Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff has put his foot in it, so to speak, by musing about the humble puffin and its habits.

Earlier this week during a Liberal caucus retreat in St. John's, MPs and the media were treated to a whale-watching trip with party leader, Stephane Dion. The whales remained elusive, but the crowd spotted several of the colourful seabirds on the rocks.

Ignatieff later told reporters the puffin was a "noble bird," leading reporters to ask why.

"It's a noble bird, because it has good family values — they stay together for 30 years. They lay one egg, and they put their excrement in one place. They hide their excrement," he told them.

"They hide their excrement, they have good family values, they flap their wings very hard and they work like hell. This seems to me a symbol for what our party should be."

That ringing endorsement could cause some trouble for the Liberals. After years of trying to put space between themselves and the sponsorship scandal that helped to bring them down, the image of a bird hiding its excrement is not the symbol they want.