Penguins are funny little Birds, aren’t they? They like to huddle together, eat fish and just waddle around. When it comes to visiting some, then Birdland in Bourton on the Water is a perfect location to see some pesky Penguins.
Alistair Keen is the head Bird-Keeper of the park and he has been taking care of the Penguins and their enclosure nearly 20 years ago as a trainee and as the head since 2007.
“We got about 110 species of birds” Alistair says, “From Asia, Africa, Europe and the North & South of America”.
In order to give the penguins at home, they clean the enclosure once a week. Even the pool is cleaned with fresh water to allow the penguins for a swim or splash.
“Penguins also have swimming lessons” Alistair says. It might have worked wonders too, as these penguins featured in the BBC’s ‘Winter Wipeout’.
The first Penguin, Charlotte is mostly seen swimming in the penguin pool.
Ollie is the grumpiest out of the group. “He likes his personal space” Alistair recalls, “he’ll growl at you if you do not move and might peck you with his peak”.
Alistair says that recognising the penguins is easy, it is as if these penguin’s personalities are as compared to the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White.
Maggie is one of the penguins that came from a different country, all the way from Denmark.
But the most popular penguin out of all of them is Spike. He appeared in one of David Attenborough’s, show and has his own social media account with Twitter and Facebook profiles.
However, he has competition from Seth. He is one of Europe’s oldest penguin in his 70s and appeared in the 1992 movie ‘Batman Returns’. Who knew a penguin would feature in a movie featuring Michael Keaton & Danny DeVito.
Throughout the pandemic and its lockdowns, Alistair did not notice a change of the Penguin’s behaviours.
“We still do feeds every day” Alistair says, “they are pretty chilled out and they do not mind. They haven’t behaved differently at all”.
Out of all the penguins, Alistair loves working with all the penguins and did not mind sharing his opinion. “I do have a favourite, Charlotte is one of mine”.
The penguins will still be there for Christmas and the oncoming future. So, there is no rush to meet these little waddlers in their enclosure at Birdland. When you do go, don’t forget to give them a wave and they might wave back too.
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