Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your girlfriend who never leaves the house
Speaker 1: without a cardigan, Alli Ward, and I guess, speaking of cold,
Speaker 1: let's hit the blustery shore and get pooped on. It's
Speaker 1: puffins and people, it's a good time. So the year
Speaker 1: was this one, and many dozens of you tagged me
Speaker 1: in an Instagram post with a certified puffinologist, and I
Speaker 1: took that as a calling from the universe and from
Speaker 1: you to ask this bird person to please spend some
Speaker 1: time with me electronically so I can ask them our
Speaker 1: whole life, and that I did so. First off, is
Speaker 1: puffnology a real word? Would we be here if it weren't.
Speaker 1: That's questionable, but yes, puffonology. It's well established in news
Speaker 1: articles and ornithology circles, so it is game on. Now puffins.
Speaker 1: What are they? They are black and white, orange billed seabirds,
Speaker 1: and their name derives from the word poofon, which is
Speaker 1: thought to come from the look of this swollen salted meat,
Speaker 1: but of a completely different seabird, something called a Manx
Speaker 1: shearwater doesn't even look like a puffin. It's a small
Speaker 1: gray seagull looking thing, but it's named scientifically puffiness Puffinus However,
Speaker 1: that Manx sea bird is not a puffin. Buffinis puffinis
Speaker 1: not a puffin? What is a puffin? The genus Fraturcula
Speaker 1: is all puffins and it comes from frattre for a
Speaker 1: monk dressed in a dark cloak with its back. So
Speaker 1: what the fuck? So puffins in the scientific terms are
Speaker 1: not puffins, but puffins aren't named puffins. It's confusing. Fraterculology
Speaker 1: is not a word and puffinology is. So we're doing that.
Speaker 1: We're talking puffins. Now, hold on to your butts because
Speaker 1: boy howdy, it only gets more revealing and cuter and
Speaker 1: by the end you'll wish that you could give birth
Speaker 1: to a puffin and love it forever. But before we
Speaker 1: get there quick, thanks to patrons at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash ologies who submitted their fine questions for this episode,
Speaker 1: you also can join for about twenty five cents an episode.
Speaker 1: You don't have to feel left out. And if you
Speaker 1: would like to entertain and your small kiddos, we have
Speaker 1: this new show called Smologies and it has its own feed,
Speaker 1: it's its own show. It's linked in the show notes.
Speaker 1: We just launched it. It's all classroom safe episodes of ologies.
Speaker 1: We also have ologies merchant ologiesmerch dot com. It's a
Speaker 1: good way to find other ologites out there. And thank
Speaker 1: you to everyone who leaves reviews, and yeah, I do
Speaker 1: read them all. They make my day, such as yesterday
Speaker 1: I read them in an airport and I cried, partly
Speaker 1: because my plane was delayed nine hours in Utah, but
Speaker 1: partly because your reviews were so nice and as proof.
Speaker 1: Thank you too. Classic RKR, who wrote absolutely in love
Speaker 1: with this podcast. It's everything I would want from a
Speaker 1: science educator. Classic RKR also noted that they have a
Speaker 1: little chupacabra dog named Gremlin like I do, and they
Speaker 1: call their dog Remy like I do. Classic RKR. Uncanny
Speaker 1: tell Gmy that Gmy said woof woof. Also witchcraft wand
Speaker 1: thank you for listening since you were nine. Sorry for
Speaker 1: all the swears. Again, we now have smologies if anyone
Speaker 1: needs them. Okay, puffinology. This ologist absolutely delightful and knowledgeable.
Speaker 1: Busted so much puff in flim flamm. They got their
Speaker 1: bachelor's in biology at Saint Mary's University in Nova, Scotia,
Speaker 1: and they're now a master's student at the Memorial University
Speaker 1: of Newfoundland and they are currently studying the world's most
Speaker 1: charismatic seabird, the Atlantic puffin. So get in a blanket,
Speaker 1: burrow stare at some lapping waves and open your ears
Speaker 1: to learn whether you should kiss one who eats them,
Speaker 1: if they are neat freaks or not. They're surprising life expectancy.
Speaker 1: The journey puffins go on before they settle down. How
Speaker 1: monogamous they are, why they are disco birds, how they
Speaker 1: make their marriages work so well, the toilets with the
Speaker 1: best views, why someone would toss a puffin, star Wars, trivia,
Speaker 1: serial lore, and who should not become a puffinologist? And
Speaker 1: so much more with ornithologist, field researcher and legit pufphonologist.
Speaker 1: Jillian Taylor, Hi.
Speaker 2: My name is Jill Taylor and my pronouns are she.
Speaker 1: They and puffenologist. Correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, has a nice ring to it, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: I got tagged so many times on an Instagram post
Speaker 1: of yours about puffinology, so I like, please from so
Speaker 1: many people? Did you start calling yourself a puffinologist? Like,
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about the background of the word,
Speaker 1: and also would you be called in academic circles uh
Speaker 1: fred orcolologist or is it just straight up puffologist. Anything goes.
Speaker 2: The Latin names are yeah, fraught to I can't even
Speaker 2: say it properly, for turcula ortica is the Atlantic puff
Speaker 2: and scientific name, and that sounds horrible, So puffonologist is
Speaker 2: way better. It's a visual. When did I start calling
Speaker 2: myself a puffinologist? Probably after spending two complete summers, the
Speaker 2: entire of those summers watching puffins for eight hours a day.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's official qualifications.
Speaker 1: But yes, yes, that qualifies you as a puffinologist. Anyone
Speaker 1: who studies something as an ologist, So I think you
Speaker 1: count as someone who's expert level puffinologist because that's more
Speaker 1: time than anyone listening has probably spent watching puffins.
Speaker 2: Almost too much time, arguably, I guess a lot many
Speaker 2: hours in the field.
Speaker 1: There's never so many people were so excited because puffins
Speaker 1: they're so cute. I mean, they are the cutest. How
Speaker 1: much of it is just marveling at how cute they are?
Speaker 1: And how much is like I got to take notes
Speaker 1: on this.
Speaker 2: You just implode inwardly on how cute they are. Their
Speaker 2: cuteness doesn't wear off as tired and wet and soggy
Speaker 2: and sleep deprived you might be in the field. The
Speaker 2: puffins cuteness stays the exact same throughout.
Speaker 1: Believe that, first off, what is a puffin? Is it
Speaker 1: just an upright penguin? Is it closer to a seagull?
Speaker 1: I've never seen a puffin in real life, especially in
Speaker 1: the wild, so start with me there.
Speaker 2: So puffins are part of the auk family, which so
Speaker 2: a'l Today there's four species of puffins, the Atlantic puffin
Speaker 2: which I study, the horn puffin, the tufted puffin, and
Speaker 2: the Rhinoceros oklet, which actually used to be known as
Speaker 2: the horn billed puffin but isn't officially a puffin anymore.
Speaker 1: Okay. Side note, The Rhinoceros auklet is mostly gray and
Speaker 1: it has a nose horn during the breeding season, and
Speaker 1: it also lives for drama, rather taxonomists do because it's
Speaker 1: been called not a puffin, and then it turned out
Speaker 1: it was misnamed, and it's actually genetically the most original puffin,
Speaker 1: but it's not in the Fratercula genus. But because of that,
Speaker 1: puffinologists can be split on whether it actually included, but
Speaker 1: in general, don't let the name fool you. The rhinos
Speaker 1: auklet is a puffin. It is not a rhinoceros either.
Speaker 1: Isn't it comforting to know how much of history is
Speaker 1: just built on Oopsi's so don't be so hard on yourself.
Speaker 1: We're all humans and puffins, but.
Speaker 2: The Atlantic puffin holds up the bulk of the world's puffins.
Speaker 2: The other three species are found on the Pacific side.
Speaker 2: You're in La right, yeah, yeah, so yes, those are
Speaker 2: your that's your corner of the world. And the Auk
Speaker 2: family includes Mrs Gillemont's puffins, mulets, and razorbills. And fun fact,
Speaker 2: there are actually no ox species in the southern hemisphere,
Speaker 2: only in the northern hemisphere.
Speaker 1: How is an oc different from a penguin?
Speaker 2: Penguins of puffins are actually not related. I know they
Speaker 2: look like they are, but that's only because of convergent evolution,
Speaker 2: so similar environmental pressures. But they're not related.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're both birds, but that's about it.
Speaker 1: I figured that, of course they were related, that they
Speaker 1: must be. I had no idea. They are similar coloration.
Speaker 2: Though, right, very similar color.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the Penguinology episode with doctor
Speaker 1: Tom Hart, where we first learned why these unrelated ocean
Speaker 1: species get confused at first sight.
Speaker 3: It's amazing how many species are both black and white,
Speaker 3: and that countershading, like cormorants, like so many seabirds, and
Speaker 3: also a lot of killer whales and things like that.
Speaker 3: This counter shading is camouflage. So if you look at
Speaker 3: them in the water from above, they're dark against a
Speaker 3: dark background, and if you look at them from underneath,
Speaker 3: they're light against the light background.
