PPC: June 26, 2010

Aside from listening to the world cup and snuggling with baby Guillermo, I had some general interactions with and observations about the penguins.

I observed, again, that molting birds are less likely to be friendly, or even to simply avoid me as I clean. Guanero is about half-way finished with his molt and did not want me to come near him and was defensive of the area in which he had chosen to rest. The other penguins simply walk away from me or retreat to the water. Another exception is Tortuga, about the same age as Guanero but pre-molt, who sometimes attacks the hose as it is in the water, or comes up to my scrub brush and attacks it. She usually gives up fairly quickly however.

Inside, as I felt the air chilling my drenched clothing, I cleaned the rockhopper side of the exhibit. The rockhoppers are usually quite boisterous. As the call, they shake their head back and forth. It is interesting. They usually start calling when another penguin does so too. They both put their beaks together and aimed down and then slowly begin calling, and as they reach their crescendo, their beaks are high in the air and their heads are turning rapidly back and forth. I encounter this as I infiltrate their designated spot to clean. Also, these are the only penguins who enjoy being misted by the hose as I clean with it. If I aim the spray just right so it bounces off a crevice and mists onto the birds, they lean into the mist and stand still and enjoy. The kings and gentoos never really have any reaction to my hose other than getting away from it as quickly as possible. However, the kings and gentoos put up with the built in misters that come on to help keep the exhibit clean. A gentoo penguin, number 22 I believe, happened to be in a little cove on the rockhopper side and quite disturbed by my cleaning so much that she fought back quite a bit as I scrubbed where she had been standing. She didn't seem too thrilled with going into the water and definitely wanted me out of there. I cleaned quickly and left.

Wednesday at the Birdhouse

My apologies for no update yesterday. It was very similar at PPC to Monday.

Today at the birdhouse, I was in charge of the birds in the West wing of the birdhouse. I noticed the horned guans acting interesting this morning. The male was chasing the female about the exhibit. He was doing so to the point of both their exhaustion. I believe they stopped a couple of times but only to catch their breath. He was also outside of the exhibit twice. I am not sure what had him to the point of leaving the exhibit, maybe she was fighting back, but I didn't see anything in particular. He was very persistent and she did not want anything of it. However, later in the day, as I have also observed before, the female will approach the male and attempt to preen him. He does not seem to accept this and usually starts taking steps in the opposite direction of her. It is interesting to see the different behaviors.

I can't say that anything else extraordinary occurred today. I helped hose the pool in the flight cage and spent time on some tasks that simply needed to be done: removing wires, throwing out an old board and foliage, cutting new bamboo, cleaning exhibits etc.

I did find a tinamou egg in exhibit 23. Their eggs are bright green.

Monday @ PPC

With three of us today, cleaning was done early and the afternoon was left for play. With the birds of course.

I cleaned the Humboldt exhibit this morning, this exhibit is outside, and it was a good idea to do it before it got too warm. Guanero, a chick from last summer is molting. I think I have mentioned this but he just is so large from eating a lot and also has been large for several days but doesn't seem to have started dropping his feathers yet. He hides near the doorway, or at least he has the past two mornings. A lot of the birds that molt tend to isolate themselves and/or stay in the coolest area of the exhibit, and often, out of the water. These penguins also are not familiar with me and usually avoid me as I clean their exhibit. The one exception is the two younger birds, Guanero and Tortuga who sometimes come near me to bite the hose or bite my scrub brush. The birds also dislike the mist of the hose when I am near them.

I fed the inside birds their vitamin fish and remembered throughout the process fairly well, who had gotten theirs and who hadn't. With the kings anyway. The gentoos may or may not have gotten their vitamins. Some kings are still being very gentle when I feed them fish. I noticed number 12, Buddy Love, does it as well as number 2, Annie.

During the afternoon, I ended up feeding the Humboldt chick, Guillermo, a snack. I ended up sitting with him again for a while. I put him on my lap and he gets comfortable. Today also, he decided he wanted to be much closer to my face so he ended up climbing up my chest and standing on or around my sternum. This involved lots of scratching because my shirt must have been pretty slippery. He seemed to also look around a bit more when he had come to this higher place. I adjusted and he sat lower in my lap. He also did not like it when I moved my knees or legs and proceeded to peck them with more agression than he uses to test my fingers. I sat with him for a while and at one point he put his beak in my hand and shook his head back and forth as I have seen the Magellanic penguins do affectionately with other keepers. I hope this was a sign that he likes me. A few minutes later, he seemed to want to get down off my lap, and I let him. He then backed up so he was pushed into the crevice between me and the wall. He wanted his back end in a corner it seemed. I sat with my arm around him for a while and he seemed interested in my hair. I then got up to leave and put his rock hut back where it was and he didn't go walking right inside this time and instead came over to me and put himself very close to me and I think wanted to crawl back in my lap. I left wishing I could have spent more time with him and with a lot of scratches.

The Magellanic penguins were calling as we closed up PPC. The males must be coming into their sexual maturity because much more vocal conflict occurs recently between the unofficial dominant male Fidget and the rest of the birds. Also, the two Humboldts who are spending time upstairs in the holding rooms with the Magellanic penguins are doing well. We bled Pedro today, meaning drew blood. The vet who did this was very efficient. He looks very handsome with his new feathers and did not get too stressed during the bleed. His girlfriend Rosie is with him and also molting. Her feathers are everywhere and she is about 1/4 of the way through with bare patches on her belly. She does enjoy swimming though, which, as I mentioned earlier, other birds seem to steer away from during their molt.

Mostly normal Sunday at PPC

By noon today we were already finished with all scrubbing and kitchen duties. I was given permission to do whatever I pleased for the afternoon.

I began by letting any penguins out that wanted to come out. Several Gentoo penguins trotted on out and I called to the kings as the keepers have done when it is time to walk the birds. A couple of kings came out, Barry and King Tut, and were eager to walk. They seemed confused also because I wasn't planning on walking them and merely letting them wander as they pleased. I also took buckets of ice and poured them in the nest room, where the birds were, and down the hallway, where some of the gentoos had made it. They were confused mostly and seemed anxious. They didn't seem to enjoy the ice as much as they do when they are in the exhibit but still didn't mind putting their feet in it. Some of the gentoos waited patiently at the end of the hall, at the top of the stairs, for me to walk them. After a bit, I poured snow on the ramp that was on the stairs leading to the hallway. I had hoped that one of the birds would toboggan down the ramp. Instead, a couple of gentoos tried to walk down the ramp, but slid instead. Also, a couple kings tried to do the same but slid faster and fell. Even king tut, who has been known to slide, was wary and eventually scared of the ramp. I kicked the ice off and helped the penguins back up.

Next, it was time to feed the baby Humboldt chick, aptly named, Guillermo. The bird responds to imitations of the calls of the adult birds. It also responds to keeper voices, not mine but my coworker's. The bird still has a distinct squeak like a chick. After my coworker had fed the bird, and I had helped, he left and I decided to stay and get to know baby Guillermo. The bird has become accustomed to the attention given by the keepers, one keeper in particular who coddles the bird. Baby Guillermo wanted to sit in my lap as he has done. I sat down and put the bird in my lap. He walked right up on my belly so that he was leaning against my chest. He seemed pretty comfortable. I was able to pet him and nuzzle him and he seemed just fine. He would sometimes see my fingers moving and investigate them. He would test them by gently biting them. I guess he thinks that my hands are the bringer of fish. I sat with baby Guillermo in my lap for at least an hour and he seemed to enjoy it.

A couple of side notes, the gentoos almost always walk with their wings stretched backward. Especially when they are walking quickly.

The kings that I have fed frequently, more specifically, the kings that are most accustomed to me so far seem to change the way they feed for me. Baby Kong is very gentle with his feeding: he puts his beak down and opens it just a crack and I push the fish in until he responds and swallows. Sometimes, he doesn't even respond until I nudge his beak upward so he can swallow. Barry has also been doing this as well as Uma. I think B.B. may have done it as well when she is not feeding weirdly. I don't know if this is how they always feed or if it has changed for me but it is interesting nonetheless.

Saturday at PPC

Today was a day that was fairly not hectic.

