Great-great-great grandmother, 30, and toy-boy, 4, celebrate arrival of chick at Newquay Zoo

Windy guarding her chick Credit: Newquay Zoo

Staff at Newquay Zoo are celebrating the arrival of a healthy young Humboldt penguin chick.

It's thought the chick's 30-year-old mother may be one of the oldest parent penguins in captivity.

Windy first become a mother in 1999 and has produced 23 offspring since then.

Due to the success of her descendants through the European breeding programme in 2023, she claimed the title of great-great-great grandmother to a chick hatched in Schwerin Zoo, Germany.

The chick's soft downy feathers will be replaced by a sleek, waterproof coat in the next couple of months Credit: Newquay Zoo

Now with a new mate, Nacho, she is proving to be as capable a mother as ever to her latest chick.

Dan Trevelyan, Senior Bird Keeper at Newquay Zoo, said: “Windy was paired up with male penguin, Jet, for a long time, and produced more than 20 chicks together. When Windy lost her partner, we didn’t necessarily expect her to pair up with another penguin, but Nacho started courting Windy last year, and the two have been devoted to each other ever since.

“They had a clutch of eggs last spring, but neither of them were successful, so we are really happy that the pair have had a healthy chick this breeding season.”