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Off the record, and just because it’s easier to remember, an animal with unusual features will probably have a nickname alongside its more scientific appellation in the form of a number or a tag.

I recently came across one such example while visiting the African penguin breeding colony at Stony Point at Betty’s Bay while working on a video about why African penguins matter so much for the livelihoods of the people of the Kogelberg.

Spokie is an African penguin with a spotty chest and, unlike the rest of her species, a white face.

I first saw her sunning herself on the slipway where she was warming up after a foraging trip at sea. (I say “her” advisedly, but more on that later.)

What piqued my interest was that I heard that Spokie had a nest nearby and that she had also been seen moulting at Boulder’s Beach near Simon’s Town on the far side of False Bay. Penguin ranger Vardaman Hahndiek sent me beautiful pictures of her which confirmed this.

It turns out that a number (and not just a nickname) is a useful tool.

WWF South Africa environmental monitor Marcelin Barry, was able to check Spokie’s PIT number because he also knew where she was nesting. PIT stands for “passive integrated transponder”, which is a small, implanted microchip allowing remote monitoring of the birds’ movements.

From Spokie’s PIT number, scientist Dr Katta (Katrin) Ludynia was able to tell me that this was a four-year-old penguin, rescued and sent to SANCCOB as a starving chick at Stony Point after she had been abandoned by her moulting parents. When penguins moult, they are unable to go out to sea to forage for food and so without some help their chicks will die.

After rehabilitation, Spokie was released at Foxy Beach in 2021.

Katta was also able to tell me that Spokie was often recorded visiting Stony Point during the 2024 breeding season, and so this year was probably her second nesting attempt.

According to seabird scientist Dr Alistair McInnes of Birdlife South Africa, Spokie is a bird with aberrant plumage, which means she has feather colouration that differs from most adult African penguins.

In her case, it is most likely due to leucism (a partial loss of pigmentation especially of facial feathers). However, one could also make a case for melanism (darker colouration), says Alistair, because of the dark spots on her belly and chest.

Spokie may be unusual but she is not alone in this world. A scientific paper on birds with colour aberrations in Algoa Bay, describes penguins that are brown rather than black, and Katta recalls there was once a mostly white penguin known as Gabriel, named after the Angel Gabriel, on Mercury Island off the Namibian coast.

A little twist in this tale is that “Spokie” may in fact be the offspring of another Spokie first seen at Stony Point around 10 years’ ago.

In 2015, then ranger Cuan McGeorge spotted an odd-looking bird and dubbed it Spook. He dug up his records and shared photographs which scientists later confirmed was indeed a different bird.

Interestingly, our current-day Spokie has a nest remarkably close to the one that Cuan remembered the original Spook occupying, amid the old blubber tanks of what was once the whaling station at Betty’s Bay.

This throws up some more questions. Could the two be related? And has Spokie chosen to nest in the same place where she once hatched?

Sadly, the future for Spokie and her kind is looking extremely bleak. Last year, African penguins were uplisted to Critically Endangered by the IUCN and scary projections are that, unless something drastic changes, they could be extinct in the wild by 2035!

These charismatic birds face so many threats, ranging from predation to starvation due to a lack of fish to feed their chicks. And if African penguins are in trouble, so too is our entire marine ecosystem which is why we advocate for an integrated approach to managing our oceans.

 I really hope we are not too late – not just for Spokie and her potential future chicks but for everyone who depends on our oceans for survival.