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Birds > Penguins > Adelie Penguin Pygoscelis adeliae

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I visited a rookery of adelie penguins once, but the possibility to shoot freely for a few hours has resulted in a number of photos and recordings. They are not as noisy as gentoo penguins, but among them there is a constant movement and rivalry for the stones which are used as the penguin’s nest and they pilfer them each other. It is quite funny when the clumsy moving penguin creeps and steals a small size stone and then walking away carries it to its own nest. South polar skua , just like with the colonies of gentoo penguins, were disrupting the idyllic scenes of maternity of the adelie penguin rookery from time to time. Not too often, because the young penguins were already grown so that they were not easy prey for skuas. It is interesting that in the same region of Antarctica in one colony the young were so small that they were hiding under the bodies of their parents, while in another colony (even within the same species of the adelie penguin) they were already as big as their parents. Besides I could watch them in colonies it happened to me to come across some  individual specimens of this species and these contacts resulted in such a different  "Antarctic" pictures. Adelie penguins weigh up to 5 kilograms and can live for up to 16 years, reaching sexual maturity at the age of 8. Their body length is about 70 centimeters.

Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis adeliae