Port Lockroy blog 8: Happy Penguin Awareness Day!
20/01/2025
Port Lockroy wildlife monitor Maggie Coll reports on the first whole-island penguin survey of the season.
Hello!
I’m Maggie and I am the wildlife monitor at Port Lockroy for the 2024/25 season.
Today is Penguin Awareness Day and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to give you an update on our beloved gentoo penguin colonies. A lot has happened since my first update of the season.
At this point, we were enjoying watching the gentoo penguins build their nests, carefully monitoring the chronology colony and we were absolutely delighted to spot our first egg of the season on 18 November.
The first eggs were spotted in November (UKAHT/Maggie Coll)
Although we refer to the colony on Goudier Island as a single entity, there are in fact, up to 10 colonies – or sub-colonies – on the island. We only count one of the sub-colonies every two days to minimise footfall. That colony is called the ‘chronology colony’ because it determines when to trigger whole island counts.
Since then, the number of eggs continued to increase every single day much to our delight, and by the start of December, the chronology colony reached 95% of eggs in occupied nests which triggered a whole-island count.
The whole-island count
Goudier Island is divided into two areas: two-thirds of the island is open to the public and one-third closed. The closed area acts as a control, to enable comparison of breeding success.
As a team of six, we headed out on a beautiful sunny morning to count all the penguin colonies on the island on 6 December. We counted 571 nests (of which 545 had eggs) and 938 eggs in total.
Counting the penguins (UKAHT/Maggie Coll)
Gentoo penguins generally lay two eggs although we actually found one nest with four eggs at the boatshed! It is likely the additional eggs are from neighbouring nests! Both parents share incubation of the eggs and it’s fascinating to witness the switch-over process.
First chicks of the season
Over a month has passed since our whole-island count and we are now very excited to have baby chicks appearing! Our first chick was spotted on 28 December and was a really lovely moment for the entire team. It was actually the nest of the very first egg spotted which made it extra special. The egg was spotted on Dale’s birthday so the chick is affectionally known as ‘Baby Dale’ and is getting bigger every day!
Chicks are now hatching across the island and it’s amazing to watch them grow. Parents feed their young straight from their bill with partially and regurgitated food – we got to see this first hand with some krill recently and whilst incredible, it’s about as pleasant as it sounds!
The first chicks of the season (UKAHT/Maggie Coll)
Whilst gentoo penguins are known for their friendly and sociable nature, they are also very noisy communicators and are extremely protective of their nests so it has been particularly interesting and entertaining to watch them communicate during this season. We’ve witnessed neighbourhood brawls where the flippers have come out, pecking and indignant honking… the background noise of penguins is the soundtrack to life here at Port Lockroy.
We are all extremely fond of our penguin neighbours and it’s become bizarrely normal to look out of the bedroom or kitchen window of our Nissen Hut and watch a penguin or two waddle by.
It has been an absolute privilege to watch the breeding process so far and I’ve loved every minute – keep an eye out for our next update – we will have the results of our whole-island count of chicks and perhaps even some chicks fledging their nests!
Dinner time! (UKAHT/Maggie Coll)
Adopt a penguin
Follow a unique penguin colony at the end of the world and adopt a penguin at the Penguin Post Office in Antarctica. Your adoption directly supports the monitoring of the colony and conservation on-site at Port Lockroy. Funds go directly to paying for a wildlife monitor to travel to Antarctica and study the penguin colony at Port Lockroy for the austral summer. Adoptions can also be given as a gift to someone else.
– Maggie Coll, Wildlife Monitor, Port Lockroy
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