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.