Wednesday 12 September 2012

Mother penguin gives late-blooming son a helping hand

Penguin, Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen


Staring glumly at the ground, the stressed out bird has clearly grown tired of his despairing mother's constant attempts to try and smarten up his hair.

Sporting an afro-style brown bush head of hair, the late developer has taken longer to shed his baby feathers than the other youngsters in the colony.

Pecking and plucking the unfortunate teenager, his mother was snapped attempting to speed up her son's unusually slow moulting process.

While the beaked bird has already grown majestic black and white feathers on his wings and stomach, it is still waiting to develop a golden crest on his head.

The stunning image was captured by amateur snapper Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen on a trip to South Georgia.

'I kind of got the feeling that the parent penguin was worried about the chick being so late in the season with its moulting process,' explained the 45-year-old.

'The moulting process happens to the adult birds as well as the young penguins, they either get new feathers or exchange their down for feathers.

'For the adults this starts towards the end of the subantarctic summer, for the youngsters however this process starts earlier.'

He added: 'The penguin in the photo is halfway done with moulting its down, but he is rather late already.

'Some of the younger penguins are long done with shedding of their down and turning into real adult King Penguins.'


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/910722-mother-penguin-gives-late-blooming-son-a-helping-hand#ixzz269jUEmCd

No comments:

Post a Comment

You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

ShareThis