|
 |
Adélie
Penguins
Pygoscelis adeliae
|
Estimated
population:
2.5 million breeding pairs |
| Breeding
Season: November - February |
| Distribution: Antarctic continent and sub-Antarctic islands.
The second most southerly breeding penguin species (after the
emperor) |
Height: 70cm
- 27.5inches
Weight: 5kg - 11lb |
 Average Weight: 5kg - 11lb - feels more than this though
when you've upset one and it's ran up and attacked you by hanging off your thigh
muscle with its beak, like 5 bags of sugar dangling from a pair of pliers attached
to your leg.
Average Height: 70cm - 27.5inches
Breeding Season: November - February - Adélie penguin
colonies are very loud, raucous, busy and smelly affairs. The call of an adélie
is as musical and gentle as a braying jackass and the whole colony is awash
with guano (posh word for bird poop). When I was in Antarctica one thing
I did was help with long-term surveys which entailed walking through the colony
(terribly frowned upon these days). Each nest is just over two pecking distances
apart so the penguins can't reach each other. Of course walking through the
middle meant that you were in range of everyone. I used to worry a lot about
falling over in a penguin colony, covered from head to toe in guano and pecked
mercilessly.
Reproduction: Large colonies of
up to half a million birds. Nests are lined with pebbles, and slightly higher
than the surrounding land so that if the temperature rises and the snow melts,
the nest is not flooded. The males arrive first on the nesting site at the beginning
of the season and start the nest, then both partners work on the nest. Usually
two eggs are laid, rarely three. Incubation of the first egg is 35 - 37 days,
and the second chick is a few days behind the first. Male and female parent
share egg and chick duty. Chicks are fed regurgitated krill (yum!) The chicks
become independent at about two months old.
Estimated world population: - 5 million breeding
pairs
Distribution: Circumpolar, tend to be found within
the pack ice.
Oldest Rookery - At least 6,335 years old. The places
where penguins nest together are called rookeries. These are started and later
abandoned for reasons that are not entirely clear. Archaeological type studies
have found that these rookeries are often continually used for many hundreds
of years, even thousands. The oldest so far found has been used every year since
well before 4 000 BC.
Adélie penguins are scared of:
Leopard seals - main predators of adult birds, and Skuas
-
prey on eggs and chicks on land. They are not scared of the "Ice Man",
"The Thing" or falling over on their backs and not being able to get up again
- the first Antarctic "Urban Myth".
 There
are more Adélie penguins than any other penguin species. They live in the deep south
and as such frequently have to cross many kilometres of ice still bound to the continent
or islands to reach land in the spring where they can build their nests.
Sometimes they have to travel as much as 100 kilometres,
though usually 20-40 is more usual. A long walk nevertheless.
This pair were early arrivals in spring at an
Antarctic Island near the northern edge of their breeding range and only had about
half a kilometre to waddle and "toboggan".
Tobogganing is a way of getting around where there
is smooth snow or ice. The penguin lies on its stomach and propels itself along
using its feet, an efficient use of energy and one where the penguin can easily
keep up with a running man.
 Adélies
winter on the pack ice where the air temperature is
higher than on land and
where they can find cracks in the ice to fish through. In October, they
begin to move south to their breeding grounds, the males arriving first
to establish territories and nest spaces with the females arriving shortly
afterwards.
This is one of the first males arriving
back in the spring before the remainder of the sea-ice has broken away.
|
 These
Adélies have a problem, they went out fishing at high tide and now. some
hours later have returned. In the meantime the tide has gone out.
Still attached to the land
is the "ice-foot" an ice step left behind as the tide rises and falls in
the winter months to which the floating sea ice is loosely attached. When
the sea ice breaks out, the ice-foot is left behind for a period of days
to weeks before rising temperatures and the waves cause this to break off
too.
