One week after being born at the Tennessee Aquarium, an adorable macaroni penguin is keeping its parents quite busy. “We’ve recorded them feeding the baby 18 to 20 times from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day,” said senior aviculturist Amy Graves. “And I’m sure they are feeding throughout the night as well.”
The penguin feeding ritual is interesting to watch and sometimes comical. Frantic peeping begins from underneath the parent that is currently keeping the chick warm. In response to this vocalization, the parent raises up and off of the baby. At this point two things occur.
First, the penguin baby begins rubbing its beak vigorously alongside the parent’s beak. This physical interaction then stimulates the parent to open its beak for the baby to enjoy some penguin haute cuisine.
“The chick sticks that little head way up into the parent’s mouth, almost to the back of their throat, and comes out with a nice, big mouthful of regurgitated fish,” Graves explained. “That sounds disgusting to us, but to a little penguin it’s absolutely wonderful.”
Apparently it’s also packed with all of the nutrients the baby requires, because Aquarium visitors are noting a rapid increase in size. What began as a tiny, slate-gray ball of fuzzy down one week ago is now growing by leaps and bounds. “Any baby bird grows fast and penguin chicks are no exception,” Ms. Graves said. “This little baby has almost tripled in size in its first seven days.”
Dr. Chris Keller, the Aquarium’s veterinarian weighed and examined the macaroni chick for the first time this morning. “This baby weighs 484 grams, which is a little more than one pound,” Dr. Keller said. That’s slightly heavier than the bell-curve for one-week-old macaroni penguins which is just fine.”
Even though this rather portly little bird appears to be doing fine now, Dr. Keller cautions that there are potential challenges ahead. “When the chick is about two to three weeks old, it will become more mobile and start moving around,” Dr. Keller said. “Once it starts scampering around, it has some potential to get into trouble. One concern is the fact that the baby is covered in down and does not have its waterproof plumage yet.”
For now the baby’s legs aren’t strong enough for it to venture from the nest.
While this baby macaroni seems to get bigger every time Ms. Graves turns around, she and other penguin keepers are still eyeing several gentoo pairs with eggs. It is still not known whether the four gentoo eggs are fertile or not. If they are, visitors may be able to observe similar feeding behavior with the other species of cold-climate penguins at the Tennessee Aquarium sometime in mid-July.