Piano-playing puffins entertain on RSPB's Coquet Island

There is more to life for puffins on a Northumberland island than catching fish and hatching eggs.

For starters, there is chance to join the musical band called The Puffets.

Staff on the RSPB Coquet Island reserve, off Amble, provide the puffins with entertainment opportunities and the birds do the rest.

The team has rigged up an electronic piano, which the puffins play by jumping on the keys.

“They run up and down the keyboard and produce a jazzy kind of music,” says Dr Paul Morrison, island site manager. The piano-playing puffins have been filmed by species protection assistant Matt Butler.

Paul, assistant warden Wesley Davies and research student Kaye Lowes have also laid on a child’s drum kit, bought at a car boot sale, which can be played by the birds tugging at strings.



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