King Penguin
Unlike most other birds, penguins cannot afford to replace a few feathers at a time. Instead, once a year they come ashore, usually just before winter, and engage in a catastrophic molt, which means they grow all of their feathers at once. It usually takes 2-4 weeks, and during this time, they cannot go into the water, because they are not waterproof. Often the old feathers do not fall out until the new ones have grown in, which results in strange and hilarious looking intermediate molt patterns. This King Penguin was at Salisbury Plain on South Georgia Island.
King Penguin
Unlike most other birds, penguins cannot afford to replace a few feathers at a time. Instead, once a year they come ashore, usually just before winter, and engage in a catastrophic molt, which means they grow all of their feathers at once. It usually takes 2-4 weeks, and during this time, they cannot go into the water, because they are not waterproof. Often the old feathers do not fall out until the new ones have grown in, which results in strange and hilarious looking intermediate molt patterns. This King Penguin was at Salisbury Plain on South Georgia Island.