Newfoundland and Labrador - Atlantic Puffin
• The Atlantic puffin, also known as ‘parrot of the sea’ or ‘clown of the sea,’ has a large, colourful triangular bill that turns orange and red during the breeding season.
• They are divers and live on a diet of fish.
• They live and breed on The Rock’s rocky shores, predominantly on the east coast during the spring and summer months. (They are also known to live at sea in the winter months.)
• Typically, puffins lay one egg per nest.
• The largest colony in Newfoundland is south of St. John’s in the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, where there are about 260,000 pairs.
• While in Iceland a few years ago, I learned that the local folks welcomed the return of puffins in the spring because they ate them. It's illegal to hunt or eat puffins in Newfoundland and Labrador
• In 1941, Puffin Books was launched as the children's imprint of the British publishers, Penguin Books. Penguins and puffins do look somewhat alike.
Nova Scotia - Osprey
• The osprey was named Nova Scotia’s official bird in 1994.
• A fish-eater living by the water, the osprey or ‘fish hawk,’ has the word “prey” right in its name.
There are ospreys on every continent but Antarctica.
• If you get close to an osprey nest, you will hear a high-pitched, whistle-like call signalling their territorial dominance.
• Ospreys have large wingspans. They are bigger
