Penguins
The next day at the aquarium I worked with the penguins. The New England Aquarium has three species; african, rockhopper and little blue. Each is very different and has distinct personalities. I worked first with the little blues, the smallest species of penguin. They were molting their feathers so I cleaned up the feathers from the water and washed off the rocks they sat on. As they all huddled together in a tight clump I brushed of all of the fish they had digested or regurgitated. It smelled pretty bad at times. After lunch I worked with the rockhopper penguins who were much more aggressive and hungry. I fed them some fish sticking it in their faces till they ate it. Each penguin is monitored, making sure every single one gets the right amount of food and that no one is falling behind. Some were very eager to eat and would peck at my fingers and swim around me bumping into my back, others would sit far away from me and I would have to walk up to them and coax them to eat. After feeding them I went around cleaning the bottom of the enclosure scrubbing away algae and any food scraps. At one point I was walking around the rock when one sitting on a rock crapped on me. A family saw it happen and burst out laughing, it was a lot more fun for them than me, needless to say I thoroughly washed out my wetsuit.