We cleaned Humboldt early this morning as St. Louis is experiencing excessive heat for the next few days. These penguins are beginning to molt and so far one has completed his molt while another female is just about finished. Guanero, a chick from last fall, is beginning to swell, an early stage of molting when it is visible that the bird is gaining weight and its feathers are sticking out. He looks very much larger than before and once he drops all his feathers, his plumage will look like the adult birds, he will "earn his stripe" as it were.

~Lost train of thought~

Yesterday at the Bird house

I apologize for the lateness of my post. And the lack of posts over the past...lots of days.

Yesterday at the bird house I was taking care of the birds on the west side. I ended up cleaning exhibits and was left with enough extra time for some enrichment.

I have noticed that the male vicoria crowned pigeon sometimes will display, whether it be out of aggression or if he is trying to impress someone, by turning his back to you and then spreading his wings for a brief moment, and then closing them. Also, he will call as he did with his recently deceased mate but in a different way. With his female, he would bellow in a few short calls as he bends his head over to the ground for each one. Now, he drones out in a longer bellow and keeps his head down the whole time. Sometimes he does this for an extended period of time as well.

As I cleaned another exhibit, containing elegant crested tinamou and a red billed toucan, I noted that the toucan had, again, put mulch in the waterfall. I don't know if he wants it blocked or maybe wants wet mulch. As I was washing the mulch down the drain, the spray of the hose was misting right where he was perched, on a nearby log. He began scratching his head and I knew that he was enjoying it. I decided to give him a shower. Oh, the reason I say that I knew he liked it by him scratching his head is because I had given a shower that morning to the rhinocerous hornbills, as I had all last summer as well, and I had noticed that as soon as I begin to mist them, they will perch under the mist and most of the time, both of them, will stand under the mist, shake their head to shake the water off, and then reach a foot behind a wing and scratch their face. Usually also followed by rubbing their beak on the perch, which is also what the toucan was doing. Anyway, I continued to mist the toucan and he didn't preen so much as rub his beak and just sit and enjoy it. After a while I continued cleaning the exhibit. I noticed though that the toucan jumped in the water after his bath, maybe my mist prompted him to bath himself, which is always a good thing. I even came back to rinse the water fall once more and he stood in the same place on a log and tried to catch the mist.

Also in that exhibit are the tinamou, as I mentioned, and I had never been aware that they enjoyed mist. Well, most birds enjoy the mist once in a while, but I don't always try it with every bird, and more with the birds that are sure to enjoy it. Anyhow, I was cleaning the bottom of the pool and the surrounding rocks when I look up and see one of the tinamou lying in the mulch with its feathers fluffed. Now, this particular tinamou I have known since its hatch last summer. Also, he is fairly imprinted in that when he was in the basement, and I would go to give his cage a food dish, the other tinamou would run away when I opened the door, and he would instead run towards me. Also, as I had been cleaning a bit earlier, he was pecking at my gloves. I saw this same tinamou lying down near the mist, so I decided that he was probably enjoying it so I stood there and let him take a bath. The other tinamou didn't really want to get wet and would walk up to the bathing tinamou, but soon move out of the water. I let him bathe for about five to ten minutes. He even lifted his wing slightly and then switched sides. He seemed to enjoy it thoroughly.

After lunch I cleaned exhibit 22, the rhinocerous hornbills, and as I was filling the pool, I noticed the male had moved to the front of the exhibit and was sitting with his wings drooped and his neck mostly extended. I am not sure if he does this on a regular basis but it seemed a bit odd and I left it in my notes for the regular keeper.

The golden breasted starlings in exhibit 10 have a chick and I observed them yesterday and gave them worms, as is protocol for parent birds. The chick was approximated to fledge on June 10 but there had been no word of this happening yet. However, as I watched, the parents didn't carry the worms to the nest box, but instead to the top of the trees in back of the exhibit. I could not see if the chick was back there but the female seemed to be pretty anxious, as she was calling a lot, and both parents were flighty.

There were some apricots that had been extra and were given to the bird house for enrichment. I found a puzzle feeder and split an apricot in half and put the halves in the feeder. The bottom half was easily accessible but the top half required the birds move the pieces to get it. I gave the puzzle to the plush crested jays and they immediately investigated. The male is often the first to check things out, and he did, and the half of apricot fell to the ground. Then both male and female pecked at it. The female decided that she liked the pit and carried it around.

There were some extra apricots at the end of the day and I wasn't sure if anyone would need them so I decided to give them to the hyacinth macaws thinking that they'd at least play with them. Not so. I threw three apricots in their exhibit and they basically just looked at me and nothing else. They didn't seem too interested.

Lastly, today a couple of visitors came up to me and seemed worried about a peacock that was "down" outside. Our peafowl roam the zoo grounds so I thought that maybe they were worried because they thought it had escaped but I went to check it out because you can never be sure. I walk outside and a peahen is laying on the ground on her side. I then explained to the folks that this behavior is called sunning and the birds do it when they are hot. They will lie down and sometimes spread their wings and pant to cool off. They lie in the sun which people can't make sense of but by doing that, they pant and it cools them off faster. I explained this to the two guests and they went back inside. I then began walking behind the bird house and noticed other guests staring at the bird. I turned around and explained it to them as well.

PPC: Day 10

So many penguins so little time.

Today I began with a very penguin-less morning of scrubbing scum lines in the pools and door handles. As I was cleaning the door handles that connect the holding rooms, I was, naturally, in the same room as Tracey at one point, then my coworker split up the magellanic penguins because some were to be used for a tour and some weren't. The three magellanic penguins added to the room that I was in stood away from me and observed me from afar. Tracey was on the ramp to the pool and didn't mind me. Next, I went into the other room with the other three magellanic penguins, in this case, Fidget, Shadow and Ali. They were pretty afraid to approach me but at the same time would stick their heads out in my direction and check me out. Also, anything that they did, they did together. One would try to come near me, but suddenly be deterred by something and turn around to walk away, then the other two quickly followed. I finished up in that room and then took a break.

After a break, I cleaned rockhopper side. The rockhopper penguins have one side of the exhibit to sit on, and the other they climb steps to get to an area to hang out, which most of them do, and then there is a bridge of sorts to another area right adjacent to the public pathway. I began with the peanut gallery area, the area up the steps as I call it, because it tends to be very fithy up here due to most of the rockhopper penguins hanging out up there most of the time. I think the appeal is the air vents. Three penguins were standing their ground. I begin scrubbing one side of their area and they remain on their side, then, as I need to scrub where they are standing, they don't move and try to attack my scrub brush. I tried a tactic that I witnessed my trainer do. One of the penguins that won't move is Cuatro, consequently number 4, and my trainer would say "out!" and point in another direction, and after a couple of times, Cuatro walked away and his partner followed and my trainer was able to scrub. I tried this and doubted that it would work because the penguins do not know me. I told Cuatro "out!" and surely enough, he started walking away with his beak down and his partner followed. Another rockhopper, number 5, Paris, was also up there and ended up moving when I began to rinse the area with the hose. I noticed that Cuatro and his mate had walked away in the other direction from where I had pointed. He came back before I was finished scrubbing, calling all the meanwhile, and I had to tell him "out!" again. When a rockhopper penguin vocalizes, he shakes his head back and forth rapidly and then turns his beak up as he finishes. He is also very loud. I continued cleaning with little interaction from any other penguins.

I found my coworker to ask a question and I went to the humboldt exhibit to find him. I noticed that Pedro, the humboldt that has been molting, looked much better having lost all of his old feathers and was starting to get his new plumage. Also, he tried to vocalize and still made no sound.

