Pierre is Still the Alpha Male

I wrote about Pierre the Penguin quite a while ago, here's the link since he is one of the penguins I work with regularly. As you can see from a previous video I posted (see it here), Pierre is 25 years and had lost all his feathers. The biologists at the Aquarium where I volunteer decided to try something different to keep him warm and that was to make him his own neoprene wetsuit. Last Friday, Associated Press released an article about him and his wetsuit. I'm proud to share the article, videos and pictures here. Enjoy!

Click here for the link to article and pictures:

Here's the video, courtesy of YouTube:

A Penguin Short

I'm back, finally. My phone works, my internet connection works. Thank goodness. I'm going to start with a couple short, but fun posts. I took this footage on my phone camcorder. Enjoy!

Another Penguin Short

I say in this video that Pierre is 24 years old, but he's going to be 25 this month.

YouTube Fun

Space between atoms/current favorite movie trailer/Miss Turtle feeds the penguins.

Hurray! An answer to one of Miss Turtle's most burning questions: What is UP with all the space between atoms? I've been wondering about the answer to this question for years and here I've found it on YouTube. Long live YouTube!



Next up is my current favorite movie preview "The Dark Knight." This shows our first look at Heath Ledger's Joker. Now the Joker comes with some serious pedigree in terms of the actors who have portrayed him, but I'm thinking this is looking promising.



Last, but not least. Someone at the Aquarium found a short video of me feeding the penguins! It was taken by someone in the audience. I had no idea the video had been posted.

Aquarium Life: Domino at the Window

I got a new camera and have had a lot of fun playing around with it. Apparently, it has an intriguing "Aquarium" mode which I can't seem to figure out how to switch into so I can play around with it. I'll figure it out later and show you the results here. In the meantime, I'm just going to continue shooting pictures straight into the glass using the flash . You can see the results here.


Domino is our youngest juvenile at about four months old, I'm guessing. He's an odd bird in that he's completely unafraid of the adults and brazenly hangs out between two nest boxes that happen to belong to Pierre, the Alpha male and Grendal, Beta male, and their mates. Most juveniles hang out on the outside edges of the colony (in this case at either end of the display) when they're not spending most of their time in the water. I've never seen a juvenile with this much balls in all the years I've been working with these animals. At first, the adults spent a whole lot of time trying to beat him up, but since he turned out to be heavier than many of the adult males this did not deter him. Now the adults have gotten bored with bothering him all the time and tolerate him being there.

This is a view of Domino swimming in the water. Not a great shot, but so what? I'm still getting used to the camera. I almost never take shots from the visitor's side something which I really need to do more of. Like all the juveniles, Domino spends a lot of time in the water which has slimmed him down a little.

Including Domino, the total number of juveniles we have now is four. There may be more penguin chicks lurking around in the back. You never can tell.

Aquarium Life: Introducing Howard

Now that sufficient time has passed, I can tell you all about Howard. Since a picture is a far better introduction, here he is:

Howard, Approx. 10 Weeks Old

Yes, that is a genuine (almost) baby penguin you are looking at there. Actually, Howard is on the verge of becoming a juvenile penguin (where they become old enough to lose their baby down and get their new feathers). You can see Howard still has a bit of his baby fuzz left, but only on the top of his head.

At this point Howard is just about adult size. Indeed, he is the largest (and fattest) juvenile penguin I have ever had the privilege of helping to raise. You can't tell in this picture, but Howard's flippers (wings) and feet are proportionally larger than his body. Penguins at this age always have some more growing to do. Howard is no exception.

Here's a picture of Howard at a little over five weeks:

Howard about to be weighed and fed for his afternoon feed

You can see Howard still has all his baby down in that picture. Also, to give you context about sizes: Howard is now just about adult size, that is he comes up to my knee.

Baby penguins are notoriously cute and smelly from birth to about five weeks because they have been fed regurgitated fish from their parents. As time goes on, they are given more whole fish which cuts down on the smell.

As you can see from the top picture Howard is a lovely shade of blue/grey. When juveniles lose their baby down, they start out with this coloration. After about a year and a half or so, they molt and get their adult coloration (tuxedos).

Howard is generally a sweet bird, but he's properly defensive and wary when he needs to be. He started out nervous around me and trying to bite me here and there. Last Saturday, I spent some time with him and we had a long talk. We're much friendlier now. Overall, his being defensive is a very good thing because when he finally gets introduced to the main display and the adults, they are going to kick the crap out him to be sure he knows his place in the pecking order. This is not something to worry about. Howard can bite really hard when he wants to and seems to be able to stand his ground with no problems.

We may or may not have more baby penguins in the hopper. Time will tell.

