Atlantic Puffin
Fratercula arctica

f8 @ 1/3200s, ISO:1250, Nikon D3S w 500mm


\"Atlantic Puffin,\" Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. While at sea, the bird ranges widely across the North Atlantic Ocean, including the North Sea, and may enter the Arctic Circle. In the summer, its southern limit stretches from northern France to Maine and in the winter the bird may range as far south as the Mediterranean Sea and North Carolina. These oceanic waters have such a vast extent of 15 to 30 million square kilometres (6 to 12 million square miles) that each bird has more than a square kilometre at its disposal and it is unsurprising that they are seldom seen out at sea. In Maine, light level geolocators have been attached to the legs of puffins which store information on their whereabouts. The birds need to be re-captured in order to access the information, a difficult task. One bird was found to have covered 4,800 miles (7,700 km) of ocean in eight months, traveling northwards to the northern Labrador Sea then southeastward to the mid-Atlantic before returning to land.
Svalbard, Norway
 
07/17/2015