Every year some kids in Iceland get to stay up late. They’re not watching TV or playing video games. They’re on Puffling Patrol. They’re saving adorable baby birds called pufflings.

Pufflings are chicks that will grow up to be puffins. Puffins spend most of their lives on the ocean. In the spring, many puffins lay eggs on the cliffs of Iceland’s Westman Islands. When the chicks hatch, they fly out to sea by going toward the Moon’s light. But on one of the islands, streetlights have caused problems. The pufflings get confused and go the wrong way, toward the streetlights. That’s why they need humans to help them.

Many kids and their parents go on Puffling Patrol. At night, they look for lost pufflings under cars and behind garbage bins. They pick up any pufflings they find and take them home. The next morning, the kids take the pufflings to the cliffs, by the ocean. Sometimes they toss the pufflings into the air. Other times they just put the chicks on the ground near the edge of the cliff. Either way, the pufflings do what they’re supposed to do. They fly out toward the ocean, where they belong.

The Puffling Patrol is very important. The puffin population has fallen in recent years because of climate change. By saving the pufflings, kids are giving them a chance to grow into adults. At some point, those same puffins will probably return to the Westman Islands to lay eggs, so new puffins can be born.