Speaker 1: Oh oh my god.
Speaker 3: Just see black and white animals everywhere, because that seems
Speaker 3: to be just a natural way to camouflage yourself in
Speaker 3: the ocean.
Speaker 1: I never even thought about that orcs and penguins were
Speaker 1: in the same fabulous outfit, just laying and getting slaid.
Speaker 1: But I do want to think about that. So aside
Speaker 1: from being a snack for whales, what else do they
Speaker 1: have in common with penguins?
Speaker 2: Similar diving habits too, they're both very ocean oriented birds.
Speaker 2: But yes, you're not the first person. It's either penguins
Speaker 2: or two cans. Are the two other ones that people
Speaker 2: are like, Oh, puffins, penguins two cans, these are not
Speaker 2: the same.
Speaker 1: More bonkers facts about the puffins, bright two candy bill
Speaker 1: and a hang tight were you drawn to ornithology or
Speaker 1: marine science? How did you become a puffinologist? How did
Speaker 1: you come to study one of the cutest species of birds?
Speaker 2: So, for full disclosure, I am not a bird person.
Speaker 2: I beg your pardon. I yeah, puffins are the first
Speaker 2: bird I've actually ever studied. It started with in my
Speaker 2: undergrad I was studying black and gold howler monkeys and
Speaker 2: paraguay and then we were onto American eels, and then
Speaker 2: it was snapping turtles, so it was primates, fish, reptiles,
Speaker 2: and then I was like, okay, well the complete this said,
Speaker 2: I guess I got to do birds, and I guess
Speaker 2: insects next maybe, But I knew it had to be
Speaker 2: a seabird, and puffins are really good divers, and scuba
Speaker 2: diving is one of my favorite things in the world,
Speaker 2: so I find them quite relatable and likable. That way,
Speaker 2: it had to be something next to the ocean, so
Speaker 2: that's kind of how I just stumbled upon puffins. It
Speaker 2: was never a planned thing. I was not raised as
Speaker 2: an ornithologist from birth, but I've come to appreciate the
Speaker 2: ocean quite a bit, and the puffin also appreciates the ocean.
Speaker 1: How did you get involved in scuba diving. Did you
Speaker 1: grow up near the ocean or did you grow up
Speaker 1: like landlocked and the ocean seemed like something you were
Speaker 1: drawn to.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Nova Scotia, in Halifax. Nova Scotia
Speaker 2: so right next to Atlantic Ocean, and yeah, that's where
Speaker 2: I learned to scuba dive. So I'm going to Memorial
Speaker 2: University of Newfoundland and Labrador now. So next PROBN is over.
Speaker 1: So if you think that Nova Scotia isn't real like
Speaker 1: I did for a while, like Narnia or Xana, do
Speaker 1: I regret to inform you that we are living lives.
Speaker 1: Nova Scotia exists, and it is this chicken under shaped
Speaker 1: piece of seaside land about the size of Sri Lanka,
Speaker 1: but right off the coast of Maine. And yes, Newfoundland's
Speaker 1: and Labrador retrievers are named after those places because apparently
Speaker 1: they just send from really great working dogs for some
Speaker 1: old school seafaring fishmongers. But yeah, Jill has spent her
Speaker 1: academic career up and down the eastern seaboard of Canada.
Speaker 2: But same Atlantic Ocean, a lot of the same species.
Speaker 2: The Atlantic Ocean is very near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 1: How thick is your diving suit.
Speaker 2: Very very thick, But the biggest wisus fay Sell. And
Speaker 2: in the summer, the warmest the ocean temperatures get in
Speaker 2: you from land. If you're lucky. October it's around fourteen
Speaker 2: degrees celsius. I don't know what that is in fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, cold fifty seven point two degrees fahrenheit, which
Speaker 1: for me personally is not like coconut shell bikini season.
Speaker 1: I'm not having it cold.
Speaker 2: Yes, So it's a two piece seven mil so fourteen
Speaker 2: militer in the core and then seven millimeters everywhere else.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you can't move your arms.
Speaker 1: At all, your little flappy wings exactly. So Jill's master's
Speaker 1: advisor is a visual ecologist, meaning he studies how animals
Speaker 1: use their site, or their lack thereof, to their advantage,
Speaker 1: and she says puffins are very visual creatures people, and
Speaker 1: a spot opened up in her advisor's lab, and she
Speaker 1: says it just fell into place perfectly, and because of her,
Speaker 1: now even more people care about puffins. So worked out
Speaker 1: for us too, and you do some outreach too on
Speaker 1: social media and people are stoked about your work with puffins. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill and I'm a puffin ecologist.
Speaker 2: I work. I'm the largest puffin colony in all of
Speaker 2: North America, second only to Iceland in the world. Come
Speaker 2: along for a day in the life of a puffinologist
Speaker 2: on a remote island off the east coast of Newfoundland.
Speaker 1: What is a myth? What is some flimplam that you
Speaker 1: find yourself busting over and over again? Like, what is
Speaker 1: the biggest lie people believe about puffins that you're constantly corrected?
Speaker 2: Well, besides thinking that they're penguins, they are, they're so
Speaker 2: much smaller than everyone thinks that they are. You see
Speaker 2: these beautiful zoom lens photos and you think that this
Speaker 2: bird is going to be like this nice big bill
Speaker 2: and they're actually really tiny. They're only like twenty centimeters tall.
Speaker 2: They're really really small. They only weigh about like a
Speaker 2: small sack of rice, like five hundred and six hundred
Speaker 2: grams max.
Speaker 1: Eight inches tall and around one pound of sweet, cute,
Speaker 1: stinky birdies.
Speaker 2: I love them, so, Yeah, they're much smaller than everyone
Speaker 2: thinks that they're going to be before they see them
Speaker 2: in real life. Another misconception that I feel like a
Speaker 2: lot of people don't know about is that these very
Speaker 2: conspicuous bright orange bills that they have, they don't have
Speaker 2: them all year round. This is only a breeding color
Speaker 2: and they lose those bill plates in the winter, so
Speaker 2: in the winter they're this fairly drab gray color. And
Speaker 2: like the first people study puffins thought it was a
Speaker 2: completely different species because it looks so different. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if I want to use the word ugly,
Speaker 2: but they're definitely not as pretty. They're much prettier in
Speaker 2: this everytime.
Speaker 1: What is a bill plate? Is that something that they
Speaker 1: just shed? Do they shed the whole bill or they
Speaker 1: just shed like scales off.
Speaker 2: Of the bill, Yeah, just the outer bill plate. It
Speaker 2: is the best way I can describe it. They keep
Speaker 2: their bill It just is this dark gray color. And
Speaker 2: then they developed these bright orange, red and yellow bill
Speaker 2: plates and other eye ornaments.
Speaker 1: And I looked it up, and the eye ornaments that
Speaker 1: they grow and shed make their little round eyes look
Speaker 1: kind of triangular, like if you had a witch hat
Speaker 1: or a candy corn with an eye in the middle
Speaker 1: of it, or like a heavy straight eyeliner in the
Speaker 1: bottom lash, and then a black triangle like a clown
Speaker 1: on the lid. And this was confusing for some early
Speaker 1: old school puffinologists because after the beak and eye ornamentation
Speaker 1: is shed and falls off, these birds get the fuck
Speaker 1: out of dodge on the off season and they don't
Speaker 1: come back until it's mating time again and they're gussied
Speaker 1: up ornamentally again. Also, if you were to google, like me,
Speaker 1: puffins plus ornaments, you're gonna find all kinds of holiday
Speaker 1: tree decorations celebrating these little birds, and not a lot
Speaker 1: of close ups of their beaks falling off unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, their bills are quite elaborate.
Speaker 1: And so how many months out of the year are
Speaker 1: they flashy like that?
Speaker 2: Only about four they're breeding season. They come back to
Speaker 2: Newfoundland every year from April to August. The other eight
Speaker 2: months the year they're just out at sea cruise. The
Speaker 2: North Atlantic is very large, so they're just out there
Speaker 2: chilling for eight months the year, and then they come
Speaker 2: back to the same islands every year to read.
Speaker 1: How far can they fly before they need to touch
Speaker 1: down or do they touch down in the water and
Speaker 1: just take a nap? Bobbin up and down.
Speaker 2: They're bobin most of the time. They're just bobbin' Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do they tend to hang out in big groups just
Speaker 1: in case a shark happens to surface and try to
Speaker 1: scoop a bunch of them up? Like are they herders
Speaker 1: or are they pair kind of birds.
Speaker 2: I've heard in the winter months that they are a
Speaker 2: little more isolated. They go off in like groups of
Speaker 2: smaller like ones or twos. But at least in the
Speaker 2: breeding season, which is where I've spent most of my
Speaker 2: time looking at puffins, is they do something called rafting
Speaker 2: where they'll come together as like hundreds of birds on
Speaker 2: the water and just hang out together bobbing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: really it's really fun. They're just cruising through the waves together.
