Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE PENGUINS

Penguin Rookeries

 Moseley gives the following graphic account of his visit to a large colony of Rock-hoppers: “You plunge into one of the lanes in the tall grass which at once shuts the surroundings from your view. The stench is overpowering, the yelling of the birds perfectly terrifying.

The nests are placed so thickly that you cannot help treading on eggs and young birds at almost every step. A parent bird sits on each nest, with its sharp beak erect and open, ready to bite, yelling savagely, 'Caa, Caa, Urr, Urr,' its red eyes gleaming, and its plumes at half cock, quivering with rage. No sooner are your legs within reach than they are furiously bitten, often by two or three birds at once. At first you try to avoid the nests, but soon find that impossible; then maddened almost by the pain, stench, and noise, you have recourse to brutality.”

Their gregarious habits and their inability to escape when on land have caused them to be greatly persecuted by man, as both eggs and birds are eagerly sought as food; for while neither birds nor eggs have a very delicate flavor, they are nevertheless a welcome addition to the larder after a long sea-voyage, and recently the Swedish and other South Polar expeditions were forced for many months to subsist almost entirely on their flesh and eggs

. It was persecution of this kind, it will be recalled, that led to the extermination of the Great Auk, and from all accounts the Penguins are becoming sadly depleted in many of their breeding grounds.

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