Thursday, January 10, 2008

the MARCH of the penguins??

contrary to what the title namer of this film would lead you to believe, penguins are in fact some of the most rediculously clumsy creatures when attempting to navigate around out of the water. the chinstraps, gentoos, and adelies i hung out with during our landings were a neverending source of entertainment. so once a penguin gets it in his or her penguin mind that it would be nice to move around out of the water (usually to nest, meet other penguins, or head back to the ocean, but honestly, sometimes they´d be chilling on an island with one or two others for absolutely no reason) they stick their wings straight out in an attempt to balance themselves and then waddle about similarly to ralphie´s younger brother in a christmas story when his mother bundles him up for school. if the terrain is slightly rough then tripping and falling is usually involved, and big human footprints in the snow further complicate the matter. to make their lives a bit easier they play endless games of follow the leader, thus forming penguin highways of packed down snow across the landscape.

"penguins may seem cuite and cuddly, but they are in fact loud, smelly guano producing machines" -jenn, a classmate

penguin guano is a very distinct smell, especially when you´re talking about the penguin guano produced by social breeding colonies of 300+ pairs. if you´re lucky, you might get a bit of the true antarctic experience yourself upon my return, as i´m sure the odor will not have left my waterproof pants by this time.

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