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November 17, 2003
Penguin Portrait
Mystic Aquarium in the off season is wonderful, if you don’t mind the cold at least. The crowds are pretty much gone, and the number of school field trips are minimal. The reduced visitor flow means you can linger easily at each “exibit” and you get the chance to talk to the volunteer and professional staff at greater length. Since moving to Mystic we have visited the aquarium no less than 10 times, five times in the past month alone.
Unfortunately the penguins have been a bit difficult to get good pictures of during the off season. These are African Penguins (Spheniscus demersus) – a smaller penguin species at 25 inches and around 6 pounds from south-western Africa – who are well adjusted to a wide range of temperatures, but during the colder months huddle together and often seek the shelter of the rock cliffs. They do come out during feeding time, but again, they continue to huddle together, and swarm the feeder which makes it hard to get solo portraits, but has yielded some nice group photographs. This one did separate itself long enough for me to get a few isolated head shots. If I recall correctly this is blue-blue-green-pink.