In Praise of Penguin 337

Reprinted from an editorial from The Guardian in the U.K.

It’s always splendid to see the small grab big attention, and – a mere 60cm tall, too little even to be deemed a boy or girl – Penguin 337 has certainly done that. The bird’s great break from Tokyo Sea Life Park triggered wildly hopeful sightings right across Japan, some hundreds of miles away. His (or is that her?) confirmed discovery swimming serenely in nearby Tokyo bay was less dramatic, but established that this was one unflappable bird. Scaling the park’s 12-foot walls on flippers was no mean feat, but then 337′s Humboldt species is reliably game. These little Latin Americans look like classically cute waddlers in the Pingu mould, but are hardy and versatile. They can nest in the dry of the Atacama desert, and are – as BBC footage confirms – perfectly capable of skiing on sand, and indeed on the backs of sea lions. But they are vulnerable to warming seas. Let 337′s heartening dash for freedom serve as a reminder not to forget the soaring mercury.

Penguins Romancing The Stone

As crime waves go, there’s something very fishy about a series of thefts taking place at the London Aquarium.  As the mating season begins, ‘criminal’ Gentoo penguins have been stealing pebbles from rival nests.  This is not the Penguin Posts first encounter with penguin pebble thieves and we’re sure it won’t be the last, as with a stealthy glance over their shoulders, the fiendish birds quickly waddle to their neighbors’ unguarded nests, steal a stone and run back to their own nest.  In many cases it won’t be long before the ill-gotten stones will again be stolen by another bird or even the original owner. You can blame this circular crime wave on hormones more than anything else, but it’s a crime none the less. But as the number of break-ins increase, the Gentoos have become suspicious of their fellow colony members, and no one is beyond suspicion. If they notice a rival moving in to plunder their pebbles they quickly run back to defend their nests, keeping everyone on their webbed toes. The colony of 10, which arrived at the attraction last year, are in the middle of their first mating season at the aquarium. Males declare their interest in a female by selecting and presenting a ‘love token’ in the form of a pebble to their chosen female. If it is accepted, the couple then begin collecting more pebbles to line their doughnut-shaped nest. The birds build their stone nests to elevate and protect their eggs. Smooth pebbles are ‘like gold dust’ because they are easy to pick up and comfortable to lie on, according to those who tend to the birds. Hayley Clark, aquarist at the Sea Life London Aquarium, said extra pebbles had to be put into the enclosure after burglar Vladimir has conducted daily robberies on surrounding nests. She said: ‘Some of them are a little bit more tricky than the others, they keep an eye out for the owner of the nest before stealing. A couple of them will just run straight to a nest and will be chased off straight away. ‘They just prefer a certain type of pebble. Pebbles are like gold dust to these guys. ‘The male works out where he wants his nest and that is when he starts collecting pebbles. The female will join in as well after he has given her a few pebbles to place in the nest how she wants it. ‘It is like giving your girlfriend chocolate.’ Ms Clark added that there has been ‘a few tiffs’ over pebble thefts. ‘They will run over pretty sharpish and tell them where to go,’ she said. ‘It can get a little bit aggressive but they generally back away very quickly.’ No eggs have been seen yet but breeders are hoping that a few will turn up in the next few weeks. The pilfering activities of pesky penguins were also featured in the BBC’s Frozen Planet when crews captured Adelie penguins performing a similar thefts while filming in Antarctica.

Penguins keeping an eye on their precious pebbles.

Flying Penguins!

 

This report in from the BBC.  The discovery in a remote part of Western Antarctica of a rare colony of Adelie penguins that can actually fly!  This will change everything we thought we knew about penguins.