Speaker 4: SUSA.
Speaker 1: Do they ever go from the Atlantic coast to say,
Speaker 1: the coast of Europe or the North Sea or do
Speaker 1: they stay kind of out in their islands and then
Speaker 1: come back to the same coast or do they migrate?
Speaker 2: They do migrate in that they are a way for
Speaker 2: eight months of the year. They've been found throughout the
Speaker 2: Mediterranean wintering as well in New York on the west
Speaker 2: coast of the North Atlantic. They some of them have
Speaker 2: been found to travel quite a great deal, but they
Speaker 2: make it back to their islands every year. And these
Speaker 2: islands are some are far out to sea and some
Speaker 2: are quite close to land. But these islands provide them
Speaker 2: quite a bit of protection from predators in that there's
Speaker 2: no foxes or minks to come and bother their chicks.
Speaker 1: Do they nest in cliffs or are they sand nestors
Speaker 1: or rock nestors? What are their nests like?
Speaker 2: So they live in something called a burrow. They like
Speaker 2: grassy slopes and they dig this really cool maze of tunnels.
Speaker 2: It's really hard to walk on. You basically need to
Speaker 2: make sure you're not going to bust through anyone's roof
Speaker 2: when you're on the islands. They lay their egg inside
Speaker 2: this burrow and then they raise that chick in the burrow,
Speaker 2: and then six weeks after that chick hatches, they're booted
Speaker 2: out and they're on there.
Speaker 1: So when you're studying it, are you hanging out like
Speaker 1: in a tent on the shore with binoculars? What is
Speaker 1: it like studying them?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What kind of excursions are you up to?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so all of my field work has happened on
Speaker 2: Great Island, which is one of the four islands in
Speaker 2: Waitless Bay Ecological Reserve. The island is not the easiest
Speaker 2: to access. On our little zodiac that we take in,
Speaker 2: you basically land and then you have to climb up
Speaker 2: this really steep cliff to get to the top. We
Speaker 2: do have a cabin on the island. I'm very fortunate
Speaker 2: to say not everyone's field site has a cabin on it.
Speaker 2: It's very basic. There's no toilet and then there's one
Speaker 2: light bulb of electricity if we ever get sunshine from
Speaker 2: the solar panels. But the actual studying of the puffins,
Speaker 2: we construct a semi permanent blind close to the plot
Speaker 2: that we're studying them from, and that's just so that
Speaker 2: they can't see us and they're not disturbed. As soon
Speaker 2: as they see us, they're taken off. They don't like
Speaker 2: being your humans, which I don't blame them. We're massive
Speaker 2: compared to them, and they're just they're scared, and understandably
Speaker 2: a lot of the studying. The research looks like sitting
Speaker 2: in the blind and really early mornings when the puffins
Speaker 2: get up, and then also in the evenings. They seem
Speaker 2: to be most active in the mornings in the evenings,
Speaker 2: and it's binoculars and it's sitting. That's just the observational part,
Speaker 2: though there's other parts when we're banding them that always
Speaker 2: happens at nighttime.
Speaker 1: Are you taking notes in like a moleskin or are
Speaker 1: you do you have your laptop and you're noting things
Speaker 1: like well, what are you looking for when you're staring
Speaker 1: at them?
Speaker 2: No, moleskin and the laptop isn't super rain friendly, so
Speaker 2: I try not to bring that, but your typical rite
Speaker 2: in the right notebook. But there's two main studies that
Speaker 2: I was a part of for this research project. There
Speaker 2: was one that was looking at the social network of
Speaker 2: the colony, so who interacts with who We go and
Speaker 2: ban them and we can monitor how they do in
Speaker 2: subsequent years, which burrows have chick success, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But we can also use those bands to identify individuals
Speaker 2: on the plot to know, Okay, that's Bob and he
Speaker 2: likes to hang out with Bruce and they spend all
Speaker 2: their time together and that sort of thing. It's a
Speaker 2: very like there's hundreds of thousands of birds on this
Speaker 2: island and they have a really complex social colony. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're trying to keep track of that. We're trying to
Speaker 2: map that. And this is a side note. This is
Speaker 2: part of my project, which is a very strange project
Speaker 2: in itself, but cool nonetheless, and that I actually taxi
Speaker 2: dermied six out puffins that we found dead don't worry,
Speaker 2: and we presented them to live birds to see how
Speaker 2: they'd react to a novel individual in that. This is
Speaker 2: a really complex social colony. They're long lived, they see
Speaker 2: the same neighbors year after year, and we don't know
Speaker 2: how they recognize each other.
Speaker 1: And what they do.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't tell you quite yet, but I'm presenting.
Speaker 2: I'm presenting those results at a conference six months so
Speaker 2: I can't spoil too much. But let's just say there
Speaker 2: were some sex differences. What we saw between males and females.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned Bob and Bruce hanging out. Do they
Speaker 1: have the same sex friends? Do they sometimes pair up
Speaker 1: in non heterosexual pairs? What are their friendships like? When
Speaker 1: you say a complex social structure, does that mean people
Speaker 1: are shit talking, people are having affairs? What's going on?
Speaker 2: Probably all of the above, I will say anecdotally. This
Speaker 2: is fun. To give some context. Puffins are monogamous. They
Speaker 2: do mate for life. They live to be about twenty
Speaker 2: five years old. They were with the same mate for
Speaker 2: about twenty five years. Yeah, which is impressive in itself.
Speaker 2: I will maintain that. I think that's only possible because
Speaker 2: they spend eight months of the year apart at seed.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so they mate for life, really low divorce rates,
Speaker 2: so they're with the same mate every year. So whenever
Speaker 2: you're doing burrow checks, you're always finding like one male,
Speaker 2: one female and a chick or an egg, depending on
Speaker 2: what part of the breeding season you're in. But my
Speaker 2: coworker found a burrow where there was actually two males
Speaker 2: and one female inside this nest that potentially we're all
Speaker 2: raising one chick together. So do what you want with that.
Speaker 2: But I think that's really sweet.
Speaker 1: Are they good parents? Do they co parent? Like do
Speaker 1: they both go out and get a fish and then
Speaker 1: bar fit into their baby's mouth or what kind of
Speaker 1: parenting roles do they have?
Speaker 2: They are really good parents. They actually both males and
Speaker 2: females take turns incubating the egg and fishing for food
Speaker 2: for the baby. Puffling Baby puffins are called pufflings, which
Speaker 2: is just really cute in itself, and they are literally
Speaker 2: a ball of fluff, like think of the fluffiest thing
Speaker 2: you've ever seen, and then it's fluffier than that.
Speaker 1: I can't handle that, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a lot to take in, but yes,
Speaker 2: they're really good parents. Some studies have found that the males,
Speaker 2: do you, spend a little more time on burrow maintenance,
Speaker 2: which is fun. They're kind of getting their architecture business
Speaker 2: in order. And then the females will, in their activity
Speaker 2: budget spend a little bit more time forging for fish
Speaker 2: for the puffling. But they both attend to the chick,
Speaker 2: which is really nice because that can't be said for
Speaker 2: all species. For lack of a better term, a lot of
Speaker 2: parents just fuck off and the puff and parents are attentive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do they ever see their chicks again? Or after
Speaker 1: six weeks is like see yuh? Or that does that
Speaker 1: chick disperse to a totally different colony or is it
Speaker 1: like they might be in that city of one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand puffins they.
Speaker 2: Piece out once they're at six weeks. It's like you're
Speaker 2: on your own learn how to fish. It must be
Speaker 2: a really steep learning curve. Your whole life has been
Speaker 2: darkness in this beautifully muddy burrow for your entire existence,
Speaker 2: and then you're thrust into the world and you have
Speaker 2: to go fish for yourself as a harsh reel. So
Speaker 2: puffins take about four to five years to sexually mature.
Speaker 2: They will return to the islands that they were born on,
Speaker 2: So they'll come back, but they need a little bit
Speaker 2: of time before they're ready.
Speaker 1: What are they eating I'm gonna guess fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish.
Speaker 2: You you got it right on the head. Yeah, Caplin
Speaker 2: Sandlands hearing fish are their favorite, but if those aren't available,
Speaker 2: they will eat krill or other crustaceans like copa pods,
Speaker 2: but fish is their main buffet.
Speaker 1: When it comes to their appearance, why are they so cute?
Speaker 1: Why do you think they look the way they do?
Speaker 1: You said that they're visual. They have a lot of
Speaker 1: visual attributes. Do they have big eyes to take that in?
Speaker 1: Especially if they're in the burrows a lot? How are
Speaker 1: they well suited to their evolution?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. Their colorization, I think is
Speaker 2: a part of why they're so cute. Like this write
Speaker 2: red orange bill only coming through in the breeding season
Speaker 2: to signal hey, I'm ready to breed. There's also very
Speaker 2: intricate individual differences in bill morphology, so they're quite elaborate,
Speaker 2: and they have these intricate ridges, and they have a
Speaker 2: rosette patch, which is like a fleshy yellow patch where
Speaker 2: their bill meets their face. They have eye ornaments as well,
Speaker 2: and they are considered a fairly developed visual animal like
Speaker 2: other birds. Like songbirds have very unique vocalizations and can
Speaker 2: recognize each other from their unique songs, but puffins don't.