After lunch, I pulled trays. I fed Woody and noticed that he was raising his right wing but not his left one. I have noticed this on a couple of different occasions he does this but that afternoon when my coworker went to feed, he was not doing that. I went to the first tray and fed some of the penguins that were hanging around and also Woody who seemed to be starving. On a few fish, he will grab the fish from the tray as long as its head is hanging over the edge of the tray and my finger is touching it. Then I fed Barry, the king penguin, some capelin, which he eats very gently. He sang a couple of times for me also. As I walked over to pick up the tray that was on the far end, Barry and Woody followed me down there. I threw some fish in the water and fed some as well. Kong, the king hatch from last summer, almost ate a capelin but he spit it out when he realized that it wasn't a herring. I fed Barry a few more fish and then took the trays out and searched for the ping pong ball. I was told that the birds enjoy playing with and chasing the ping pong ball as it bounces around. I got the ping pong ball and walked amongst the penguins. First, I was on the near side with a couple of gentoos and Woody standing nearby and I dropped the ball. It bounced a couple of times and the birds followed it but only with their heads. It stopped and I walked amongst the king penguins. I just bounced the ball and let it go wherever it went. The birds followed it around and watched it and opened their beaks at it if it went near them. Some birds moved towards it and as it stopped, other birds bent down and pecked at it. I did this several times and noticed that most all birds at least noticed this new item amongst them. Most of the king penguins didn't move too much to get the ball but only after it had stopped moving went to check it out. Woody also fights a lot with the king penguins when he tries to maneuver through them. He is fairly vicious though and is very willing to fight for his little life.

After some more dishes, I went to help feed the humboldt chick and clean. I watched my coworker feed the chick and she goes about it in a different way. She cradles the chick in her lap and pets it and talks to it and feeds it one fish at a time slowly. She does utilize the same basic technique: shove the fish down the bird's esophagus. The esophagus is located on the bird's right side and she first stretches the neck out and then pushes the fish in. She didn't push the fish in all the way on a couple of fish and the bird finished swallowing the fish itself. The chick is noticeably more alert than even just days ago and much more willing to stand erect on its two feet. The down on its left wing is completely gone and only patches remain on its right wing. Its belly is also losing down and there is a large patch near the bottom that is not covered in down any longer. The chick must be around 35 days old. The chick also did not like it when my coworker wiped his beak after he ate a fish. He would then become bitey and try to bite her. He even tried smacking her with his wings after she wiped his mouth. He is much stronger.

I went upstairs and folded towels and did more dishes and then noticed that my coworker was cleaning the holding rooms. I talked to her and was talking to the penguins as well. She resumed the order of the rooms, all the magellanic penguins together and Tracey in her own room. I talked to the magellanic penguins from behind the gate and they all gathered to look up at me. I offered them my hand and was timid and worried that they might peck or bite me. I left my hand down and several penguins did bite me, but not hard. They were testing my finger and only just bit down to feel it. Several birds were biting my fingers at once. They also will twist their heads sideways in one direction, then to the other, before biting my finger. They all seemed interested in my hand. Next, Fidget, the male who seems to be the unofficial dominant male of the group, began trying to vocalize. He starts a quiet grunt, like a bark, and it is easy to egg him on and/or encourage him but mimicking him. I decided to do this and it worked. He slowly will grunt faster until he puts his head high and begins his call, which is very similar to that of a braying donkey. This time, the other birds were very worked up over his calling. Most of the other birds are males and a couple of times as he was trying to begin his vocalization process, the other birds were nibbling at his neck or at least walking very close to him and trying to mess him up. After we had left the area, the birds were still being very noisy and another male even vocalized to the full extent. Fidget began bill sparring, when the birds interlock their bills, in this case it is likely that they were establishing, or more accurately Fidget was defending, a pecking order, with another bird. I didn't see that it was a male but I would assume that to be so. The female, Shadow, is more or less Fidget's mate anyhow so it is doubtful that she would want to fight him in any way. This went on for a while until I didn't notice that they had stopped.

I was told to give some fish in a tray to Tracey, the recovering gentoo. I opened the door and greeted the bird and she ran over to me, wings back and in a cheerful mood. I walked over and set the tray down and Tracey bowed to me. I felt very flattered by this greeting. I poured the fish into the tray, on the ice, and had been told to hand feed her some capelin, but soon recalled that she prefers lake smelt, of which there were plenty on the tray, and it was unlikely that she would eat from me with all the lake smelt available. She did only eat lake smelt and turned away from me when I offered her capelin. When she was full she resumed her place on the ramp into the pool.

As we were closing up the building, I saw a gentoo penguin, Oscar, swimming on the rockhopper side. He seems to like to hang out there. I also noticed the trick my coworker has a certain gentoo penguin trained to do. Trouble, gentoo 19, will jump up onto the ramp (we put a ramp out of the pool into the public area at night so the penguins don't jump out and hurt themselves and can rather jump onto the ramp and walk down) when my coworker puts her hand in the air. I am not sure how trained the bird is to actually do this or if she just hears the familiar voice and wants to greet her and notices the ramp and puts two and two together so to speak. It's interesting either way.

Bird house today

I was scheduled to work in the basement of the bird house today and I was excited because I am good at that job and know exactly what to do. I had worked in the basement all of last summer and enjoyed it thoroughly.

After morning meeting, I grabbed plates, certain birds get a.m. plates, and headed downstairs. I then went through the whole basement and pulled night plates, some birds get night plates. I noticed where birds were to see if anything had changed and everything was pretty much the same:

100 side:

Guam Kingfisher

Tawny Frogmouth

Magpie of some variety

Ground Dove

Mariana's Dove

Jambu Dove

Piping Guan

Pygmy Falcon

Saipan Golden White-eye

and a pair of Bulbuls

200 side:

Jack, the hawk-headed parrot who misbehaved on display so now resides in the basement

Superb Starling

Partridge

Guam Kingfisher chicks

Mouse bird

Rosy Starling

Pekin Robin

Laughing Thrush

Jambu Dove

Tinamou

Golden-breasted starling

Mariana's Dove

Blue-bellied roller

Kookaburra

Magnificent Ground Pidgeon

(I could be missing some here)

300 side:

Blue-bellied roller

Bearded Barbet

Tragopan

Horned Guan

Congo Peafowl

Bali Mynah

Piping Guan

That is all of them I believe. I check on the birds as I pull plates and then hand out the plates. This morning I gave plates to the Tinamou, there are six that I believe were all chick hatches from last summer, the piping guan, he gets medication because he has arthritis in his left foot, and to the other piping guan pair, as well as the congo peafowl. Next, I change waters in all of the cages. This process just involves cleaning each bowl briefly, rinsing, and filling it back to the brim. It is easy to just fill the bowl the entire way because some birds, the kingfishers and bali mynahs usually indulge, enjoy bathing in their water dish. While changing waters, I was bringing a full croc of water back to one cage and noticed a mouse bird sitting in the bowl of Tinamou food trying to swallow a big hunk of dogfood (the tinamou get soaked dog food for protein and other nutrients). I stood there and watched him try and do this. Soon, he noticed that I was standing there and he promptly flew away. Another interesting fact, the trick to changing the water in the blue-bellied roller cage, the bird on the 200 side in particular, is to not make eye contact with the bird. Once you make eye contact with the bird, she, I think, gets upset and will fly at and peck your hand as you try to change the water. It took me a few times to realize this. After that, I changed footbaths, the zoo utilizes footbaths when going in and out of the cages and rooms to keep the floors clean so if birds were to escape they would hopefully not contract anything. Next, I was asked to clean several cages and lay new shavings down. I started by cleaning the single piping guan. He was kept in a cage on the 100 side last summer and would begin his clucking when I changed waters on that side and walked past his cage. His clucking is interesting, it is a gutteral cluck that kind of has a chirp to it. It is difficult to describe, piping, like the name suggests, is a good adjective for it. As I was sweeping up his dirty shavings, he began doing this same routine. He also stretches out his neck and lifts up his beautiful crest as he clucks. His pale, light blue head feathers normally lay down on his head and almost look like slicked back hair. He was not too skittish as I moved about his cage and swept and didn't seem too stressed. I next cleaned the Bali Mynah cage with the pair of these birds. They were rather jumpy and nervously moved when I swept. My strategy being to sweep up the front of the cage so the birds can stay far away from me in back, then slowly switching to the back so the birds can fly to the front of the cage. Then, I move back to the front, and they move back to the back, and I finish up sweeping and throw down new shavings. I moved on to the congo peafowl next and found it easy because this pair is located in two connected cages. I simply shut the connecting doors and cleaned one side, and then switched. The male in this pair, a younger male, likes to act tough, approach you slowly, and then jump at you, but retreat in mid air and not actually claw you. It is interesting. Also, he will only do this if you are attempting to place a food or water dish. As soon as you enter the cage, he will be far from you and unlikely to try the funny business. I finished up by cleaning two separate roller cages, all of which were rather flighty and nervous, and then I cleaned the pair of piping guans' cage. These two birds were rather calm. I moved in the cage, they moved away from me as I cleaned, and I left. They bascially walked away from me rather than flapping or jumping or running. Between cleaning, I had to clarify which cages I was to clean so I looked for my coworker, who, turns out, was searching for a peacock nest and was away. During the meantime, I sat down upstairs near exhibit 26, the open exhibit containing cardinals, horned guans, a variety of ducks, blue crowned motmots, and sunbitterns, and looked at the horned guans. I wanted to see their interaction because the west keeper (in charge of 26) said that they had been preening each other and getting along just fine. We just introduced a female to the male we already had and evidently at first, they fought, but once the male was removed, the female situated, and the male reintroduced, it worked perfectly. I didn't end up seeing too much interaction between them but did see the two sunbitterns sitting on the railing. The male sunbittern likes to meander lackadaisically through the exhibit calling repeatedly. He sometimes likes to sit on the railing, or just jump into the public area all together to make sure and walk slowly around that area and call too. He seems pretty oblivious. The female on the other hand, follows him, and even displays herself to him, in an attempt to mate, and he will do nothing. He just keeps droning in his almost melancholy call. Though, today, I saw them on the railing and the two were sitting quite close. He even began inching toward her. His call changed a bit to a series of murmurs and it looked promising until she began ignoring him and slowly moving away. My fellow keeper calls him a lost cause.

