The horned puffin (Fracticula corniculata) is a shape found in the North Pacific, including Alaska, Siberia, and the coast of British Columbia. It is a pelagic marine bird originally diving for fish. It is home to colonies, often with other species.
It looks like an Atlantic puffin, a close relative of the North Atlantic, but it is separated by a black “horn” of black skin located above the eyes present in adult birds.
Description
This juvenile's horn deficiency and bright-colored rhomphothic breeding season are seen in sexually mature birds
The height of the adult birds is about 20 cm (8 in), the weight is about 500 g (18 oz) and the wings are about 58 cm (23 in). The horned puffins are monomorphic (men and women appear to have the same plumage color).
Sexually mature birds have a small fleshy black “horn” that extends above the eyes, from which the animal's common name - horned puffin. A dark strip extends from the back to the eye. The white part of the cheek, with yellow flesh on the base of the bill, is stained.
Like many other marine birds, horned puffins are also shaded to disguise against predators, both aircraft and underset. The under parts (breasts, neck, abdomen, flanks, and vents) are white, while the upper parts (mantle, scapulars, eyelids, primary, tertiles, and rumps) are black. The legs and feet are orange.
Like many other marine birds, the horned porphine plumage is waterproof, allowing it to sink and prevent rapid heat loss. This is made possible by the nature of its feathers and the presence of a specialized gland called the uropygial gland in the vertebrae below the tail. It secretes a viscous and hydrophobic fluid that the puffin spills over its feathers with its chin and lets it float.
In summer (reproductive) plumage, the outer cretinous layers of the bill - Rampotheca - grow in size and change to a bright yellow color at the base and dark orange to the tip. The size and color of the Ramaphotheque help to attract companionship.
By the end of the summer, the bright outer layers of the ramphotheca are shed. The face returns to a gray and black color, with a smaller, less bright color bill, and the legs and feet become pale fleshy. This stage is referred to as the grips plumage.
The horned puffin bill, which is larger than the other puffin species, is red in color and yellow at the base. The tongue and palate have small spines that hold several fishes in its bill while it continues to hunt. It can hold an average of ten fish on its bill;
This number may increase to sixty. Puffin bills also feature fluorescent. These are especially used to attract a partner. The coffins will see the ultraviolet ray and allow them to spot luminescence on another puffin bill during the courtship display.
The appearance of young people
The horny puffin leaf has smoky-gray cheeks, as well as a fine chunky, triangular shape and is completely black. The legs are pink or gray when leaving the nest and the adult is lower than the adult. For the first time in spring, young puffins lose their gray-colored facial spots and begin to look like the larger ones, eliminating the scalp that keeps it in its black and triangular form. The scorpion took its evolving form at the age of one and continued to grow for years, reaching a bright color at the age of five, the point of sexual maturity. During this time the puffin reaches its adult size and weight.
Vocalization
The horned puffins emit a relatively small amount of noise. These guttural words are characterized as cooling, roaring or shouting. The most common puffin word is usually transcribed as “R-R”, which accelerates after the animal's threat, becoming “A-ga-kha-kha”. These words are often produced by adults and are similarly used to fool, Described as “a distant word of discipline.”
These words are rarely done outside during breeding, and puffins seem to be relatively quiet compared to the sea. During the confluence season, the words can be copied as “op-op-op-op-op”.
Distribution and Habitat
The horned puffin is relatively common throughout its range. It covers the entire North Pacific, including the Shumagin Islands, the Siberian coast, Kamchatka, Sakhalin and Kuril Islands in the Bering Sea. In North America, it is found in Alaska and on the west coasts of British Columbia, Haida Gui, and the Aleutian Islands.
Vacuum puffin is also found in the vicinity of the Chukchi Sea and especially in Wrangell Island. Rarely, the species has traveled south along the coast of Japan and Oregon and California. It is not a migratory bird, though the species lives in winter, far away at sea, outside the breeding season.
Horny puffins live in steep cliffs and cliffs Unlike other puffins, they dig little or no old ones, preferring shelter beneath rock crevices or rock piles for shelter and shelter.
