-see birds for visitors but how do we know how old a puffin is? Rewind almost five years ago to an experience which taught me so much about these fabulous birds.
Atlantic Puffins - Farne Islands 9 June 2016 © Richard Baines
On the 16 July 2020 we sailed on calm seas from the fishing village of Staithes down the beautiful coastline of the North York Moors National Park. I was guiding on one of our Yorkshire Coast Nature Seabird and Whale boat trips. On the trip I photographed lots of Atlantic Puffins with a wide variety of bill sizes and colours but I was unsure how to age these birds, so after the trip I decided I needed to refresh my puffin knowledge.
Atlantic Puffin © Steve Race
The answer to ageing a puffin has a lot to do with that groovy bill. Juvenile puffins are very different from adults. In a puffins first few weeks of life, just after they leave the nest they have a small dark bill with little sign of colour or any grooves. Their dark stubby bills lack the colourful grooves we are so familiar with on adults. The bill shape is also more triangular at this early stage before becoming more convex on older birds.
The first photograph below shows a juvenile puffin fresh out of the nest on the 18 July. On the second photograph taken on the 28 August only a month later, the colour is starting to develop on the bill.
Atlantic Puffin juvenile - Staithes 18 July 2020 © Richard Baines
Atlantic Puffin juvenile - Staithes 28 August 2018 © Richard Baines
The following year, known as their first summer, is when the first bill groove starts to develop along with more colour and a change of shape. The first groove becomes a little more defined in its second year and by the third year most puffins have at least one and a half grooves. The photo below shows three young birds in their first or second summers taken on the 17 July.
Atlantic Puffins - Staithes 17 July 2020 © Richard Baines
In these first few years of life many puffins visit a variety of breeding colonies before finally settling down to one colony.
A puffin aged three years old should have one and a half or two grooves and maybe even vague signs of a third at age four. At this two or three-groove stage aged four or five years, many puffins will start breeding, settling down into a very different family groove. At this nesting stage most males will have larger bills than females which is something to look out for if you have good views of nesting puffins.
Atlantic Puffin carrying Sand Eels © Richard Baines
Atlantic Puffins and Razorbill - Flamborough Headland 1 June 2023 © Richard Baines
Puffins like most other seabirds are long lived. The longevity record for an Atlantic Puffin is an impressive 42 years and 21 days (BTO 2019).
They are incredibly tough birds. When the juvenile puffin I photographed in July 2020 left its nesting burrow almost certainly at night, it had no help from its parents. No shelter from predators, no training on how to feed or migrate. Out at sea they are often on their own until they meet other puffins when they probably benefit from watching how older birds survive.
To see Atlantic Puffins and learn much more about these amazing birds join one of our species Puffin Safaris. For more details and booking CLICK HERE.
YCN Director and Wildlife Guide