Wednesday, 8 Jan 2003
SEATTLE, Wash.
One of our guides joked that there are only two species of penguins: the black ones walking away from you and the white ones coming towards you. Actually, there are 17 species worldwide. We saw three on our trip: chinstrap, gentoo, and adelie.
Two indomitable Chinstrap Penguins enjoy the view from a peak on Half Moon Island.
When we reached the South Shetland Islands, just north of the Antarctic Peninsula, we used the small, inflatable Zodiacs on our ship to land at Aitcho Island (pronounced "ho" after the British Hydrographic Office). Here, the penguins were gentoos and chinstraps. Gentoo penguins have orange beaks and look much like images of penguins you're probably familiar with. Chinstrap penguins have black beaks with a thin black line running under their chins as if they are wearing a helmet -- hence the name.
I hiked over the first ridge on the island, avoiding curious chinstrap penguins, to see five large juvenile elephant seals sleeping alongside each other. This is when the magic of Antarctica that I'd only imagined began to come to life for me. We were instructed to remain at least 15 feet from wildlife. However, most Antarctic animals do not have any land-based predators, so they are often quite relaxed and won't hesitate to approach you if you remain still.
Penguins live most of their lives at sea, coming ashore only to breed and nest. The penguin rookeries that we visited here and elsewhere were fairly small in size, with populations probably numbering in the hundreds. Others are home to thousands of birds. All of them are noisy places, often covered in penguin guano, and consequently quite smelly.
A stoic Gentoo Penguin coaxes a curious glance from a nearby Elephant Seal at Aitcho Island.
The Antarctic summer is short, so the rookeries tend to be hotbeds of activity. When I came ashore, I could see them stretching hundreds of feet from the water's edge onto steep hillsides covered by snow and rocks. The penguins use pebbles and small rocks to build nests within a few feet of other nesting penguins. Usually, you'd see one penguin lying on the nest above one or two eggs. Meanwhile, the penguins that were wandering around back and forth through the colony or to or from the sea would attempt to steal pebbles from other nesting penguins. Pebble thievery is an ongoing activity in penguin rookeries and makes a fun spectator sport.
Overhead, large brown seabirds called Skua circle the colonies, watching for any sign of distracted penguins and unprotected eggs. The penguins seem to have a cooperative neighborhood Skua watch, taking turns barking at the birds as they fly over different areas of the colony. Tourists occasionally distract the penguins enough to allow Skuas to steal an egg -- as happened at our first site visit -- but otherwise the penguins are fairly unaffected by us.
I learned later on the boat from a BBC video series called Life in the Freezer that chinstrap penguins mate for life and can find their mates from amongst thousands of other identical looking birds by sound. Once chicks are born, the parents take turns gathering food by hiking up and down hillsides to and from predator-infested seas. Killer whales and leopard seals can eat up to six penguins an hour near the rookeries. Wounded chinstraps lucky enough to escape will hike back to their nests or die trying. The video of a bloody wounded chinstrap collapsing from exhaustion en route to its nest touched me. I already thought penguins were cute, but after seeing this, I had a deep respect for these amazing survivors.
Are these pictures of the same penguin?
From the ship, we often saw penguins as dark specks in the distance resting in groups on ledges of icebergs. Sharp claws on their feet allow them to scale fairly steep ice. Occasionally, we'd also see them swimming in porpoise-like fashion alongside the ship. In the water, penguins are incredibly graceful and speedy.
Towards the end of our trip at Cuverville Island, we were lucky to encounter a rare gray leucistic gentoo penguin. After returning home, I found a photo of a leucistic penguin chick at MickTravels.com taken at the same island in 1999. You be the judge -- are these pictures the same penguin?
Comments
View as Flat