Tufted Puffin Fratercula cirrhata

The Tufted Puffin is an auk native to the Bering Straits and north Pacific ocean. It spends most of its life at sea, coming ashore to breed.

The breeding adults, male and female, have the blonde tufts shown and white faces. Outside of the breeding season they lose the tufts and have black faces.

They breed in dense colonies on remote islands or coasts with soil or sand soft enough to create burrows for nesting. Juveniles have white fronts and no tufts.

They dive for fish in the ocean. Auks fill the "penguin" niche in the northern oceans. However they have wings rather than flippers and can (and do) fly.