Perspectives from (Not Adorable) Puffins

It is impossible to write a post on puffins without using the word “adorable.” But I will try.

Undeniably the most enchanting moment of my retreat in the U.K. this summer was the hour I spent walking the circuit of Inner Farne Island. Thirteen hundred years ago, St. Cuthbert relocated from the tiny remote island of Lindisfarne to this even more tiny remote island to try to improve his monkish devotional life, living largely as a hermit and the occasional sage to those willing to brave the North Sea waters for advice. I think Cuthbert — a nature-attuned Celtic version of St. Francis — would be happy to know that today the only occupants of the island are birds. Wall-to-wall birds, in fact. No square foot is unclaimed; the kittiwakes claim the nooks and crannies of the sheer cliffs, guillemots by the thousands stake out the rocky cliff tops, and the fiercely territorial Arctic Terns nest in the shoals near the boat landing. But the soft soil in the middle of the island is the center ring of this circus, and it’s there that these adorable precious puffins steal the show.

Everything about an Atlantic Puffin is absolutely… endearing. It really doesn’t matter if they’re waddling, flying, swimming, digging, or just standing around; they’re... irresistible. They’re called the clowns of the sea for good reason; everything looks comedic when you’re sporting a beak like that, along with those bright orange clown-shoe feet, and those colorful clown-painted eyes. To add to the impression, their croaky call can only be described as a laugh. It starts slow, like they’re just starting to get the joke, and then it levels out into a polite British chuckle: “Ooooh, that’s funny, ole’ chap. Hyuk hyuk hyuk.” Go ahead, click that puffin play button to see what I mean, while I look something up…

Polite British Puffin Chuckle

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[ChatGPT: What are some substitute phrases for the word “adorable”?]

Puffins have two sorts of walks, both of which are snuggle-muffiny. The upright walk exudes as much confidence as you can pull off when you look like a clownbird, but it demonstrates dominance and is an important stance around the burrow to clearly communicate, “This patch of dirt is mine.” Inner Farne is just sixteen acres large and contains up to 5,000 pairs of breeding puffins, so property lines are important. The second walk is even more fluff-nuggety; the puffin puts his head down low and commences a fast shuffle past the other birds while intentionally avoiding any eye contact… sort of like walking through Manhattan. The submissive posture says to the other puffins, “I’m just passing through and I really don’t want any trouble.” The faster the waddle, the more cutie-patootie the bird. Observe...

Here's some other behaviors that add to a puffin's squeezy-huggableness:

1. The young are called pufflings. If there’s not already a chain of stuffed animals called pufflings,™ there should be.

2. A puffin beak can hold up to ten sand eels at once. This is helpful for feeding that puffling, but apparently it’s also fashionable to just stand around with a few hanging out of your beak. Oddly, still cute.

3. When standing around, Puffins also repeatedly do darling puffiny things like balancing on one foot, or flapping/flexing in place, or beak-sparring with your friends.

But here’s one thing I learned that you won't hear anywhere else… or at least I couldn’t corroborate this info with anything else I found online. A seabird naturalist employed on the island described to us how a puffin prepares for re-entering the colony. Bear with me, because this is the part of the post that's actually going somewhere...

In the non-breeding season, a puffin lives exclusively out at sea and largely alone, happily living the Cuthbert life. But when they return to land and rejoin their other 9,999 fellow puffins, their webbed feet are soft from a long season at sea. To walk about — and especially to excavate or renovate their burrow — they need to develop some foot callouses. And so for the first few days after arrival, they repeatedly fly down to get their feet wet, and then fly back up to the rocky cliffs and scuff their wet feet a few times across the stone, like they’re wiping their feet on the doormat. Eventually their soles are tough enough to find their footing and do some digging.

That’s adorable interesting.

Prepare for Re-entry

To navigate community, we need callouses too. As much as we may try to canonize a monk like Cuthbert, authentic Christianity does not allow for a prolonged life of isolation. I have experienced this firsthand this summer, enjoying the blessing of a pastoral sabbatical. This season has allowed for more time alone (and with family), more introspection, and increased capacity for spiritual reflection, without the daily cadence of pastoral responsibilities. It’s honestly been a wonderful summer. But you can’t live there, and I’m so ready to get back. Eventually, like a puffin floating alone in the North Atlantic, you’ve got to regather, re-engage, get the band back together. We may have moments at sea, but we were made for the island.

Sure, that’s a lot messier, dodging burrows and puffin-poop, navigating the crowds and their various puffin turf wars, and learning when to just keep your head down and keep waddling. Without callouses, you’ll get your feet stepped on plenty. For the Christian, we refer to those callouses with the antiquated-but-wonderful terms longsuffering and forbearance — the quality of patience and endurance in the face of hardship and provocation, functioning best when flowing from genuine love. “Love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5). “Be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2). “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone” (Colossians 3:13). Rough up those feet, as a commitment to endure the imperfections of community.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” Or in the words of Joni Eareckson Tada, “Believers are never told to become one; we already are one and are expected to act like it.” In other words, the Lord has already built the foundational reality of community; he built it by making us one in Christ — a real spiritual connection of body-to-head, branches-to-vine — and he expects us to participate in that reality. If we neglect it, our feet will quickly get soft.

But the callouses will help you dig deep. Nests take shape. Eggs appear. Pufflings hatch. You get to live alongside those you are continually learning to love and adore.

And that is, in the best sense of the word, adore-able.

All photos by the (Not Pro Photographer) Author