The puffin bird is a representative of birds that stands out by its small size and interesting coloring, making it look like a penguin. It has black and white plumage, red legs and a mottled beak of a triangular shape. Because of the funny look of dead ends, they are often called "sea parrots" or "sea clowns".
There are three types of dead ends: the mortar (or Pacific dead end), the hatchet dead end, and the Atlantic dead end. They all look the same, except for the beak, which has a different color and size. Ipatka lives on the north coast of the Pacific Ocean, hatchet - on the American and Asian coasts of the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic puffin - on the east coast of the Atlantic Ocean and North Africa.
Most sea birds nest on the rocks, but the bird’s dead end is special, it needs an area with soft land. The fact is that during the breeding season, in order to protect their offspring from large seabirds such as gulls and skuas, they dig holes two to three meters long and make a nest there. In winter, they try to dwell closer to ice-free waters.
The dead end bird is amazing and unique, it not only knows how to dig holes and fly, but is also an excellent swimmer and diver. The bird can dive to a depth of 60 m and reach speeds of up to 2 m / s, such an Olympic champion would envy such indicators. They swim in a special way, flapping wings underwater, as if soaring in the sky. In one approach, a dead end can bring up to 15 small fish in its beak, in no other way, because you need to feed your chick, who has more appetite than an adult.
The dead end bird can bring several fish at a time thanks to the small spikes located on the top of the beak, as well as a rough tongue that presses the prey to the sky. The fish is simply not able to escape from such a capture, therefore, the bird, catching one, hunts for the other, and at the speed that the impasse develops, no one can escape the pursuit.
As for flights, not everything is as smooth as swimming. Only hatchets fly well, they can reach speeds of up to 80 km / h, but the rest of the dead ends have a hard time. To take off, a dead end bird must jump from a cliff and perform up to 10 swings per second. She lands on her belly or on the head of her relatives.
The dead end chooses the soulmate once and stays with it until one of them dies. During the breeding season, the birds dig a hole, the female lays one large egg, which both parents hatch in turn. After about 40 days, a fluffy black chick appears. His parents have to make 6 - 10 raids for food in order to feed this glutton. Somewhere on the 50th day, parents stop feeding the chick, thereby pushing him to independence.
An excellent swimmer, diver, digger with a beautiful color and a funny look - all this is a dead end bird. Photos of these birds cannot but be touched, but fishing in these funny birds is allowed in some places. Their number is not so small, but still this species needs protection. Even where it is allowed to hunt for them, strict rules apply, for example, you cannot catch a dead end if he carries fish in his beak, because this means that he has a chick.
