We are still on Cuverville Island. This is my introduction to the penguins. These are Gentoo penguins. Gentoo penguins are one of three types of penguins in the “brush tailed” penguin family. Major penguin activities include sitting around the nest and colony, going between the colony and the ocean, and catching food and goofing off in the ocean.

The first photo shows a Gentoo walking past me. You can hopefully see why the name brush-tailed penguins by looking at its tail. The brush-tailed penguins use their tail sort of like a third leg. They use it to balance themselves when they walk. With two legs and their tail for stability plus their two arms waving back and forth for balance, these penguins are very stable and walk very quickly over all terrain.

The second photo has some 18 or so penguins in it. I show you this because the Gentoo penguins were walking up and down this steep rocky slope like they were walking on flat ground. They walk, run, hop, and slide in varying combinations but they move right along no matter how steep or rough the terrain or whether they are going up hill or down hill. They also tend to follow established routes or “penguin highways” which you can sometimes see by their rutted and usually dirty trails in the snow.

Feeding and playing in the water is a major activity for the penguins. I could have watched these penguins for hours as they dove into the water and hopped out up onto an iceberg. They came out of the water like a long distance ski jumper coming off of the jumping chute. In the third photo, you can see a still shot, but I needed video to really capture the fun and frolic happening here.