Why are puffins' beaks so colorful?

But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids

Vermont Public

Nature, Language, Kids & Family, Science

4.4 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Have you ever seen a puffin? With their bright beaks, orange feet and black and white coloring, these birds are very cool to look at. And we’ve gotten a lot of questions about them! In this episode, we talk with Don Lyons, an educator and avian ecologist with the Seabird Institute in Maine. What are puffins? Why are puffin beaks so colorful? Why do puffins dig burrows? How do puffins learn to fly? How can you tell if a puffin is male or female? How long can puffins hold their breath? Why do they have red feet?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, trusty narrator here telling you about the funniest podcast you'll ever hear.
0:05.0	It's called Who's Smarted?
0:06.6	And yes, I know what that sounds like.
0:08.2	When you listen to Who Smarted, not only will you laugh, you'll also learn as we use jokes.
0:13.7	Crazy characters, funny sound effects, and interactive games to teach you fun facts, science, and history about everything from your pet cat
0:21.8	to the cereal you had for breakfast.
0:24.4	Trust me, the trusty narrator, and check out Who's Smarted, the most fun you'll ever have,
0:29.3	getting smarter. This is But Why a podcast for Curious Kids from Vermont Public.
0:54.0	I'm Jane Linton, and today I'm
0:56.0	somewhere very special. I'm in southern Iceland. Now, if you don't know Iceland, it's a big
1:01.4	island country in the North Atlantic Ocean. And we're on the Westman Islands, which is home to
1:06.6	the world's largest colony of Atlantic puffins. And many of them are actually right behind me now.
1:13.4	They're nesting right now. They've burrowed into the hillside. And their eggs have actually hatched.
1:19.5	Puffins mate for life. And so each pair has laid one egg earlier in the spring. And these eggs are
1:25.2	just hatching or have hatched now, and the little
1:27.6	puffin babies called pufflings are deep in their burrows so they don't get eaten by gulls.
1:33.3	Later in the summer, they'll fly out, kind of fling themselves off this cliffside and go out to sea.
1:40.4	Puffins spend most of the time each year out to sea, and they only come back and get their feet on land when it's time to nest.
1:48.8	So these puffins are here for a couple of months, and they're very cute, but they're also really fascinating birds.
1:56.8	Their beaks are so beautiful and dynamic, although not all the time.
2:02.8	And they have this really sort of charismatic way about them that people love.
2:08.2	So we're going to learn all about puffins and answer all of your puffin questions in today's episode. Hey, it's me back in Vermont now. We recorded that introduction back in June when we were on one of the most exciting field trips, but why has ever gone on? A trip to Iceland. We decided to go to Iceland because it's a remarkable
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