Tufted Puffin

Fratercula cirrhata (Pallas, 1769)

Tufted Puffin, Fratercula cirrhata, breeds across the North Pacific from Arctic to temperate coasts in Palearctic and North America, and spends the nonbreeding season widely at sea, with birds ranging nearshore to southern Japan and southern California. It is an auk and a pelagic seabird, first described by Pallas in 1769. The bird is best known for its thick red bill and the yellow tufts that give it its name. Its breeding range includes Chukotka, the Sea of Okhotsk, Sakhalin, Kamchatka, the Kuril and Commander islands, Hokkaido, the Bering Sea islands, the Aleutians, and western to central California.

Order

Charadriiformes

Family

Alcidae — Auks

Breeding range

Palearctic, North America: Arctic to temperate n Pacific coasts: n Chukotka, Sea of Okhotsk, Sakhalin, Kamchatka, Kuril and Commander is. (e Russia), off se Hokkaido (n Japan), Bering Sea is., Aleutian Is., w, s Alaska to c California

Nonbreeding range

highly pelagic in North Pacific Ocean, and nearshore to s Japan and s California