Penguin society

Penguins are very social animals, breeding in groups or in large noisy colonies called rookeries. They mate on shore in spring – almost always with the same partner. Penguins lay 1 or 2 eggs, though usually only 1 chick is reared.

Nests in polar regions range from a simple hollow in the ground to an elaborate structure of pebbles, bones and sticks. Chinstrap penguins sometimes nests in snow which melts, leaving the bird in a water-filled hole. The King Penguin does not build a nest at all. In temperate zones, penguins nest in scattered grasses, bushland or holes in sandunes.

After laying her egg, a mother Emperor Penguin returns to the sea to feed and the father incubates the egg on his feet for as long as 60 days till the egg hatches! Usually, the mother returns to care for the chick about the time it hatches, but if she is still away at sea, the father penguin feeds the baby chick with a milky fluid from his throat.

The baby is covered with a sparse downy coat and is carefully brooded till it is 6 to 10 days old. After this, they begin to regulate their own temperature, but often chicks are herded together in tight groups to keep warm.

Penguins moult (shed their old feathers) soon after the young have become independent. Polar penguins change the entire plumage at once in a so-called ‘catastrophic moult’ with new feathers pushing the old ones out of the skin. Later, the old layer falls out in whole patches.