puffling

plural pufflings

1. A young puffin.

   When they're old enough the young puffins, or pufflings as they're called, have to fly off to find food.

   2009 September 3, “Kids patrol to help lost puffins”, in CBBC Newsround, archived from the original on 06 Mar 2016

   4 more examples

   These fish are brought to the fluffy little Puffins in their snug nests inside of a burrow or under a slab of rock. The babies are called “Pufflings.”

   1962, Robert Porter Allen, The Giant Golden Book of Birds: An Introduction to Familiar and Interesting Birds of the World, New York, N.Y.: Golden Press, →OCLC, page 54, column 2

   Visit Iceland this August and you could help to rescue pufflings – baby puffins – who get confused by town street lights and crash into towns when leaving their burrows to fly over the Atlantic for the first time.

   2006 May 7, “Escape’s picks of the week: The wildlife holiday”, in The Observer, London, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Sep 2014

   Whee-er-er, whee-er-er! the puffling cries because he is hungry. Mama puffin arrives and lays her mouthful of live fish close to the front of the burrow.

   2007, Katherine Zecca, A Puffin’s Year, [Camden, Me.]: Down East Books, →ISBN

   Both parents feed the infant puffling until it is very fat, then leave the chick, who must make its own way to the sea.

   2012, Arin Murphy-Hiscock, “Puffin”, in Birds: A Spiritual Field Guide: Explore the Symbology & Significance of These Divine Winged Messengers, Avon, Mass.: Adams Media, →ISBN, page 155