Dutiful Daddy
PENGUINS are large, stocky, aquatic birds that live in the southern hemisphere. They have short, waterproof feathers, coloured white in the front and black or blackish-blue at the sides and back. They stand upright on their legs which are so short that their walk appears more like waddling. Their wings are like flippers, helping them to swim, but not fly. Penguins are excellent swimmers. The largest of all penguins is the Emperor penguin.
The Emperor penguin is one of the biggest and heaviest birds. It stands 1.2m high and weighs upto 45 kg. Massive layers of fat on its body enable it to survive the icy weather in the Antarctic where it lives.
In summer Emperor penguins gorge themselves on fish. Then a few weeks before the long winter begins, they swim towards the icy shore to breed. These birds don’t make nests. They form a colony. (As many as a million birds may be present in a single colony.) The female lays a single big egg directly on the ice. She quickly lifts it to her feet with the help of her beak and then tucks it under an apronlike fold of feathered skin that hangs down from her abdomen so that the egg does not freeze.
Among penguins, it is the male who incubates the egg. The male takes over the egg from the female's feet onto his own feet and keeps it warm under his stomach-fold. The female then leaves for the edge of the ice-cap in search of water, where she can find food. There are times when she has to walk as much as 150 km to find it.
For around 60 days, the male balances the egg, huddling together with the other males in the colony to keep warm. During this time he does not eat. Yet when the chick hatches, he is able to regurgitate sufficient food for it to survive.
By this time the female, who has put on quite a lot of weight, returns. She calls out softly to her mate and recognizes him from the tone of his voice. She immediately takes the chick on her feet and feeds it with the halfdigested fish from her stomach.
It is now time for the male to regain his energy. He sets off in search of food. Then after eating his fill for two weeks, he returns, with fish in his stomach and crop, to feed the chick. The male and the female thus take turns during the entire winter to eat and feed the young one until it moults and produces waterproof feathers of its own and is able to go to sea and fish on its own.