Look at these birds behind me.

They're puffins, and we're lucky to see them because these birds rarely have their feet on land.

Let's learn more about them.

What are puffins?

I'm in the Westman Islands in Iceland, which is itself a large island in the North Atlantic Ocean.

About 60% of all of the Atlantic puffins in the world live in Iceland.

And the Westman Islands has the largest colony.

For most of the year these birds are far out to sea.

They spend the winter bobbing on the ocean swells and hunting for fish.

They can fly fast and dive even faster.

They are great swimmers.

When they're out to sea, puffins spend most of their time all by themselves.

But in the springtime, they gather in colonies of hundreds or thousands of birds.

Amazingly, puffins fly back to the same area each year, often to the same exact burrow, and they tend to mate for life.

So maybe all those puffins behind me are catching up on everything that happened while they were apart.

Though they're very quiet.

Puffin pairs take turns caring for a single egg.

When a puffin baby called a puffling is old enough to leave the nest.

It takes its first flight at night, often leaping right off the edge of a cliff and using that freefall to help it get its wings underneath it.

They use the light of the moon and stars to help guide them out to sea.

Sometimes pufflings get lost or disoriented on their first flight out to sea.

And here in the Westman Islands, people sometimes capture the pufflings and then wait till nightfall and throw them off the cliffs to help them find their way to the sea.

Puffins are sometimes called sea parrots or clowns of the sea because of their bright beaks.

And get this.

Those beaks glow under UV light.

But their beaks get a little duller during the winter.

I guess they don't need to show off when they're out to sea all alone.

To make sure you never miss.

But why?

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