Speaker 2: They do make sounds, but they're very They're very different
Speaker 2: than what you'd think, And I think the best way
Speaker 2: I could describe it is it sounds like an angry chainsaw.
Speaker 2: You'll have to look it up what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: It's a very unique sound.
Speaker 1: When it comes to making that bill color, is it
Speaker 1: expensive to make? Where are they getting the fuel to
Speaker 1: make those colors?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So a lot of the bill coloration in puffins
Speaker 2: is definitely partially due to the cratenoids in their diet.
Speaker 2: So capelin are fish that have a fairly high level
Speaker 2: of cratenoids, say with krill and crustaceans the other food
Speaker 2: sources that I mentioned, So they're able to use that
Speaker 2: to display this beautiful bill that is very, very recognizable.
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that you're behind a blind Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out what that looks like? Is
Speaker 1: it a scrim Is it like a gilli suit? Does
Speaker 1: it look like moss and rocks? But you have peep holes?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 2: We don't need to be that incognito. It is just
Speaker 2: a little wooden shack for lack of a better term,
Speaker 2: and we've cut out it is a pea pole, so
Speaker 2: we have a glass opening that we can look through,
Speaker 2: and then we put it's like camouflage burlap. I guess
Speaker 2: there's more of a peap pole than I first thought.
Speaker 2: You are too far off. There's two openings of the
Speaker 2: burlap so we can see through, so they can't really
Speaker 2: see us, which is nice because I can't imagine going
Speaker 2: about your everyday life on a busy puffin colony and
Speaker 2: you look over and you see these two naked primates
Speaker 2: just staring at you. Would be a little unnerving.
Speaker 1: And I know you're naked metaphorically as an ape, But
Speaker 1: how are you staying warm in a shack on an
Speaker 1: island looking at seabirds? Are you in so many parkas?
Speaker 1: Do you have a thermos of hot chocolate? What's happening?
Speaker 2: Yeah? May and Newfoundland is very chilly, very foggy, very rainy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: these islands are quite cold, but many many layers, more
Speaker 2: layers than you think you're a need. But then it's
Speaker 2: hard because then come the dead of July, you can
Speaker 2: get some really hot days where you're just this blind
Speaker 2: is baking in the sun, and so we have and
Speaker 2: are blind. You know those you can have them as
Speaker 2: a dollar store. They're little spray bottles with water in
Speaker 2: the fan, and you go yes, and it gives you
Speaker 2: a little little reprieve of coolness. So it's hot, cold,
Speaker 2: all the extremes in between.
Speaker 1: And then are you typically sleeping in that cabin, are
Speaker 1: you taking the zodiac back every night, or are you
Speaker 1: in the cabin for like a week.
Speaker 2: We're in the cabin for like a week. Yeah. There's
Speaker 2: no running water on the island, so we have to
Speaker 2: bring in all our water with us, and we, thankfully
Speaker 2: at the end of the week get a boat ride
Speaker 2: back so we can shower, do some laundry and then
Speaker 2: head back out. Which doesn't sound like too much time.
Speaker 2: Like five days on the island. You're like, well, that's
Speaker 2: the thing, Like I could go on a champion trip
Speaker 2: for five days, but a remote island and there's not
Speaker 2: really great cell service, and it's just, yeah, it's very remote.
Speaker 2: You got to really like your coworkers.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, is it typically two of you
Speaker 1: and is it the same persons who kind of know
Speaker 1: each other's rhythms or is it like you might be
Speaker 1: paired with Zach one week and Melanie the next and
Speaker 1: you just kind of will you see what happens.
Speaker 2: No, you're typically with the same person at least for
Speaker 2: the field season, and you get to know that person
Speaker 2: very well. I'm sure a little too well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and no toilets, so if you're hydrating, you
Speaker 1: got to get used to getting through your layers and
Speaker 1: going off and peeing somewhere. Right.
Speaker 2: Yep, many many, many pee breaks. Peeing is not so
Speaker 2: much an issue, but I will say for anything else,
Speaker 2: we do have a makeshift toilet in the bushes, which
Speaker 2: is nice. It's basically a bucket we've sawed off and
Speaker 2: nailed on a toilet seat lid, so at least it's
Speaker 2: a little comfortable, but there's no covering, so it's a
Speaker 2: little wet if it's raining. But you do get to
Speaker 2: see whales while you're on the shitter, so I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's pretty good.
Speaker 3: View.
Speaker 2: You can't feed that view.
Speaker 1: What kind of whales are you seeing?
Speaker 2: Mostly humpbacks and yankeys.
Speaker 1: Just casual, casual, another day in the office. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you're banding them at night, why are you doing it
Speaker 1: at night? Are they more chill at night so it's
Speaker 1: easier to grab them and put an anklet on them?
Speaker 2: It is an anklet, that is exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: It's a little piece of jewelry. We go at nights
Speaker 2: for two reasons. One, we want to be as least
Speaker 2: disruptive to them as possible, So we don't want to
Speaker 2: disturb their daily habits. So they're out fishing, they're out socializing,
Speaker 2: they're coming back and feeding their chick and yeah, we
Speaker 2: want to keep that rhythm as normal as possible, and
Speaker 2: almost it'd be almost as if we're not there. The
Speaker 2: second thing is that it's least disruptive, but it's also
Speaker 2: so we can find them, because if they're just out
Speaker 2: and about, they could be out rafting on the other
Speaker 2: side of the island. They could be out wheeling in
Speaker 2: the air, which is also cool behavior they do. They
Speaker 2: find the circular pattern just.
Speaker 1: A ps I found out on Cornell's All About Birds website.
Speaker 1: That quote. Non breeders at the colony often form flocks,
Speaker 1: and they spend hours flying in wide, circular or figure
Speaker 1: eight paths over the colony cliffs, a behavior called wheeling,
Speaker 1: which is I guess like if all your single friends
Speaker 1: just gathered to do doughnuts in a Walmart parking lot
Speaker 1: for hours a day for months out of the year.
Speaker 1: Just like, screw it, Katie, Let's go and have some fun.
Speaker 1: But back to their nocturnal habits and why Jill is
Speaker 1: kind of skulking around the island at night giving out
Speaker 1: puffin friendship and clifs.
Speaker 2: Anyways, they're in their burrows. It's easier to find them,
Speaker 2: and then we can map out where their burrows are
Speaker 2: and which banded birds are in which burrow. It's just
Speaker 2: easier to track them as more data points.
Speaker 1: I very few people on this earth have gotten to
Speaker 1: embrace a puffin. You're one of them. Are they cuddly
Speaker 1: when you have to handle them with permits? Are they
Speaker 1: soft and cuddly?
Speaker 2: They are very soft. They're not cuddly in the slightest.
Speaker 2: They may be small, but they can pack a really
Speaker 2: mean bite, oh really, which can leave scars. And I
Speaker 2: don't blame them like this is their only line of defense,
Speaker 2: so we can't fault them for that. But they have
Speaker 2: a really strong bill and they really are good at
Speaker 2: clamping down when they want to take a chunk out
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 1: Why is that bill so bulky? If they're just eating
Speaker 1: small fish.
Speaker 2: They can get quite a few fish inside too. So
Speaker 2: two things social behavior wise, They use their bills for
Speaker 2: a behavior called billing, which is when they take two
Speaker 2: birds come together and basically rub their bills and tap
Speaker 2: them back and forth. They do this as a pair
Speaker 2: bonding behavior with their mates, but they also do this
Speaker 2: with neighbors as well. Sometimes it's very fun to watch
Speaker 2: two mates that are clearly in a little billing fest,
Speaker 2: and then you have a third individual kind of trying
Speaker 2: to nudge its way in, and it's like, hello, I'd
Speaker 2: like some attention too. This looks fun. And then as well,
Speaker 2: the strength of it, i would argue, is also likely
Speaker 2: due to they have to fight each other for space.
Speaker 2: This is a cool complex social colony which has some
Speaker 2: fun friendly behaviors, but this also means you're fighting for
Speaker 2: resources in space, and you want to make sure that
Speaker 2: someone's not coming in to steal your maid or try
Speaker 2: to take your burrow that you've worked so hard to
Speaker 2: dig out. Actually, when they fight, it's very fun to watch.
Speaker 2: It's very entertaining. They will do this thing. You can
Speaker 2: tell the puffins getting angry at another puffin. They'll basically
Speaker 2: look at the other bird and open up their bill
Speaker 2: and raise their tongue slightly, and they just pause in
Speaker 2: this position and you're like, Oh, something bad's about to happen.
Speaker 2: And then if it escalates, they will escalate to a
Speaker 2: fight where they actually interlock bills, and they fight so
Speaker 2: aggress that they actually will interlock bills, hold on to
Speaker 2: each other and rumble tumble together all the way down
Speaker 2: a slope. They do not give up.
