Puffling season has returned to Iceland and with it comes a peculiar site: humans tossing the baby birds off of cliffs. It sounds like cruelty but it’s a long-held tradition that helps these birds head in the right direction when they get confused by city lights.
Puffling tossing mostly happens in the Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands) where puffins nest in large numbers. It’s the biggest colony of puffins to be found in Europe, and the adorable (and clever) adult birds will establish nests along the cliffside to keep their developing young safe.
A baby puffin is called a puffling, and when it’s time to fly the nest, they will head out to sea where they’ll spend the first few years of their life. The adventure begins at night when the birds can use the light of the Moon as an indicator of which direction to head in. However, the advent of electric lighting has confused things somewhat.
Sometimes, pufflings will fall for the allure of the city lights further inland, mistaking them for the Moon. The mix-up sees them crash into the island’s streets and harbor, and it can be an exhausting detour.
A puffling preparing for flight.
Image credit: LouieLea / Shutterstock.com
Fortunately for the birds, the people of Iceland are big fans of puffins and there are established rescue teams as well as everyday families who will step in to help when their maiden flight goes awry. Rescuers can scoop up as many as 10 pufflings a night during the peak, and it’s a race to reach them before they get stuck or wander too far.
Even the harbor is equipped with nets for scooping up any water landings, as the oil here can damage their feathers causing them to drown. For this reason, Vestmannaeyjar gets a festival feel during puffling season as people wander the streets at night in search of baby birds in need of a helping hand.
Throwing anything off a cliff sounds dramatic, but it’s the boost these birds need when they’re too tired to take off on their own steam. As Kyana Sue wrote for Inspired By Iceland, once in the air the babies know how to handle the rest.
A puffin and its puffling chick.
Image credit: PH Photography / Shutterstock.com
“Picking the pufflings up do not harm them and they are only kept in a box until the next day. The pufflings are brought to the south side of the Island. The location can be found on Google Maps as ‘Beautiful Puffin and Shore View.’ The cliffs and air are dotted with hundreds of adult puffins and families can be found releasing their puffins one by one into the wild.”
“Children of all ages and adults, hold firm to the pufflings as they throw them high into the air above the sea cliffs. Once the pufflings hit the air their wings flap rapidly and they take off towards the ocean. Occasionally a lazy puffling will flop to the group and hobble off the cliff but they instinctively begin to soar as they fall through the air.”
Bon voyage, baby birds. You’ve got a lot of brawling ahead of you.
