Where to See Puffins: Best Places and Times Worldwide

For most of the year a puffin is a small black-and-white bird bobbing alone on the open Atlantic, invisible to anyone on shore. Then, for about four months, hundreds of thousands of them land on the same northern cliffs their parents used, dig burrows in the turf, and stand around looking faintly ridiculous. That window is the whole game. Miss it and the cliffs are empty rock.

When to see puffins

Puffins are tied to a breeding calendar, not a place you can visit year round. Atlantic puffins arrive at their colonies in April, lay a single egg, and raise one chick through the summer. By mid-August the chicks leave the burrows at night and head out to sea, and the adults follow. From September to March there is nothing to see on the cliffs. The honest answer to “when” is May, June and July, with the first half of July the safest bet almost everywhere.

Best places to see Atlantic puffins

Atlantic puffins breed in a ring around the cold North Atlantic. Eight places stand out for being reliable, accessible, and large enough that a sighting is close to guaranteed in season. They are ranked here by how dependable the encounter is, not by how famous the spot is.

1

Iceland Latrabjarg and the Westman Islands

Around 60% of the world’s Atlantic puffins breed in Iceland. The Latrabjarg cliffs in the Westfjords are Europe’s largest seabird colony, and the birds nest so close to the clifftop path that you can watch them from a few metres away without a boat. The Westman Islands (Vestmannaeyjar) are the other stronghold. Best from May to August.

2

Faroe Islands Mykines

The island of Mykines holds one of the largest and most accessible puffin colonies in the world. A ferry or short helicopter hop from Sorvagur drops you at the start of a clifftop path that runs straight through the burrows, with thousands of puffins on either side. Best from mid-May to mid-August, and a guide is required on the seabird trail.

3

United Kingdom Skomer, the Farne Islands and Shetland

Skomer Island off Pembrokeshire is the most accessible colony in Britain. Boats run daily from May to July and puffins land within arm’s reach of the path. The Farne Islands in Northumberland and the cliffs of Shetland hold the other big English and Scottish colonies.

4

Norway Rost, Runde and Hornoya

Rost in the Lofoten archipelago holds Norway’s largest colony, with boat trips from June to August reaching burrows on the clifftop turf. Runde further south is easier to reach, and Hornoya in the far Arctic northeast pairs puffins with a dense mix of other seabirds.

5

United States Maine: Eastern Egg Rock and Machias Seal Island

Maine is the only place to see Atlantic puffins in the United States, on small islands that were restocked after the birds were hunted out a century ago. Eastern Egg Rock is the southernmost colony on the Atlantic, watched from boat tours out of New Harbor and Boothbay Harbor. Machias Seal Island, further north, is the one spot where you can land and watch from blinds. Best from late June to mid-August.

6

Ireland Skellig Michael and Puffin Island

Puffins nest among the 6th-century monastery ruins on Skellig Michael, reached by boat from Portmagee on the Ring of Kerry. Landings run May to July and book out months ahead, so reserve early. Puffin Island off the Dingle Peninsula is the quieter alternative.

7

Canada Witless Bay, Newfoundland

The Witless Bay Ecological Reserve holds the largest Atlantic puffin colony in North America. Evening boat tours from Bay Bulls watch an estimated 260,000 puffins flying back to their burrows with beaks full of capelin, one of the great seabird spectacles on the continent. Best from June to August.

8

Estonia Vilsandi National Park

The Baltic’s only puffin colony sits on sea stacks in Vilsandi National Park. Numbers are small and the season short, May and June, but it is the easiest puffin to reach from continental Europe.

Best time to see puffins by country

The breeding window shifts slightly with latitude. Southern colonies fill earliest and empty earliest; the far north runs a few weeks later. This table is the quick reference for matching a trip to a colony.

Tufted and Horned puffins

Three puffin species exist, and the famous orange-faced one is only the Atlantic. The single-region guides that fill search results rarely say this, which is why people are surprised to find puffins on the Pacific coast of the United States.

• Atlantic puffin North Atlantic
  The classic puffin, with the tall triangular orange-and-grey bill. Everything above refers to this species.
• Tufted puffin North Pacific
  Black body, blond head plumes, heavier red bill. Seen at Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, Oregon, plus Alaska, British Columbia and northern Japan around Hokkaido. Best late spring to early summer.
• Horned puffin North Pacific
  Closest in looks to the Atlantic puffin but with a small fleshy “horn” above each eye. Alaska and the Russian Far East are the strongholds.

So if you are in the western United States, you are not in Atlantic puffin range at all. Head to the Oregon coast or Alaska for Tufted and Horned puffins instead.

How to watch puffins well

Puffins are small, around 25 cm tall, and they spend most of the day out fishing. The best viewing is in the early morning and the evening, when adults stream back to the colony carrying fish. Bring binoculars even at the close colonies. A clifftop site like Latrabjarg or Mykines gives the most relaxed viewing; a boat trip gets you to islands you could not otherwise reach but trades some of the calm.

Common questions

Image credits, all via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licences: puffin in flight (Skomer) Tony Wood; Latrabjarg, Iceland Boaworm; Mykines, Faroe Islands Joxean Koret; Skomer, Wales Charles J. Sharp; Hornoya, Norway Teo Laakso; Eastern Egg Rock, Maine Paul VanDerWerf; Skellig Michael, Ireland Jerzystrzelecki; Gull Island, Newfoundland ASWanderer; Tufted puffin TRinaud.