Squishy Footprints: Penguins! (and an occasional dinosaur)

A bit over a week ago, my sister and niece made the 400-mile journey to Oregon for a long overdue visit. Last time they were here, 2 years ago now, our plans were thwarted by a bout of flu, and they departed having spent more time in bed or bent over a bucket than doing anything fun, such as visiting the zoo.

My behind-the-scenes Africa tour of the zoo in March --wherein I fed the giraffe, hippos, and rhino-- proved to be addictive, so I felt the need to spread this new "habit" to others. My sis has been a penguin freak ever since we were kids, and the obsession seems to have been genetically passed to her daughter. Therefore, when the zoo announced a behind-the-scenes penguin encounter, plans were quickly made for a visit that weekend.

Fast forward a couple of months, and we found ourselves at the gates of the Oregon Zoo, preparing to go meet the Humboldt penguin residents. We met up with "our" keeper, Rick, in the "kitchen" (work room) behind the penguin habitat, and he quickly summoned Mochica, the guest of honor.

Throughout his lifetime, Mochica has staunchly refused to believe that he is indeed a penguin. He decided early on that he was a human, and nothing the keepers tried convinced him otherwise. He won't pick a mate, despite his valuable genetics, instead favoring the company of the keepers.

Rick summoned Mo, who came running for the door to the kitchen, and joined us there. He strolled around our feet, preening compulsively and generally being grumpy as he was in the middle of his annual molt.

After the sharing of some fascinating tidbits about penguin anatomy and adaptations, Rick scooped up Mo and brought him around for us to touch. There are two ways I can describe the sensation... First, penguins are extremely muscular and solid. The feeling is similar to wrapping your hands around your quadriceps while flexed. Second, the texture of the feathers felt like petting a damp labrador retriever. It's sleek, but you can feel the texture of the many little clumps of hair (or feathers in this case). We touched him again later when he was dry, and he was rather soft at that point.

Rick decided to take our group out into the enclosure at that point, and we filed through the door onto the platform at the back of the exhibit. I was first through the door, and found myself down at the end of the platform where a ramp leads down to the water. It wasn't long before several of the penguins came up the ramp to check us out, and presumably to determine if we came bearing fishy gifts.

Humboldt penguins are of the variety that mate for life, and we were able to see one pair that had been together for 18 years. (Puts a lot of marriages to shame, eh?) She is nearly blind and he has arthritis, so they're like the perfect little grandparent penguins. :o)

We left the penguin enclosure after a bit, and headed back into the kitchen for a photo op with Mo. I was ecstatic when Rick retrieved the penguin from under a kitchen counter, took my camera, plonked him down on the floor in front of me and said, "Here. Hold him."

My sis had the same opportunity, and her huge grin nearly split her head in half. Here's my sister and niece in a different photo op with our tuxedo-wearing buddy...

After the conclusion of the tour, we spent the rest of the day at the zoo, totalling about 9 hours of viewing pleasure. This was tough on my sister, who had fallen down her basement stairs and wrenched her back 2 days before the trip, but I'm glad she was up to checking out the whole place considering how much she's heard about it from me, and how long it took to actually get them here.

The zoo has had a special exhibit his summer, featuring animatronic dinosaurs in a "natural" setting along a newly built and lovely trail. Some were small and very clearly animatronic, but others were a bit more realistic. The predatory dinosaurs, such as Megalosauros, were posed so that they looked as if they were about to leap on you. T-Rex is the only life-size model in the bunch, but they did a phenomenal job with him, placing him at the head of a trail as you come up a little hill and around a corner. He's there, waiting to blast you with a loud roar, and following you with his beady eyes. It's really quite an effect (even his throat "muscles" move!), and my sister found that her heart rate sped up substantially, even knowing that he's not real.