01-JAN-2014
Oakum Boy & Adult King Penguin
01-JAN-2014
King Penguin Colony
Adult King Penguins returning to the breeding colony does not happen all at once as it does with some other penguin species, thus they frequently change partners for each breeding cycle.
The King Penguin has an unusually prolonged breeding cycle, taking some 14–16 months from laying to offspring fledging.
The reproductive cycle begins in September to November, as birds return to colonies for a prenuptial molt. Those that were unsuccessful in breeding the previous season will often arrive earlier. They then return to the sea for up to three weeks before coming back ashore in November thru January.
Breeding King Penguins break up into two general groups;
-Early breeders lay their eggs in November which hatch around mid-January. The chicks reach about 90% of their adult weight by April when they are independent.
-Late breeders lay and incubate their eggs from January until March.
King penguins don't make a nest, since they balance the single egg, once laid, on their feet covered with a flap of abdominal skin called the brood patch.
King Penguins have roughly a 55 day incubation period. During that time the egg is being shuffled from one parent to the other every 6-18 days. While the one parent incubates the egg, the other parent then goes back into the sea on a food foraging trip. Hatching can take a total of 2-3 days.
Once the chicks have hatched, they continue to be protected on the parent’s feet and the brood patch for another 30-40 days, until they are able to regulate their own temperatures. It can still be a wait of up to 3-14 days between feeds as the parents swapping duties when one of them returns to the sea to forage for food.
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01-JAN-2014
King Penguin Colony
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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01-JAN-2014
Oakum Boy King Penguin
Juvenile King Penguins leave the colony where they were born when they have fledged fully and are able to swim in the sea and catch their own food.
Juveniles cannot go into the water until they have lost their fluffy brown juvenile down which is an excellent insulator in the air, but a very poor insulator when wet.
They will not return again to breed until they are at least 3 years old, when they will usually return to the site they were born.
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