What was a short hop down
for the penguins is now a step too high for them. I spent a couple of hours
one afternoon watching and following an ever increasing number of penguins
as they came back from their fishing trip. They wandered up and down the
shore-line trying to find somewhere to get up, but to no avail. Eventually,
the tide came back in and so they floated back up to the right level and
were able to get back to their nests. The ice-foot broke off completely
a few days later in a mild storm.
|
 More
of the Adélies stuck at low tide.
The ice-foot is more evident in this picture
and the number of penguins is building up, by the time the tide was rising
enough to float the grounded "bergy bits" that the birds are standing on,
there were about 50 or so penguins standing around before they could get
back up.
|
This proved a difficult subject to capture on film.
A high contrast subject in bright light against
a high contrast background poses an extreme problem in terms of exposure.
The answer in this as in many other similar cases was to take an exposure
reading off a neutral mid grey subject, set the camera for this and ignore
anything the light meter told you when pointing at the real subject. After
much experimentation, the ideal grey subject for metering turned out to
be the pale grey moleskin trousers that I wore (moleskin is a kind
of thick warm cotton fabric, it's not really made from moles!). A very happy
coincidence.
|
 What
a handsome fellow! This male adélie is a bit late compared to the others
around him who have in the main already paired and nested.
The males arrive at the breeding grounds
first, find a good spot and then go through this display with much raucous
calling and flipper waving to attract a suitably impressed female. (A similar
ritual is re-enacted on Friday and Saturday evenings at bars and clubs the
world over)
This shot also shows the half-feathered
beak characteristic of Adélie and how stocky and powerful they are despite
their diminutive stature. A friend I was with on a similar occasion was
attacked by an unhappy adélie that had decided he was too close to the nest.
My friend described it as "..like having 5kg of solid muscle hanging from
your skin by a pair of pliers" - don't try this at home.
|
|
7/ Adelie penguins
(Pygoscelis adeliae) tobogganing |
 Tobogganing Adelie penguins (and a lone chinstrap
in the fore-ground). All types of penguin that come across snow and ice can
and will toboggan in this manner. It is a very efficient and rapid way
of moving when the conditions are right - soft snow, but where the penguin
only sinks a little way into it, needing less energy than walking the
same distance. The penguin lays on it's front and pushes its way forwards
using its feet, the flippers are used for balance or sometimes as oars
to help forwards movement. A considerable speed can be reached for short
distances in this way, enough to out pace a running man.
|
|
8/ Penguin dive |
Antarctic penguins run a constant risk when entering
or leaving the water from the almost ever-present danger of their main
predator, the leopard seal. Leopard seals tend not to chase penguins
in open sea, but hang around the places where they jump into the sea
from their nesting areas, or where they leave the sea again as this is
gives much more productive hunting.
This gives the penguins a problem when going into the
sea, they have to enter it to go fishing and to get places, but being
the first one in means that they're first in line for any potential
leopard seals. Hanging back isn't any better though as they may get left
behind and end up jumping in on their own. What happens therefore is
that they gather at the edge of the water becoming quite animated and
jostling for position until one near to the edge gets pushed or jumps in
- that's the signal for the rest, as the odds of survival are far
greater when you're part of a large group, they then all dive in in
rapid succession.
|
|
9/
Surprise! - where did you come from? |
 These penguins were walking, waddling and tobogganing
up and down the area beneath the ice foot looking somewhere to get out.
So I thought I'd play a little trick, squat down out of view and
wait for them to turn the corner - no I didn't jump up and shout
"surprise!", but the comic effect of the first bird's reaction to
realising he was coming towards me at high speed is evident.
Fortunately I managed to get this shot
off and capture the moment before moving sea-wards (to the left) and
allowing their progress to continue, they were back again a few minutes
later though as all they could really do was wait for the tide to come
in and raise them up to the right level.
|
 When
the parents go off to sea to catch fish for the chicks, the chicks have
little to do other than stand around and try not to get into trouble.
This doesn't always work in the way that
it is supposed to, rather like human children, penguin chicks fall over
sometimes and get a bit dirty!
|
Antarctica Fact File Index
| | |
| 