Speaker 1: What is that? How they land a mate? Do they
Speaker 1: have to do anything like bring a pebble or fight
Speaker 1: their neighbor in order to get a lady?
Speaker 2: There's no pebbles, but I imagine the first season there's
Speaker 2: a little bit more with scramble to try to find
Speaker 2: a mate. But once they've established that partnership, that's pretty secure.
Speaker 1: So they're not squabbles of the heart, but they're like
Speaker 1: neighbors getting pissy over fence lines and parking spots.
Speaker 2: I'd say burrows are more of a hot commodity to
Speaker 2: make sure that someone hasn't gotten there sooner, and you
Speaker 2: have to fight someone for your burrow that you lived
Speaker 2: in last year, and you're like, that's a really nice house.
Speaker 2: I'd like to live there again this year.
Speaker 1: And what if one dies? Do they get a new
Speaker 1: mate and inherit the same burrow? Do people? Do puffins
Speaker 1: ever use a burrow that's been abandoned?
Speaker 2: First part, if a mate die, they will repartner with
Speaker 2: somebody else, which is a sad outcome to think about.
Speaker 2: But also you're away for eight months. Who knows, I
Speaker 2: guess it's a waiting game to see if they're back
Speaker 2: when you get back in the summer.
Speaker 1: Okay, so from late summer until early spring, puffin pairs
Speaker 1: take a break, they part ways, and some of them
Speaker 1: have similar flying locations and routes, but some kind of
Speaker 1: bug off and they take a completely different path. And
Speaker 1: pupnologists aren't quite sure how they relocate their same crush
Speaker 1: year after year, but the location of their summertime breeding
Speaker 1: season Pierre to Terre, likely helps out a bunch.
Speaker 2: Studies have actually found that they will stay within a
Speaker 2: two meter radius of where they last lived, so they're
Speaker 2: staying really close to where they lived last year. So
Speaker 2: sometimes I might need the same burrow, and then sometimes
Speaker 2: that might be someone else has gotten there faster and
Speaker 2: they have to find a new spot, but they're sticking
Speaker 2: really close to where they've been living.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you some questions from listeners?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, But before she does, let's toss some
Speaker 1: money into the sea for research, as she selected the
Speaker 1: Canadian Parks in Wilderness Society in Newfoundland and Labrador, which
Speaker 1: has rescued thousands of Atlantic puffins and Leech's storm petrol chicks,
Speaker 1: two species who are globally listed as vulnerable. And more
Speaker 1: on that program in a bit, And thanks to sponsors
Speaker 1: of oologies who make these weekly donations possible. Okay, questions
Speaker 1: many of you, including specsol Sylvia Treverio, Clark Bennett, Olivia Lester,
Speaker 1: and Lisa Mangelsdorf. First time question asker wanted to know
Speaker 1: how human puffin diplomacy is going. Are they dangerous? Are
Speaker 1: we dangerous? Are puffins enriching uranium?
Speaker 4: Hi? Ali, This is Vanessa in Colton, California. Two years ago.
Speaker 4: I was fortunate to visit Lunga Island, part of the
Speaker 4: Treshnish Islands of Scotland. I was able to visit a
Speaker 4: colony of the adorable puffins, and one interesting thing that
Speaker 4: I noticed was the birds would come out of their
Speaker 4: little holes when people were around. They were pretty active.
Speaker 4: They seem habituated to the humans, and they would go
Speaker 4: back into their little holes and hide when there were
Speaker 4: less people walking around. And I was just wondering if
Speaker 4: becoming more habituated to the humans visiting their islands while
Speaker 4: they're breeding is beneficial or detrimental for their colonies.
Speaker 2: Thank you, No, it's a really good question. And yeah,
Speaker 2: there's two lenses from like a research standpoint and also
Speaker 2: a tourist perspective. So on these islands in this reserve,
Speaker 2: they're protected areas, so not anyone can just walk on
Speaker 2: like you have to have a scientific permit. So the
Speaker 2: only tourists these puffins are seen are from boats that
Speaker 2: come up and come near, but they're not stepping foot.
Speaker 2: Boat traffic is inevitable, and if it's located to one
Speaker 2: place a side where there's not, yeah, you're not harming
Speaker 2: the puffins that way, but being habituated is definitely a
Speaker 2: good point. There are other colonies on the island of
Speaker 2: Newfoundland that have become more habituated. There's a spot called Elliston,
Speaker 2: and the puffins there are more used to humans. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: As for the research lens, like if we're in the
Speaker 2: blind or in the cabin, we're not bothering any birds.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, at the end of that, it just
Speaker 2: is weighing us researching them and moditoring them and making
Speaker 2: sure that their populations are okay. There's a good portion
Speaker 2: of that for a small piece of disturbance. Let's leave
Speaker 2: them be, take your photos, get your zoom lends, and
Speaker 2: admire from a distance.
Speaker 1: So in general, the Atlantic puffins in Newfoundland are doing okay,
Speaker 1: but elsewhere, like in Iceland, puffin populations have dropped by
Speaker 1: seventy percent since nineteen ninety five, with warming seas killing
Speaker 1: their food sources as a big factor. Puffin hunting in
Speaker 1: Iceland was once considered sustainable, but now scignedist say it
Speaker 1: is absolutely not, and it contributes still to ten percent
Speaker 1: of the puffin population decline. So Icelandic puffins kind of
Speaker 1: in some deep shit. They're now marked a critically endangered.
Speaker 1: Other species like the horned puffin and the Rhinoceros auklet.
Speaker 1: They're listed as of least concern, as is the tufted
Speaker 1: puffin of Alaska, but that does not tell the tufted
Speaker 1: puffins whole story. Carly and Tanner first time question askers
Speaker 1: wanted to know why are tufted puffin populations declining on
Speaker 1: the West coast, especially when populations seem to be doing
Speaker 1: so well in Alaska? Good question, yes, So, according to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one estimates, there are five hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: three lonely tufted puffins in Oregon, down from five thousand
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen nineties. Why are these tufted puffins
Speaker 1: kicking ass in Alaska but succumbing on the West coast? Oh? People,
Speaker 1: So bummers, like a decrease in fish populations. We got
Speaker 1: fish in nets, we got oil slicks, ocean trash, and
Speaker 1: the seas warming. There's part of it. And then our
Speaker 1: species more specifically colonizers. We introduced some predators like Arctic
Speaker 1: foxes and bears two tufted puffin island habitats. They're like,
Speaker 1: what is this? Who are these guys? Why are they
Speaker 1: eating my babies? So, yeah, it's us. It's usually us
Speaker 1: and The Oregon Conservation Strategy website says that you can
Speaker 1: try to help tufted puffins by not introducing any nest predators,
Speaker 1: so don't bring any bears to any islands. Also, do
Speaker 1: your best to prevent oil spills in case you drive
Speaker 1: a tanker to work, because there's nothing better than actual
Speaker 1: living puffins. On that note, I'm shocked that only two
Speaker 1: people had this question. Susan Mashrak and Doug Pace wanted
Speaker 1: to know any thoughts on the fact that the Porgs
Speaker 1: from Star Wars were only created because there were so
Speaker 1: many puffins on Skellig Michael during the filming of episode seven.
Speaker 1: Doug says, trying to fit a fun fact into a question.
Speaker 1: But when I think of puffins, I think of porgs.
Speaker 1: Is this lore among other puffinologists.
Speaker 2: I have not heard this lore, But I'm also not
Speaker 2: super familiar with porgs. I need to look up what
Speaker 2: they look like.
Speaker 1: Actually, if you need to look it up right now,
Speaker 1: I do not follow me. So apparently the story goes
Speaker 1: that they were filming and there are so many freaking
Speaker 1: puffins that they're like, we can't see gi these out
Speaker 1: of here, So instead we're just going to create a
Speaker 1: character that looks like a puffin that way, they just
Speaker 1: look like there's a ton Oh, they're so cute.
Speaker 2: They have such big mouths.
Speaker 1: So porks have that characteristic seabird dark back and white
Speaker 1: chest and some burnt umber colors around their eyes. But
Speaker 1: they are beakless with only kind of the wisp of
Speaker 1: a nose. So these fictional creatures they kind of look
Speaker 1: like a puffin, but with the face of an otter pup.
Speaker 1: I mean ten out of ten would foster fail an
Speaker 1: orphaned pork? Give me it? Really big eyes too, and
Speaker 1: how close is that to puffin eyes?
Speaker 2: Puffin eyes are not that big. I feel like it's
Speaker 2: like those really cute, little like baby animals you see
Speaker 2: with the really really big googly eyes, right, very very cute.
Speaker 2: I'd say the feet look like puffins, but that's maybe
Speaker 2: about it. Props to the CGI team that were like,
Speaker 2: let's make this into our story.
Speaker 1: Would puffins even be on cliffs? Would they use those
Speaker 1: slopes to burrow into?
