This "Snowbird" Love Story Will Melt Your Heart!

How far will you travel to see family and friends?
Miles and miles.
Humans, apparently, are not the only ones who love togetherness. 

Our friend Dianne Budlon Devitt sent us this wonderful, heart warming story about a very unusual friendship between a penguin and an elderly man.

Brazilian biologist Joao Paulo Krajewski reports:

Four years ago, Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, found a South American Magellanic penguin covered in oil and starving on a beach on an island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. A friendship was born. 

Since they met in 2011, the creature, which normally breeds on the Patagonia coasts of Argentina and Chile, three to five thousand miles away, has become a faithful companion, swimming every year from its habitat to spend up to eight months living with the retired fisherman in his house on the island.

“I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me,” said Mr Pereira de Souza in an interview with Globo TV, in which the bird honks with delight as he recognizes his human friend. “No one else is allowed to touch him. He pecks them if they do. He lays on my lap, lets me give him showers, allows me to feed him sardines and to pick him up,” said Mr Pereira who has named the penguin Dindim.

Mr Pereira de Souza believes Dindim formed a bond with him after he found it stranded on the beach and took him home. Over a week he cleaned the creature’s tarred feathers in the shower, fed him a daily diet of fish to improve his strength then took him back to the sea to let him go.

“But he wouldn’t leave, he stayed with me for 11 months and then just after he changed his coat with new feathers he disappeared,” recalled Mr Pereira de Souza. “Everyone said he wouldn’t return but he has been coming back to visit me for the past four years. He arrives in June and leaves to go home in February and every year he becomes more affectionate as he appears even happier to see me.”

Biologist Joao Paulo Krajewski, who interviewed Mr Pereira de Souza:

“I have never seen anything like this before. I think the penguin believes Joao is part of his family and probably a penguin as well. When he sees him he wags his tail like a dog and honks with delight.”

Luckily the ending for Mr Pereira de Souza and Dindim has been a happy one, even though it is illegal in Brazil to keep wild animals as pets.

Prof Krajewski said: “Professionals who work with animals try to avoid relationships like this occurring so they are able to reintroduce the animal into the wild. But in this isolated case the authorities allowed Dindim to stay with Joao because of his kindness.”

“I’m flattered Dindim is happy to exchange his home with thousands of other penguins every year to find his way here to spend one-to-one time with me,” said Mr Pereira de Souza. “It’s a very special relationship.”

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In a time of daily disheartening news we are grateful for this reminder that the world can be truly wonderful.

St. Patrick's is just 4 days away. Get out your green and celebrate, Irish or not. 🍀

Wishing you a great week!

Janet