This colony of Atlantic Puffins nests on Bempton Cliffs on the Northeastern

Coast of England. Thousands of adoring fans visit every year.

David Craven of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust explains this attraction.

So they get these nicknames like Clowns of the Sea,

parrots of the sea, and we're sort of talking about things that piggy,

and that sort of short fat, dumpy little shape is the sort of thing that we think of as being quite comical.

They're not the best birds in the air to watch. They're not particularly good

flyers. They tend to sort of propel themselves at a cliff and off a cliff and that's about as

far as they get. Most of the time they'll be sitting on the surface of the water on the oceans on the

seas and the North Sea and fishing but when they get into the water that sort of

awkward-looking body in the air becomes really incredibly efficient. But I think it's it is their

visual appearance that really endears them to people. David uses visitors

affection for the puffins cute mannerisms to strike up conversations about how to protect the species from extinction.

And then we can go from whether you love the puffin, here are the other ones which are also threatened,

and here's what you can do to actually help us out to help

ensure that these puffins survive, thrive and are here for generations to cut and actually the puffins

are really threatened species especially here in the UK.

You can hear more about how the Bempton Cliffs puffins are inspiring conservation efforts on the threatened

podcast.

Listen in your podcast app or at birdnote.org.

I'm Ari Daniel.