When do Adélie penguins mate and lay eggs?
Unlike some seabirds in more northern latitudes, especially those near the equator where the temperatures are about the same throughout the year, those found in polar regions have only one chance per year to breed. Penguins are no exception to this and in fact are under even more stress for breeding during a limited period because the Antarctic is so much colder than the Arctic. The summers here are relatively short and penguins have to reclaim their nesting territory, reconstruct their pebble nest, find their mate (or get a new mate), produce eggs, incubate those eggs, then raise the chicks. They have to do all this between November and February each year, though the amount of time available varies with latitude. The incubation period alone, for instance, takes about 35 days, and rearing the chick takes an additional 7-8 weeks (50-60 days). So there’s not much time to do all this and at many colonies the males arrive and reclaim their nest sites by mid to late October.
