Penguins Splash In The New Year

Time was when the only holiday celebrating at Ocean City, Md., was done by the seagulls feasting on a washed-up fish in the surf.
Today, human tourists and locals who partied all summer long make their way to the beach for some holiday cheer of their own.
These visitors are discovering the joy of fireworks over the waves followed by watching the first sunrise of the year, in all its glory and colorful reflection on the cold waves.
As part of Ocean City’s “Winterfest of Lights,” the Avenue of Trees along Baltimore Avenue between 15th and 32nd streets is aglow as part of more than 1 million holiday lights and animated displays sparkling throughout town.
And like the holiday glow brightening every street corner, New Year’s Eve is a townwide celebration at any of the hundreds of hotels and restaurants that have marked memorable times for summer visitors.
Many downtown hotels such as Howard Johnson’s Beachfront Hotel at 12th Street offer New Year’s Eve packages and Winterfest packages.
At the iconic Carousel Resort Hotel, famous for its indoor ice rink in the lobby, an affordable New Year’s Eve package features a retro 1970’s party with DJ, open bar, hors d’oeuvres and a champagne toast at midnight.
“There will also be a balloon drop with party favors and a two-night stay included in the package price,” noted Carousel’s catering director, Kim R. Heffner.
Other large hotels offering spectacular packages are Clarion Resort, Dunes Manor, The Grand Hotel, The Edge & Lighthouse Club Hotel at Fager’s Island and the Princess Royale.
The Princess Royal is also the site of a great Ocean City New Year’s Day tradition. The “Sixteenth Annual Penguin Swim” is a fundraising event to benefit the nearby Berlin’s Atlantic General Hospital Foundation. Hospital spokeswoman, Amy Unger, noted that the 2009 swim “…raised over $73,000 in support of the hospital’s mission, ‘To provide quality care, personalized service and education to improve individual and community health.’”
But the philanthropic aspect of “The Penguin Swim” is only the half of it. The event is fun! Participants gather at the hotel at 12:00 pm to register for the 1:00 pm plunge. Afterwards, prizes and refreshments are given out in the atrium area of the hotel’s lobby.
“It works very much like a walk-a-thon,” said Toni Keiser, Vice President of Public Relations at the hospital. “The swimmers get sponsors and they’re off.”
The brave-hearted “penguins” can wear wet suits if they like, or they can play it safe and just dip one toe into the surf.
“Over the years I have watched [the fundraiser] grow with visitors from Baltimore, Washington and New York, “Keiser continued. “It’s become an annual tradition.”

Penguins On Lake Michigan?

If you happen to find yourself on the northwest Indiana’s Lake Michigan shore, and spot what looks like a small penguin, it’s not your imagination.  Unfortunately, it’s also not a penguin. It’s an ancient murrelet, a biological cousin of the puffin (the northern hemisphere’s flying version of a penguin)  that lives in Alaska and winters in the Pacific Northwest.
“For a lot of birders, this was their Christmas gift,” says Indiana state parks naturalist Brad Bumgardner.
According to Bumgardner, Valparaiso birder John Kendall — a record-setter when it comes to spotting bird species — saw the football-sized bird floating with a grebe in the water Dec. 18 off the breakwall at the Port of Indiana.
“This would be only the third murrelet spotted in Indiana,” Bumgardner said. “It may be the same one that was seen in the harbor at St. Joseph, Mich., last month. It’s kind of small, so it gets picked on by the gulls and other birds.”
He couldn’t offer an explanation of how the bird strayed so far from home.  But, had it been an actual penguin, that would have really been some straying.

Only three ancient murrelets have been reported in Indiana.

Baby King Penguin Stars At Edinburgh Zoo

The Penguin Post has learned that the penguin keepers in Edinburgh have been celebrating the first king penguin chick born at Edinburgh Zoo in five years.
The fluffy brown bundle of fun will be easy for visitors to spot in the zoo’s penguin parade this Christmas. At almost two months old, the feisty arrival has not been named as it is still too young to tell if it is a boy or girl. The chick took staff at the zoo by surprise, surviving against the odds to be born just in time to delight visitors this Christmas.
King penguins are notoriously difficult to breed, as other penguins can become jealous and try to wrest the egg from its parents, often damaging it. Keepers had to isolate the parents and egg to protect the new chick.
Penguin keeper Lynda Burrill said: “This chick was a total surprise to us. King penguins normally lay eggs in June and July but this egg arrived in late August. In October the chick started to break out of the egg and a couple of days later the new arrival emerged.
“It’s a feisty little character, if one of the other adults gets too close it will stand up for itself and have a peck at them. It will hopefully be fully integrated into the group in the next week or so.”
The zoo was the first in the world to exhibit and breed penguins. The three king penguins that arrived on a Christian Salvesen whaling expedition in January 1914, were the first ones ever seen outside the South Atlantic.

Scottish Penguin Chick Warms Up The Winter

Chilly U.K. Doesn’t Bother Penguins

These U.K. penguins may be far from home but they have certainly got Happy Feet.  Humans might be feeling the chilly weather, but King Penguins and Humboldt Penguin at Birdland in Gloustershire have been enjoying the icy conditions.
The birds from Antarctica and South America have been happily marching their way through the snow in Bourton-on-the-Water.
But fortunately the people in Gloucestershire will be waking up to a slightly warmer morning today than the county has been experiencing – with temperatures predicted to be above freezing for th first time all week.
Those hoping to mark Christmas day by building a traditional snowman may be disappointed although we’re sure the penguins won’t mind the chilly rain at all.

