From conservation@falklands.net Fri Dec 13 17:29:55 2002 Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 22:40:50 -0000 From: Environmental Research Unit To: frosch@derfrosch.de Subject: Penguin Adoption report Dear Thorsten During the month of November all our adopted penguins have laid their eggs, and I will send your photos of your penguin in a separate email within the next couple of days. When you get the photos you should be able to make out a light brown marker peg, which has the name of your penguin by the side of your penguin's burrow. We do not mark the actual penguin, since it would be cruel to do so. The penguin colonies have suffered very bad weather during November, which has caused some penguins to abandon their nests altogether. Magellanic penguins only lay two eggs, and if they loose them both, they abandon breeding until the following year. Fortunately Froschi has held on to both eggs so far. November started with severe winds, which due to the large areas of erosion caused by so many penguins, meant that soil was blown across the island in large quantities. This wind-blown soil fills up the burrows whose entrance is pointing into the wind, and can completely bury the eggs, causing the nest to be abandoned. The penguins sitting on the eggs often respond by trying to dig the burrow deeper, but this can sometimes make matters worse, since the soil they dig from the back of the burrow is often thrown back over their eggs, burying the eggs more. If the eggs become completely buried the penguin will abandon the nest. Strong winds were then followed by heavy rains, which filled some burrows with water. I attach a photo showing one area of the colony. Obviously all the eggs in these burrows will have been lost. It must be remembered that these are natural factors. Penguins can live to over 20 years of age, and during that period they will face many bad years when they loose their eggs to natural causes. Last year was a very good year in Chile, and hopefully next year will be too. Coming back to this year, hopefully Froschi will hatch the eggs successfully in about a month, and we will write to let you know when that happens. We will also send you the photos we promised in a couple of days, just as soon as we have sorted them all out. With over 400 adopted penguins, that is over 800 photos, but we will do it as fast as we can. Best wishes Mike [ Part 2, Image/JPG 98KB. ] [ Unable to print this part. ]