Blondie And Blackie

December 6, 2008

It was too windy to go outside yesterday (but not a full gale), so we caught up on sleep, data entry, and eating. Three inches of snow fell today, and the last of the sea ice has blown offshore. A half-mile section of ice that we walked over to reach the Emperor Penguin colony two days ago was open water this morning; a sobering realization. Michelle and I put up new tents after breakfast (in place of the ones that were destroyed by 90mph winds last week) and spent an hour securing them with ropes and rocks. With sun shining this afternoon, we got some time to work in the penguin colony.

There are bound to be some funky birds among a quarter million penguins. Two of the most interesting-looking individuals we’ve seen at Cape Crozier are Blondie and Blackie.

Blondie looks like a regular penguin, except where he should be black, he’s bleached blond. He’s missing some melanin pigments in his feathers, a similar condition to albinism. This is the seventh consecutive year that Blondie has returned to the same nest, but this season, for the first time, he’s incubating an egg. We think he found a mate, but haven’t seen her yet. So maybe he just stole someone else’s egg.

Blackie is a little different. Where she should be white, she is jet black—in fact, she is entirely black, beak to tail. Last time we checked, she was sitting happily on eggs. This year, we also found another black penguin near the top of the valley, building a gigantic nest, but he had no egg or mate. I hope the lady penguins look more than feather-deep, for his sake.

In past years, albino (all-white) penguin chicks have hatched at Cape Crozier, but none ever survived. Nobody has seen an albino penguin adult here—yet!