Yesterday a collection of spycams from renowned BBC programme Spy in the Huddle visited Penguins Rock at Edinburgh Zoo, and some young rockhopper penguins made new friends with their spycam doppelgänger and started trying to preen it!
Nick Dowling, Senior Keeper for Birds at Edinburgh Zoo commented:-“Our rockhoppers in particular were very interested in one of the rockhopper cams and some seemed to bond with it and tried preening it. Others enjoyed giving it an inquisitive peck during their playful investigations. As our penguins are more used to human interaction when compared to colonies in the wild, they showed little apprehension towards the cameras and were immediately curious about the new additions to their colony.
“The egg cams also caused quite a stir with a couple of concerned patrons, who were watching Penguin Cam at home, contacting Edinburgh Zoo as they thought it was a real egg out the nest. At one point a crow even tried to steal it!”
Philip Dalton, Spy in the Huddle Producer said:-“Each penguin’s response to the cameras is very individual. Some accept it as one of their own and try to bond with it through preening behaviour, while some are inquisitive and try to peck it.”
John Downer Productions, the company that created Spy in the Huddle, filmed the Zoo’s colony of king, rockhopper and gentoo penguins with the same spycams used to film penguins in the wild. The spycams included two life-size rockhopper cams – one static, one animatronic – and two egg cams, with footage streamed live into the penguin hut for visitors to view.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
