The Behavior of the Tufted Puffin (Lunda cirrhata, Alcidae, Charadriiformes) on the Colony Surface

Comparative studies of the communicative behavior of colonial nonpasserine birds are important for understanding the evolution of birds' social behavior. It is important to study in detail the behavior of particular species to accumulate data for such comparisons. The aim of this work is to describe the behavioral repertoire on the colony surface and study the time budget and the effect rendered on it both by the stage of the breeding season and the social environment, in one Fraterculini species, Alcidae. The object of this research was the tufted puffin, a colonial seabird of the North Pacific. We compiled a catalog of tufted puffin postures and displays and compared them with those of the previously studied auk species. We found that tufted puffins, as well as other puffins, had a wider variety of visual displays on the colony surface, but spent less time on social behavior than the auklets. The occurrence of all forms of behavior did not differ before and after chick hatching in both puffins and auklets. In the presence of a conspecific neighbor within a radius of two corpuses, puffins and auklets spent more time on social interactions, while the conspecifics in a radius of five corpuses had little or no effect on the occurrence of various forms of behavior. Thus, interspecific differences in time budgets of the tufted puffin and other puffins and auklets appeared in the variability of visual displays, as well as in the time spent on social behavior, while the stage of the breeding season and the social environment had a similar effect on the time budgets of all species studied.

Automated summary

Comparative studies on the communicative behavior of colonial nonpasserine birds, focusing on the tufted puffin in this research, reveal that they display a wider variety of visual behaviors on the colony surface but spend less time on social interactions compared to auklets. Despite differences in visual displays and social behaviors, the time budgets of tufted puffins and other puffins and auklets are similarly affected by the breeding season and social environment.