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.
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