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Penguin adoption - Promises

Dear PenguinPromises

The penguins finished their annual moult, and left the colony on their winter migration to Brazil. The journey took them out of the Straits of Magellan, and up the coast of Argentina, and then Uruguay, until they finally reached the coast of Brazil.

It is a beautiful journey that follows a spectacular coastline. There are numerous lighthouses perched on top of tall cliffs, which would make ideal settings for a Netflix suspense movie. There are rocky coastlines with huge Atlantic waves crashing against them, and also lots of lovely sandy beaches. Of course penguins do not have an artistic eye for these things like humans do.

That kind of artistic beauty is very much a human concept. Sitting on a snow covered mountaintop looking out across the rivers and valleys below can be a spiritual experience for humans, and something which humans will go to long lengths to enjoy. Few animals share that concept. Dogs would love running up the mountain with you, but would they appreciate the beauty of the view from the top?

Even amongst humans the concept changes with circumstance. That same view would not be so beautiful to someone stranded on the mountain following a plane crash.
The basic needs of food, shelter and safety need to be met before the mind can spend time on artistic concepts. Few animals get beyond that constant struggle for food and safety, and have therefore not developed such complex conceptual thoughts.

However even though Promises cannot enjoy the beautiful coastline in the same way that we would, the penguins undoubtedly enjoy other aspects of their migration to Brazil. For a few weeks they are free from work and stress. They have no eggs to keep warm, no chicks to feed, and no moult to endure. Life is just rest and relaxation, with good food close by, and the ocean to rock them to sleep at night.
Penguins may enjoy their vacation in different ways to us, but they enjoy it just the same.

During the journey to Brazil, Promises picked up a lot of companions along the way. Along the coast of Argentina there are other colonies of Magellanic penguins, and these penguins all joined together on this epic migration to Brazil. It is the largest migration of penguins in the world.

Despite this enormous gathering of penguins, people living in Brazil are virtually unaware of their presence. The penguins remain off-shore, too far away to be seen from the land, but close enough for Promises to catch fish that live in the shallow coastal waters.

From the time they left the colony last month, until the time they return to the colony to lay eggs later this year, the penguins remain entirely out at sea.
They even sleep in the water, bobbing up and down on the waves.

Birds do not sleep in the same way that people do, and Promises will not go into a deep sleep. Like most birds, Promises will partially wake every few minutes throughout the night. There are some birds that even sleep whilst they are flying.

The Swift has such short legs that if it lands on flat ground it cannot take off again. Its legs are so short that it cannot even walk properly. It nests on cliffs and has no need of stronger legs. It flies by just falling out of the nest and opening its wings. When swifts are not nesting, they fly continuously to avoid predators. They fly for months and sleep whilst flying. Scientists believe that they do this by sleeping for just a second or two at a time.

Penguins are not really at risk from predators in the ocean off the coast of Brazil. They are too far north for Leopard seals, and too far south for penguin-eating sharks. Even so the instinct to remain alert, even during sleep, is an instinct shared by most animals in the wild. Just like the swifts, the penguins remain at sea 24/7 to avoid land-based predators, of which there are plenty in Brazil.
In Brazil there are even snakes big enough to eat a penguin whole, so it is safer to remain out at sea.

In addition to the Magellanic penguins like Promises, Rockhopper and Macaroni penguins from the Falklands and other South American off-shore islands, have also made their way towards Brazil. There are now more than 7 million penguins gathered along the coast of Brazil.

Rockhopper and Macaroni penguins are called 'crested penguins' because they have a yellow crest above their eye. At first glance both species look very much alike, but when you look more closely you can see that they are different. I attach photos of both.

Macaroni penguins have longer crests than Rockhoppers, and the crests are slightly more golden in colour. Both penguins have strange red eyes. Macaroni penguins are bigger and heavier than Rockhoppers. Despite that, Macaroni penguins are quiet and gentle, whilst the smaller Rockhoppers are noisy and aggressive. They are always squabbling with each other and with other penguins. Rockhoppers will bite literally anything that comes within pecking distance.

The reason we do not offer Rockhoppers for adoption is because they make no nest.
They lay their eggs on the rocky ground with no nest lining, and often nest in different places each year. Magellanic penguins are the only penguins in South America that are faithful to their nest year after year, making them easy to identify for the purposes of adoption.

I have spent many years working with Rockhoppers, and they always try pecking my ankles when I am trying to carefully move through the colony to do the population census. Rockhoppers often nest together with albatross, and will even try to bite the tips of the albatross wings if they dare to enter the Rockhoppers' airspace.

I attach a photo of one of the colonies I have studied since 1993, situated on Westpoint Island in the Falklands. You can see the albatross sitting in their large nests, and the small Rockhoppers nesting between them. Albatross have the largest wing-span of any bird, so disputes are inevitable when these two species nest so close together.

The albatross sit in their nests incubating their eggs for days at a time, and will obviously feel the need to stretch their wings once in a while, sparking off localized chaos as Rockhoppers nesting all around begin squawking and trying to bite the tips of the offending wings. A Rockhopper colony is never silent.

The reason that all these penguins are swimming from the south to the north at this time of year is because they are looking for better sunshine during the winter. In the southern half of the world we are now in our winter, and the days are very short and gloomy as you get nearer to the South Pole. With poor daylight it is difficult to see silvery fish deep under the water. It is difficult for Promises to catch fish if the fish are hidden in the gloom, so the penguins swim north to enjoy better daylight during the winter.

All these penguins swim northwards to Brazil where there is lots of nice sunshine at this time of year, and they remain here for a few weeks just resting and enjoying themselves. When spring approaches they will swim all the way back home in time to start laying eggs again in order to raise a new family of chicks.

Have you ever wondered why most fish in the sea are silver in colour? It is because the silvery scales of the fish reflect the light and make it harder for predators to see them under water. Even in good light silvery fish are hard to see. If you have ever tried looking for fish in a river or a pond, you will know how hard they are to spot if they are silver. By contrast, goldfish are easy to see, even in a large pond.

Goldfish were artificially bred as ornamental pond fish. People who buy fish for ponds want to be able to see the fish that they buy. So more than one thousand years ago the Chinese modified silvery carp to become golden red in colour, so that they are easy to see and nice to look at in ponds.

Goldfish might be nice as pets, but they would not last long out at sea. Being such a bright colour Promises and other predators would be able to catch them even in gloomy light. That is why fish living in the sea are usually silver.
Of course there are exceptions.

In tropical regions, for example around coral reefs, there are many fish that are bright colours. However these fish do not attract predators because the predators living in these shallow waters know that these fish are not edible. They are either foul-tasting or even poisonous.

However these brightly coloured fish do not venture away from their shallow-water ecosystems, where the predators understand and respect the colour code. Brightly coloured fish swimming alone in the open ocean would quickly be eaten, and it would be of no consolation to the fish that the predator would later suffer from a bad stomach.

The penguins now have a few weeks to just rest and get nice and fat on silvery Brazilian fish. By the time they return to their colony in the spring, Promises will be fat and well rested, and ready to raise a new family of chicks.

I will write to you again in a few weeks time to let you know how the Brazilian vacation is going.

Kind regards, Mike

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