Not much news to report at the station this week, other than the cloud layer appears to be thicker than remembered. The temperature hovers around freezing, which along with the added moisture, perfects the falling of a wet snow. Our gentle Gentoos are out there--somewhere where the ice is not slow or thick, but where krill and other abundant, small crustaceans spend their winters as well. They gain weight and prepare themselves for September, when it will be time to lay the eggs and raise the young.
Let us now continue with the adventure set before us two weeks ago, when a Gentoo chick was stolen from its parents' nest. The greedy skua took the chick to the other side of the rise, but an albatross stood to take the chick away from the original thief.
The skua appears frustrated, as the albatross tosses our little waif to and fro. But look! Out of right side of the third shot in panel #6, what is that? Why, it's a Gentoo and he/she's not too happy about seeing one of her kind as lunch.
The shoulders' hunch, the gait is stiff, and the head is low. One thing you don't want to see in any penguin is this stance. The penguin who shows these bodily signs is out to make their normal bite likened to a pair of needlenose pliers with strong torque into the jaws of a great white shark. Notice how the Gentoo immediately bites the albatross on the wing...
What happens next in this face off of 2 to 1 for the hapless chick? Stay tuned next week for the final battle. : 0
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