Speaker 2: They love hanging out on cliffs. There's things called party rocks,
Speaker 2: so puffins will come and congregate on these rocks together
Speaker 2: and just socialized during the day. They burrow in the
Speaker 2: grassy areas, but these islands in the North Atlantic have
Speaker 2: really really steep cliffs and are very rocky, so they're
Speaker 2: definitely hanging out on the cliffs.
Speaker 1: Party rock in the house tonight. That's amazing exactly. Rebecca
Speaker 1: Rawlings wants to know what are those bright orange patches
Speaker 1: you mentioned to the side of their beaks sensory organs perhaps,
Speaker 1: or they just mac and cheese colored decor mac and.
Speaker 2: Cheese going to that's funny. The little fleshy bit I
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier is called the rosette, and that's just part
Speaker 2: of their visual display.
Speaker 1: Oh, it is just it's ornamental, fancy, Okay, fluorescence. Nick
Speaker 1: wirth Dory and Jens girl Alvarez wanted to know, in
Speaker 1: Gen's words, what's the purpose of having rave beaks they
Speaker 1: glow in UV light?
Speaker 2: What? Yeah, yeah, pufvens can see in the ultraviolet. So
Speaker 2: this is something that they can see. A lot of
Speaker 2: what we study in the visual ecology lab is trying
Speaker 2: to and it's really hard but to place ourselves in
Speaker 2: another animal's perspective to be like, okay, well, what sort
Speaker 2: of things? What cues do they need from their environment?
Speaker 2: I know in other bird species, ultra violet color is
Speaker 2: sometimes used in nighttime foraging so they can see other birds,
Speaker 2: like they're not always in their burrows at night, and
Speaker 2: also when they're underwater, they spend a great deal time.
Speaker 2: They're really good divers. Puffins can dive up to I
Speaker 2: think it's around like fifty meters deep, which is really deep,
Speaker 2: and this probably allows them to see other puffins. There's
Speaker 2: definitely some sort of communication going on there, but definitely
Speaker 2: more studies need to be done on that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So birds have four cones in their eyes, and
Speaker 1: for more on eyes and cones, you can see the
Speaker 1: ophthalmology episode. But we have three, which sucks for us.
Speaker 1: So birds have a totally different experience of color and
Speaker 1: light and they live in this hidden world of glowstick
Speaker 1: visuals that would just dazzle your friends on drugs. So
Speaker 1: why is this happening? According to the twenty nineteen paper
Speaker 1: Photoluminescence in the Bill of the Atlantic Puffin, researchers note
Speaker 1: that photoluminescent properties serve a number of important roles in nature,
Speaker 1: such as deterring predators, lowering underwater prey, and signaling between individuals,
Speaker 1: and that the photoluminescent parts of the bill are shed
Speaker 1: during the non breeding season, which leads scientists to infer
Speaker 1: that these glowing ultraviolet colors make other birds down to
Speaker 1: get it on, or they scare away competition, or they
Speaker 1: help puffins catch food for the babies. Now, wait, how
Speaker 1: did we come to know that they have glowing beaks?
Speaker 1: Who figured this out? So I tracked down the author
Speaker 1: of this study, one doctor Jamie Dunning, who is a
Speaker 1: bird flu expert at Imperial College of London, and one
Speaker 1: day in twenty eighteen, he just casually tweeted a photo
Speaker 1: of this day glow blue neon beaked puffin under black
Speaker 1: light with a caption birds have additional color cones in
Speaker 1: their retina that are sensitive to ultraviolet range. I expose
Speaker 1: some of my specimens to UV light. The puffin's bill
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. I wonder if it's related to signaling,
Speaker 1: just like with a shrug. I mean, he went on
Speaker 1: to write a whole paper about it, but it was
Speaker 1: just like cool. I have tweeted more dramatic statements about
Speaker 1: parking and a sale at Macy's, So pophenologist, I hope
Speaker 1: you know just how impressed we all are with you.
Speaker 1: I hope you know in terms of behavior. Michael Brantt
Speaker 1: wants to know what happens in the summer, do they're
Speaker 1: eating and sleeping cycles change with like the extreme daylight.
Speaker 2: So we noticed there's definitely some sort of pattern here
Speaker 2: where there's like this cyclical pattern of colony attendants. So
Speaker 2: there's some days you'll go out and we're in our
Speaker 2: blind looking for the birds and there's no one. They're
Speaker 2: all gone and you're like, where did everyone go? And
Speaker 2: then other days you're out and you can't write fast
Speaker 2: enough in your notebook to collect all your data because
Speaker 2: there's the slope is completely covered in birds and it's
Speaker 2: really hard to keep track of them all. There's work
Speaker 2: on that being done, looking into what the cyclical pattern is,
Speaker 2: if it's related to weather or if it's moon cycle related.
Speaker 2: But as for like the actual daylight, they're up when
Speaker 2: the sun is up and they go to bed when
Speaker 2: the sun is.
Speaker 1: Down, unlike me. What about their intelligence? Earl Off Gramlekin,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Mina, and Olivia Lester want to know how smart
Speaker 1: are they?
Speaker 2: Do they have a bird brain? Is why they want
Speaker 2: to know?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Earl asked, are they puff for brains or
Speaker 1: puffin geniuses?
Speaker 2: Well? Okay. Animal intelligence is one of those things where
Speaker 2: it really depends on what rule are you using to
Speaker 2: measure that. Humans love to think of ourselves on the
Speaker 2: top of this hierarchy, but we're also measuring all other
Speaker 2: animals to this ruler, which is completely unfair. I'd say
Speaker 2: puffins are awkward on land to maneuver, but brain wise,
Speaker 2: I'd say they're fairly intelligent in that they have to
Speaker 2: interact with many individuals. There's normally correlation generally of the
Speaker 2: higher sociality an animal has the higher intelligence, if you will.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if intelligence is the right word
Speaker 2: to use. I'd say they're fairly intelligent. Their brains get
Speaker 2: them to do what they need to do for their
Speaker 2: little puffin lives.
Speaker 1: There are such long lives. I can't believe that they're
Speaker 1: around her twenty five years.
Speaker 2: Twenty five it's a good chunk of time.
Speaker 1: I would have guessed that they were alive for like
Speaker 1: two three years, But they don't mature until they're even
Speaker 1: five years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they take a little while to mature and
Speaker 2: then they have about twenty years of breeding. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Are they just sort of like dicking around, flying around
Speaker 1: at sea getting to know each other learning to fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're taking that time to figure themselves out.
Speaker 4: It's more of a spiritual journey.
Speaker 2: They typically don't return back to those colonies until they're
Speaker 2: ready to breed, but there have been a few exceptions
Speaker 2: to that. But there's always an exception to everything.
Speaker 1: Well, I know that we love them, but few people
Speaker 1: Katie Hammon, Aaron celest Constina Ilios want to know. In
Speaker 1: Aaron's words, someone told me at some point that puffins
Speaker 1: are kind of cranky. Is that true? Or was whoever
Speaker 1: told them that? Jerk?
Speaker 2: No, they're definitely cranky.
Speaker 1: Oh really, they look so nice they are.
Speaker 2: They are very cute. I think it's hard to distinguish
Speaker 2: that and that they're always cranky when they're around us.
Speaker 2: But that makes sense where these little blob white light
Speaker 2: aliens coming in at night and taking them from their homes,
Speaker 2: putting an anklet on them, and then returning them back.
Speaker 2: So I'd be cranky, righto.
Speaker 1: I'd be pissed? Are you kidding? And then some jewelry
Speaker 1: you can't take off yourself exactly do you do? Wildlife
Speaker 1: bibers just ever have to worry, like, oh, now that
Speaker 1: we put this anklet on them they're being treated differently?
Speaker 1: Or do puffins just not care?
Speaker 2: No, Definitely thought is put into that of just how big. Well,
Speaker 2: first of all, we don't want to bother the actual birds,
Speaker 2: like we want the bands to fit on their ankle
Speaker 2: away from any joints so that they're not even going
Speaker 2: to notice them and that it's not going to hinder
Speaker 2: their movement or they're walking and they're flying.
Speaker 1: But do they get haste, like just if they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: Bruce got oh, I.
Speaker 2: Don't like this? Yeah? Oh? Do they treat each other differently?
Speaker 2: Not much attention is given to each other's legs. All
Speaker 2: the social information is really in the eyes in the
Speaker 2: bill area. So I don't think they're not checking out
Speaker 2: each other's ankles.
Speaker 1: That's good news to me. But it's a ton of
Speaker 1: questions from a ton of listeners. Hello Patrons Jamie Malia Associate,
Speaker 1: Michelle Smith, Laura MacLean, Lexi Cable, Peyton Henderson, and Erica
Speaker 1: Koontz and Dana Sprouse for some question. Askers asked, in
Speaker 1: Erica's words, why do people throw pufflings off cliffs? How
Speaker 1: can I help do this? Dana asks are the Icelanders
Speaker 1: really helping them? By throwing them off cliffs. What is
Speaker 1: what's happening?
