As a child, my older brother loved penguins. He collected penguin stuffed animals, and over the years, a small colony of penguins collected in our house. Some of them were specific kinds of penguins; others were just tuxedo penguins. One year for Christmas my parents gave him a large, upright macaroni penguin – so named because of his thatch of macaroni-colored hair – and another year, an Emperor penguin. Sometime after that, he added a generic penguin with soft fur and floppy wings to the collection, then a penguin with a striped hat.
But his favorite penguin was a small, knobbly penguin with a black-and-red striped scarf. His name was Mr. Penguin, and though he was small, he was the oldest, and like all old things, he was the most loved. Today, while the other penguins sit next to my brother’s dresser, Mr. Penguin has a place of honor on the bookshelf.
I think, like all of us, he liked the penguins’ upright sturdiness, their big webbed feet and seemingly useless wings. Portly and slow walking, the only birds that cannot fly, penguins seem friendly and approachable, like animals a young boy could befriend. And my brother surely liked the distinctive tuxedo that a penguin sports.
April 25 is World Penguin Day – this Wednesday, the penguins will start their migration northward. Because the southern hemisphere is entering the winter season, the days are getting shorter and shorter, and some species of penguins cannot see very well in the dark. To survive, they head north, and for the duration of the winter, they’ll vacation on some floating ice, catch krill and fish to eat, and swim in the ocean.
We sometimes think of penguins as “the birds that can’t fly,” or just “the tuxedo birds.” But on closer look, a penguin’s style is carefully adapted for its environment. Their wings may not support them in flight, but their shape makes them excellent flippers, helping a penguin glide through the water with ease. Their tuxedo, too, helps them in the water – when a penguin’s in the water, their black suit jackets hide them from orcas and seals.
Today, my brother no longer collects penguins, but on a trip to the San Diego Zoo last year, he and I excitedly considered the possibility of seeing real, live penguins in the zoo. After years of collecting penguins, we could see real life ones, and so we watched flamingos, chimpanzees, and gorillas thinking that a penguin would be just around the corner.
Finally, we decided to ask a zoo staff member, who told us we had to go to Sea World. “There’s polar bears here, though,” she said, seeing our crestfallen faces.
So, we trekked to the polar bear station, and though we had wanted to see penguins, we were pleasantly surprised by the polar bears. The polar bear cubs played with carrots and toys, reminding us of our dog at home. Their white fur glistened in the sun. But polar bears and penguins are not equal. Polar bears are sometimes flashy: we’ve admired pictures of polar bears, seen them on Coke bottles, watched documentaries in which polar bears hunt for food and protect their young.
Penguins, on the other hand, may have gotten their time in the sun with March of the Penguins, but somehow don’t carry the same flash that a polar bear does: to start, they don’t advertise soda. But every year, they always migrate northward, and every year, they come back to the ice. Every year, they huddle together to keep warm in the face of a stinging winter. And every year, they dive into the water to swim with the same grace of a flying bird. We simply cannot see their diving the way we see a bird fly.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate a penguin and their down-to-earth style. After all, in each of our lives, we have a penguin: the person who works hard behind the scenes, the person who’s always sturdy and supportive. We may have polar bears in our lives, who flit in and out of our stories, but the penguins in our lives always come back. Penguins live far away, but they’re not so different from us – so, on April 25, look southward, and then look for the penguin in your own life.
-Written by MNH Volunteer Catherine Babikian
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