FW: Christmas Greetings from Promises

Dear PenguinPromises

The eggs have finally hatched, and your penguin now has two tiny baby penguins in the nest. At the moment the chicks are too small and fragile to send you a photo of them, as you will know from previous years.

When the chicks are so small they need very little food. Their main requirements are warmth and protection, so they spend most of their time hiding underneath Promises. Trying to take photos of the nervous chicks hiding in the nest under the parents would just cause disturbance, and would be unlikely to result in good photos.

So for now I attach a photo of another nest, where two chicks were visible for us to take a photo without causing any disturbance. Even so I barely managed to get the head. In January the chicks will begin leaving the nest for short periods of time, to stretch and to do flipper exercises, enabling us to get good photos of all the chicks.

There are two chicks in the attached photo, one has its head tucked inside the burrow, and the other is facing outwards. They are about 10 days old and have already grown considerably since hatching. The chicks have very few feathers when they hatch, which allows them to absorb warmth more easily from Promises.
Feathers are a barrier to heat transfer, so for the first few days it is better for the chicks to have less feathers.

If the idea of having less feathers to be warmer sounds strange, then you need to remember that for the first few days the chicks are unable to produce their own body heat. Feathers are like clothes. They keep us warm only because we produce internal heat, and clothes help our own internal heat from escaping. However if we do not produce internal heat then insulation serves no purpose.

That situation changes quickly as the chicks grow. During the first few days the chicks start producing their own heat, and then they grow feathers to keep that warmth inside. There is a simple reason why the production of heat and the growth of feathers begins after hatching.

An egg is a sealed unit that has just enough energy, protein and other materials necessary in the yolk to turn into a chick. Eggs cannot be fed or recharged, so the quantity of energy and materials must be exact. Producing heat uses a lot of energy, and eggs simply do not contain enough energy to allow the generation of heat prior to hatching. That is why heat generation begins after hatching, when the chicks are being fed by Promises.

The production of heat requires a lot of energy, as you will know at home from the cost of running an electric fire, or the time it takes to boil water. In animals food provides the energy that allows the production of internal heat.

That is why cold-blooded animals which do not produce their own heat (eg. snakes, spiders etc.) only need small amounts of food, and can live for long periods of time without eating at all. With no need to generate heat they can survive on very little energy. Producing internal heat requires a lot more energy and hence a lot more food. So warm-blooded animals (eg. humans, dogs, penguins, etc.) need to eat a lot more food in order to produce the heat that they require to stay alive. You could say that the eggs are cold-blooded, and the chicks then become warm-blooded after hatching, when they begin feeding.

Within about a week the chicks double their weight and begin to grow thick fluffy feathers, like the chicks in the photo. The chicks start producing their own body heat, and are then able to come out from underneath the adult for short periods of time. From then on the chicks hide underneath Promises for protection and security rather than for warmth.

For now the chicks are fed small portions of fish that is caught at sea and regurgitated by Promises. Penguins do not have teeth so they never chew their food. Everything is swallowed whole. The size of fish that penguins catch at sea is limited by the size of fish that they are able to swallow whole.

However penguins have large stomachs, and are able to swallow fish that are half the penguins' entire body length. That is like a human swallowing a baseball bat whole.

Penguins are very different anatomically. If you look at the penguins in the Christmas card attached, you will see that their body length is mostly made up of the head, neck and abdomen, and the legs are very short. Penguins are virtually stomachs on legs.

However the newly-born chicks are still small and delicate, and would choke if they were fed large pieces of fish. So the parents break down the fish caught at sea and regurgitate it as mushy 'baby food' for penguins. It is very similar to baby food for human babies, except that it is 100% fish. The majority of the diet is made up of Spratts, which are like large sardines.

In just one day penguin chicks grow and develop roughly what human babies would achieve in about 4 months. After just one week penguin chicks are at about the same stage as a two year old child, being able to walk, control their own internal body temperature, and only relying on their parents for food and protection.

At about 6 weeks of age penguin chicks are virtually independent except for food and shelter. They are being left at home unsupervised, exploring the outside world on their own, spending most of their time with their friends, and spreading their wings (literally) in preparation for leaving the nest.

I have mentioned before that large-scale commercial fishing is completely banned in the Straits of Magellan. Chile and Argentina also limit commercial fishing around other sensitive wildlife areas. That is one of the reasons that penguin populations are increasing here in the south.

However recently this good work is being damaged by fleets of illegal Chinese fishing boats that are poaching all around South America, damaging food resources for marine life such as penguins. Illegal Chinese fishing boats were intercepted right here in the Straits of Magellan only a couple of weeks ago, not far from the penguin colony.

Argentina is trying to defend their coast from this illegal fishing in the Atlantic Ocean, whilst Chile, Peru and Ecuador are working together along the Pacific coast. However it is very difficult to stop. Complaints made to China have been ignored, and the Chinese government seems to be actively promoting this activity.

Chile and Argentina both have very small naval forces, with just a handful of boats capable of enforcing the law, whilst the illegal fleets are made up of around one thousand boats this year. The boats spread out over hundreds of miles, and communicate with each other about the whereabouts of any naval vessels. They remain just outside the territorial waters if a naval vessel is in the area, where naval forces have no jurisdiction, and move in to steal fish where there is no naval presence. It is like a farmer trying to protect his crop by chasing off locusts.

I attach a link to an article from MercoPress about this problem:
https://en.mercopress.com/2020/11/06/chile-colombia-ecuador-and-peru-join-forces-to-combat-illegal-fishing

I will write to you again next month with a photo of the chicks. In the meantime I would like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Kind regards, Mike