After lunch, I had the privalege of going to Cyprus Swamp, the flight cage, and helping to trim plants and pull bind weed. I did this for a couple of hours with little interaction with the birds save one incident. A female pintail duck began quacking rapidly and shaking her head and then rubbing her head on her feathers and walking quickly. A male, presumably her mate, was following her but didn't seem concerned with her actions. I noticed another male walking towards her, presumably wanting to mate, and he kind of chased her off. Although, later, she was making the same quacking sounds and the second male was not around. I mentioned it to the CS keeper but she said she hadn't noticed and it could be that she was chased off of her nest.

I took a break and then returned to the basement to pull day plates and hand out night plates. There are less birds in the basement than there were last summer so pulling plates is not too difficult. Also, there are less night plates as well. The birds that get night plates are the kingfishers, the pygmy falcons, the tawny frogmouths and a cage with some handicapped birds and another cage with a lot of variety of birds. A juevenille mouse bird that is with the handicapped birds gets wax worms because of their high fat content and the others get a lot of dead mice or dead baby mice. I guess I could specify what goes on food plates. Doves and a lot of the birds tend to get fruit mix and/or pellets. Some carnivorous birds get meat and dog food while others get pinkies (dead baby mice.) A lot of birds get lettuce too and Jack, the parrot in the basement, gets a big hunk of fruit each day like banana or orange. The horned guans love avocado and the piping guan who receives medicine loves it on banana or avocado. Also, some birds, such as weavers, get bird seed.

I noticed at one point during the day, when I was in the nursery, that a hooded merganser chick, a hooded merganser duck is a type of diving duck, was snuggled up with a black neck swan chick. They were adorable and the smaller merganser was snuggled close to the swans voluptuous white down. Most of the time, species are not intermingled too much, but it was interesting to see these two getting along.

I had given Jack a super worm, some kind of giant meal worm I suppose, and he will grab it with his foot, bite it in half, often revealing the gooey innards of the worm, crunch it up, take another couple of bites and enjoy it thoroughly. He does not, however, prefer crickets.

PPC: Day 9

This post is of what happened today.

This morning, due to some misunderstandings, my coworker and I found that we were immediately behind. We had thought that there would be three of us working, one beginning at 7 a.m. We found that no one was there because who we thought would be there was on vacation. This meant that exhibits had not been touched yet, nor the kitchen. I immediately got to work on the puffin exhibit as I was going to be the solo exhibit person for the day.

The puffins are much more skittish than the penguins. They are in the same cold temperatures and cold water, but have a vertical face with numerous holes that lead into burrows and nest boxes. The two types of puffins, Tufted Puffins and Horned Puffins, intermingle and climb about the rock wall and go in and out of the holes. There is a pair of tufted puffins that are sitting on an egg as well as a pair of horned puffins. I cleaned the exhibit, scrubbing as usual and noticed that some puffins are less afraid of me: won't jump into the water to escape my presence, while others only wish to be on the opposite side of the exhibit from me. I did notice a pair of horned puffins copulating in the water as I cleaned. I am not sure which pair but hopefully that means there will be another egg soon. The King Eider Ducks that are also in the exhibit follow me in the water, no doubt, expecting to receive some fish. That exhibit didn't take too long and I had turned on the wash down sprayers in the next door penguin exhibit to get that started. As I started to clean big penguin, some gentoos approaching me to check me out, I was informed to do a quick job of the exhibit as we were still behind on feeding and other important duties. Also, the front doors of the building were not sliding shut. This may be a minor problem with any other building, but with the penguins, the exhibit needs to remain at or near 45 degrees. This made things a bit more complicated. I cleaned the exhibit with less attention to detail. I had noticed, as I began cleaning, that Woody was on the rockhopper side, mingling amongst his own species! This was a first for me as I had not seen him on that side except in the water one other time. He was up on the rocks a bit, not mingling with the peanut gallery, but maybe attempting to be a rockhopper penguin. He noticed me evidently because he soon was back on my side and at my side as he usually is. I scrubbed fast and hosed with little regard to where the birds were. Woody followed me and was, I think, trying to get at my hair, which was no doubt moving in the air from the vents. When Kong tried to approach me, Woody was there to snap at him. I did talk to Kong a bit and pet him as he tried to get at my hair. Also, Barry, another king, was following me as well. Barry and Kong were snapping at each other too as they both wanted to be near me. Another interesting occurrance was when I was trying to put myself between Woody and Kong so they wouldn't bicker and Woody nipped my sweater and held on and began hitting me by flapping his wings. I would chalk this up to him being annoyed with Kong and with my pushing him and hope that he is not developing mean habits. I finished cleaning and then went upstairs to make trays. I had noticed when I pulled trays that the trays on the near side of the exhibit had a decent amount of fish left while the trays on the far side, where the kings normally are, had little to no fish left.

I fed the trays and had the privalege of divvying out the vitamin fish all on my own. This is a difficult task as each penguin only gets one and the kings and gentoos mix so that I am feeding to number 2 gentoo and number 2 king and have to remember who I have given a fish to and who I have not. Some penguins remain in the water as well and would rather swim than eat. Also, I can feed some penguins that are in the water only it is a bit more difficult. I handed out most of the vitamin fish, missing many gentoo penguins and only a few king penguins. Each king, I have noticed, has a unique way of eating their fish. Kong has become very gentle with his feeding, similar to when I feed Barry little capelin fish. I feed, and the other keepers as well, from the bird's left side of its mouth. I gently push the fish, head first, on the corner of the birds mouth, and it opens its mouth, I slide the fish a bit further, and the bird swallows it whole. Ideally. Some fish follow this. Number 16 king penguin opens his mouth wide enough that I am almost dropping the fish down his throat. Others, like number 13, Frankie, will flip the fish back over her head if you do not feed it correctly. The trick is to offer the fish to her lower than her head. She will then lower her beak, hopefully open it a bit, at which point you can push the fish in a bit. Next, she will have flung her head vertical so it is best to have held on to the fish, and if you have done so, it will still be in her mouth and she will swallow. This is how it is done with every fish for her. Back to Kong, he has been feeding very gently as I mentioned. I push the fish in the corner of his beak, and he aims his beak down and has it cracked just a bit. I slowly push the fish in, as long as he doesn't shake his head or resist I continue pushing the fish in, and once it is in a certain distance and if he still keeps his head down, I gently push his beak upright and he usually swallows. B.B. on the other hand, the other king chick who was raised with Kong, will try to walk away while you are trying to feed her a fish. She is often hungry as she will not eat out of the trays yet, but can't seem to face me as I feed her and often turns away and/or walks away. Though, today, I noticed that B.B. likes to take the fish from the very tip of her beak and bite it all the way down until it hits her tongue, and then she swallows herself. I think the key is not to push it in the side of her beak but to let her bite it at the tip of her beak and take it in herself: she merely needs someone to hold on to the fish as she works it to her throat. Numbers 14 and 4 are always hungry and number 4, Snappy, can be vicious about taking a fish. King Tut, number 19, is a rather large king penguin and I have been advised to not feed him too much. I usually give him one or two fish only because of his size. However, after one fish, he will follow me around asking for more, often standing so close to me that his big belly is pushed against my legs. That is just some of what I have encountered with feeding kings.

