PENGUINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HUNNERS OF PENGUINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not sure I can actually write a proper blog post about this challenge without actually just fainting at the thought that me and Stewart got to feed PENGUINS!!!!!!!!!!
For anybody who doesn't actually know, me and Stewart are pretty much obsessed by penguins. We are HUGELY into penguins and have been for a very long time. It was one of the first things we found out that we had in common with each other when we met way back in 1993. It pretty much sealed the relationship to be honest!
But, let's be a 'serious'(?) birthday challenge blogger and describe the actual adventure. So the task/challenge, 'Be a Penguin Zookeeper For A Day'. Checked out a lot of places and finally settled for going to Living Coasts in Torquay. I was impressed by their conservation work and the fact they have a few joint projects with places in South Africa - which is where me and Stewart got to see our first penguins in the wild. Didn't have a full day experience, instead it was a penguin feeding opportunity. You turn up as soon as the aquarium is open and head straight to Penguin Beach. When we got there and saw all the penguins I actually thought I might puke with excitement at the thought I was actually going to be getting the chance to get seriously close to them!
Two types of penguins here - African penguins (exactly the ones we saw in South Africa) and Macaronis - the exceedingly groovy yellow crested ones. It's actually quite a nice enclosure and I was relieved that these guys are outside. I'm aware of a few places where the penguins are kept indoors and that's seriously quite sad. But. We were met by Jason the keeper who would be looking after us and he gave us a lot of information about this colony. A fair amount of stuff we already knew but there was a lot I didn't so I learned some new facts. It was also obvious that he knew these penguins almost as individuals - the glee when he talked about the different personalities and the different pairings!!!! He himself described the lives of the penguins as being a bit like a soap opera.
We then got taken to the 'kitchen' which was basically just a place filled with an immense amount of fish - mostly sprats I do believe. Lots of fish. A serious amount of fish! We had to wear gloves - whether that was to protect the penguins from our germs or us from the smell of the fish I don't know but I was personally glad we had them!!
Didn't know this beforehand, but if you've paid for the penguin feeding experience you basically become part of the advertised 'penguins getting fed' attraction! So when we walked back out through the enclosure there was a huge crowd of parents and children waiting to see the penguins getting fed - BY US!!!! We basically walked through the colony and took our seats on some steps with buckets of fish between the three of us and that was it, the penguins came to us.
It was amazing that in a really short space of time we actually got to start spotting differing personalities. The macaronis in particular were pretty bonkers. There was one called 'Flower' who was really intrigued by my wellies and another called Violet who was happy to sit behind us. Both of these penguins, by the way, would peck us insistently when they wanted attention and wanted more fish. Not all the penguins want to be hand fed though - I'll tell you about these later - but it was amazing how many were quite bolshy and would come straight up to us, peck us to ask for a fish, we'd give them a fish and then they'd immediately chuck it away and ask for another one!!! The fish that were dropped were not wasted though.
I can't tell you exactly for how long we got to sit hand feeding fish to these penguins. Time almost stopped still. It was ages before I realised I didn't have any bloody photographs! Don't think either of us were aware of the crowds watching it was 100% completely all about having penguins voluntarily and being happy to being really close to you, eyeing you up and pecking you. We were both completely having wee conversations back at them either saying 'hello you hungry' or 'bugger off you only want to chuck the fish away'. It was BWILLIANT!
Eventually it was time to stop. When the feeding takes place, they stop everybody from walking through the enclosure and on to the next bits - it's kind of a penguin 'boardwalk'.
The fish that the penguins had chucked away, dropped, ignored etc., is not wasted. It was part of our jobs to quickly clear the board walk of discarded fish - so it wasn't a slippy hazard for visitors and so we weren't wasting fish - and gather up into a separate bucket. After this, we then walked right back into the enclosure and we put these discarded fish into a few different wee pools. Cleans the fish again and means that the penguins who aren't bothered about being hand fed can go and eat as and when they want.
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