Cuverville Island
It must have been a puzzling summer for gentoo penguins on Cuverville Island. In October, when there is reasonable expectation that the winter snow is disappearing, it stayed around. By November, when the snow should have cleared from the breeding colonies, the nesting areas along the beach were still under five or six feet of it. Only the nests on the hilltops had cleared, so the penthouse penguins could start building and courting more or less on time. Those down on the waterfront waited – and waited, eventually laying their eggs despairingly in the snow – and quickly losing them. Well over 90 percent of the waterfront birds are likely to have failed breeding this year. Now they are molting; the birds stand moping, scratching and preening, and the ground, at last bare of snow, is scattered with discarded feathers that the wind sweeps into corners.
It must have been a puzzling summer for gentoo penguins on Cuverville Island. In October, when there is reasonable expectation that the winter snow is disappearing, it stayed around. By November, when the snow should have cleared from the breeding colonies, the nesting areas along the beach were still under five or six feet of it. Only the nests on the hilltops had cleared, so the penthouse penguins could start building and courting more or less on time. Those down on the waterfront waited – and waited, eventually laying their eggs despairingly in the snow – and quickly losing them. Well over 90 percent of the waterfront birds are likely to have failed breeding this year. Now they are molting; the birds stand moping, scratching and preening, and the ground, at last bare of snow, is scattered with discarded feathers that the wind sweeps into corners.
