Contents
Acknowledgments
It’s spring on the coast of Alaska.
After four years living at sea,
two puffins greet off the shore
of a snow-crusted island.
It’s time to raise a chick!
They nuzzle their beautiful bills
and clap them gently together.
The puffins mate at sea.
Then, on a rocky slope
high up on the island, they dig a burrow
with their sharp beaks and claws.
They line the nest with feathers and grass.
Now it is ready.
By the middle of June there sits
a single white egg
tucked beneath Mother Puffin’s wing.
For forty-two days, Mother and Father
Puffin take turns keeping their fragile egg
warm while the other dives for food.
Finally, in the cliff-top nest,
there’s a tap! tap! tap!
Then a jagged crack.
A beak pokes through.
The shell splits open …
and out steps a hungry gray fuzz-ball
peep-peep-peeping for food.
It’s Little Puffin!
His mother nuzzles his tiny beak—
but where is Father Puffin?
Here he is!
And his large bill is filled with fish
for Little Puffin.
Now it’s Mother Puffin’s turn to dive for food
while Father Puffin guards the burrow
from bald eagles, falcons, and squawking gulls.
Dressed in her life jacket
of carefully fluffed feathers,
Mother Puffin bobs like a cork
in the icy cold ocean.
Then, pressing the air out of her feathers …
… she flies underwater
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