Wild kids

Common name: Rockhopper Penguin
Scientific name: Eudyptes chrysocome
Photo: T. Howard/Nature Focus, Australian Museum

Birds

Rockhopper Penguin

Rockhopper Penguins are black and white diving birds that live in large colonies in southern Australian waters and sub-Antarctic islands. They have short, robust, dull orange beaks and webbed feet with long toenails. They call with a braying sound, a bit like a donkey.

This is a Rockhopper Penguin jumping from rock to rock.

Rockhopper Penguins search beneath the water close to the surface looking for small fish and crustaceans. They catch their prey in their beak and swallow it whole underwater or they go to the surface to swallow it.

Rockhopper Penguins make a nest from a shallow hollow in the ground in rocky areas that they line with grass, feathers and stones. Females lay two white eggs in the hollow, but the first egg laid does not usually survive. Both parents sit on the eggs to keep them warm for 30 days. When the eggs hatch the chicks are without feathers but covered in soft down.

Both parents feed and care for the chicks until they are three weeks old when they join a group of other young penguins from the colony. The young penguins stay on shore together while their parents hunt for food for them. The young penguins begin to swim and feed themselves when they are about 10 weeks old.