After feeding the king, gentoo and rockhopper penguins (along with puffins of course) we went to feed the humboldt penguin chick. The idea is to force feed the bird so it can learn to swallow fish whole. I watched as my coworker opened the bird's beak, stretched out the neck a bit, shoved the fish headfirst into the birds throat, and then rubbed the outside of the throat to encourage the bird to swallow. The baby bird struggles only a little bit and only when the fish has just entered his esophagus or is almost all the way in. My trainer said that it struggles in part because the fish being shoved down the esophagus impedes breathing through the trachea which is located right next to the esophagus. The bird, after having received a fish, usually sneezes, shakes its head, and doesn't react too much in any other manner. The bird is being restrained between my trainer's legs and doesn't flap too much or struggle too much overall. The bird did look around a bit and did seem to be frightened. By frightened, I suppose I mean that it just seemed uncomfortable. My trainer did say he noticed that the bird is getting stronger.

Some time in all of this, my friend came to visit the penguins. He was with his family and we paused, amidst the chaos, to show them upstairs and introduce them to Shadow, one of the Magellanic penguins that stays in holding. Now, I have worked very little with these penguins and they definitely do not know me very well. However, Shadow is often used as a tour bird and when I opened the door, she was the only one on the ground (others being in the pool) and she was at the gate ready to come out. I let her out and she wandered around slowly, as she does, and inspected a corner by the elevator, also as she often does, because it has become a quasi nesting area for her. I didn't have a tour speech like my coworkers have perfected but I eventually picked Shadow up for them to pet. She squirmed more than she would if I were another keeper but she could have been worse with me. When it was time to go, I picked her up again and placed her outside the door and she waddled right back in like a pro. Fidget was then waiting to come out and I told him that he missed his chance.

After cleaning humboldt in an extremely rapid manner, (my coworker and I yesterday spent an hour and 20 minutes cleaning humboldt, today we did it in half an hour), it was time for afternoon duties. We decided earlier that we were going to postpone, if not eliminate cleaning rockhopper from our to do list. The latter is exactly what happened. I ended up cleaning some nest boxes that had been pulled from the humboldt exhibit and I also pulled trays from the exhibits so that we could keep up on dishes.

~This is what I can remember that followed because as I was typing this yesterday, there were technical difficulties that prevented me from posting~

I fed Woody, the rockhopper chick, but only after I had chased him down. He was on the rockhopper side, which is a rarity, and I called his name, and he seemed to notice me, but didn't make too much effort to come to me. I then pulled the trays, pouring all remaining fish into one tray so they weren't wasted, and then went to pull the tray from rockhopper and try and get Woody's attention. He hadn't eaten that morning because we had been very busy. I got to rockhopper side and he wasn't there. I went back to the opposite side, you see, the penguins can swim through tunnels underground that go beneath the public pathway. I saw Woody swimming in the water and I tried to get his attention. He seemed to notice me at a couple of moments but didn't immediately come out of the water. Eventually, I was able to feed him a snack of a couple of fish and then I went to see what needed to be done otherwise.

I cleaned some nest boxes that had been pulled from humboldt, as the nesting season is over, and made a pen for the humboldt chick. Next, I went upstairs and made trays for the evening feeding. This involves filling five tubs plus three trays with ice, and then divvying out capelin and lake smelt to the penguins and puffin chop to the puffin trays. Before I went down with all the fish, I was asked to offer some fish to Tracey, the gentoo penguin who has been in holding due to her illness. I took a couple of herring, some capelin and a few lake smelt in my hand and went into the holding room. Much to my delight, Tracey spread her wings wide and waddled right over to me. I was very happy to see her in such a chipper mood. I fed her one of each variety of fish that I had and she was done. I had also seen her drinking from the hose earlier that day so all the signs are pointing towards a great recovery.

I brought the trays down and first fed rockhopper. Several rockhoppers are usually around when I get there and are ready to eat. Also, a couple of the gentoos, usually Double and Trouble, swim over to me. Tiki Wiki, rockhopper number three, was interested in me hand feeding and took a couple of fish from me. It is interesting how he feeds though. He doesn't seem to be interested in me tapping the fish on the side of his beak and rather takes it from the tip of his beak. He also will get the fish in his mouth and then turn his beak downward and begin to gulp rather than tilt his head back and gulp. He does tip his head back once the fish is almost completely in his esophagus.

I went to puffin next and ended up scaring a puffin who was perched on a rock that borders between the exhibit and the public area, and he jumped to the ground. I quickly ran out the door and assessed the situation. I needed to be on the other side of the bird so as to keep him in the vicinity of the puffins and not chase him into the penguin side of the building. I ran back behind the exhibits and ran around through the crowd, telling the beat (the paid worker who reminds people to keep their hands to themselves) that I had a bird out on my way. With his help, and the cooperation of the crowd, I managed to get the puffin back into the exhibit in only two tries. He was fiesty and wriggled when I held him but I plopped him in the water and he swam quickly away. I believe that it was a tufted puffin chick but I can't be sure because the chicks and the non-breeding plumage are similar.

I fed out the trays and hand feeds in big penguin and had the usual suspects approach me. Gentoos 6, 19 and 2 came up to me and they received their second vitamin fish of the day, only because I needed to get rid of those fish and they were the first ones near me. I moved to the side where the king penguins hang out and fed herring to them first one by one, and then as the chicks come back, I will give them seconds and I will usually dole out seconds to everyone, but begin cutting back on thirds as the more husky penguins sometimes do not stop flagging me down for fish. I found Woody again and fed him but only after I picked him up and helped him make his way over to a tray on the near side of the exhibit because he was reluctant to walk past a large number of fiesty king penguins. He didn't struggle at all when I held him.

Once feeding was done, I even had time for a little enrichment. I took what my coworker called a "barni-krill", essentially, barnicle skeleton with a bunch of krill attached to it, and placed it in the puffin exhibit. I was glad to be able to observe the puffins as I had not spent much time watching them. At first, a horned puffin began looking at it, as they do, with one eye. This means they turn their head sideways to investigate it. He slowly walked toward it, but made a wide arc to avoid it when he walked past. Another horned puffin did the same thing from the other direction. Eventually, a horned puffin was brave enough to approach it and gingerly peck at the krill. He soon moved on. Lastly, a couple of tufted puffins did the same thing.

After watching this, I made sure I wasn't needed to help with dishes, and left.

PPC: Day 8 (June 5, 2010)

After a delightful weekend with friends, I found myself a bit tired this morning at PPC.

I began by cleaning the scum lines off of the glass around the pools. I was interrupted to go pull the Humboldt penguin chick from the nest with its parents to begin the weening process. The chick weighed 3180 grams this morning and we had decided to pull the chick once it weighed over 3000 grams. The chick normally excretes soon after being picked up, which it did, and when attempting to weigh the chick, it was feistier than normal and wouldn't sit still on the scale. It was attempting to stand up and once my coworker placed his hand on the bird, it calmed down. I think there is an extent to which the animals recognize the normal keepers versus me. We then moved the chick to a pen in the holding room. We also placed a kennel in the pen so the bird had someplace to hide. We put the chick in the pen and he just lie there. Then my coworker moved the chick so it was facing the kennel. The chick then turned around away from the kennel, and we left it. The chick was fed four times today. Feedings at this point involve a keeper taking several capelin fish and shoving them down the bird's esophagus. This process, while I didn't ask why it is done this way I just know it has worked before, I imagine it so help the bird acclimate to eating whole fish, maybe strengthen the esophagus too. Also, eventually, they will stop feeding the bird and it will lose weight and eventually learn to eat on its own because it is hungry.

