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.
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