nesting area?
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by
ewatts0813
It appears that many of these are adult male penguins keeping their nests warm. I was not able to actually see any eggs, so none were tagged, but I believe there to be a decent amount if eggs hidden under the penguins.
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by
AvastMH
moderator
Hi ewatts0813. You are quite right, but seeing eggs is rare, and we cannot mark them unless we see them.Those penguins are (mostly) sitting on pebble nests that have eggs in them. Because of the low temperatures the eggs cannot be exposed for long, in fact 5 minutes in the cold could stop the egg from ever hatching. So the only time we see them is when the parent stands to turn the egg, or when the parents are changing sitting duties so that one can get away for food.
When the chicks first hatch you rarely see them because they are mostly under a parent too. The same marking rule applies - don't mark a chick unless you really can see it 😃
I hope you get to see some eggs soon 😃 Thanks for all your help 😃
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gardenmaeve
moderator
I'll just add a comment to AvastMH's excellent reply. These are all indeed adults, but we can't know whether these are male or female. Both take turns brooding their eggs and chicks.
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AvastMH
moderator
Good point @gardenmaeve , many thanks 😃
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