Penguins are quite wonderful. They have tons of personality, attach to people, and can be very affectionate. We met three Magellanic penguins in a remote research corner of the zoo.

I sat on a bench with Maria and about eight other people, and the zookeepers brought out three penguins, who waddled over to each of us, checked us out, and paused to have their lower backs scratched, which they loved.

Squidge came up and looked me in the eye, pecked at my shoelaces, and walked between my legs, stopping for more back-scratching. We got along. He loved my jeans.

The zookeepers were great, their relationship with this odd little animals was deep and touching. They talked about the awful toll plastic bottles were taking on penguins like these, when they swallow plastic, it stays in their stomach, taking up room for genuine food.

Thousands of penguins are starving to death and dying awful deaths.
I’m grateful that my state, New York State, has just banned plastic bags in stores.

And I’m glad I’m drinking water out of aluminum bottles.

I thought Squidge reminded me of Zinnia in some ways, she seemed to love everybody and was afraid of no one. The zookeepers spend almost all of every day with these penguins, feeding them, testing them, studying them.

These penguins are monogamous, they mate for life. They love being out in a crowd, the marched around to check out each one of us, they have a thick feather hide and a cheerful, easy doing demeanor.

We were with this crew for half an hour, it was well worth the trip. We’re going back to see the sloths in May.

Maria and I are going to do a podcast now, I’ll write more about the trip later.