5 Amazing Facts about Puffin Bird

Puffins are pelagic seabirds that feed on fish which they catch by diving in the water. They have black and white feathers and a large and colorful beak(shaped more like parrot's beak). Puffin birds are found in three species, out of which two species the tufted puffin and horned puffin are found in the North Pacific Ocean where as the Atlantic puffin is found in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Atlantic Puffin

5 Amazing Facts About Puffin Birds 

1. Many misinterpret puffin bird with penguins. This could be because they share the same black and white body color. Penguins have black and white skin coat, while puffins have black and white feathers. One more similarity between both penguin and puffin bird is their love for eating fish. But penguins are penguins and puffins are birds. Penguins have wings but can't fly, but puffins are seabirds that fly. They don't even belong to the same family. While penguins belong to the family Spheniscidae, puffin bird belongs to family Alcidae.

2. Puffin birds always breed in large colonies usually on coastal cliffs or offshore islands. They nest in burrows(empty rabbit burrows), or even in rock crevices. They are found in a much larger number and mostly the areas or islands they breed are referred to as Puffin Islands.

Tufted Puffin

3. After the breeding season, puffin birds shed the colorful part of their beak leaving it to look dull and small.  Only during the breeding season the puffin birds have a colorful beak.

4. Puffins feed on fishes like herring, capelin, hake etc and also zooplankton. They have this unique ability to hold and carry as many as dozen small fishes at a time crosswise in their bill.

5. Puffins have the ability of swimming underwater as well as fly in the air. Their webbed feet enables them to swim effortlessly underwater, where they catch many fishes at a time. 

Is it Okay to Feed Sunflower Seeds to Parrots

We are often been told to feed sunflower seeds to parrots. The catalog that comes with the bird feeder mentions so. However, if this feeding is limited only to visitor parrots than it is fine to feed them sunflower seeds. But if you are planning to feed these seeds to your pet parrot, you should think about it. Visitor parrots visit once or twice daily for their own measure of feed, and then they also fly and visit other places where they get other foods to eat. But a pet parrot is totally depended on you for the food. And hence he will eat only what you feed him. So if you keep feeding him only sunflower seeds then it may not be good for your pet parrot. Sunflower seeds are actually the seeds in its hull. Three common types that are used in sunflower seeds are linoleic, high oleic and NuSun. Sunflower seeds contain large amounts of carbohydrates and fats. What they lack is the vital nutrients and hence overfeeding the parrots, (here I mean excessive portions of sunflower seeds) only can make the bird overweight and thus will prone to high risk of illness.

 Birds can thus die of heart diseases and liver diseases. Due to lack of vital nutrients, the parrots can also be calcium deficient which would lead to brittle nails and weak bones. Hence you keep your birds healthy, it is important to include calcium rich foods such as small amount of chopped spinach or broccoli. Fresh fruits or a chopped portion of mixed fruits and vegetables such as carrots, apples, guava, can also be a perfect parrot food. This helps the bird to live longer and healthy. Ideal food that your bird feeder should include is mixed portions of bajra (pearl millet), ragi(finger millet), broken rice and sunflower seeds. This way you not only feed parrots but also other small birds such as sparrows.