Penguins are curious birds, they cannot fly, breed in the middle of winter and let the males sit on the eggs.
The Emperor Penguin
It’s 40 degrees below zero. It is late March and the storm-troubled seas on the edge of Antarctica herald winter and soon the water will freeze for months. It seems like the calendar is messed up at the South Pole. The winter is most intense in June, July and August and the penguins pop up en masse between the waves. Seconds later, they shoot out of the depth like torpedoes and slide onto the ice on their bellies. They are the largest and most beautiful penguins, with a snow-white belly, deep black ‘costume’ and glowing yellow-orange spots on the cheeks, they are the emperors of the South Pole.
Polar night
As if on command they stagger away, hundreds, thousands, of emperor penguins, always one after the other in a kind of endless caravan. Are they birds or concertgoers on their way to the venue? The walk inland across the ice takes 20 days. When they reach a spot protected by wind after 200 kilometers, the setting sun makes the ice glow red. Now the polar night is breaking, with a hundred days of darkness and it is now getting really cold with 50, 60, 70 degrees below zero. Most penguin species raise their young on the ice-free coasts in the short summer. There they find stones and rocks to build their nest on and they can catch fish nearby in the sea. The emperor penguins do it differently. They breed in the coldest time of the year. A polar researcher needs kilos of heavy high-tech clothing and it is still not pleasantly warm. However, the emperor penguins with their super light plumage are true survival artists and come to life in the cold, as if it were spring. Their extremely dense plumage, which is regularly oiled, keeps the icy wind out. They are also protected by a thick layer of bacon. But how can they hatch their eggs in this icy environment?
Breeding, a man’s business
That they can breed in the cold is a trick. After Mrs. Penguin has laid her egg, she leaves it to her husband. Because brooding is a man’s business with the emperor penguins. Papa penguin stands over the egg and puts his skin folds over it like egg warmers. Mr penguin is not allowed to leave his egg for a minute. In the cold air, it would instantly freeze and burst. There is no other option for him than to stand there almost motionless, often even on his heels, to keep the egg away from the cold ground. This lasts for months without eating a bite. When ice storms rage over the breeding animals, they stand close together, with their backs to the wind. Everyone is allowed to stand in the middle once, so that they are equally protected against the worst wind.
The female
Immediately after laying, the penguin females went to the sea to eat their fill. They must be back with food when the young comes out of the egg. The journey is dangerous, because leopard seals lurk in the sea. If a penguin female is caught because of that, it means starvation for the chick. The papa penguins stand and breed for more than 60 days. Then the polar night is finally over and the eggs open. A beak appears, a cup and soon the chick has hatched from the egg. It is safe and warm (with its gray feathers) on daddy’s feet. It is now high time for the female to return from the sea. She has taken a fish paste in her throat and is feeding the young with it. Now the male is finally released from his paternal duty and is allowed to go fishing. Since the trip to the breeding area, he has not consumed any food for 4 months. And he has to hold on for another 3 weeks on the way back. Later he will return to bring a portion of food. No one knows how it is possible that mom and dad penguins can find each other again among those thousands of penguins. Once the young are big enough, they waddle with the parents to the shore and the following year they themselves become the bride and groom, taking part in the journey to the nesting site in the icy darkness of the Arctic winter.