Yesterday was Pinguin Awareness Day. Reason for me to post this cute image where two world meet. The pluche penguin on the right was a present from the pupils during my last class before summer. I decided to bring it along to Antarctica and see how penguins would react to their fake counterpart.

On Saint Andrews Bay on South Georgia I gave it a try. We had quite a few King Penguins on the beach (the colony itself contains around 150.000 breeding pairs, but was a bit away). When I saw a few penguins walking on the beach, I decided to put the penguin on the ground and wait what would happen. Within a minute the penguins came to check out this new addition to their beach. Apparently it didn’t look threatening, so they dared to come close and even started softly pecking in it. I tried several times that day, every time with the same result. Conclusion: King Penguins are really curious.