The Penguins Were Being Penguins
What else is there to say about London Zoo’s mainly home-bred show-offs?
Even with the temperature in single-figures they weren’t bothered.
My Seventh Christmas Alone
I thought that it can’t be, but it is! I could rewrite this post from 2010, but that would be boring.
I am struggling to get to the football on Boxing Day and except for lunch tomorrow, I’ve got very little planned.
And surprise, surprise, the television is crap and of course there’s no live sport.
This afternoon, I’m going to see my friends in the penguin pool at London Zoo. At least they’re loving this weather.
Does The Internet Lead Us To Strange Places?
This report on the BBC about the end of the GOCE satellite, was to me very much a must-read, as it covers a lot of my interests. It probably will make a lot of others think about the Falkland Islands too. But it was this paragraph that caught my eye.
American military data timed this event to have occurred at 00:16 GMT, or 21:16 local Falkland time – just as Bill, his wife Vicky, and dad, Tony Chater, were making their way home after spending the day with King Penguins.
I hadn’t realised that there were King Penguins on the islands. Looking them up in Wikipedia, it said that the biggest King Penguin colony is on Crozet Island, which is a French overseas territory.
There really are some amazing places in this world, some of which are virtually inaccessible.
The Penguin Beach At London Zoo
We sat and had our excellent supper, whilst we watched the penguins have their fish.
Note the heron and the seagulls in the pictures. The white devices over the fence are plastic drainpipes so that the penguins have to work for their food and to stop the seagulls stealing it.
These penguins are developing into real show-offs. One was doing a side stroke and several of them were porpoising in and out of the water.
How To Shoot Penguins
I like penguins, and it was one of the reasons, I joined the London Zoo.
But in the new BBC series; Penguins – Spy In The Huddle, which is previewed in the papers today, there does seem to be some amazing shots of everybody’s favourite birds. There is more here in the Daily Mail, which includes a video. The article in The Times is more technical describing how fifty cameras were used, some of which went to a cold watery grave. One egg camera was even stolen by a sea bird.
I shall be watching on Monday night. Probably along, with a good proportion of the UK population! the iPlayer was made for television like this.
What Do You Do With Old Listed Buildings?
The old penguin pool at London Zoo is still there.
It illustrates the conundrum about what you do with old historic buildings, which have outlived their purpose, so well.
In my view it should be taken down, moved somewhere else and used for another purpose. It is totally unsuitable for its designed purpose and it takes up valuable space on a constricted site.
It’s Not Too Cold For The Penguins
I had gone to the London Zoo to see their penguins.
Surely, the Penguin Beach must be one of the best wild animal displays in the United Kingdom. The heron in one picture is a wild cheeky visitor according to this article in the Mail.
Although, I’m generally against a lot of wild animal displays, this one is rather different, in that a good proportion of the penguins were actually bred in the Zoo.
I’ve actually seen penguins in the wild twice; in the Galapagos Islands and South Africa. It has always surprised me that so many people go to Cape Town on holiday and never check out the penguins, that live all over that coast.
Indian Ocean Made Me Cry
I’m watching a new series on the BBC, called <Indian Ocean, where Simon Reeve circles the ocean of that name.
He started at the the Cape of Good Hope and of course he had to show the African Penguins that inhabit the coast.
Those penguins always make me cry as I remember a wonderful holiday C and I had there in one of the first winters of the new century.
She loved those penguins and I’ll always remember the day we saw them in Boulder.
The Anonymous Widower 