Behavior
Flight
Horned puffins are daily animals; They hunt and are active during the day. There are two main methods of aircraft in the species. The first is to jump on a hike to gain speed, the second is to move quickly to the water's edge in a racing manner, gaining the speed needed for the aircraft. Horny puffins fly compact and fly downward, higher than sea level. Wing beats are constant, fast, and adjustable.
Upon landing, the horned puffins resorted to a specific posture to prove their animosity toward their fellow birds. The legs are kept slightly apart and the wings are spread over the head for about four seconds. It demonstrates the non-aggression of puffins, it will adapt within the group.
On the Land
Most horned puffins live and breed in about 1000 pairs of colonies, although many large colonies are known. During the conflict, horned puffins of both sexes took positions as “gaps”, which kept the pinch open, frustrated the tongue somewhat, and the rear feathers were steep consists of.
It was used as a threatening gesture, especially when fighting between rivals and landing at the colony. The threatened bird may retreat or fight another.
The horned puffin walks upright, grabbing the stone surface with its wings. Its common running position is made on low-density soil, usually around a hole.
At sea
The horned puffins spend half their time in the water. The rest is mainly near the seawater, where they are discharged. The next morning they could spend the night at the sea to ensure the best fishing spot.
The colonies settled only during the breeding season; Spreading in small groups, winter-cut caffeinas [puffins go so fast under the water that their movement can be called “the flight of submerged skies” instead of swimming].
Their powerful wings serve as warts and their webbed legs act as radars. Water presses keep the feathers adhesive and keep the puffin in aerodynamic shape. Diving for the victim usually lasts between 20 and 30 seconds. Puffins can easily stay under water for more than a minute.
Food and hunting techniques
Adult horned puffins are quite common in their diets feeding fish, small invertebrates, crustaceans, polychaete worms, and squid. They also feed on small algae and marine plants.
For fishing, the horned puffin can sink to about 24 meters, though most of the rushing occurs at a depth of 15 meters. These puffins usually hunt at dawn and headfirst dive in contact with water and begin to hold a school of fish or potential predators.
Once the victim's scars fall, the puffin sinks to the chase. Puffins usually begin feeding before being hunted in the colony, with several small fish swallowing before they can be put into pots. They do not arrange for their victims to run from gap to gap so that they do not risk losing their food.
Hunting zones are usually located fairly far from the nest. Horned puffins will return from hunting with several small fish, squid or crustaceans in their specialty bills. The variety of rats' diets is limited, feeding only by sandal or capelin, mainly by parents, one or two kilometers away from the coast. These fish are distributed by parents two to six times a day.
Unlike many other marine birds, which employ restructuring to feed their babies, horned porphine feeds intact fish from its bills to chickens. Both parents participated in the feeding and rearing of chickens.
Reproduction
The breeding season of horned puffins occurs between May and September and usually starts between the ages of five and seven. The court begins on the water as the men and women puffin swims with each other.
The display of the male is raised from the water, the neck is stretched, the head opening and closing the bill while the head is shaking, the female adopts a predator posture, compressed inside the neck, close to the water.
This is followed by billing, a practice where combined birds touch the beaches. A little headwind from both partners ensured that the couple would now be mates for life.
The horned puffin pairs are exclusive. Each pair lays only one egg per year, synchronous with the other pairs of colonies. Rarely, joints of the same colony have intervals of more than a week. This egg is oval, lavender, white with white and brown highlights.
Both parents incubate the eggs instead of 41 days, and the chicken breeding lasts forty days after which the lizard leaves the nest alone and at night.
The rise in sea temperatures has increased the breeding rate of horned puffins. The subsequent role in sperm selection during egg competition implies that sperm collection glands have been found in the uterine-vaginal region of the female puffin.
Couples usually breed old in the cliffs but can also breed on the beach or behind wooden debris. Coming to the ocean usually occurs in the morning or in the evening.
Conservation
The total number of horned porphins is estimated at 1,200,000. 300,000 are located in Asia, and the other 900,000 are located in North America, with high density on the Alaska Peninsula, numbering 760 thousand. In Alaska, about 250,000 puffins are distributed in 608 different colonies, the largest on the Succulent island.
The Aleutian Islands contain about 92,000 horned puffins, but about 300,000 are located on the islands and shores of Okhotsk. There is a colony of 18,000 puffins on the seafloor of the Chukchi Sea, the largest in the region.
