Penguin Visit a Big Hit with Crowd at Berkeley library

There’s nothing to make a room full of children go silent than the promise of watching a penguin waddle.

And there’s nothing that will make them giggle faster than a penguin doing one of the things it does best.

Reagan Quarg set Miss Kringle on the carpet of the room in the Berkeley Township branch of the Ocean County Library. After a quick shake of her feathers, Miss Kringle made a small deposit on the carpet – to the delight of the kids nearby.

“She pooped!” popped out of several little mouths.

Quarg never missed a beat in her presentation on the birds.

“They do that about every 10 minutes,” she said. “More often when they’re eating.”

Quarg, an exhibit educator and animal care specialist from Jenkinson’s Aquarium in Point Pleasant Beach, rattled off dozens of facts in the 90-minute presentation at the library. The program was funded by the branch’s Friends of the Library group.

For instance, did you know that penguins have solid bones, which enable them to dive deep in the water but also render them flightless, whereas birds that fly have hollow bones?

Or that penguins are only found in the Southern Hemisphere?

Or that the adults can be as small as 6 inches tall (the little blue or fairy penguin of New Zealand) or as big as 4 feet tall (the emperor penguin).

And while the group buzzed with questions and excitement those tidbits were the only thing that made the room full of more than 100 boys, girls and adults ranging from toddlers to grandparents hush quieter than a church on Sunday.

Miss Kringle – like most of the penguins at the aquarium, an African penguin, and one of seven that were born in captivity at the aquarium – shook her wings, preened and yes, even waddled along the front of the room. Because she is one of an endangered species, the kids were not allowed to touch her, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“She looked so pretty,” five-year-old Samantha Colby said as she sat on dad Jim’s lap.

“She was good,” sister Gianna, 7, said.

The family was visiting the girls’ grandmother, Connie Crisofulli of Bayville, and came to take in the presentation.

“Are you afraid of penguins anymore?” Jim Colby asked Samantha, who shook her head no. She seemed far more fascinated by one thing.

“She pooped!” she said, and giggled.