A stranded puffin has been rescued after being found more than a hundred miles away from its natural coastal habitat.
The seabird was blown off course before landing in a garden in landlocked Hereford, England, where it was found by a concerned homeowner who took it to a veterinary office.
It is believed the lost puffin was trying to make its way back to the cliffs of Skomer or its nearby Island in Pembrokeshire, Wales—110 miles (177km) away.
Vets for Pets Hereford reported on Facebook Wednesday that the exhausted bird was weak and underweight, but they managed to nurture it back to health by feeding it a specialized formula designed for fish-eating birds.
“We were surprised, to say the least,” said Dr. Elliot Goodwin, the head surgeon. “Puffins never venture this far inland unless they’re disoriented or have been blown off course.
“It’s likely she was returning to her nesting site in West Wales and lost her way. Although she is not injured she is very tired from her inland holiday.”
The staff nicknamed the bird ‘Lovely Oona’—inspired by Puffin Rock & Friends animation—and she’ll be transported back to West Wales and released into the wild once she regains her full strength.
On that note, yesterday she started on solid food, after the office put out the call for a specific small sardine-like fish the staff couldn’t find.
“A lovely man called, and is bringing us some frozen Sprats,” they wrote in a Facebook update. And when Oona immediately ate two of them, they updated again: “We are over the moon.”
“It was a full team effort, from diagnosis to feeding and nutrition, everyone brought their expertise to the table,” said Dr. Elliot. “Even though we’ve treated many exotics before—including, lynx, meerkats and goshawks—this was our first puffin.”
“As you can imagine, we get phone calls about all sorts of wildlife and sometimes people get a bit confused, so we didn’t quite believe it was going to be a puffin but, sure enough, she came in with a puffin.”
They warned that the colorfully-billed birds usually travel in small groups, so encouraged residents to be on the lookout for other puffins that might have lost their way.
Puffins are a lot smaller than people realize, with healthy adults weighing less than a pound (14 ounces). Normally weighing 400 grams, Oona weighed just 218.
Dr. Sasha Norris, of Herefordshire Wildlife Rescue, said seabirds blown off course usually don’t make it—so Oona’s been very lucky.
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Living exclusively in coastal areas, and making their home on clifftops and islands, puffins are listed in the UK as a species of high conservation concern, but there are 580,000 breeding pairs here.
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