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So. Many. Penguins. WOW
- Sep 21, 2009 at 8:30 AM
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- Comments (15) Total Views (540) Everyone can see this journal post.
Last month's National Geographic Magazine had a pull-out picture of a penguin colony. I showed it to Abby because I wanted to give her an idea of the numbers of penguins out there, since on TV or at the Aquarium you usually just see a couple at a time.
I first showed her a picture of one penguin, which she identified immediately. Then I flipped the page to show her a full page covered in tiny little penguins. I made sure she looked really close so she could tell where all the individual birds were. Then I opened to pages up, since it was a tri-fold, to show the complete picture, which is still stunning to me just thinking about it. The look on her face was priceless. She did not expect to see so many birds, spread across 3 pages!
No words can equal seeing the picture with your own eyes. I tried to find the image to show you here, but I cannot. I found something really close, and you can see it HERE on National Geographic's website. It is credited to Stefano Unterthiner. I have to say if I was there in real life, seeing that many animals in one place would be frightening! Even if they are cute penguins, being outnumbered thousands to one couldn't be a good thing! I did a quick estimate on this image, and I think there is over 10,000 individuals in the image. You can see no signs of the colony thinning out at the edges on the image, so I wonder how far it stretches (the photographer estimated 100,000 in the whole colony).
What other large animal groups have you seen? Do they scare you? Have you ever seen a mass of ladybugs in one place? I did once and it's really weird to stick your hand in the middle of it!
Tonya
AKA sunmoonstars
Comments:
OMG wow!
Grr. I was late paying my subscription renewal and we didn't get an issue last month!
By our pool there is a palm tree that has this huge cascading flower and the bees are in love with it. At times you can't even see the flower there are so many. I keep meaning to get a photo, but I don't think to take my camera when I go swimming.
The link to the penguin page is incredible!
elephant seals and bees too! Remarkable :)
Great post!
My favorite love scene from a movie is from March of the Penguins.
Thanks so much for sharing. That is such an amazing sight to see!
I love those ladybug balls!! I have found a few of them...
And that penguin link was awesome!! hubby couldn't figure it out but my 7 yo knew what it was almost immediately!!!
penguins rock :)
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On the Central CA coast on Highway 1 at Piedras Blancas is rookery for elephant seals and I have to tell that it's an extraordinary sight seeing so many of these marine mammals all laid out on the beach! I recall one volunteer docent tell us that the rookery is home to some 15,000(!) animals. Truly astonishing! If you Google the terms "elephant seals California," I'm sure you'll turn up the website.
- arthistmom
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