Porpoising
December 11, 2008
Penguins may swim well, but they’re still birds, and they breathe air. So, like whales and dolphins, they surface every once in a while, arcing from the water to take a quick breath. This is called “porpoising”, and, as more open water appears close to shore, we’ve been seeing it a lot. Groups of penguins will suddenly shoot out of the water, then, just as quickly, disappear back to the land of fishes and krill.
We deployed three satellite tags on adult penguins today, which was a very cold experience, as taping the tags onto feathers requires the dexterity of bare fingers (no gloves). As they swim out to sea to gather food, we now get constant updates on the penguins’ positions via email. When they return in a couple days, we’ll take the tags off and put them on different birds, to lessen the load on any given individual.
Porpoising Penguins
A Penguin Leaps From The Water
5 Responses to 'Porpoising'
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Terrific photos. Despite cold fingers, its great that you can now study their movements.
vickie
12 Dec 08 at 2:20 am
Very nice photos Noah. Keep it up.
Clare
12 Dec 08 at 4:23 am
AWESOME pictures!
Jörg and Juli
12 Dec 08 at 11:04 am
Fantastic pictures. I am assuming you are using your telephoto lens because you didn’t tell us you had a boat too. Savor every minute.
Diane S.
12 Dec 08 at 11:29 am
Hi Noah, Amy here..I work with your mom. She gave me the link to your blog the boys and I look at it EVERY day….we love it..my boys now are 11 and 6 and so very fasinated by what you are doing. We LOVE the pixs…thank you so much for taking time out to do this for us….keep it up… hope all is well….
Amy
12 Dec 08 at 6:00 pm