First Day with the Penguins

               I'm very excited to be holding this plastic beaded penguin before work. 

In making the decision to come to South Africa and learn to rehabilitate penguins, I seem to have forgotten an important aspect of my personality. That being - I hate birds.

Well, hate is a strong word. I'm sure that in the coming weeks, I will grow to love these darling little tuxedoed fellows. After my first day, I'm already much less scared of them than I was when I first walked into the enclosures and saw the amount of shit they were standing it, and snapping they were doing at each other.

I am not, however, any less afraid of the pelican, Lionel. In fact, I'm fairly certain Lionel has it out for me. He snapped his gigantic beak at me on at least 3 separate occasions today, and as I was scrubbing the poop out of his enclosure, I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my skull. And I don't think I'm being a big wuss when it comes to Lionel. His beak is the entire length of my arm and he is large enough, to paraphrase Martin Lawrence, to be declared "a thick ass bird". 

The first thing that strikes you of the enclosures is the smell. It's not quite fishy, and it's not quite poopish. It's the actual smell of the penguins. I imagine it could be likened to that of sex panther; a raccoon caught in a copier would only be slightly worse. The really bizarre part is how quickly you get used to it. It really doesn't bother you again until you get home and you can't get the smell off your skin and spend an hour in the bathroom scrubbing away at your arms until you give up and just spray a bunch of green tea body splash on yourself and hope that no one notices.
(I feel bad for the girl who is sleeping in the bunk next to mine).

My actual activities of the day varied. I was assigned to the ICU, where penguins and other sea birds, such as cormarinds, that are weak or injured reside. I had an orientation with the volunteer coordinator for about an hour in the morning, then right into the pens.

It was a lot of cleaning, observing, cleaning, learning how to hold the birds, getting pooped on, cleaning, getting pooped on again, observing more, etc. The volunteer I was following was a super nice, French girl. To hold the penguins, you have to grab them by the sides of their heads and sort of support their bodies against yours. Some birds are... resistant. 

During my orientation, I was told it's not a question of getting bitten. It's a question of how often you get bitten. It was said sort of implying "if you don't suck at this, and aren't a complete f-up, you will learn how to avoid getting bitten".

I have a feeling I'm going to be coming home with a lot of penguin bites. 

More updates to come as my week and (hopefully) skills progress.