PUNTO TOMBO, Argentina
On this lonely finger of land pointing from the stubbled plains of Patagonia into the Atlantic Ocean, time is measured less by clocks than by the gentle quivering of cream-colored eggs. A scouring wind prevents trees from taking root, so the change of seasons is marked by subtler indicators, like the size of flipper tracks on the beach.
This time of year, the nearly half-million Magellanic penguins that arrive at this vast nesting colony usually spend the mid-afternoon hours resting in the cool of their burrows.
But for two hours one afternoon last week, dark clouds blocked a pitiless sun and lured them into action. Thousands of foot-tall birds climbed out of their burrows, which were mostly dug under spiny shrubs, and stretched their inch-long legs.
Many visited their neighbors. Single males flirted shamelessly, and some started fights. Faithful fathers threw welcome home parties for returning mothers who had spent weeks at sea hunting food for the family.
A motionless pair stood side by side with their wingtips lightly touching, like an elderly couple holding hands, unmoved by the waddling throngs with places to go, penguins to see.
Time is valuable because the birds run on a tight schedule. An internal calendar rules their lives, which can last for 20 years or more. Each September, the males arrive at Punto Tombo to prepare nests for the females, who join them several weeks later. The couples are generally monogamous.
They take turns on seafaring expeditions to hunt food that they will store in their craws and later bring home for the chicks that start to hatch in November. By April, when the chicks are ready to fend for themselves, they will depart with the rest of the colony to swim north toward Brazil.
"Right now, a lot of the eggs are hatching or about to hatch, and the return of the females from sea is critical," said Jo Loughrey, 24, a Scottish volunteer at the small scientific field station near the colony. "She needs to get back one or two days before the eggs hatch, because the chicks need to be fed quickly or they will starve."
The field station, run by the University of Washington, has been tracking penguins since 1982, when activists and local officials foiled a plan by a Japanese company to harvest the penguins and turn them into gloves and oils. The field station uses satellite tracking to follow the penguins at sea and to determine whether global climate changes and shipping routes could disrupt their sensitive calibrations.
Fuel tankers have killed some of the birds and covered others in oil. Field researchers believe rising ocean temperatures might be forcing the penguins to swim farther to collect fish. The number of breeding pairs at Punto Tombo has declined by about 20 percent in the past 15 years.
Magellanic penguins -- named after explorer Ferdinand Magellan -- are burrowers. If Emperor penguins, found in icier climes farther south, are associated with a dashing sort of tuxedoed grace, the Magellanic penguins are their rowdy cousins who often look as if they've emerged from a brawl at a wedding, ties crooked and dress shirts stained.
Which is not to say they lack charm. On the recent afternoon in the colony, one male waddled back to his nest with a clutch of grass in his beak. The field researchers said males often shower gifts on their mates, and the grass might be a welcome home present for a mate who had been away at sea.
While chivalry is common in a place where females easily outnumber males, so are sneaky courtship stratagems.
Another male returned to his nest to find his mate sitting atop their fuzzy gray hatchlings. But she had company under the shrub. He might have been what the researchers call a "babysitter male" -- those who help females tend chicks while their mates are at sea, hoping to prove they would make better fathers.
Dad was not amused. Squawks were exchanged. A brief tussle ensued. The trespasser fled.
Nearby, along a gravel path, another male smoothed his ruffled feathers with a beak outlined in bright blood -- the loser of another fight. Despite many threats to family stability, Magellanic marriages are unusually long-lasting. The field station tracked one couple that remained faithful to each other for 16 years.
Toward 5 p.m., restless gulls circled overhead, perhaps looking for unhatched eggs to eat. In one penguin nest, a female hovered over a hatchling, trying to warm it. But the baby bird lay dead, flattened by starvation, amid the broken shards of an eggshell.
Under the same bush, another female lifted her head slightly and shuddered. Regurgitating food from her gullet, she lowered her head to a trembling chick, opening her beak to allow the baby to eat what she carried inside. With luck, this one would live to herald the coming of another season.
