September is a time of little sleep for Sandra Sif Sigvardsdóttir. “It’s puffling season,” she says. “I’ll sleep in November.”
Beyoncé plays on the radio as she and her sister Berglind drive up and down the streets of Vestmannaeyjar. Heimaey, meaning “home island,” is the only inhabited island in Iceland’s Westman Islands. It’s also home to the largest colony of Atlantic puffins in the world.
Berglind slams on the brakes and throws the dark blue SUV into park in the middle of the road. Sandra Sif sprints toward a flash of fluff and comes back smiling. In her hand is a puffin chick ― called a puffling, or pysja in Icelandic. She places the black and white seabird, about the size of a soda can, carefully in a cardboard box in the trunk.
On Heimaey, gas is about $9 a gallon, but that doesn’t stop the Sigvardsdóttir sisters from covering some serious ground between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. every night in September. “We don’t have to go to the gym in September,” she jokes.
They are the top puffling rescuers on the island. This year, they beat their all-time season high, saving 261 pufflings stranded in the streets. | 
