Puffins come and puffins go, when will our puffins come home?

Although the recent snowfall might fool us, spring is right around the corner, with the

spring solstice happening just a few days ago on March 20^th! With the arrival of spring also accompanies the arrival of our Atlantic puffins, adorned with their orange bills ready to return to our islands for the 2026 breeding season. Usually, we first spot our puffins while out at sea every year, as the early birds start making their way closer to land with thoughts of rekindling their relationships with their mates.

As we have spent our winter evenings longing for the sweet return of our perfect puffins, we decided to gaze back on years past to try and alleviate the torment of the waiting game (figure 1).

Figure 1: The first sighting of Atlantic puffins, as stated in our whale diary. It should be noted that the years 2020 and 2021 were excluded from this graph. Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, tours were not operating, or infrequently operating, leading to inaccurate first sighting dates.

Interestingly, between 2008 and 2022, we would not expect to see our orange billed friends until the earliest April. However, in the more recent years we have started to spot our puffins even earlier, with sightings from 2023-2025 all occurring in the later weeks of March! Even the first puffin sighting of 2022 was April 1^st!

Image 1: Puffin resting on the surface of water, photographed by Naturalist Emily on April 22, 2025

Where do puffins go for winter?

While the winter months usually drive us closer to the indoors, spending time with our loved ones, for puffins it is quite the opposite. Puffins are true seabirds, and what this means is they will spend majority of their lives out over the ocean [1]. While they will only come to land to breed, you may be fooled into thinking that this social behaviour seen on land is their year-round character. Realistically, puffins are mostly solitary and spend their winters following their food out in open waters [2]. While during the breeding season puffins hunt in groups of around 7 individuals, during winter puffins will be foraging either alone, or with one other individual [3]. Puffins follow a migration route and tend to repeat this winter route yearly, leading to a more solitary lifestyle [4].

Wintertime is also when puffins will conduct their yearly moult, losing their flight feathers [5]. During this moulting period, they are unable to fly, and this can provide a disadvantage if their food supply is low and storms occur. Recent research suggests that the yearly moult start and finish times vary between individuals, as well as the duration [6]. On average this moult is thought to take between 1-2 months, which is a significant time for these seabirds to go without flight and limited foraging ability [7].

Image 2. Four puffins in flight, photographed by Naturalist Anna on August 11, 2025

What happened this winter?!

This winter also led to a seabird wreck being documented across Europe, where an abundance of seabirds were found either deceased or exhausted and washed ashore [8]. These incidents are usually unable to be attributed to one specific cause, and unfortunately for our puffins, they were the main victims of this wreck: along with guillemots, razorbills and terns. This winter, the Atlantic Ocean has had an onslaught of storms, and it is believed to have attributed to the starvation of these seabirds.

While the seabird wreck affected puffins, it is too early to understand how this may have affected our overall puffin populations. Thus, we must patiently wait for the puffins’ return to their breeding grounds for scientists to gather a bigger picture of the population status. The life of a seabird is not for the faint hearted, and so we keep our hopes high for our resilient puffins.

Image 3. Puffin colony, photographed by Naturalist Anna on July 5, 2025

What does this mean for this year’s breeding season?

Puffin breeding seasons are heavily tied in with their prey availability. When there is a lack of fish available, this leads to lower breeding success and longer breeding seasons, due to pufflings taking longer time to grow. Time is also lengthened due to the puffins having to forage farther from their breeding sites to acquire food for their puffling [9].  Alternatively, with abundance of prey in closer locations to the breeding sites, breeding seasons tend to shorten, with pufflings being fed steadily and growing more rapidly and thus leading to them flying out to sea sooner.

Image 4. Puffins photographed by Naturalist Sam on June 19, 2025

So, when will they arrive?!

Every puffin breeding season will not be exactly like the year before; thus, it is all a waiting game for our puffins to arrive and strut their stuff. In a mere few days, if the trend of earlier arrival continues, we should be seeing them grace us with their presence out at sea. In a few months we should be seeing them regularly on our three puffin islands close to Reykjavík! No matter the season, our puffins always keep us smiling as we have the pleasure of witnessing their breeding season unfold.

Our guides currently have bets going on what day our puffins will first be spotted. What day do you think they will return? Keep an eye on our whale diary and social media pages to find out!

Samantha Smith