Gentoo
penguins - Pygoscelis papua
 Gentoo penguins are the largest
of the Pygoscelis penguins, though not by much
they average about
5.5kg and 71cm tall for the southern gentoo and about 0.7kg heavier and
10cm taller for the northern gentoo. The northern subspecies nests on and
around the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, while the southern
subspecies nests as far south as the Antarctic peninsula to 65 degrees
south.
Gentoos are one of the most laid back of
penguins, while they do have their noisy moments, particularly at nest
building time, they are no where near as aggressive and raucous as adélies
and chinstraps for instance. By comparison a gentoo colony is a calm and
far more sedate place. |
 A parent gentoo feeding its
chick.
The chick is very close to fledging judging by its size. Penguin
chicks because they are covered in thick down before they gain their adult
feathers frequently look bigger than the adults that they are feeding
from, it's largely fluff though and once they shed the down and grow the
adult feathers they seem to shrink a few sizes.
This feeding is clearly taking place
away from the main colony. As the chicks get bigger they beg for food from
almost any adult that comes their way. It is only in the adults interest
to feed their own chicks, so there is often a chase right through and away
from the colony with much calling to each other while the adult
establishes that this really is their chick.
A feature seen in this photograph that
surprises people is how green some bits of Antarctica can appear away from
the snow and ice. This area is covered in snow and ice in the winter, but
in the warmer months, this melts exposing rocks and an extensive
carpet of moss (not grass), in other areas, large expanses of green turn
out to be lichens growing on the bare rock. |
 You can just about make out under
the parent that the egg has cracked and there's an as yet upside down foot
as the hatchling struggles out of its shell.
Gentoo penguins are the last to arrive
on their nesting sites at the southern limits of their range. Unlike other
species that nest alongside them nearer to the Antarctic mainland, they
wait until the sea ice has retreated before heading for the nesting
grounds. |
 These gentoo nests are spaced out in a way that nearly all penguin
nests are spaced out, at just over two "attack lengths" apart.
If a penguin sitting on its nest can get a peck at a nearby or passing
penguin, then it will usually do so. The resulting spacing is that
penguins sitting on adjacent nests are just that bit too far away to reach
each other, so neither feels immediately threatened and peace ensues. It
reminds me of House of Commons in the English Parliament where the
government and opposition benches are situated just over two sword lengths
apart, should the honourable gentlemen have decided to circumvent the
electorate in the days when that sort of thing went on.
The down side of this arrangement is
that when a penguin wants to leave the nest to go fishing, or if it's
coming back from fishing, it becomes in range of both beaks from the
adjacent nests when walking through the colony. So for the time from
arrival at the colony in the spring to when the chicks have grown up a bit
and hang around off the nest in "crèches", coming and going can
be quite painful for these hardy birds. |
 Looking as cute as any baby bird can, penguin chicks of this age are
food processing machines.
With a relatively late start to the season
compared to many other birds and the need to leave early before it begins
to get cold with the threat of sea-ice arriving, Antarctic animals have to
grow fast to survive.
This shot taken with only a moderate
telephoto lens shows how close you can get to the nest without disturbing
the penguins or chicks. This was taken on Signy Island part of the South
Orkneys group when the only humans that the wildlife encountered were
occasional scientists who lived at the scientific base elsewhere on the
island. Increasing tourist pressure on certain regions of Antarctica,
particularly around the Antarctic Peninsula mean that for many people who
visit the Antarctic, it is not possible to take such pictures. If the
tourists that visited were allowed to get this close to the wildlife on a
regular basis, the wildlife would soon up sticks (or stones) and
disappear. |
 There area a number of long term
scientific projects in the Antarctic
one of them being an annual survey
of penguin numbers and breeding success at specific breeding areas. These
pictures (taken 5 minutes apart) show such a survey of an adélie penguin
colony on Signy Island in the South Orkneys group. As
they look rather similar it's not easy to know which penguins you've
counted and which you haven't. So the answer is to use very dilute paint
and tie a brush to the end of a stick, giving each counted penguin a
splodge as you count them. The problem on this day was that the rather wet
snow that fell meant that the paint mark that was supposed to wash off the
next time the penguin went swimming, lasted only a few minutes instead. It
didn't make it any easier that the penguins kept laying down and hiding
their paint marks as they tried to shield themselves from the worst of the
snow. |
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7/
Learning to swim |
 
This is one of my favourite events
that I was privileged to see when I
was in Antarctica. Gentoo penguins -
one of my favourite Antarctic
animals being cute, comic and noble
all at the same time. The
Gentoos - they're the ones with the
orange beaks - in these
pictures are youngsters that have
only just moulted their juvenile
down and have grown their adult
plumage, though are the penguin
equivalent of young teenagers I
guess.
It
was a calm, mild day and nearly all
of the adult birds were off fishing
in the favourable conditions leaving
the youngsters behind in their
crèche. For some reason, though
these birds had never been in the
sea before, they decided pretty much
altogether that it was time to learn
to swim and so they all waddle down
to the shore-line where there is
only a very gentle swell with waves
of just an inch or two high coming
in - ideal conditions.
Unlike seals, penguins learn to swim
without their parents and these
started off paddling in the
shallows. Some of the less
adventurous types mis-timing the
waves and suddenly getting about two
inches of water over their feet
would turn round and run back up the
beach flippers outstretched in
considerable horror. Eventually,
they did all end up standing around
in the water like a collection of
matronly old aunts "taking the
waters", they'd go in up their
waists (or where the waist would be
if they had one) and look quite
pleased with themselves waving their
flippers around a bit. Every now and
then, one of those pesky waves would
come again and take them by
surprise, so it was jump up,
flippers out and all rush out of the
sea again. All in all it was about
half an hour before they were all
standing in the water and appeared
to be anything like comfortable with
being there.
A few
of them laid down in water about 2
or 3 inches deep and put their beak
in the water, a bit like children
daring themselves to put their face
in the water, then over the next
half an hour or so, they moved back
out of the sea and went back to wait
for mum and dad to come with an
after-dip snack.
Other
penguin species are much more
forthright about the whole process,
Adélies for instance, stand en-masse
at the waters edge and then jump
into "the deep end" right from the
start. I thought the Gentoo approach
was far more civilized and genteel. |
 No its not a gentoo penguin in fancy
dress!this is a different type
altogether. Named macaronis after some 18th century English travellers who
took on some of the more flamboyant European fashions.
Macaroni penguins
with their bright yellow crest feathers nest on Antarctic islands, in
greatest numbers on South Georgia and Heard Island. They are about 4.2kg
in weight and some 70cm tall, superficially they are similar to the
smaller rockhopper penguins that they are frequently found nesting nearby. |
Antarctica Fact File Index
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