King penguin waddles onto Buffels Bay beach

An unusual visitor arrived on the shores of Cape Point this week, when a king penguin waddled onto Buffels Bay beach taking visitors and park rangers by surprise.

This rare sighting happened on 30 October in the morning and has already garnered a lot of attention from local birders.

Buffelsbaai vagrant king penguin and admirers this afternoon – a flightless twitch at Cape Point, South Africa: pic.twitter.com/gQuKiLbikl

— Tim Dee (@TimDee4) October 30, 2019

SANParks announced on Facebook that the penguin has been assessed by SANCCOB and was declared to be in good health, with no medical concerns.

‘We urge the public to keep their distance from the penguin as his activity will be monitored over the next few days,’ they said.

Although penguins are not a strange sight in South Africa, king penguins are not endemic to the region and are found on sub-Antarctic islands. This means that this penguin made a roughly 2,000 km journey to sun itself on the Cape beach.

 

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The king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) is the second largest species of penguin. They are mostly found around the Sub-Antarctic, so this dude is far from home! They weigh up to 17 kg and can reach a height of 100 cm! These cool little dudes feed on small fish, squid or crustaceans and have been know to dive up to 300 m deep when hunting! Once a young penguin leaves the colony, they are unlikely to return for at least three years when it is ready to mate. Mating season for these birds is usually between September and November when they return to the beaches from their hunting grounds. They normally spend about 3 weeks on the beach with their mate and then they head back out to the hunting grounds. It’s during this mating period that moulting also takes place. The pair (in this case, one lonesome little dude) would then stay on the beach with their egg, taking turns carrying it on their feet, keeping it warm and eventually care for the chick in a similar manner. Currently their population is estimated at about 4 million and these cool little tuxedoed guys can live up to 30 years old in the wild. This guy seemed quite warm but didn’t look too stressed out, and the rangers had everything and everyone under control. Let’s hope he or she, because these guys are sexually dimorphic, gets back to the rest of the colony safely. 🐧 PS. Today is the day I start saving for a DSLR, my videos/photos have not done this penguin justice. Keen to see your footage @jasonboswell 🤙🏼

A post shared by Roxy Zunckel (@roxyzunk94_) on Oct 30, 2019 at 6:40am PDT

The king penguin is the second largest species of penguin in the world, after the emperor penguin.

This is not the first time a king penguin has swam up onto our shores. The last sighting was in 2017, when a bird washed up in Hout Bay. The penguin that had an injury possibly from a fishing hook, was in arrested moult and was no longer producing vital waterproof fathers. It was taken to SANCCOB for rehabilitation.

Image source: @wherethelight_is/Twitter