Chinstrap penguins
Pygoscelis antarctica

1/ What are chinstrap penguins like?

4/ How much do young penguins eat?

They average about 4.5kg and 68cm tall. According to the books they are particularly noisy and aggressive, infiltrating and taking over Adélie colonies, though from what I saw of them I would put them behind Adélies in aggression and volume.

This picture was taken in a chinstrap colony during a spring snow-fall, most of the penguins had eggs and many had chicks so the adults on the nests had to play the parental role to the full protecting the young from the cold by laying down, and occasionally getting up to shake off the accumulated snow.  

It stopped snowing shortly after this and the temperature being just above freezing, the snow melted fairly quickly and so posed little or no danger to the young on this occasion.

This parent is awaiting the return of its partner who will have been out at sea fishing for the krill that these penguins feed almost exclusively on, catching it  further inshore than other penguin species. The parent that goes fishing fills themselves up on food and then collects extra in their stomach to bring back and regurgitate for the chicks.

The nest is a very simple affair of a pile of small stones, the main purpose being to separate it from other nests and to raise it above the surrounding ground so that melt-water from snow doesn't wet the eggs or chicks.  

Small stones are in short supply in the penguin colonies and so squabbles are commonplace and frequent, particularly as penguins are experienced kleptomaniacs taking nesting material from any other nest that is inadequately guarded.

These two chinstrap chicks are blissfully unaware of the dramas that await them in the not too distant future.

Fishing trips take the adults around 20-30 kilometres from the colony, though distances of well over 200 kilometres have been recorded. The young remain on the nest, looked after in turns by each parent until they are large enough to maintain their own body temperature and can wander around freely.  

At this point they form a "crèche" with other chinstrap penguin chicks, huddling together for protection against the worst of the weather and predators. It also leaves both parents free to go fishing so increasing the food supply for the rapidly growing chicks.

Not albinos as they do have pigment, but not as much as the more normal members of the species. These penguins would always hang around the breeding grounds with others of their species, though I never saw one that had any success in breeding - incubating eggs, building a nest etc. Maybe they were just a little too different for the other penguins.

I was looking through your penguin pics and noticed your comment about leuchistic penguins not breeding. So I thought you might be interested in the attached pic (right) of a leuchistic Adelie penguin with a chick. I took the pic in 1963 on Avian Island (off Adelaide Island). Mike Fleet

While I saw several leuchistic chinstraps on Signy I don't recall having seen a leuchistic Adelie, maybe the result of different gene pools. Paul Ward

Penguin
 Photobook by Frans Lanting, Christine K. Eckstrom
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2013 Penguin Calendars