The male usually leads. If the female is sufficiently impressed, the pair seal their relationship with a vocal duet.

King Penguin rookeries are very busy places. Every morning at about 6:00, the adults leave their chicks, cross the glacier stream and march down to the sea. They like to take an early morning bath, getting rid of the smelly mud and grime of the crowded colony. For an hour or so, they wash in the surf.

These penguins seem to have a fairly easy time of it, surrounded by an ocean laden with food, and with year-round access to their breeding beaches, but they are one of the few of Antarctica's inhabitants that have achieved independence from the factor that governs almost everything else －the advance and retreat of the sea ice.

King Penguin and albatross live only on the frontier of the Antarctica. They never go closer to the pole than the edge of the sea ice. But next week, we will. As spring really takes hold, we will follow the retreating sea ice to the shores of the continent, and then go up onto the great icecap, to the very heart of the Antarctica where life in the freezer faces its greatest challenge.

New Words & Phrases

duet:A composition for two voices or instruments.
二重唱；二重奏

grime:Black dirt or soot, especially such dirt clinging to or ingrained in a surface.
污垢，灰垢