Speaker 2: What's with all these viral videos of people throwing baby
Speaker 2: poffin's off cliffs? So yeah, I've seen those videos too
Speaker 2: of the Icelandic puffin I'm assuming it's similar to a
Speaker 2: puff and patrol here. So when it's time for puffin
Speaker 2: chicks to fledge, some of them go the wrong way
Speaker 2: and make it into cities that are close to these
Speaker 2: islands where they're at risk of being eaten by cats
Speaker 2: or foxes or colliding with buildings, and the generally just
Speaker 2: don't have a food source there, and so we want
Speaker 2: to take those strandings and get them back out to sea.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the Puffin and Petrol patrol here does that.
Speaker 2: They go around at night find stranded pufflings and then
Speaker 2: release them back into the ocean. These fledglings have left
Speaker 2: the islands, so they do know how to fly, so
Speaker 2: throwing them up in the air is just giving them
Speaker 2: a little boost. Puffins are really bad at flying. They're
Speaker 2: really good at diving, and they're really comfortable and around
Speaker 2: the water. They're really bad at walking on land, so
Speaker 2: they have to flap their wings really really fast to
Speaker 2: be able to stay afloat in the air, and so
Speaker 2: anytime they even take off from the colony, they're basically
Speaker 2: walking up the slope to find a taller spot like
Speaker 2: a steep cliff or something, and they'll just basically jump
Speaker 2: off and help use gravity to help them start flying.
Speaker 2: So throwing them up in the air is helping them.
Speaker 1: Ye, who gets to do that?
Speaker 2: Well, Ali, if you come to Newfoundland, we can take
Speaker 2: you on the puffin and petrol patrol. You too could
Speaker 2: throw puffins if you wanted.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I do that so bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really it's a really cool program. Anyone
Speaker 2: can can sign up. Lots of people go with their
Speaker 2: families too, so their kids get to see puffin strandlings
Speaker 2: and help return them back to sea.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that wasn't even a possibility.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put it on your list now, I gotta.
Speaker 1: Put that on my list. Let's get right down to business.
Speaker 1: Mikaela Marshall wants to know why are they the smelliest
Speaker 1: animals at the zoo? And Autumnole wanted to know why
Speaker 1: do they poop pye so ellipsies violently. Anna Thompson wants
Speaker 1: to know if a puffin colony stinks, so does Aaron Christie.
Speaker 1: What kind of smells were dealing with?
Speaker 2: Very stinky. You're gonna smell them before you see them.
Speaker 2: It's a mixture of their fishing and the discarded parts
Speaker 2: of the fish that they're not eating are left to
Speaker 2: rot in the sun. They're seeing the rocks as they're
Speaker 2: toilets and kitchen all at once. So yes, they're very stinky.
Speaker 2: Anyone who's worked on a seabird colony knows that that
Speaker 2: smell will be forever, permanently ingrained in their brain.
Speaker 1: When you get home, do you just.
Speaker 2: Take you jump in the shower. Yeah, yeah, right into
Speaker 2: the laundry machine. You're in the shower, things are being
Speaker 2: washed immediately. Yes.
Speaker 1: Do they pooh in their burrows or no.
Speaker 2: The chicks will, so they often have like a little
Speaker 2: toilet space for the chick. Their burrows are very tidy.
Speaker 2: A lot of the times the adults will do their
Speaker 2: business out on the slope. I will say this this
Speaker 2: is anecdotal, but it' say almost like nine out of
Speaker 2: ten times. The first thing they do in the morning
Speaker 2: is they waddle out of their burrows. That adults and
Speaker 2: they'll step out onto their foy and then lift their
Speaker 2: little butts up in the air and take their morning
Speaker 2: pooh and then go on their way. And if that's
Speaker 2: not relatable, I don't know what is.
Speaker 1: They have a tiny, tiny cup of coffee and then
Speaker 1: they're like whoop, ready to.
Speaker 2: Go, gotta go? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is it violent? Would you say that the velocity of
Speaker 1: it is violent?
Speaker 2: There is the proportion propulsion? Well, that's so hard ware
Speaker 2: to say it's all liquid. So it is. I feel
Speaker 2: like liquid travel a little further faster than.
Speaker 1: I know. This is a terrible segue, but let's get
Speaker 1: to eating. Bor and Fredberg wanted to know are they tasty?
Speaker 1: Did Charles Darwin eat any and write about it? He
Speaker 1: was part of some kind of society. They wanted to
Speaker 1: try and eat every kind of animal.
Speaker 2: That sounds like Darwin.
Speaker 1: It sounds he's like, gotta get on my mouth. Kelly,
Speaker 1: do you want to know what's up with those dogs?
Speaker 1: Bread for puff and hunting? Hannah gory Naomi Jame and
Speaker 1: Elder Zamora all wanted to know, like are they taste?
Speaker 1: Do they taste kind of fishy? You mentioned that they've
Speaker 1: got to really work to fly. Imagine they're probably all
Speaker 1: dark meat. I don't know eating puffins. Eating puff and
Speaker 1: eggs was the scoop.
Speaker 2: The scoop is you can't do that in Canada, So
Speaker 2: I have not tried puffin. I've got lots of comments
Speaker 2: and on my videos being like puffins are so tasty,
Speaker 2: like okay, thanks for sharing. They used to be hunted
Speaker 2: and the eggs were collected, but yeah, that hasn't happened
Speaker 2: for a while now, and they are protected species. No one,
Speaker 2: at least on the side of the Atlantic, no one
Speaker 2: is eating puffins, or at least you shouldn't be. And
Speaker 2: if you are, I'm going to confind you and you'll
Speaker 2: be in trouble. But I have no idea what they
Speaker 2: taste like.
Speaker 1: So according to reports of puffin eaters, the meat is
Speaker 1: dark and gamey and salty and like a pastrami made
Speaker 1: out of liver. Those are the tasting notes. So honestly,
Speaker 1: some people are like, no thanks, I'm good. But it's
Speaker 1: still legal to hunt puffins in parts of northern Iceland,
Speaker 1: where older generations also like to root out the heart
Speaker 1: and eat it raw as a delicacy, and then we'll
Speaker 1: typically smoke the meat kind of like a jerky. So
Speaker 1: if you you absolutely have to eat puffin you can
Speaker 1: hit up Iceland before it's entirely illegal, because it's really
Speaker 1: not good news up there. Otherwise, you know what, just
Speaker 1: settle for like some dried smoky mushrooms or eat some
Speaker 1: cat food, but don't kill any puffins in Jill's territory.
Speaker 1: You'd be on a puffinologist shit list. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: You guys are not catching one and roasting it in
Speaker 1: your in your seaside cabin. That's not happening, would you dare?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: Speaking of eating, though, a ton of people, including le Wang,
Speaker 1: Lizzy Martinez, Laurn Seabert, so many people wanted to know
Speaker 1: what's the story with Barbara's puffin cereals? Also, do you
Speaker 1: have a favorite?
Speaker 2: There is a puffin cereal that's available here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, slaps. What do you think of it? Though? Not
Speaker 1: to influence you, but it's pretty good, right.
Speaker 2: I've only got a little ad in here for Barbara's.
Speaker 3: Me.
Speaker 2: I've only tried the maple flavor and it was it
Speaker 2: was good.
Speaker 1: Oh, I will say I'm.
Speaker 2: A Miniweeds fan, though I'm not switching ships.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the idea that puff and ologies only eat
Speaker 1: puffins for breakfast. It's a little presumptuous, to be honest.
Speaker 2: We're multifaceted.
Speaker 1: Okay, guys, maybe Barbara just loves puffins. Who knows?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: According to lore, it wasn't barb who loved puffins, but
Speaker 1: an employee who thirty years ago saw some puffins in
Speaker 1: Alaska and rightfully became obsessed. And this employee just began
Speaker 1: seeing all objects only in terms of their relations to puffins.
Speaker 1: So a puffed corn, cereal puff puffins. Also, if if
Speaker 1: you were to go to Alaska, maybe you have a
Speaker 1: cereal to name, you would see tufted puffins, which have
Speaker 1: these blonde bangs that curl behind their ears, kind of
Speaker 1: like rams horns, or the horned puffin, which has over
Speaker 1: its eyes upright spikes during the breeding season, spikes over
Speaker 1: its eyes, horny decor for horny birds. And patron Dwayne
Speaker 1: Tallis Rudd asked would puffins be is endearing if they
Speaker 1: had a different name, like the horned squat or the
Speaker 1: Atlantic muck buffs, And Dwayne, I think you should apply
Speaker 1: for a job of Barbara because you have a knack
Speaker 1: for naming. Those are great. I'd be curious to know
Speaker 1: what about pop culture. Is there any representation of Puffins
Speaker 1: in the media, good or bad, that either make like
Speaker 1: you're so excited about your cringe.
Speaker 2: Yes. So there is a puffin in Elf the Christmas
Speaker 2: Movie in that scene where he's with the narwhal and
Speaker 2: the novels like, oh body, you hope you on your dad?
