When faced with an intruder close to their burrow, puffins open their bills and lower their head, and may follow this action with bill grappling or kicking. They have a limited range of calls, including a low grumbling noise heard usually from underground in breeding colonies. Chicks often peep to indicate that they want food. When conspecifics fight, they spread their wings, open their mouths wide, stomp their feet, and wrestle with their opponents. Such displays often draw crowds of birds to watch.
Every year puffins over-winter out on the ocean.
Their waterproof feathers and their ability to drink salt water and catch fish make staying long periods on the sea possible. They disperse widely while at sea but return to the colony where they were born, and usually to the same mate, every year for breeding. It is unknown how they do this, but it is speculated that they use sounds, smells, or visual cues from the sky or the ocean to find their way home. Although puffins spend a majority of the year on the ocean, they build their nests on the shores of islands and coastal regions. They require shores with steep, grassy, sloping land with soil that allows them to burrow.