Penguin searches for winter coat

A lone adult penguin looks like it is searching for a warm winter coat as it wanders among dozens of fluffy chicks on an island in the southern Atlantic.

03 Dec 2009

An adult King penguin wonders amongst chicks on South Georgia Island Photo: David C Schultz/SOLENT

The black and white king penguin waddled into the crowd of chicks - known as woolies - as they fattened up on the shoreline of South Georgia Island. The birds pictured are among 400,000 king penguins living in the world's largest colony. Photographer David C Schultz named his shot "Penguin Day Care" because the adult is supervising the brown chicks playing in the stream.

The chicks lose their brown down feathers after a year. Schultz spent several days on the island trying to get a shot of the penguins where they were not huddled together too closely. He said: "In conditions like this there is complete chaos and constant movement.

"Most of the penguins tend to be so tightly packed together that isolating a point of interest is a challenge.
"I was watching this group of woolies all standing around the stream when one adult wandered into the mix, so I started shooting.

"I like this photo best because the adult is leaning out and seems to be peering around the chicks.
"'Penguin Day Care' came to mind as a title almost immediately and it is the one shot in my gallery that everyone stops at for a closer look.

"They're usually trying to figure out, what are these things that look like 'kiwis on legs', as one person put it."
He added: "South Georgia Island is, in my opinion, the jewel of any trip to this southern region of the world.
The king penguin, or Aptenodytes patagonicus, is the second largest species of penguin, after the Emperor Penguin.

They grow up to 90cm (3 ft) tall and weigh between 11 and 16 kg (24 to 35 lb).
King penguins eat small fish and squid.

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