As the chick ages, it starts to explore its surroundings, forming groups with other chicks, called crèches. Crèches are guarded by only a few adult birds. The crèches allows the parents to leave their chicks and go into the sea and forage for themselves and their chick. You can see the chick crèches along the glacier river in this photograph.


Parental visits become fewer and further between over the winter and the chicks are left to survive blizzards and severe conditions on their own. They huddle together in crèches and are keep alive by depleting their fat reserves. The parents return every four to six weeks to feed them.


It can be as much as 3 months between feeds however and a 5 month wait has even been endured by a surviving chick. The chicks may lose up to 50% of their body weight in these intervals where they wait for a parent to return and feed them.


As food supplies improve in spring, the parents are able to return more frequently and then by December, the last of the chicks have left to fend for themselves.


The parents will then molt, leave to go to sea for several weeks to fatten up again and then become the late breeders for that season.


Any parents that have lost their eggs or chicks during the winter will become that seasons early breeders.


In this unusual breeding cycle, King Penguins usually only average one chick every two years or at most two in a three year cycle. The King Penguin is restricted in range to ice free areas as a consequence of having to feed its chick through the winter.


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