A Gentoo Penguin’s Life Cycle
A Look at a Gentoo Penguin Breeding Colony and the Birds Themselves
All about Gentoo penguins: appearance, range, location of the breeding colony, fishing and swimming ability, parenting and moulting.
An adult Gentoo Penguin stands about two and a half feet tall (80cm), and weighs about 13lb (5kg). It has an orange beak, orange feet, and a distinctive white patch over each eye joined by a white band crossing over the top of the head. They are doing well: there are an estimated 320,000 breeding pairs of Gentoo penguins living in the southern hemisphere - in Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and a few other sub - Antarctic islands. The largest numbers are found in the Falklands.
The Gentoos gather in breeding colonies to mate and raise their young, returning to approximately the same location year after year but generally building their nests on a fresh piece of ground each time. Occasionally, the whole colony moves to a completely new location.
The colony itself, comprising up to several hundred breeding pairs, is usually located on a coastal plain and may be a few kilometers from the stony or sand beach where the birds come ashore. Nests are circular rings of rocks, grass and other plant material situated just out of pecking range from each other and, typically, contain two eggs.
The parents take turns tending the eggs, which hatch in just over a month. When the chicks have hatched, the parents take turns by the day, going out to fish for krill, squid and fish. The foraging parent birds, which can swim at speeds of 22mph (36km/hr), range up to 12miles (20km) from the nest. They are capable of diving 650 feet (200m), but generally stay at depths of 65 to 325 feet. At the end of the day, they return to the nest and regurgitate food for the hungry Gentoo chicks. If food is scarce, one chick will die, but in years of plentiful food, both chicks are likely to survive.
When they are about a month old, the Gentoo chicks leave the nest and move into a group of chicks called a crèche. Here they remain for the next 50 to 70 days while both parents commute to the ocean for food. When they are three months old, the fledglings leave the crèche and become independent. They will not mate and establish their own nests until they are two years old.
Once the chicks have fledged, it’s time for the adults to moult, a process that takes two or three weeks. Finally, they return to the sea till the next breeding season. Some will travel large distances while others remain in the general vicinity of the breeding colony until it is time to nest again.
At Station GARS O’Higgins in Antarctica, the Gentoo Penguins begin to gather in earnest by the end of October. You are invited to watch the 2006 breeding season on the webcams located at O’Higgins and participate in discussion at Suite101.
About the GARS O'Higgins webcams
