I have a wildlife zoo-Chapter 663 - 662: Competing for the Small Fish

The animal keeper said, "During courtship, male penguins attract females visually and audibly.

First, they swing their heads, tossing them from side to side. This serves to declare their territorial ownership to other males and to attract passing ladies.

If the female penguins show signs of being charmed, the males will press their advantage, braying loudly, singing a romantic love song.

If the female penguins accept the courtship, both penguins will bow together, similar to a human couple bowing to each other in marriage, thus confirming their partnership."

"How interesting!"

Now, when Liu Wei heard those penguins braying again, it felt different to him!

What was once noisy and chaotic, now had a touch of romance to it.

It's about their lifelong commitment; how could they not give it their all.

The penguins made no attempt to hide their affections. No sooner had one penguin's call finished than another would start braying loudly, fearing their own call was too quiet and some other guy would catch the girl's attention.

Then all the penguins joined in, their voices merging into an ocean of braying, exceptionally lively.

Their clamorous calls seemed to enliven the whole enclosure, bursting with vitality.

The way penguins walk is amusing and comical, waddling along with little steps, hopping over steps with both feet together.

With their wings hanging down by their sides, they look as if they're wearing sweeping-sleeve bathrobes, shuffling around the living room in slippers.

Amamiya Kokoro said, "Back in Hokkaido, some zoos have penguin parades where penguins line up and march forward in the snow, which is really fun."

Liu Wei said, "Around here, the red pandas sometimes come out for a stroll too, which is also very cute!"

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Hearing their discussion, a visitor asked the animal keeper eagerly, "By the way, do our penguins have any parades?"

The animal keeper explained, "Yes, there is a plan! But right now it's still quite hot. If they were to go out on the road, the high temperature of the ground might scorch their feet, which isn't suitable for walking.

Look inside our pavilion, we've placed ice blocks and installed misting systems to cool the rocks with water.

There's even a slide in the exhibit design so that the penguins can slide into the water, but we haven't taken it out because of the hot weather.

When the temperature drops in the fall, you might see them taking walks."

Amamiya Kokoro exclaimed in surprise, "Wow, you really do put in a lot of effort!"

Liu Wei laughed, "Indeed! At first, I thought an animal keeper's job was just to scoop poop and feed, but after visiting the zoo a few times, I realized there's a lot to it, and it's not something you can do well without the right approach."

A penguin approached the edge of a wide stone, its webbed feet gripping the edge, its body leaning slightly forward, adjusting its posture.

Then, spreading its wings and lowering its head, it naturally fell off the rock, plunged into the water, and made a splash.

From the shore, it might look a bit clumsy, but once in the water, its swimming motion became agile and graceful!

Its feet together behind it, like a fish's tail, and its thin wings spread back, it glided forward several meters with a single stroke.

With its conical head and smooth skin, its streamlined figure moved through water almost without resistance, resembling a small airplane in the water.

Gently flapping its wings, it swam leisurely through the water.

Sometimes crisscrossing with companions, sometimes surfacing, some even swam in a sideways flourish, showing their white bellies to the onlookers.

A curious person asked, "Come to think of it, are penguins birds?"

The visitors immediately began discussing, "Birds, right?"

After some thought, Amamiya Kokoro ventured, "They should be birds, right? But their swimming looks a bit fish-like."

Liu Wei said, "That fish is too outrageous, it should be considered a beast!"

The animal keeper waited for the visitors to discuss a bit and laughed, "Penguins have bird beaks, bird wings, feathers on their bodies, and they reproduce by hatching eggs, so of course, they're birds!"

The crowd was amazed, "Eh?"

"Feathers? Isn't their body covered in skin?"

The animal keeper said, "Although penguins' bodies look very smooth, they actually have feathers! It's just that for the ease of swimming, the feathers grow very neatly against the body.

I have some penguin feathers with me, which I picked up while cleaning earlier. You can all have a look."

Raising the feather, people raised their heads to observe, the small white feather was very fluffy.

"Everyone, look closely around the pool, search carefully! You will definitely find some.

Also, when they come ashore, pay attention, look at that penguin, it is now turning its head to groom its feathers."

Penguins walk in a rather peculiar manner; their leg posture is like a human squatting in a horse stance, encased in fat, giving the illusion of being quite short, and they also don't fly, so they indeed don't look much like birds, which can lead to misunderstandings."

At this moment, an animal keeper wearing rain boots came out from the back, carrying a metal bucket.

"Time for dinner, time for dinner!"

He took some fish out of the bucket and tossed them into the water.

The penguins suddenly became frantic!

The penguins in the water, who were leisurely swimming just now, started sprinting at high speed!

Anticipating where the fish would fall, the moment a fish touched the water, a penguin's head popped out, and snap, it gulped it down.

The penguins on the shore, now like dumplings being dropped into boiling water, couldn't wait to "splash splash" jump into the water, creating sprays of white foam.

The water's surface churned nonstop, splashes hitting the large rocks the penguins had been standing on, resembling waves crashing against cliffs.

Some penguins, because of fighting over the fish, pecked at each other, tumbling and tangling underwater, then separated moments later.

The visitors let out gasps of amazement.

"Wow, they swim so fast!"

"Look, those two started fighting!"

African penguins are lively and active by nature, and fighting is common among them.

Especially at feeding time, fights will definitely break out.

The external animal keeper, in front of the glass wall, observed intently and took out a notebook to record something!

After a while, the penguins finished their fish, continued to swim leisurely in the water, or returned to land to sing love songs, lying by the ice to rest.

The animal keeper put away the notebook and explained, "Just now I needed to count how many fish they ate, so I couldn't talk to you all, otherwise I'd get distracted."

"Wow, with so many penguins, how do you tell them apart? Can you count them all?"

"The colorful bands at the base of the penguins' wings are called 'wing tags'! These are their name tags. Generally, males wear them on the right and females on the left, and there are different color combinations, so we distinguish them by these. Recording their dietary habits is also part of our job.

The main food for penguins is fresh anchovies. Every day we have to select the fish, feeding only those with a golden color and more bounce. Fish with dark color and less elasticity, which might have lost more nutrients, will not be fed.

We also need to process them by removing the gills and intestines, and we mustn't break the fish's body during removal. It has to be a complete fish, otherwise, the penguin could hurt its esophagus by swallowing it."