Thursday 09 February, 2012

As promised, today I will answer some more of the commonly asked questions I hear on Penguin Beach. (Click the title to read more)

Question 1: Are the Penguins birds or fish?

I call the class to attention, your penguin lesson is about to begin. Following on from our polar bear discussion, today's blog will focus on flying, or lack of it.

January 20th was Pat's 31st birthday. Pat is the most famous penguin I know, because she is the oldest African penguin on our beach. She is also one of the nicest. (Click on the title link to read more.)

Today has been really busy with lots of visitors and three different school groups coming to see everyone on Penguin Beach and the rest of the zoo.

I'm Ping the Penguin, welcome to my webblog!

For those of you who don't know me, I'm an African penguin and live in a colony at Living Coasts, a cool zoo in Torquay in sunny Devon (that's in the UK).

I was listening to some visitors chatting earlier on today, and they seemed to think that in the wild penguins get eaten by polar bears. Thankfully Jane (the Penguin patroller) was on hand to answer their questions and now they know the truth, which is that there is no way any penguin could be eaten by a polar bear, they can't get the wrapper off. Ha ha. Sorry.

There is a new keeper who comes onto our beach, and she spends lots of time watching us, and then writing things down. Apparently she is a research student who is here to work on 'penguin enrichment', which I have been told is just another word for toys.

If it wasn't bad enough sharing our beach with 6 Macaroni penguins, we now have to share it with 20! (Click on the title title to read more)

Yes indeed, a few weeks ago the rest of the noisy Macaroni penguins who used to live on the other side of the zoo were moved onto our beach and are taking over, with no respect for us!

There has been a lot of excitement here at Living Coasts. The keepers have been talking about new animals arriving. I am a little worried about where we are going to put them as I have heard there will be lions, tigers, rhinoceros and baboons just to name a few! I shall investigate.

It’s May again and as I’m sure you know, its Macaroni breeding season. This is always an important time of year, but this year even more so.
Over the last few years our adult Macaroni’s have been breeding very well. Our first two hatched were Waddle in May 2005 and the following year his little brother Babe.