Once I had finished that and footbaths, I began cleaning big penguin. I walked in the exhibit and hosed down things as I normally do. I was immediately approached by Woody. He tries to bite at the nozzle but doesn't like the water spray. He will see the water spray and try to bite at the nozzle but not the water. Some penguins enjoy drinking water from the hose, like Tracey the gentoo penguin who has been sick. (More on her later.) As I clean, most of the penguins tend to move away from me and/or the spray of the hose. However, Kong, the king penguin chick from last summer, doesn't really move away and tends to remain where he is standing. As I clean towards him, Kong stands still. When I am close to him, he doesn't seem to mind me, however, Woody is also near me because he has been following me and looking at my hair. Woody and Kong quarrel and chirp at one another so I have to put myself between them, as if they are siblings. Woody continues his behavior of mingling amongst the bigger and of different species penguins and defending himself where he stands. He is a rather good swimmer. I didn't witness him swimming today but on previous occasions, he has been in the water and was even distracted enough by swimming that he came to eat much later than normal one day. When Kong and Woody were not bickering, I managed to bond with Kong. I talked to him and he was looking at my hair. He also put his head down and I pet the back of his neck, and I nuzzled his head with mine. It was a sweet moment.

I finished cleaning up as my coworker had started on the other side of the exhibit and worked toward me. Woody followed him once he noticed that there was another keeper in the exhibit. One gentoo penguin, one of two, Double and Trouble, I can't remember which one, was following my coworker around also, and would bow to him but not to me. Bowing is what the gentoo penguins do as a greeting to one another and to the keepers being as we are, in a way, part of the flock. I have observed bowing between pairs of gentoos but also Double and Trouble bow to the keepers frequently. Double bowed to me this morning when I was feeding but that is a rare occurrance, especially when another more familiar keeper is around. I fed the penguins with a fellow keeper so I had practice by watching him give the vitamin fish.

After that, all that was left to clean was humboldt. When we went outside to do this, I had more interaction with the humboldt penguins than normal. I was scrubbing for a while and as I was moving about the exhibit, the hose stretches through the pool and the penguins have to swim around it and the chicks like to bite at it and/or play with it. Then, at one point, Tortuga, one of the chicks, swam up to me and came out of the water. Then, she stood there while I was scrubbing. She follows the scrubber back and forth with her beak and also was pecking at my boots and my overalls. I was touched that she approached me and, despite her biting me, not hard but still enough that it wasn't friendly, it was interesting that she stood there and just observed me. We finished cleaning humboldt in an hour and twenty minutes. My coworker speculated that it was worse than normal because a lot of the birds are out of their nest boxes now that the nesting season is over.

After lunch, I made bands for the birds, mostly because we are going to be changing some when the humboldts start molting. One humboldt, Pedro, is almost finished with his molt. Upon entering the exhibit to clean, he was standing on a nearby ledge. He has lost all the feathers on his head, back and belly. There is only a ring of feathers around his neck; it resembles an Elizabethan collar. He cannot vocalize any more but does try. He is also grouchy and attacks people who walk by. Anyway, I worked on bands for a long time until the afternoon feeding.

I pulled trays from puffin and fed the night trays to them. They are quite skittish and fly off of the cliffs and away from me very quickly. The Eider Ducks enjoy the water feed; the fish that I throw into the water. I pulled the trays from the big penguin exhibit and I ended up throwing a lot of fish into the water from the trays. The birds had left a lot of fish from this morning. One bird had been standing near the tray and wanted me to hand feed it so I did with a couple of fish. Woody then came over and wanted food so I fed him a fish to hold him off for a minute. I distributed the trays and then fed Woody first because he seemed to be pretty hungry as he was chirping a lot and following me. He ate pretty well this morning, my coworker only positioned the fish so that the head was up enough to grab and Woody did just that. When I fed in the afternoon, he was just about the same. I am impressed with his improvement. I fed out hand feed next to the kings. This was herring and mackeral of course. I had extra fish in the bucket and thought that was interesting. I made sure the two king chicks got enough fish, Kong didn't eat that many: he only ate one this morning and I only gave him a couple more. B.B. ate plenty on the other hand. I even gave a couple of the gentoos some fish. I went back to feed Barry some capelin because I enjoy bonding with him. He ate some fish but was uninterested quickly. I tried to feed some capelin to Kong next but he was also uninterested. However, Barry came over to me and I was talking to him until I had to go help feed the Humboldt chick.

About Tracey, it seems she has been doing better. She has been keeping her fish down, including the fish containing her medication. It is assumed that the medicine is successfully removing the fluid from around her heart. She also has not been lying down as much and more standing on her own. She remains in holding.

PPC: Day 7 (June 2, 2010)

Today started off by me beginning to get into the normal daily routine that I will maintain at PPC. I began by scrubbing just inside the glass on the exhibits where scum builds up along the water line. As I do this, some penguins are swimming around as usual. They swim very quickly underwater and are almost exactly oppositely agile on land. Also, some penguins prefer to lazily float on the water's surface and keep their head submerged and look around. Friendlier penguins approach the glass with their heads up to see what I am doing. Woody, the rockhopper penguin chick, was swimming this morning and when he noticed me cleaning, he floated over to me. I offered him my hand and he nibbles on it as usual. I coo and talk to him sweetly. I try to pet his back but he doesn't like this and turns his head to try and nibble at my hand again. After some wiping down the glass and scrubbing the outside of the exhibit where the rockhopper's with impecable aim manage to deficate, my coworker and I began to clean big penguin.

Big penguin is the "main" exhibit if you will, more accurately, it is the largest part of the indoor exhibits. I began hosing at one end while my fellow zookeeper started at the other. Throughout the cleaning, this seemed to bother the penguins as usually they will move to the opposite side of the exhibit from whoever is hosing. Woody usually follows me around while I clean and today was no exception. He also leaves a lovely pile of excretement where he must sit all night in a spot near the gate. As I am on my hands and knees scrubbing, Woody likes to walk right under my chest and/or face and bite at my ponytail where it hangs down, or where my keys hang down, both hanging down right at my clavicle. Today, he, at a couple of instances, was standing on my hand and nibbling at my arm or hair. I also, today, put my face close to his and made a kissing sound and he didn't seem to mind me being so close to his face. I was reluctant to do this before because I had been warned to never get my face too close to any penguin. I believe that penguins know where the eyes are and I think that they would peck there soon, if not first. I enjoyed the attention from Woody, he is very sweet and almost defensive of me sometimes. I maybe am assuming too much when I say that he is defensive of me, I believe he is just defensive in general. He walks amongst the King penguins, three times his size no doubt, without fear. If other Gentoo penguins came near me as I was cleaning, also near Woody, he would sqweak and open his beak at them. Sometimes, if I move out of the exhibit to grab the hose or a bottle, Woody will remain where I last was. Sometimes, this means he is in the middle of the path that most of the birds walk. Even when he is in the middle of the road, he simply defends himself as all the other birds maneuver around him. It is pretty interesting that he does not spend time with his species on the other side of the building but prefers to remain with the King and Gentoo penguins.

After cleaning, my trainer for the day decided that I needed to get some practice feeding the penguins their vitamins. Vitamins in this case means a multivitamin that we previously shoved into a fish's gills and we then hand feed these specific fish, one per penguin. Each penguin gets one of these fish and I have been learning how to keep track of who has gotten theirs and who hasn't and which penguins will be first in line and even just general interaction with the penguins, most of which are still shy towards me. I began with several Gentoo penguins, and then was suggested to sit at the waters edge so that I could recognize which penguins will take their vitamin fish right out of the water. I hand fed a couple penguins who were swimming and it was successful. Next, I moved amongst the King penguins. They become rather competitive with this and they all crowd around me looking intently for their fish. A couple of Kings had approached me at the far end of the exhibit where I had fed some Gentoos and where normally they have not gone when I feed. I say out loud names or numbers of the penguins to remember who I am giving fish. Then, my trainer suggests going through the numbers in order to remember who I have given a fish to and to whom I haven't. As we do this, we finished off the vitamins except for a couple of Kings who were swimming and, when doing so, are difficult to coax out of the water. After the trays of fish are out and the vitamins are fed, Woody needs to be helped to eat from the trays. The ultimate goal is for Woody to be able to eat by himself out of the trays. Now, he does not seem to understand that he can grab the fish and pull it from the tray whenever he wants. If I prop the fish head over the edge of the tray and move my hand away from it, he will bite at the head, but not necessarily grab the fish and swallow. If I place but one finger on the fish, that is usually all it takes for him to recognize that the fish is one that he should eat. He usually is more willing to grab the fish himself when he begins feeding as I imagine that is the point he is the most hungry. After some fish, he begins to turn away from the tray and fluff his feathers. He's finished.

