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Deepseawaters
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Sea BirdsHorned Puffin
Horned Puffin
Common Name: Horned Puffin
Scientific Name: Fratercula corniculata
Description
About
1.2 million Horned Puffins breed in the North
Pacific, almost exclusively in Siberia and Alaska. Unlike
Tufted Puffins, Horned Puffins find cozy crevices in rocky
cliffs to lay their eggs and raise their chicks. Horned
Puffins lay only one plain white egg. Like all others
members of the Alcidae family, both parents incubate the egg
and raise the growing chick. Each parent shares mealtime duties
by carrying up to 15 fish at once back to the chick. Both
the adult and chicks like feast on small fish, squid, and
sometimes krill. It can take Horned Puffin chicks
as long as fifty days in the nest to grow big enough to go
to sea!
Identification Tips
Length:
11.5 inches
Sexes
similar
Immature
similar to adult basic but bill is smaller and darker
Medium
to large alcid that dives for food from water surface
Very
large bill
Black
crown, nape, throat, and upperparts
White
breast, belly and undertail coverts
Red
legs and feet
Pelagic
bird only coming ashore to breed
Inhabits
open ocean habitats and coasts from Alaska
south (rarely) to California
Adult Alternate
Extremely colorful
bill-yellow at base and red at tip
White, triangular
face patch
Hornlike projection
from top of eye
Thin, dark line
from eye to nape
Adult Basic
Duller bill
lacks yelow plate at base
Gray, triangular
face patch
Similar Species
The
Horned Puffin is most similar to the Tufted
Puffin. In alternate plumage, the Horned
Puffin lacks yellow tufts on the face and has white,
not black, underparts. In winter, the gray face and white
underparts of the Horned Puffin can separate
them. Atlantic Puffin does not overlap in
range and has a different bill pattern.
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