I Did It - I Fed a Penguin!!

Today was an exciting day full of learning and lots of penguin bites. I was assigned to Pen 2, along with Luc, where we had 12 penguins and 2 cape gannets. The morning was quite busy, after our supervisor gave medication to a few penguins with wounds, we put the penguins and the gannets in the pool to swim. There are three different types of swimmers at SANCCOB - 1 hour swimmers who swim for a minimum of 1 hour but can stay in longer if choose to, 20 minute swimmers and those who are not forced to swim for any set length of time. The reason for this is that some penguins' feathers are not yet waterproof and cannot stay in the cold water for long. Today Nola, the vet at SANCCOB came to Pen 2 to weigh the birds, do blood work, and check their feathers to decide whether or not the birds are ready to be released. Five penguins passed the test as well as our two gannets. The release will be done tomorrow, but I will probably not have the opportunity to be go out for this one. I still have almost 5 weeks left so I'm quite sure there will be other chances. After Nola was done with birds, it was time for the morning feeding. To feed the gannets we put them in the pool and throw fish at them - quite easy. Penguins on the other hand are not so easy to feed as I learned today. Both Luc and I had the chance to feed penguins for our first time today. My first few tries didn't work so well as I was getting used to putting the fish into their throats properly and also holding their beak so they don't move around too much. Some penguins will eat the fish really well while others you literally have to push down their throats until just the tail of the fish is left. By the afternoon feeding I started to feel more comfortable and was much more successful. I do however still have lots of work to do in catching the penguins quickly without them biting my ungloved hand. The other volunteers make it look so easy, but I have to remind myself that they were all new at one time. Practice makes perfect and I'm sure after 6 weeks at SANCCOB catching and feeding penguins will be easy.