After break, my trainer and I begin cleaning the Humboldt exhibit. It had been raining today so we had a nice wet exhibit to start with which helps the process. I began hosing up at a higher point in the exhibit where Pedro has been hanging out. This is the penguin who has begun his molting process and has isolated himself during. I walk near him and notice that there are piles of feathers everywhere and that his chest is quite bare. He begins calling pitifully and sounds distressed. It is sad and he seems under stress. It was pointed out to me later that his call likely sounds bad because he has taken on another 2000 grams which probably is pushing on his vocal cords or just generally all over his body. I hose around him as much as possible and scrub quickly as he will begin to approach me and first want to attack the scrub brush as it goes back and forth, but would likely move on to my hand. I attempt to use the hose as a deterant, keeping it between he and I, but he doesn't have it. I have to stand up completely and turn the hose on full blast in the other direction to sort of make him uncomfortable enough to move away from me. I scrub as best as I can around him and then give up noticing that he is already pretty miserable and I am probably making it worse. Continuing on through the exhibit, I notice a pair that once had a tray with rocks as a nest, but does no longer, easily moves out of their protective plastic rock cave when I begin hosing near them. Another pair, that still has a rock nest, are defensive of it and will not let me within half a foot of the entrance to scrub. I do my best and hose as much as I can. Moving along the front edge of the exhibit, one of the younger birds, a hatch from either this past winter or past fall I cannot remember, Guanero, approaches my foot that is submerged on a ledge just on the edge of the pool and begins to peck and bite it. I finish my scrubbing and move my foot from the water. He still seems to want to bite it so I move along in the scrubbing. He then moves to the hose that is now draped through the water and is playing and/or biting it. I am not sure what I have done to provoke him but he seems to dislike me. One of my fellow keepers had informed me that he, not two weeks ago, would not actually bite anyone. Now, he definitely tries to bite me in a painful not so friendly manner. The penguins move around me as I clean and as I have to move back through the exhibit, the birds that have resumed their spots are upset as I disrupt their order. Pedro, the bird who is molting, has moved inside the building from the door we enter the exhibit. It seems that he likes it inside. We finish up that exhibit and eat lunch.

After lunch, and after I am taught how the banding process works, I head down to do some enrichment for the birds on exhibit. There is an ice machine right behind the exhibits on the north side and my trainer helps me find a big bucket and fills it with ice and shows me where the birds are the most responsive to the "snow." Immediately, the birds respond and walk over to the ice and stand in it. I continue filling bucket after bucket until the ice machine is empty. Each time, I leave the door from the exhibit into the egg room open and close the outer door so that when I carry a bucket back in, the egg room is full of curious Gentoos who, upon seeing me, file back into the exhibit in the classic waddle with their wings back. I dump 8 buckets intot he exhibit, each time with new birds exploring, standing, eating, laying, walking on or in the ice. Some seem to be perfectly content with their bellies down on the ice, others with only their feet. All the birds though seem to react whether it is to other birds that they don't want near them or if it is to the ice itself. After the ice machine is empty, I go to the exhibit to watch the birds. I sit down and after a bit, I notice Kong, a King chick from last summer, is standing near me. I bend down and call him over to me. He waddles slowly and finally comes near me. He stretches out his neck to check my hands, presumably to check if I have a fish. Once he finds that I do not have a fish, he nibbles at my fingers in a manner similar to Woody. I talk sweetly to him. At one moment, he begins to stare intently at my face. I look back and ask him what he is looking at. He continues to do this for a while and I am intrigued as to how my face can be so hypnotic to him. I soon realize that he is looking at my hair, just little frizzes of my hair that must be moving in the air from one of the vents. Looking into his eyes, he may or may not have been looking into mine, was an interesting experience. I noticed him blink his third eyelid several times and sometimes he left it closed and sometimes he left it open. It was difficult to tell the difference except for when I noticed him blink one way or the other. I enjoyed this close encounter with Kong.

Amidst the fun, my trainer had noticed that Tracey, the Gentoo penguin who went to the vet yesterday for an x-ray, has lost weight recently and is now on medication, had regurgitated fish from earlier today. She was laying on her belly and was acting quite lethargic. My trainer showed me how to allow her to drink from the hose: open the hose completely and leave the stream near her beak. She drank a lot from me and seemed happy to do so and even allowed us to rinse her belly at the same time. After a bit, she was finished drinking and simply slumped down in the exact spot she had been drinking. This bird is old, a hatch from '85. As I was adding ice to the exhibit, my trainer decided that Tracey was just too miserable and moved her to holding upstairs. When I got finished with the ice, I took a break and evidently, Tracey had again regurgitated in the small amount of time she had been upstairs. She was laying down in the holding room when I looked in on her.

We made trays for the evening after a bit and my trainer decided that I was on my own as it was almost time for her to leave. She fed out puffin and left me to give out trays, hand feed, do whatever I felt necessary. I believe she told me to "go crazy." I liked hearing this because it means I get to spend lots of time with the birds. I first gave trays to the far side of the exhibit where the King penguins hang out. Then, I took the bucket of hand feed fish, herring and mackeral, and sat where my trainer normally sits when she feeds. Several Gentoos approached and each one received a fish. I gave the smaller ones to the Gentoos first. Next, a couple of Kings decided to walk all the way across the exhibit to get some fish. One such penguin was Barry. He chowed down on four or five herring at least and then walked away. Number four King also had some and another King was there too. After the activity died down a bit, I walked with my bucket to the other side giving fish along the way. I tried to give at least one fish per bird but in retrospect, think I missed a couple. I usually give as many as they want to the two King chicks and work with B.B. to have her eat directly from me rather than try to grab the fish and walk away which often results in the fish being on the ground. When I am finished, the penguins still crowd around me, one, King Tut, stands with his big belly pressed against the back of my legs. I maneuver to the trays and set them out and search for Woody, who is usually hungry. Meanwhile, I hand feed capelin to the Gentoos that come over. Today, this was a lot. I ended up feeding most of the fish in the tray to Gentoos by hand. Some interruptions came when there was a miscommunication about whether PPC was open or closed but afterward, I was on the public area of the exhibit and found Woody swimming in the water. I bent down to look in the glass and point at him and stand up to try and get his attention. He finally surfaced and noticed who I am. He floated over to me and nibbled my fingers. I tried to get him to eat but was advised that, maybe he is not hungry and to let it go. I continued feeding Gentoos for a while and eventually, Woody does decide that he wants food. I fed him a good number of capelin and lake smelt and he then fluffed his feathers and turned away from the tray. One Gentoo that I had fed, number seventeen, eats proficiently: I touch the head of the fish to the edge of his beak and he quickly gulps the fish and is immediately ready for another one. Other birds are a bit more reluctant to even open their beaks and sometimes I have to push the fish in a bit before they decide to swallow. Not so for number 17. I gave him as much as he wanted.

After I finished there, my coworker had informed me that he would give me any extra fish from what went to the Magellanic penguins in holding. It wasn't much but I took the bucket down to put out in the trays. I spread the fish out, mostly in the trays near the kings, and then hand fed a couple of the riled Gentoos near the kings, they seem to be riled because they have "nesting areas" over there. Next, I wanted to hand feed Barry, the King penguin, more just because I like the interaction with him. I approached him and he didn't seem to move away from me so I talked to him and asked him if he wanted a fish, so I told him to say ah, and he put his beak down and opened it just a crack. I put the fish in his mouth and he gulped it down. I did this with maybe seven fish and then he didn't want any more. I locked up the exhibit.

After returning upstairs, Tracey had evidently regurgitated her fish with medication in it. She was laying in the holding room, lethargic.

I left at 5 p.m.

