Day 23: On Christmas Day, no rest for the weary. (Or the man who feeds the penguins.)

Until the African Penguin starts celebrating federal holidays, neither will Sparks Perkins.

That is, the morning of December 25 will not bring presents and mistletoe for the 33-year-old San Franciscan, but beak decorations and fish entrails.

A biologist at the The Steinhart Aquarium of the California Academy of Sciences, Mr. Perkins belongs to that staunch group – hospital workers, firefighters, security guards – whose work does not interrupt a holiday. Call him essential bird staff, tied to resident needs, some 50 birds. Weekends, late nights: all fair game for whatever emergencies arise among Mr. Perkins’ herd.

“I’ve worked six of the last ten Christmases,” he said. “That’s just the price of getting to work with these animals.”

Mr. Perkins describes that work as entering a daily soap opera. This bird wakes up grumpy, that cheeky one. Keys are stolen from belts. That famous penguin monogamy relaxes a bit.

“Some have wandering eyes. They wander around and then come right back,” Mr. Perkins said.

Occasionally they switch teams completely. A while ago, a pair of male Magellanic penguins from Brazil formed a bond out of nowhere.

“Those boys made a great nest,” Mr. Perkins recalled. “I remember when they were the best interior designers.”

A native of Mississippi, Mr. Perkins has loved birds since he was 3 years old, when his parents gave him his first parakeet. Macaws, lovebirds and fancy pigeons followed. Some nights you had to go to the post office at four in the morning to pick up a cart of pheasants he ordered.

“I was a completely different 14-year-old boy,” he said. “Instead of playing soccer after school, I went to the aviaries I built. I had about 70 birds.”

The Academy’s own collection has recently been expanded with the arrival of two young African penguins. Given the institution’s role in conserving endangered species – Mr Perkins has just returned from a conservation project in South Africa – helping these birds to thrive was paramount. Every morning, Mr. Perkins lifts each chick from its nest box, places it on a small scale, and records a cute number of grams. Gaining weight during the holidays is encouraged here.

Penguins have a quiet, if shaky dignity. Penguin chicks don’t have one. They are chubby balls of fluff, clumsy, not to be trusted even in water. Until that down is replaced by youthful plumage, they sink like sweet little stones. But in captivity they can live up to 30 years, twice as long as in the wild. They do need stimulation to keep them happy and healthy, and the biologists here break out laser pointers, blow bubbles, and play colony noises through an iPad.

The birds are also enriched by the sight of visitors watching them. At the height of the pandemic, with no one on the other side of the glass, the staff did yoga for the animals.

This Christmas, Mr. Perkins and his colleagues will find small ways to make the day special, while the birds squawk as usual. They’re not turtledoves or partridges in a pear tree, but they’re family.