Sister Rain’s Note:
Fridays are for stories about Piper, but this week Piper has graciously permitted mom to use his spot for a bird story of another kind.
It wasn’t until my husband turned the car onto a road and I saw the sign with the gigantic letters, “Z-O-O” that I had a clue as to where he was taking me. It was the 13th anniversary of my mom’s death and Mister Rain had arranged a surprise for me that was related to her.
“Zoo?,” I questioned. “You know how I feel about zoos.” I don’t like to see animals in interior tile-walled rooms or exterior fenced in enclosures, no matter how realistic the environment is made to look.
“This is a conservation program,” my husband explained.
“The only animal Mom was crazy about was penguins.”
“Well, we’re going to play with some penguins. It’ll be just us and someone from the zoo,” Mister Rain shared with me.
“We are??? Will we be in a cold glassed-in area with them like at the aquarium?”
“No, these are African penguins. We’ll be outside.”
“I had no idea there are African penguins.”
“Neither did I until I started looking into this,” my husband agreed.
Cassidy, a conservation specialist, was waiting for us at the penguin habitat. She had two sets of high rubber boots ready for us, after putting them on, Cassidy asked us to pick out several enrichment toys to take into the penguin area with us. Mister Rain couldn’t resist the bubble gun, we also selected a small rubber ball, a fabric fish and some silver cups tied together.
Entering the sizable habitat, several of the penguins were watching us. Cassidy had my husband and I sit on two large rocks, instructing us not to touch the adorable black and white seabirds. Zoo personnel don’t even handle the birds. When a penguin is taken to schools for educational purposes, if he or she doesn’t want to go into a carrier for the drive to meet with the children, the animal keepers will not pick the penguin up, instead allowing him or her time to enter the carrier on their own. If that doesn’t happen, a different penguin will be given the opportunity to make the trip instead. In my mind, they are trying to keep them penguins as much as possible, as they live in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania at Lehigh Valley Zoo.
I had asked if I should leave my trekking poles outside the penguin area, but Cassidy said I could bring them in, adding, “They may come to check them out, they like shiny things because the fish they eat are shiny (the scales).” Sure enough, not long after we took our places on the big rocks, a few curious penguins came over to inspect my poles.
The colony consists of seven males and seven females, several were in pairs. “Do they mate for life?,” I asked Cassidy. I thought I had learned this somewhere along the way.
“In the wild they do,” she confirmed, “but in an environment like this they mix things up.”
Mentioning that I had been unaware that there are warm-weather penguins, Cassidy informed us that there are only four species of penguins that live in cold temperatures.
A large lake is located in the penguin habitat, some went swimming while we were there. Penguins have their own built-in goggles: a membrane comes out and goes over their eyes when they swim.
On a grassy area on one side of the lake are both natural and man-made rocks. A number of the faux stones are open on one side, the inside hollowed out, allowing the penguins a spaces to hang out.
One male, Curtis, was busy our entire visit, taking sticks and grass into his and his partner’s rock to build a nest.
Suddenly my husband interrupted Cassidy in mid-sentence. “Hey, Cassidy, are those two . . . um . . . you know . . . ?”
“They are,” she confirmed.
One penguin was on top of the other inside their rock. We would see several other couples doing the same and I will fully admit it was distracting. Conversely, the lovebirds were not preoccupied with us in the least.
The penguins also have an interior environment where they go overnight and in bad weather, it includes a pool. Again, their transfer to inside and out happens without any physical contact by zoo personnel.
Several of the penguins would come up to us throughout our time with them, but it was the same few. We offered them the toys we had brought in, but after a quick investiagation, they weren’t interested. Cassidy said it depends on the day. Otherwise, they all went about their business which I loved. We weren’t causing them any change to their day.
I asked Cassidy about the conservation program Mister Rain had mentioned. African penguins are endangered. The last baby penguin born at Lehigh Valley Zoo was in 2017, their keepers continue to be hopeful that all the romance going on in the colony will result in births.
We had been told to wear jeans, because the penguins can nip. At one point I had my left hand down by the side of the rock I was sitting on when I felt a little pinch by my wedding ring. A shiny object is hard to resist.
Although Piper is a parrot and not a penguin, my husband and I had a lot of questions based on our knowledge of Piper. I asked if the penguins sleep with their head turned, buried in their back as Piper does. Cassidy had a photo of an x-ray to show us their anatomy, their necks are able to stretch very far. They do tuck their bill under a wing or into their back feathers to conserve heat while they sleep.
The penguin encounter lasted about an hour. It is not an exaggeration to say I did not want to leave. Though I couldn’t see them in detail, I could make out their movements. Later, enlarging the photos we had taken on my iPad, I was able to enjoy them all over again.
While it is very true these penguins are not in the wild, Lehigh Valley Zoo has done an excellent job of taking care of them, as well as enablng them to be penguins. It didn’t feel like they were living in my world, I most definitely felt as if I was living in theirs.
I would have loved to bring one home with me, but a certain green parrot I know would most likely not have been pleased. He is fine with sharing his weekly story spot, but probably not his home.
#sisterrain #alittlesightalotofheart #piper #lehighvalleyzoo #penguins
