Little Puffin's First Flight. Jonathan London

      

       Contents

       Little Puffin’s First Flight

       Author’s Note

       Acknowledgments

       Copyright

      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