Friday, February 17, 2012

The Adelie (Pygoscelis adeliae)


“They are extraordinarily like children, these little people of the Antarctic world, either like children or like old men, full of their own importance.” ~~ Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Current Weather: 

-10°C|14°F Temperature
-14.7°C|5.6°F Wind Chill
Skies: Partly Cloudy 
Visibility (miles): Unrestricted
Winds (knots): SE @ 9 Station Pressure: 29.509 in.

**The majority of the information provided here is courtesy of one of my favorite websites: the genius: Wikipedia.**

The Adelie is a species of penguin common along the entire Antarctic coast. In 1840, French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville named them for his wife, Adèle.

Talk about love. 




But…once you’ve seen these cute little rascals, you might understand why a French Explorer might name them after his wife. My first interaction with an Adelie had me swooning for the little guys in their black and white tuxedos. 



There are 38 colonies of Adélie penguins, and over 5 million Adélies in the Ross Sea region. (This is my stomping ground here at McMurdo). Ross Island (Where McMurdo Station is located) itself supports a colony of approximately half a million Adélies. They breed from October to February on shores around the Antarctic continent, building rough nests of stones. Two eggs are laid; these are incubated for 32 to 34 days by the parents taking turns (shifts typically last for 12 days). The chicks remain in the nest for 22 days before joining crèches. The chicks molt into their juvenile plumage and go out to sea after 50 to 60 days. Adélie penguins live in groups called colonies.

These little guys are mid-sized, 18 to 30 inches in length and 7.9 to 13 lb in weight. Distinctive marks are the white ring surrounding the eye and the feathers at the base of the bill. These long feathers hide most of the red bill. The tail is a little longer than other penguins' tails. The appearance looks somewhat like a tuxedo!

A few interesting facts: 
 
  1. Adélie penguins can swim up to 45 miles per hour. 
  2. Common predators of the Adelie are leopard seals and skua (Which I just wrote about a few days ago). 
  3. They are very aggressive to other penguins that steal stones from their nests. 
  4. They are highly social, foraging and nesting in groups. 
  5.  With a reduction in sea ice and a scarcity of food, populations of the Adélie penguin have dropped by 65% over the past 25 years. 
  6. They are extremely curious.
 The following is a very apt, very vivid written description of the character of an Adelie:

Apsley Cherry-Garrard (a survivor of Robert Falcon Scott’s fateful final journey to the South Pole) wrote in regards to the Adelie in his book, The Worst Journey in the World: “They are extraordinarily like children, these little people of the Antarctic world, either like children or like old men, full of their own importance.”

Watch the following video and you will see exactly what Cherry-Garrard was getting at:

 


Certain displays of their selfishness were commented upon by Levick during his surveying of penguins in the Antarctic, "At the place where they most often went in [the water], a long terrace of ice about six feet in height ran for some hundreds of yards along the edge of the water, and here, just as on the sea-ice, crowds would stand near the brink. When they had succeeded in pushing one of their numbers over, all would crane their necks over the edge, and when they saw the pioneer safe in the water, the rest followed.”

It was observed how the penguin's intrigue could also put them in harm’s way, which Robert F. Scott found a particular nuisance, “The great trouble with [the dog teams] has been due to the fatuous conduct of the penguins. Groups of these have been constantly leaping on to our [ice] floe. From the moment of landing on their feet their whole attitude expressed devouring curiosity and a pig-headed disregard for their own safety. They waddle forward, poking their heads to and fro in their usually absurd way, in spite of a string of howling dogs straining to get at them. “Hulloa!” they seem to say, “Here’s a game – what do all you ridiculous things want?” And they come a few steps nearer. The dogs make a rush as far as their harness or leashes allow. The penguins are not daunted in the least, but their ruffs go up and they squawk with semblance of anger.”

Regularly this attitude leads to the demise of an Adélie penguin, "Then the final fatal steps forward are taken and they come within reach. There is a spring, a squawk, a horrid red patch on the snow, and the incident is closed.” Others on the mission to the South Pole were more receptive of this element of the Adélies' intrigue. Cherry-Garrard: “Meares and Dimitri exercised the dog-teams out upon the larger floes when we were held up for any length of time. One day a team was tethered by the side of the ship, and a penguin sighted them and hurried from afar off. The dogs became frantic with excitement as he neared them: he supposed it was a greeting and the louder they barked and the more they strained at their ropes, the faster he bustled to meet them. He was extremely angry with a man who went and saved him from a very sudden end, clinging to his trousers with his beak, and furiously beating his shins with his flippers.” This was an occurrence of some regularity, “It was not an uncommon sight to see a little Adélie penguin standing within a few inches of the nose of a dog which was almost frantic with desire and passion.”




This is all too true. The first group of Adelies I spotted, I was driving from McMurdo toward Pegasus. We stopped the van past the group and as soon as we set foot on the ice and the penguins saw us, they altered their course and made a bee-line right for us. 



Due to their obstinate personality traits Cherry-Garrard held the birds in great regard, “Whatever [an Adélie] penguin does has individuality, and he lays bare his whole life for all to see. He cannot fly away. And because he is quaint in all that he does, but still more because he is fighting against bigger odds than any other bird, and fighting always with the most gallant pluck.”

Because of this, the Adelie is the favorite of many. They have definitely won my heart. 




The Adelie’s Diet:
  • Antarctic krill
  • Antarctic Silverfish
  • Ice krill
  • Glacial Squid
Breeding:
Adélie penguins arrive at their breeding grounds in October or November, at the end of winter and the start of spring. Their nests consist of stones piled together. In December, the warmest month in Antarctica, the parents take turns incubating the egg; one goes to feed and the other stays to warm the egg. The parent who is incubating does not eat. In March, the adults and their young return to the sea. The Adélie penguin lives on sea ice but needs the ice-free land to breed.

And that my friends, is the Adelie Penguin. When you see them, it’s hard to believe they’re actually real and not something from a comic book. 


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