Pat DenBensten, age 11, of Rock Valley Iowa, for his question:

 

WHERE DO PUFFINS ORIGINATE?

The puffin belongs to the chilly shores of the Arctic, though sometimes he migrates farther south to spend the winter. He has a clownish white face with a huge, thick bill striped with vivid blue, yellow and red. His back is black; his underside is snowy white. He wears a black collar under his chin and a little black cap on his head. His clown costume is enhanced by a huge pair of wide, webbed feet  in bright orange.

Where there is one puffin, there are sure to be hundreds more  usually sunning themselves on a rocky ledge high above the sea. Now and then he swims underwater to fill his great bill with fishes. The Atlantic puffin is at home along the shores of Greenland, Scandinavia and northern Canada. Two Pacific puffins are at home around Alaska and northern Asia. Some of these birds may migrate southward as far as Japan and California.