PPC: Day 6 (June 1, 2010)

This morning as I was thawing fish for the day, it was noticed that the capelin were exceptionally large and hardly a one was mangled or had a bloated/exploded stomach. My coworker and I were excited for the fish to look so good. It's a nice feeling knowing that the animals will be receiving such good quality food. I felt content giving them that fish. Maybe it's silly, but I feel happy when I know the penguins are happy.

During the morning feeding of the Humboldt penguins, I noticed that when a penguin really wanted a fish, he would step on my boot. Most others just crowd around my feet. The two chicks, they look almost exactly like the adults despite some facial coloration and the plumage, have difficulty deciding if they really want me to feed them. They dislike and/or are unfamiliar with me as a keeper. I think they are torn between the fish in my hand and the fact that it is in my hand. Some of them are able to grab the fish in any manner and turn it around so that it goes down their throat headfirst. Others need a keeper to urge the fish down into their mouth head first and push it gently to a certain depth before they swallow it. Pushing the fish too violently will also result in rejection because the birds have a tounge with serations that go in one direction and the bird is very sensitive about using its tongue in a certain manner and directing the fish in a specific way to swallow it. One bird, Pedro, has begun his molt and thus has gained another 50% of his weight to do so. I have not gathered why they do this but I imagine it is because that molting is a high energy process. Next, there is a humboldt chick who is growing rapidly. Its weight this morning was over 2700 grams. Soon, I've overheard, it will be brought upstairs to be fed large amounts of fish to get its weight up, and then not fed until it can learn to feed itself or maybe by hand. But that is just what I've heard.

The morning was rather hectic with a sudden tour around break time taking my trainer away from me temporarily. I meandered into the kitchen to do what I knew needed to be done, and the only thing I knew I could do correctly, the dishes. I then cleaned and then we finished the chop, cut up fish, squid and herring added to krill and silverside fish that is divvied up in the morning and evening for puffin feed, so that we could go to a vet procedure after an early lunch. After lunch, we needed to gather up number three Gentoo penguin, Tracy, to take her in for x-rays and any other necessary checks. Tracy had lost about a quarter of her weight and had not been witnessed drinking fluids or eating on her own. When held, her keel is easily felt and the vet noticed that her eyes were slightly sunken and her heartbeat was muffled. When the vet arrived, he informed us that the van's air conditioning was blasting and we had placed Tracy in a trash can with a few inches of ice in the bottom. We carried Tracy to the van and I sat in the back with her and pet her neck and helped to stabilize her as the van maneuvered around the zoo to the vet hospital. She was very anxious to see what was happening just above the rim of the trashcan, just out of her view, but calmed down after a while once she was facing me and I kept my arm on her back to help her to not fall over. Penguins cannot jump so there were only attempts to stretch her neck over the edge. Upon arriving at the hospital, we unloaded her into a procedural room and placed her on the table and began anesthetizing her. A cone with a rubber donut stretched over the big end allows the birds face to be placed inside and the bird only then breathes the drug. Slowly, Tracy stopped fidgeting and then the vet techs and keepers laid her down on her belly. As they were assured that she was under, the vet placed a tube directly down Tracy's esophagus and then it is taped to her bottom beak. Then she can be moved to the x-ray room and hooked up to the gas in that room as they laid her out on the table to be x-rayed. The vet decides that the best positioning is for Tracy to be laid on her back with her wings spread. At this point, the vet tech has begun to place ice packs on Tracy's feet to keep her cool. Tracy's wings are gently taped outward and we all leave the room as the x-ray is shot. We come back into the room to view a beautiful x-ray of Tracy's skeleton and some of her internal organs. The vet then decides that another x-ray from the side will give him a better view. They move Tracy onto her side with her wings back, the top one taped into what must be a stretch. We vacate as they take another x-ray which takes a couple tries this time. This side x-ray ends up showing the vet, and the rest of us, that the bird's heart is enlarged when compared to an x-ray from March of this year. Tracy's heart was noticably larger now. Next, the vet tried an ultra-sound of the bird to see if he could determine if the heart had fluid around it. They put ultrasound transmission goo under one of Tracy's wings and proceeded to see nothing but black on the screen. Then, the vet decided to do a gastric flush. He took a syringe full of water and put a long tube on the end of it. He then fed the tube to the bird's stomach and pushed the water into the stomach and then sucked some water back into the tube. The water in the tube then contains contents of the stomach. The water is then cultured to see what kind of bacteria is present in the bird's stomach. To wake the bird up, they turn off the gas and remove the tube slowly from the trachea. The vet also took a needle full of what I assume was a saline solution and injected it beneath the bird's skin. Slowly, Tracy begins breathing heavier. The vet and vet techs and keepers all state that they think the bird is more awake than she is letting on, which I find interesting. It seems as if Tracy would rather lay down and relax than panic. Possibly she is really sick and the medication doesn't help her want to sleep. Eventually, she is placed upright and seems to be able to hold herself mostly up. She stands up, lethargic for a while until we move her back to the tub to transport her to the exhibit. During the ride back, I ended up keeping my arm behind her to help stabilize her again which she didn't seem to mind.

Also, I noticed amongst the Magellenic penguins that, well, from what the other keepers have told me, Fidget is the unofficial dominant male. There are seven Magellenic penguins, six males and one female. Fidget is the oldest and, according to the other keepers, the only one to bray in a long extended call. The other males will only bark in a short call. I have not noticed anything to the contrary of that fact. Today, I noticed a couple of penguins swimming around in the pool very quickly. Next, one penguin jumped out of the pool and ran away from where it had been. It began, and I noticed that it was Ali, running and flapping its wings rapidly. Fidget turned out to be the other penguin and also exited the pool but was not chasing Ali nor was upset in any way while Ali seemed to be in a panic. It was just an interesting situation that I happened to encounter.

At the end of the day, I hand fed the penguins some left over capelin fish, most likely left over because what we fed today was so large that the birds filled up quicker. I fed on rockhopper side for a bit and ended up hand feeding a couple of rockhopper penguins for the first time. Number 3, Tiki Wiki, took the fish from me a bit reluctantly and I noticed that rockhopper penguins seem to choke down the fish in a different manner than the rest, first gulping the fish with their head down and finally swallowing it with their head up after the entire fish is down. With Gentoos and Kings, the fish head needs to be at the top of their esophagus and they put their head up in the air and choke it down using gravity's assistance. I moved to the other side of the exhibit because I was feeding a couple of Gentoos that tend to follow keepers anyway, Double and Trouble. I moved to the opposite side and hand fed several different Gentoos and also the rockhopper chick, Woody, who is adorable. He was pretty hungry, squeaking violently at those who came near him and were receiving fish from me. I assumed that he had already been fed but I doubted that on account of his agressive want for fish. He only ended up eating five or six fish, then would shake his head when I offered a fish, puffed his feathers, and resumed his digesting spot on the top of the stairs that exit the exhibit. I fed some more Gentoos and eventually, no one approached me. I began divvying up the extra fish into the trays. I walked to the side of the exhibit where the King penguins like to hang out and, seeing a keeper with a bucket, most of the penguins showed interest in me. I put fish in the trays over on that side of the exhibit and a few more Gentoo penguins showed interest so I hand fed them. Also, a King penguin by the name of Barry was calling, which is described as a trumpet. He likes to be hand fed capelin fish and he does so very gently: I tell him to "say ahh" and he puts his beak down and just barely opens his beak. I gently push the fish head into his mouth and he waits until I am finished and then finally tilts his head back to swallow the fish. Sometimes I have to gently raise his beak to let him know to swallow. One instance, when I went to offer Barry a fish, I noticed that he was stretching his neck out, an indication that he is about to call, so I encourage him by asking him if he is going to sing for me, to which he responds with his lovely voice. I pet him and tell him that he is a good boy afterward. He likes the attention. Several other penguins were near me as I fed Barry, Kong, a King chick from last year, and a female hanging out with Kong, Iris. Also, the other King chick from last year, B.B., was near Barry, as she has been. So that is interesting that those pairs are together. Also, Iris was calling as well and a fellow zookeeper was impressed with her calling, which I took as, she doesn't do so very often. Barry eventually tired of eating and turned away from my offers of fish, and Iris didn't take to well to the capelin and wouldn't have any. I left the exhibit and locked the door behind me.

After half and hour of nothing, cleaning, feeding, everything else was finished, we closed up PPC and went home.