Chilly young visitor to Birdland takes a look at her favorite waddlers

Santa Brings Us A New & Old Penguin

While we were all busy yesterday afternoon wrapping  presents, cooking and getting ready for Christmas Eve, Santa (AKA Laury the UPS lady) surprised us a bit early with a couple of special delivery boxes of Penguin Place presents.  I’m happy to say that one was a large box containing our long lost, very cute Jumbo Emperor Penguin Chick Plush that has been out of stock since October, and the other was a smallish, heavy and very minty  smelling box that contained a whole lot of tins containing PINGOS Icy Fresh Peppermint Candies.  Just in time to help get that egg nog off your breath.

Minty Penguins!

Penguin Rookery Sale Starts Today!

After opening  presents and a non traditional Christmas  morning breakfast of challah french toast with sprinkles it was back to work for a couple of hours for yours truly, adding about 50 items to our Penguin Place Sale Page which brings the total amount of penguins on sale to an iceberg size 160!  We’ll be making a formal announcement tomorrow.

These great kids penguin boots are now only $19.95

Six Brides for Six Penguins

The New England Aquarium may not have six geese a-laying, as the Christmas carol dictates, but it does have six new penguins a-swimming.
Six female rockhopper penguins were released into the penguin pool yesterday in time for the holiday, arriving from SeaWorld in Orlando.
New England Aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse told the Penguin Post that the newcomers, which are native to southern Argentina and Chile, were adapting well to their new home.
“They just went into the exhibit this morning with little disruption,’’ LaCasse said. “Everyone’s figuring things out.’’
Aquarium officials hope the addition of the six females, which range from 1 to 9 years old, will spark romantic interest in the male-dominated tank and bolster the penguin population.
LaCasse said penguins typically find a mate and remain monogamous. They stand 18 to 20 inches high and weigh about 5 pounds. Rockhopper penguins typically have a 30-year life span in aquariums and up to 20 years in the wild, he said.
The new arrivals bring the aquarium’s penguin population to nearly 90 birds, from different species.

Andrea Desjardins, a biologist at New England Aquarium, was taking photos yesterday as the new birds got to know the old ones. The newly arrived rockhoppers, known for their yellow-feathered foreheads, are found mostly in Argentina and Chile.

Merry Penguin Christmas

At least my computer had the courtesy to go kaputski a couple of days before Christmas.  I was able to check orders via my wife’s laptop to see if anyone needed a last minute next day air penguin, but other than that I couldn’t do much.  Had this happened a few days before it would have been crazy.  By all appearances it looks like Penguin Place got 99.9% of our penguins out to everyone safe and sound and in time for Santa’s milk and cookies.  There may have been a couple of international orders that are being held up at customs or have gone astray, but all in all our little penguin company did o.k. this season.   We’d just like to wish everyone a healthy, happy and waddling Christmas and may Santa bring you all the penguins on your list.

Merry Penguin Christmas

Penguin Computer Electrocuted

On Tuesday evening I fried my computer. Literally. The sequence of events leading up to this began on Sunday afternoon when my daughter suggested we go ice skating for the “open skate” session a couple of hours before our scheduled skating lesson. She loves ice skating and she convinced me to sign up for lessons as well so we could take them together. Unfortunately, we don’t take them together, but that’s another story.  So anyway,  we skated for 90 minutes in the open skate, then had an hour long lesson, then we stayed on the ice another 45 minutes for the skate class Holiday Party.  Great cupcake btw.   Needless to say the next morning I was pretty sore.  Still, one must answer the call so the following morning (Monday) and after dropping the kids off at school I reported to Penguin Place and worked all day sending out a few dozen last minute Penguin Place orders,  and when for some reason when my wife returned home from her job at 5:30 pm I headed out to play in my Monday night Domeball baseball game in Bernardston (which is about a half hour north of here).  I hadn’t played in a few weeks as it’s been too busy at Penguin Place, but I figured with me caught up at Penguin Place and the volume of orders down a bit with only a few days to go before Christmas I could swing it, and swing it I did. We won 14-4, I had three hits, drove in a couple, scored three times and pitched three innings. I even stole two bases!!  Unfortunately, the next morning I could hardly move. Between the skating, packing penguins, total lack of exorcise the past three months and some inspired baseball my body had virtually shut down. But, sadly I could not shut down. I still had to wake up at 7 a.m. take the kids to school and had to pack penguin orders all day, dragging my body with me all day long. The term schlepping  comes to mind.  That evening I shuffled or schlepped upstairs to check on any Penguin Place e-mails or phone messages.  I had been shuffling all day long on the carpet on my steps and upstairs, and apparently I had been building up so much static electricity that when I touch my computer there was an audible shock that nearly sent me flying and apparently completely fried my computer. At first I thought this only a temporary setback for my old reliable Mac, but when it wouldn’t respond the next morning I took it into the shop and the diagnosis was not good. My logic board was fried. I asked if it was possible that a static electrical shock could have caused this and the Mac Tech said they’ve never heard of such a thing, but my sister in law who is a Mac girl deluxe claims she’s heard of this happening.  So, people don’t build up 36 hours worth of shuffling and schlepping on carpet and then touch your computer or someone with a pacemaker.  Nothing good will come of it.

Baseball pals in nicer weather. That's me on the right. Notice the Penguins team shirt that Fio is wearing on the left.

Baby King Penguin Dances In Scotland

A baby king penguin enjoyed the snowy conditions at Edinburgh Zoo. The chick, almost two months old, is the first king penguin to be born at the zoo in five years. It will keep its fluffy brown feathers until it is ten months old before developing a waterproof black-and-white coat.

The chick is too young for zoo staff to be able to tell if it is male or female, so it has not been named yet.

Lynda Burrill, penguin keeper, said: “This chick was a total surprise to us. King penguins normally lay eggs in June and July but this egg arrived in late August.”