Penguins Use Spa Treatments to Keep Cool

The Penguin Post has learned via the BBC that King Penguin chicks are using mud baths to keep cool during  warm Summer days.  The birds use streams and thick, cooling mud to keep their large, fluffy bodies from overheating in summer temperatures that can reach 17C. A BBC film crew captured the behaviour in St Andrews Bay, South Georgia, whilst filming for the documentary Frozen Planet. The team set out to capture footage of chicks paddling in rivers and streams; the mud-bathing was “unexpected”. “I don’t think it’s been filmed before,” programme producer Miles Barton told BBC Nature. He and his colleagues spent a week with the bay’s penguin colony, documenting the behaviour of the birds. “These big fluffy chicks are on a 10-month cycle,” Mr Barton explained. “They have to be able to survive the winter and the summer.” Their thick downy coats protect them in winter temperatures on the sub-Antarctic island, which can fall to about -10C. But when the team arrived on the island in early November, they found penguin chicks lined up around the streams, apparently wanting to cool off in the mild summer sunshine. “The streams run off the glacier, so the water’s nice and chilly for them,” said Mr Barton. “But the problem is that their coats aren’t designed for swimming. “So we’d see one of them suddenly launch itself into the water, then leap up again almost immediately as if it was shocked to find itself in this alien element.” Occasionally though, a penguin would immerse itself and swim around much like the adult birds do. “But when the chicks got wet, they looked liked drowned rats,” Mr Barton recalled. He said that there was a serious and rather risky side to this comic cooling behaviour. If penguin chicks are caught in a strong current, they can be swept out to sea and large predatory seabirds, giant petrels, wait at the mouth of the stream to “pick off” any weak, struggling penguins. A safer and more comical method of cooling down that a few of the chicks were enticed by, was a dark, muddy pool. They appeared to use this as a spa. “What you don’t want to know is what was in that pool,” said Mr Barton. The island, he explained, is home to 400,000 penguins, so the beaches are covered with penguin waste and the remains – beaks, feathers, scales and bones – of dead birds. “That pool was the rotted remains of dead penguins and tons of penguin poo,” said Mr Barton. He recalled that the scenery and the penguin colony were beautiful, but that, like all penguin colonies, it “absolutely stank”. “It smells like a combination of rotting fish and the sea,” he explained. “But you kind of get used to it on the first day.”

King Penguin Chicks on South Georgia Island

Penguin Thief Caught On Tape

It’s no news to the Penguin Post that penguins pilfer nest building and courtship materials from other penguins. About 15 years ago I was personally presented with rocks by an unsuspecting “smitten” African penguin during courtship season inside the penguin house at the Baltimore Zoo.

Eric presented with a "hot" rock by an unsuspecting suiter at the Baltimore Zoo.

In this latest caught on film episode, this time involving penguins a bit further south of Baltimore an adult male Adelie penguin has been charged with grand theft rock. The suspect was last seen on Ross Island, Antarctica by a BBC film crew. Video evidence clearly shows the suspect repeatedly snatching stones from his neighbor’s nest. The one-and-half-foot-tall suspect was last seen wearing what appeared to be a tuxedo, unfortunately so were 250,000 other penguins in the area. Obviously a police line-up is out of the question. The pilfering penguin was caught on tape by a film crew working on the documentary Frozen Planet. The crew has spent the last four months on Ross Island. Penguins regularly steal stones from each other, but catching one in the act was hard to come by for cameraman Mark Smith because of the constant Antarctic anarchy of the penguin colony. For one thing, curious penguins kept peeking directly into the lens of his camera in an obvious attempt to shield the penguin thieves from the camera. “It’s appealing at first, but when it happens for the hundredth time as you’re trying to get the shots you need, you start to lose patience” (or get suspicious),  said Smith in an interview with the BBC. “It’s a testament to Mark’s patience and presence of mind, that he managed to leave the camera running and capture that moment,” Jeff Wilson, director of the shoot, told the BBC.Male penguins build their nests from stones to keep eggs safe and from the run-off of melting ice. The male with the biggest nest (the most stones) gives the greatest survival advantage to his offspring and is therefore also likely to get the penguin princess of his dreams. It may be where the envious saying comes from “that penguins got stones”.  Thus far the Penguin Police has yet to apprehend the pilfering penguin as no Adelie has waddled forward to press charges.