Tufted Puffin

The Tufted Puffin stands apart from the Atlantic and Horned Puffins by lacking the crisp white underparts of those species, instead showing an overall sooty-black body. Breeding adults compensate with dramatic pale yellow tufts that sweep back from behind the eyes, along with a bold white facial patch.

• Body feathers are dark sooty-black to blackish-brown overall, without the clean white underparts seen in Atlantic and Horned Puffins
• Breeding adults show elongated, curling pale yellow tuft feathers behind the eyes, unique among the puffins
• The face shows a bold white patch in breeding adults, contrasting with the otherwise dark plumage
• Flight feathers are short, broad, and rounded, adapted for wing-propelled underwater swimming
• Feather structure is dense and stiff, typical of diving auks, with a slightly larger, heavier build than the other puffins

• Breeding adults are dark overall with a white face patch and long, backward-curling yellow tufts behind the eyes
• Non-breeding adults lose the yellow tufts and much of the white facial patch, appearing more uniformly dark-faced
• Juveniles are duller and browner, with a smaller bill and no tufts
• Sexes are alike in plumage
• A complete molt after breeding replaces body and flight feathers, including a period of flightlessness at sea

Tufted Puffins breed on grassy cliff-tops, rocky slopes, and offshore islands around the North Pacific, from California north to Alaska and west to Japan and Russia, nesting in burrows dug into turf or soil. Outside the breeding season they disperse widely over the open North Pacific, spending months far from land.

This puffin dives and swims underwater using its wings to pursue small fish and invertebrates, much like its relatives, and can carry multiple prey items crosswise in the bill. It nests in burrows on grassy slopes, often in large colonies alongside other seabirds. Its calls are low, growling notes given near the nest burrow, with the bird otherwise quiet at sea.