Speaker 2: There's a Puffin in that scene, and he's really cute.
Speaker 3: Not now.
Speaker 2: There's at one moment where both his eyes are on
Speaker 2: the same side of his head, which anatomically is not correct,
Speaker 2: but it's also a clay puffin, so I can't fall
Speaker 2: them too much. The other reference that a lot of
Speaker 2: people mentioned to me is there's a kid's TV show
Speaker 2: called puff and Rock. I have one gripe with it
Speaker 2: in that it's this. It follows this Puffin family and
Speaker 2: they have two children, which is not accurate. They only
Speaker 2: raise one chick per year. And on top of that,
Speaker 2: the youngest little one pure white, which is not true
Speaker 2: of Puffin's puff and chicks are almost fully black down.
Speaker 2: They have like a little white belly, but they're definitely
Speaker 2: like ninety percent black in color and not white. But
Speaker 2: I get it. For the storytelling, it's okay.
Speaker 1: They should send you a written apology, though, just saying
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say no. Last listener question Autumn Nole, Jennifer Frow,
Speaker 1: Denny a lot of people, including Susan Gottlieb, Natasha Garrison, Hazel,
Speaker 1: Marley Moss, Nova q R J Deutge, Lauren and Sarah King,
Speaker 1: Nikki Jovitz, and Jacqueline Church, who asked and then pleaded,
Speaker 1: why are they so adorable? And please don't let them
Speaker 1: be awful like Otters. Still not over that reveal, so
Speaker 1: you can see the Lutronology episode on Otters to break
Speaker 1: your heart. But yeah, puffins. In Denny's words, why are
Speaker 1: they so cute? Can I give them a little kiss
Speaker 1: on their heads? Autumn wants to know do we know
Speaker 1: that they love them? Jennifer Frow wants to know why
Speaker 1: do I love them so much? Anything sociology?
Speaker 2: Do I love them?
Speaker 1: Why do we love them so much?
Speaker 2: I think the bright colors are the constious of the
Speaker 2: black and white, Like they're really small. They're wearing a
Speaker 2: black and white tuxedo and they have bright orange booties
Speaker 2: in this beautiful bill And what is not to love
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 1: I thought she meant orange butts and then I realized
Speaker 1: she meant small boots, which is fine, and Denny, without
Speaker 1: a permit, cannot give them a little kiss on their heads.
Speaker 1: That's not legal.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry Denny, Sorry Denny. They also would not like
Speaker 2: that at all. They would maybe get a little chunk
Speaker 2: of your nose bitten off.
Speaker 1: That's not good, Autumn Nole. Do they know that we
Speaker 1: love them? I don't think they care. It sounds like
Speaker 1: they're pretty grumpy and they don't want to see you
Speaker 1: pretty much like you. This is a parasocial relationship, is yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: So worst thing about the job you've described shitting al fresco.
Speaker 1: You've just you described coming home and having to take
Speaker 1: like a radioactive shower and also declining populations. What's the
Speaker 1: hardest thing about your job about being a pappanologist. Something's
Speaker 1: got a suck.
Speaker 2: I am someone who really likes getting eight hours of
Speaker 2: sleep at night, and the sleeps schedule we have is
Speaker 2: we never get to sleep eight hours in a row.
Speaker 2: You sleep for four hours, you get up and you
Speaker 2: do four hours, and you go back and take a
Speaker 2: little nap, and then you do another four hours and
Speaker 2: you just kind of repeat through this cycle. So in
Speaker 2: the summer, months. It is a privilege to be on
Speaker 2: these islands studying this animal. But I will say a
Speaker 2: small part of my feeble humanness is that I just
Speaker 2: want a full night's sleep.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the other eight months out of the year. Are
Speaker 1: you just twelve hours.
Speaker 2: A day, I'm packing the sleep in nine hours if
Speaker 2: I'm lucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the best?
Speaker 2: I feel like it's so cliche to say I can't
Speaker 2: pick one. There are several. I think it's really cool
Speaker 2: to be so removed from civilization and get to be
Speaker 2: in such a wild space that you're just away from humans,
Speaker 2: which is really nice, and you get to see an
Speaker 2: ecosystem that is just thriving on its own and doing
Speaker 2: its own thing. That goes hand in hand with the
Speaker 2: fact that not many people have gotten to experience these
Speaker 2: islands in the ways that the small amount of researchers have,
Speaker 2: and I really try not to take that for granted.
Speaker 2: They're beautiful islands, They're absolutely gorgeous. It's a bit of
Speaker 2: a culture shock going from so much isolation and puffins, puffins,
Speaker 2: puffins to them back into the real world with cars
Speaker 2: and human interactions, and yeah, you kind of got to
Speaker 2: switch part of your brain on it.
Speaker 1: What a great excuse, though, if you didn't get back
Speaker 1: to someone in time, just be like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I was a remo island.
Speaker 2: I haven't used that before shamelessly. Oh sorry, I was
Speaker 2: on a remote island setting puffins.
Speaker 1: Sorry I don't hear you know, dude, I would be
Speaker 1: setting that from my couch at home on days that
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go out.
Speaker 2: They know which days I was in the field and
Speaker 2: which days I wasn't.
Speaker 1: So perfect excuse, just a burrow of one's own. Any
Speaker 1: advice for anyone that wants to become a puffnologist, You really.
Speaker 2: Got to be okay with strong smells, but also just
Speaker 2: existing with bird shit on. You're you're getting pooped up,
Speaker 2: like you're getting fired on from the skies, like it's constant.
Speaker 2: The air traffic is constantly above you, so you're getting
Speaker 2: from that angle. And then if you're doing any kind
Speaker 2: of burrow checks, their burrows are tidy like they they're
Speaker 2: so civilized, but there's still a little hoop piles in there,
Speaker 2: and the mud is sledgy, and it all kind of
Speaker 2: just melds together on your arm and this lovely little
Speaker 2: paste of God knows what, so Yeah, you have to
Speaker 2: be comfortable being dirty, and some people have quite a phobia,
Speaker 2: and I can understand why, of like things flying above
Speaker 2: you in large numbers. If you do not like birds,
Speaker 2: then do not become a puffinologist. That's pretty that's pretty obvious.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot.
Speaker 2: Of birds, a lot of birds in the job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is amazing. You're the only puffinologist I know.
Speaker 1: You're also my favorite one.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ali.
Speaker 1: I gotta throw some babies off some cliffs. So ask
Speaker 1: adventurous people ignorant questions because sometimes the answers are not
Speaker 1: so simple. Do follow Jill Taylor on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: We have linked her pages write in the show notes
Speaker 1: and she's wonderful on both platforms. We are at Ologies
Speaker 1: on Instagram and x I'm at Ali Ward on both.
Speaker 1: Ali has just one Lsmologies again our shorter kid friendly
Speaker 1: versions and they have peeled off to become their own show.
Speaker 1: So that's linked in the show notes. So please tell
Speaker 1: your friends with kiddos or anyone who needs shorter, clean versions.
Speaker 1: We're super happy to launch. We hope more people know
Speaker 1: about them. Thank you to Aaron Talbert, who admins Theologies podcast.
Speaker 1: Facebook group. And congrats to my bonus little brother, her
Speaker 1: actual brother Tom on tying the not this week. I've
Speaker 1: known him since he was a two year old. Avelin
Speaker 1: Mallick and the word to remakes. Our professional transcripts. Kelly
Speaker 1: Ardwire does the website and Will the Worth schedules the
Speaker 1: shit out of interviews as our scheduling producer. Susan Hale
Speaker 1: manages and directs the whole thing as managing director. Jake
Speaker 1: Chafy is our new additional editor and lead editor who
Speaker 1: would never throw any babies off a cliff unless it
Speaker 1: was a puffin. It is Mercedes Maitland of Mainland Audio.
Speaker 1: Nick Thorburn wrote the theme music and if you stick
Speaker 1: around it to the end of the episode, I tell
Speaker 1: you secret. And while I was trapped in the Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City airport for nine hours yesterday waiting for my
Speaker 1: connecting flight to Chicago, which was so late, I was
Speaker 1: sitting in this giant open space smack in the middle
Speaker 1: of the airport, surrounded by a bunch of people on
Speaker 1: their phones and laptops, a lot of heavy size, tired
Speaker 1: business travelers, and this abandoned piano behind me. Suddenly I
Speaker 1: hear someone sit down, un bust out, really melancholic classical music,
Speaker 1: no sheet music, just from memory, just tinkering around while
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there in an oversized blazer, crying so to
Speaker 1: the lovely girl who braved a terminal full of strangers
Speaker 1: to go tinker on those keys, made them a whole day.
Speaker 1: If you see an empty piano somewhere and you know
Speaker 1: how to play it, please do because you never know.
Speaker 1: If there's a lady drinking a warm soda saying, hey man,
Speaker 1: I needed that. Okay, Bye bye, pacadermatology, homeology, ordo zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, paratology, anthology, seriology, elatology.
Speaker 4: That's the last time I'm kissing a fucking puffin