Penguins On Parade!
“Endearing” is a very apt word for penguins. The memory of visiting their southern, antarctic realm and witnessing the lives they lead is a pleasure. Sharing some of those distant opportunities (just last November: eons ago!) is perhaps a welcome distraction from the unending onslaught of COVID-19 news.
A group of rockhoppers headed from their nests to the water.
The hardest part is selecting just these few images, when there are hundreds of penguin photos to choose from! Here are twenty-one, plus a video, to cheer you in your coronavirus bunker.
Remote, windy nesting colonies of gentoo penguins.
The St. Andrews plain and its immense king penguin colony
We encountered seven of the 17 penguin species on our journey to the southern end of the planet in November 2019. In the Falklands, we saw Magellanic and gentoo and rockhopper penguins. The gentoo colony we visited consisted of sandy mounds on a spare, desolate beach. The only protection from the wind was their own prone bodies lying on the eggs.
An adult king penguin with chicks. Note the one fledging to its adult plumage, and the adult (head down, pecking at the itchiness!) in the midst of molting.
One of the king penguin colonies, at St. Andrews Bay on South Georgia, was a vast city of around 200,000 breeding pairs. There, couples were hooking up to mate while also still tending their nearly year-old brown bundles of feathered chicks who were preparing to fledge and head to sea. It was something of a muddy mess, and very raucous!
King penguins threading their way past the bigger wildlife
A solitary gentoo penguin amidst a sea of king penguins
On a different beach in South Georgia (Gold Harbour), the scene was pure nature as crowds of King and gentoo penguins threaded among harems of elephant seal and Antarctic fur seals. In places, the feathers from molting were like snowfall. King penguins have stunning coloring. Up close, the skin of their feet looks reptilian.
A king and a gentoo head out to sea at sunrise, Gold Harbour
I’ll never tire of watching penguins ambulate like tuxedo’d and proper little fellas. To see them swim is another matter; it is an aquatic, powerful version of flight. Sometimes they “porpoise” through the water, propelling themselves in and out of the water like darts, often in large groups. One day, a group swam close to the ship at anchor in crystal clear blue water.
Further south, we encountered chinstrap penguins and Adelie penguins. It’s not hard to guess how chinstraps got their names, but the Adelie name? French explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville named them after his wife when he discovered them in 1840.
It’s easy to see why they’re called chinstrap penguins!
Penguins elevate their beaks when uttering their calls. Magical.
An Adelie carrying a rock back to add to its nest
To be honest, all the penguin species are struggling. Declining numbers are likely due to the warming planet and various impacts on krill, their primary food. [Recommended reading: Frasier’s Penguins: A Journey to the Future in Antarctica, by Fen Montaigne (NYC: Henry Holt, 2010)] If you go to Antarctica, please go responsibly. The place is beginning to strain under the onslaught of visitors. For example, the numbers were up 40 percent from 2018 to 2019, from 56,000 to 78,500. [Source: nytimes.com/2020/02/26/travel/antarctica-tourism-environment-safety.html, accessed April 25, 2020]
A parade of Adelie penguins
Molted feathers accumulate like snow, sometimes in drifts
In November, we were treated to a very rare viewing: Emperor penguins, the largest of all, standing up to 45 inches tall! (Sorry: no good images.) These remarkable birds colonize well-inland, up to 50 miles from open ocean. They don’t build nests. Rather, the males, balancing their eggs on their feet protected by a brood pouch, huddle together for warmth for about two winter months while the females forage at sea. Emperor penguins dive the deepest of all (1850 feet), and can stay underwater for up to 20 minutes.
Powerful pectoral muscles propel penguins in water as if they are flying
A very curious king penguin chick!
In all, every penguin I’ve ever met is remarkable. And each can always elicit a smile and flare of tender fondness from me. They are a wonderful tonic for these difficult times.
[Our hosts were the outstanding people at National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions. See more at nationalgeographic.com/expeditions/]
