"Are you my mother?" A young Adelie penguin seems a little unsure of the towering figure behind it. Snow had fallen overnight and the world was fresh, clean, and white. Backs towards the wind and bristly tails uplifted, most of the colony were hunkered down, some almost buried by the drifting flakes. Fluffy gray puffballs snuggled together, some with tiny wings wrapped around their neighbors but all with heads tucked in as if discussing the next play in a football game.
Those who didn't learn the play, the technique of huddling in creches, could lose the game of life, for togetherness produces warmth when the winds are blowing fifty knots and the wind chill is well below freezing. Opportunistic skuas hovered nearby snatching the unwary, plucking the carcasses clean. A hundred thousand pairs of penguins moved about their daily chores much like a city awakening in early morn. Those in the fast lane tobogganed downslope on their blubber-rounded bellies, pushing with disproportionately huge feet. Others waddled their swaying gait, one foot swinging forward and then the other wings held out awkwardly for balance. Conversations of the penguin kind were either murmurs or shouts depending on whether there was an intruder or a family member present.
