So far I've seen two different types of penguins, Magellan or Patagonian penguins and King penguins, the latter in the only place you can see them outside of the Antarctic on Tierra del Fuego.
Things I like about penguins:
- They look smart - they spend a lot of time looking after their plumage as it's key to keeping them warm, and waterproof.
- Occasionally they don't - they moult annually (they were doing this when I saw them), which leaves some of them with particularly comical patches of feathers (see right). They can't swim, therefore can't fish / eat during this time so they fatten themselves up beforehand.
- They're monogamous, kind of - the female will return to the same male and the same burrow as the previous year, bypassing the young males trying to gain her attention.
- However, if the male hasn't cleaned the prepared the burrow to her satisfaction, she'll go off in search of another mate.
- They have a unique call - which is quite entertaining to listen to.
- They're clumsy on the land but unbelievably elegant in water.
- The temptation to anthropomorphise them is sometimes overwhelming.
- They also dispense wine [1].
- You can make them out of a square of paper in 7 steps. However, if your Spanish isn't so hot (and some of the steps are quite difficult to follow - I had to reverse engineer a penguin to make mine [2]), here it is in 12 steps...
HOW TO MAKE A PAPER PENGUIN
1. Make a square of paper, it's easier if it's coloured on one side (e.g. wrapping paper would probably work well but you can also use photocopies of motorcycle import documents that you no longer need). A square of paper made from an A4 sheet of paper makes a penguin about 12cm tall.
2. Orientate the square so it's a diamond, with the coloured side face down. Turn the top corner down so that the point is in the centre.
3. Turn the paper over.
4. Fold the top sides back on themselves, creating a coloured diamond made up of two right angled triangles.
5. Fold the whole thing back on itself through the vertical axis.
6. Pull the triangle out from the top. This will make the head and beak.
7. Fold a triangle back in on itself on each of the sides on the bottom (which were previously the right angled ends of the large triangle.
8. Now fold the top sides down about a third of the way.
9. Fold the bottom in on itself to create two double thickness triangles on the bottom (soon to be the penguins feet).
10. Fold the triangles back on themselves, into the middle.
11. You can now stand your penguin up.
12. Fold the bottom of the head up (pushing the sides out), creating a more 3D beak. Then you're done.
Notes:
1. As if to reinforce the "why a book of my trip wouldn't be interesting" point - I'm reading Bruce Chatwin's "In Patagonia" and he also came across the penguin wine carafes. Except his description was undoubtedly more evocative and entertaining than mine.
2. Reverse engineer sounds so much nicer than disassemble...
