Penguin Love
January 16, 2009
Penguins, like many seabirds, look pretty much the same whether they’re male or female. You can often tell them apart side-by-side: the males have thicker beaks, larger heads, and are usually bigger, but there’s a lot of overlap. The only really solid way to tell male from female in the field is when they mate: the male takes the top position and females are on bottom. At least that’s what I’m told…
We see them mating a lot. It usually just takes a few seconds, but requires some balance. Some of the young males are pretty fired up, and I watched one climb on top of a large, fuzzy chick and try to mate with it. The baby penguin looked a little confused. I’ve heard that males will also attempt to mate with carcasses on occasion, but I haven’t seen that happen yet! I’m just glad they make lots of babies.
The Oregonian (daily newspaper of Portland, OR) ran feature about me today – check it out!
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/01/addicted_to_birds_oregon_state.html
Mating Penguins (Female On Bottom)
A Penguin Family
4 Responses to 'Penguin Love'
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'Penguin Love'.
Great article, Noah! Congratulations!
KL JR
17 Jan 09 at 3:27 am
Excellent article about you! I have been reading your blog for a while and am taking this opportunity to say THANK YOU for sharing your experience and these birds with us. I look forward to each new post.
Thea
17 Jan 09 at 8:27 am
Hey Noah,
It’s Andrea, a reporter from the Guard. I sit near Bob… I think we met once.
Anyway, I keep a blog on the R-G site called The A Team, and I blogged about your blog. (Follow that!
I borrowed a couple pics from your site to run with the entry, hope you don’t mind.
Check it out here: http://blogs.registerguard.com/cms/index.php/a-team/comments/we8/
It’s so cool what you’re up to. I’m jealous.
Drop by the office when you’re stateside, K?
Andrea Damewood
17 Jan 09 at 2:04 pm
Terrific article and story. It’s wonderful that you found your passion so early in life. In the last three posts its a bit mind-boggling to see the size comparisons–skua vs penquin vs seal. The penguins look so curious beside that seal.
vickie
18 Jan 09 at 7:46 am