What's Bad for Me is Good for Him

When you work with penguins there are certain things you learn. One is no matter where you are in the penguin display, you are in their way. It doesn't matter if you are bigger than them. It doesn't matter if you're human and they're birds. The display is their territory and their home and you are in the way even if you are standing on one side of the display and they are standing on the other.

Another thing is that most penguin behavior is done for a good reason, no matter how random or contradictory it seems.

Last Saturday, I was in the display on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor when I someone came up behind me and bit me in the butt (ouch!). I turned around and it was my old friend, Pierre the Alpha Male. Head lowered, eyes blazing, he was ready for a fight. I stood up slowly and backed up a little. I talked to him quietly ("Hey, Mister, what're you all pissed off about?"). He continued to advance towards me ready to bite me again with his sharp beak.

This was a little unusual. He almost never comes after me like that. When we first moved the penguins into this space and Pierre was running around kicking penguin and people ass left and right, he was letting me pet him on his chest. Sometimes he takes pot shots at me with his beak as I'm walking by his nestbox or when I try to pet him and he's not in the mood, but that's about it.

Since this was unusual, I paused and looked around. This is always the best thing to do when something different is going on in the penguin display. I noticed I was scrubbing close to Homey's rock. Homey, recently widowed, had taken to hanging out on the rock next to Pierre's nestbox. As both of them are at present mateless, we have been hoping they would couple up. Homey herself was taking a dip in the pool. I kept looking around. I was close to Homey's rock, but that's too far from Pierre's own nestbox to prompt this kind of behavior. Sure enough, the explanation became very clear for Homey climbed out the of the water and went to the other side of the penguin display. Pierre abandoned his challenge for a fight and ran up to her. They proceeded to do a little necking (mutual preening is the penguin equivalent of making out).

Pierre the Alpha Male. Pissed off, Defensive, Romantic.

This is good. In fact, it's good that Pierre came back later and tried to beat me up again. Why? Because he and Homey are finally taking positive steps to pair up and this includes Pierre defending both his and her territory. I'm hoping that by the time I go back to the Aquarium later this morning, she will have moved into his house. I watched them after I did the morning feed and observed Pierre indulging in the devoted mate behavior he is so good at (following her around, preening her head, calling to her and defending her space/honor).

During the afternoon feed, Pierre begged and pleaded to be fed on land. The penguins usually feed in the water unless they're molting, sitting on an egg or raising chicks. Or if they are at the top of the pecking order and looking all adorable with those wide eyes. I consented by giving him a big fat herring. Our relationship seemed to be back to normal. He must have forgiven me because when I left the display and did my usual call, he answered back.

Cookie the Penguin: November 1, 1992 to August 11, 2006

It's so hard when penguins die. It really is.

The first thing I'm kicking myself over is I have no picture of Cookie to share with you here. Sure you can argue that all penguins look pretty much the same and you would be right for the most part, but shit, I can tell them apart.

Next Saturday, I'm going to concentrate on getting decent pictures of all the birds.

Cause of death: he had a disc protrusion of the spine. It was causing him huge problems with his left leg in that he couldn't really use it. We started giving him meds and he was able to use the leg for a long time, but lately things had been getting worse. The last time I saw him before he died he was in so much pain that he couldn't stand on his own two feet long enough to even get out of the water. He'd spend a lot of time swimming in the jets. They must have felt good to him in the same way sitting in a jacuzzi feels good to us. Nature in her wisdom and mercy caused things to go downhill fast for him. His body shut down quickly.

I am thankful and pleased that the end was quick for him. I'm even more pleased that he's no longer in any pain.

Cookie was always a nervous bird. Legendary for his skittishness, he still managed to surprise us. For example, he had an odd relationship with Pierre the Alpha Male. Given Cookie's nerves, I would have thought Pierre would either ignore him completely or enjoy chasing him around, but they had an understanding. Often, Pierre would allow Cookie to enter his territory when no one else was able to. And in a funny twist, the two took to preening each other every once in a while. Penguins who preen each other are almost always bonded couples so preening each other is the penguin equivalent of making out. Pierre was at the time, and still is, without a mate.

Cookie had a very specific feeding pattern: swim around in three circles as you approach the person holding the fish, pop your head out of the water and gobble down a big herring as quickly as possible, then swim away. He would only eat very large herring. This was probably because most people could only get him to eat once each feed.

His parents were Flash (female) and Oreo (male, and one of my dearest penguin friends). Both are dead. His mate is Homey, a sweet soul and a very big girl. Cookie lived his whole life at the Aquarium. I was fortunate enough to be around when he was conceived and hatched, and I spent much time raising him from when he was a nervous little chick.

Homey is at present mateless, but will likely pair off with Pierre at some point. The problem is Pierre is behaving like the cranky old man that he is. He's going to have to stop beating her up and start turning on those courtship rituals that he's so skilled at to win her over. We'll see if that happens.