麻豆约拍

There are potential puffin burrows everywhere on the Isle of May. Puffins use the same burrow for life - digging their own or evicting a rabbit. Snuggling at the end of the burrow, perhaps a metre underground is a chick called a puffling. It will be down here for six weeks - they take a long time to fledge and by the time they do they'll be very fat. The pufflings sneak out of their burrows under cover of darkness and throw themselves into the sea. They remain out at sea for at least five years before they return to breed. Puffins are open sea birds and only come to land to breed. If they could nest on the sea, they wouldn't come ashore at all. The burrows provide safety from hungry gulls, who will steal their fish, eat the chicks and even have a go at the adults. The one thing you have to try and see is the result of a puffin fishing foray. It's a spectacle that brings naturalist Maggie Sheddon back year after year. The birds are here because of the superb fishing. But sadly the sandeels that the puffins are bringing back are smaller in size and amount. The record is 62 sandeels in one mouthful. Puffins have spiny tongues with reversed hooks, so as they swim through the water they catch the fish one by one on these hooks. Chris and Maggie try to find the puffin with the most fish - Chris spots one holding 16.