A comprehensive monograph on the Atlantic Puffin. With its colourful beak and fast, whirring flight, this is the most recognisable and popular of all North Atlantic seabirds.

Puffins spend most of the year at sea, but for a few months of the year the come to shore, nesting in burrows on steep cliffs or on inaccessible islands. Awe-inspiring numbers of these birds can sometimes be seen bobbing on the sea or flying in vast wheels over the colony, bringing fish in their beaks back to the chicks. However, the species has declined sharply over the last decade; this is due to a collapse in fish stocks caused by overfishing and global warming, combined with an exponential increase in Pipefish (which can kill the chicks).

The Puffin is a revised and expanded second edition of Poyser's 1984 title on these endearing birds, widely considered to be a Poyser classic. It includes sections on their affinities, nesting and incubation, movements, foraging ecology, survivorship, predation, and research methodology; particular attention is paid to conservation, with the species considered an important 'indicator' of the health of our coasts.

Mike Harris has been a seabird biologist for more than 50 years. He initially worked on gulls and Manx Shearwaters on the Welsh islands of Skomer and Skokholm before moving on to the seabirds of the Galápagos Islands. In 1972, he initiated the long-term Puffin research study on the Isle of May, and over the years this has expanded to include many of the other seabird species on the island. He has been an Emeritus Fellow at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) since his retirement and still spends his summers on the Isle of May.

Sarah Wanless started her seabird career working on Gannets at Bempton and Ailsa Craig. She has been involved in the long-term seabird studies on the Isle of May since 1980, initiating much of the work using loggers and, following Mike's retirement, running the CEH's seabird research studies for ten years. The results of Mike and Sarah's joint studies have been published in many scientific papers and presented at numerous national and international conferences. In recognition of their contribution to seabird ecology and conservation they have received a number of awards and prizes