Penguins, they have always been a love of mine and high on my bucket list as a unashamedly guilty pleasure despite their cliche cute animal status. So you can easily imagine I was disappointed when I learned I had on a previous expedition came insanely close to a wild colony of African Penguins on Namibia's Skeleton Coast. My partner had heard me lament this on numerous occasions and instead of quietly sticking in ear plugs whenever I shed a tear or two she actually set out to remedy my penguin-free existence.
Wild penguins sadly hang out in the Southern Hemisphere so my partner had to to settle for a local Scottish zoo for the captive alternative at Edinburgh Zoo. Edinburgh Zoo's big pull beyond their impressive Pandas is definitely their handy resident colony of Penguins. Roll on a Birthday surprise of a Penguin Keeper experience at Edinburgh Zoo. This entailed us getting a day's access at the zoo that included us getting to feed the wee fella's in their enclosure plus getting to help out during a penguin parade. We booked in for later in the year and spent the next several months getting super duper excited and shouting 'squeeeee' as all responsible mature adults do when they get to the chance to play with penguins.
Little did we know we would get an extra mini adventure flung in for free.
Finally the big day arrived and we made the short hop over to Edinburgh on a brisk Winters afternoon. The zoo was duly explored but we discovered alot of animals treat Winter afternoons just like us if given the chance. Many of them where cooried up warm and cosy indoors, quite right too! Luckily penguins are made of sterner stuff.
We arrived at our meeting point and duly met our Penguin Keeper for the day, I have forgotten her name but she was friendly, attentive, upbeat and very informative about telling us about the 3 types of penguins native to the Falkland Islands that make up their colony. King Penguins, Rockhopppers and finally Gentoos. We got to experience the penguin parade, we went into this with no expectations. We where quickly told penguin participation in the parade is entirely up to the penguins themselves, they are not bribed with food nor coerced in anyway. Our parade two Gentoo penguins came out and enjoyed the attention of the crowd as we safely shepherded them down down their path.
Next up we where prepped, gave gloves and finally a big bucket of fish to hand-feed the Gentoo Penguins. Then we entered the enclosure and became the biggest kids ever for the next hour. They are small, bold and very curious and damn right hungry, one of them had five fish, despite their hunger they can be very choosy eaters and will merrily have you holding a fish for them to nibble and investigate before swallowing full. We luckily had a pair of the King Penguins approach us as well though they are harder to hand-feed so we left that attempt to our able Penguin Keeper. There was more than a few moments of hilarity as they where content to start giving you a peck or close inspection if you where not quick enough to provide them a tasty fish and on more than one occasion one particularly cheeky wee fella managed to sneak in behind us to give the back of our ankles a playful peck. Our big bucket of fish quickly became a empty bucket of fish and the penguins shuffled back to the water and with a few tearful goodbyes we left our newfound little friends behind and retreated from the enclosure.
Afterwards we decided to explore as much of the Zoo as possible further up the hill before the light died. That was our mistake. In our penguin excited frenzy we had forgot to take note of the time. The Zoo was closing at four and we ended up being there well beyond and found out its just a tad difficult to leave a closed zoo in darkness when everyone has went home. I wont admit how long it took but eventually my eagle eyed girlfriend Natalie saw a light on in a small raised out the way office building and we braved knocking the door. The lady inside thought it was hilarious and quickly helped us out and told us we where not the first to be in that predicament. You do not get to see much in a zoo at night!
We made some new found wee penguin friends and we will definitely return to say hello to them soon.
© 2026 Johnny Graham
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