Penguin Visit a Big Hit with Crowd at Berkeley library

Miss Kringle struts her stuff for about 100 children

By Karen Wall | | June 30, 2011 

 

  

 

There’s nothing to make a room full of children go silent than the promise of watching a penguin waddle.
And there’s nothing that will make them giggle faster than a penguin doing one of the things it does best.
Reagan Quarg set Miss Kringle on the carpet of the room in the Berkeley Township branch of the Ocean County Library. After a quick shake of her feathers, Miss Kringle made a small deposit on the carpet – to the delight of the kids nearby.
“She pooped!” popped out of several little mouths.
Quarg never missed a beat in her presentation on the birds.
“They do that about every 10 minutes,” she said. “More often when they’re eating.”
Quarg, an exhibit educator and animal care specialist from Jenkinson’s Aquarium in Point Pleasant Beach, rattled off dozens of facts in the 90-minute presentation at the library. The program was funded by the branch’s Friends of the Library group.
For instance, did you know that penguins have solid bones, which enable them to dive deep in the water but also render them flightless, whereas birds that fly have hollow bones?
Or that penguins are only found in the Southern Hemisphere?
Or that the adults can be as small as 6 inches tall (the little blue or fairy penguin of New Zealand) or as big as 4 feet tall (the emperor penguin).

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