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I bob up in the glass dome and right there, on the other side, looking me in the eye, is Sid the Kid, the penguin.
I tap the glass -- actually, the acrylic -- and Sid taps back with his beak. He's one of nine penguins around the pool but there's no worry about any of them knocking a peer into the glass.
"They're a little bit tamer than the NHL," Erin Estell, project director for Penguin Point, assures me.
The new $2.7 million exhibit at the National Aviary opens this Saturday morning, just down the hall from the bald eagles. The red-crowned cranes were loaned to the Pittsburgh Zoo to make room, and I don't know anyone questioning the trade. Nothing against long-legged birds, but penguins are what's happening these days.
Only hours after the birds were introduced to their new home, Ms. Estell handed me a hard hat and I bent over into a Groucho Marx crouch to walk into the Kids ViewTube under the exhibit. That's where you get the underwater views of swimming birds.
Stanley, Elvis, Patrick, Simon, Sidney and their brethren were still getting the feel of their new digs yesterday morning and weren't swimming much. Their trainers, Christopher Gaus and Teri Grendzinski, were moving big rocks around, the way any family would move the furniture around in a new home.
These African penguins, unlike their crosstown cousins at the zoo who hail from the Greater Antarctic area, don't have to stay refrigerated. They can play outside all day and night, year round. Their native habitat is the southwestern coast of Africa, a temperate area with milder winters than ours.
"They don't have to stand on the ice with an egg on their feet for months and months," Ms. Estell said, which surely beats the life of those Antarctic penguins Hollywood loves so much.
It should never get too hot for them here.
"If Pittsburgh ever gets as hot as South Africa," Ms. Grendzinski said, "I'm moving."
Standing less than knee-high to a man, with coats so thick with feathers they feel like fur, they're friendly birds. Reaching over the side of the pool to pet the birds won't be among visitors' privileges, but they'll get close enough to smell and hear them.
Their call sounds almost like a donkey's bray. Though that has led some to call them jackass penguins, they're smart enough to know one person from another.
"Stanley loves Teri," Ms. Estell said. "Simon is my guy. Elvis likes Chris."
If some of these names seem to have a hockey flavor, it's no coincidence. Stanley, the aviary's first penguin, arrived eight years ago and was named for the Stanley Cup. Then came Elvis, named for Penguins play-by-play man Mike Lange's signature victory call, "Elvis has left the building." There's also a Patrick, because the team plays in the Patrick Division, although the trainers discovered later Patrick is actually Patricia. (She and Stanley are now an item.) And I already mentioned Sidney.
Simon? He arrived the year of the hockey strike.
Watching these birds move on dry land, that hockey metaphor can be extended further. They seem as awkward as a player walking on his skates from the locker room. Once in their natural milieu, however, penguins and Penguins become one with their environment, visions of grace and speed.
If the birds' legs were longer they wouldn't walk so funny but they wouldn't swim as well. All their swimming is done with their wings.
"It's more important to be fast in the water because that's where the predators are," Ms. Estell said.
None of the sharks on the North Side swim much, so these birds should be OK.
Yesterday, after school, I brought my older daughter, Curran, and her friend Jessica Britton, both 11, for a kid's-eye view. By mid-afternoon, the birds were more acclimated, and three were swimming. My daughter liked that she could see the birds from all angles, above and below, and figured little crawling kids would particularly like the ViewTube. Jessica said she liked that the exhibit allowed the feeling of being under the water.
There will be 11 penguins in all and, yes, there's also a Mario in the bunch. If there's a naming contest for any others, my money is on "Evgeni" or "Malkin."
The National Aviary, with more than 600 birds, is open seven days a week. Summer hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., begin Saturday. Admission is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors and $8.50 for children 2 and up. For more information, see www.aviary.org or call 412-323-7235.
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