Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE PENGUINS

Penguins in motion

As already mentioned, when the Penguins are on land they stand erect, some species even holding the neck and head stretched vertically upward. They have the habit of disposing themselves in lines along the rocks or edges of the ice-floes, resembling at this time long lines of soldiers. Although they are extremely awkward in walking, especially when hurried, they nevertheless manage to get over the ground with considerable speed. Kidder, who observed them on Kerguelen Island, describes the gait as follows: “

No living thing that I ever saw expresses so graphically a state of hurry as a Penguin, when trying to escape. Its neck is stretched out, flippers whirling like the sails of a windmill, and body wagging from side to side, its short legs make stumbling and frantic efforts to get over the ground. There is such an expression of anxiety written all over the bird; it picks itself up from every fall, and stumbles again with such an air of having an arm full of bundles, that it escapes capture quite as often by the laughter of the pursuer as by its own really quite considerable speed.”

But they are preeminently birds of the sea, swimming and diving with the greatest facility, coming to the surface and disappearing again with such rapidity that it is almost impossible to say if it be bird or fish. The length of time that one can remain under water is a little more than a minute, which is not an extraordinary accomplishment as compared with certain other birds. Their food consists entirely of fish, crustaceans, cephalopods, etc., which they seek in the open ocean, heedless of storm and waves, for it”must be hard weather indeed when a Penguin goes in search of shelter, as he enjoys the wildest surf and loves the roaring gale."

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