Snuggly, stinky, sweet and charismatic, the four African penguin chicks are creating quite the chirrup at the Toronto Zoo, and just in time for Easter.

Born on Feb. 12, 15, 27 and March 4, the three females and one male have already begun to display their personalities, says penguin keeper Kim Welfle.

“Penguins are unlike any bird species I’ve ever worked with,” she says. “They have huge personalities.”

For instance, the two older chicks are “getting into a terrible twos sort of thing,” Welfle says.

The two older females, she says, have gotten to the point where they’re losing their baby down and starting to get their adolescent feathers.

They are starting to throw a lot of temper tantrums, she adds. They’re always hungry, she says, yet they refuse food and pick fights with one another.

The chicks’ behaviour is similar to a toddler’s temper tantrum where they flap their wings as hard as they can, run around and try to bite anything that’s on hand. While they are really happy to see the keepers, they also get scared and run away, and then come flying back out because they’re hungry, she says.

“It’s really, really funny.”

The other two are still in their baby stage, Welfle says.

“(They are) still very, very snuggly. They are much more interested in cosying up with the keepers than they are in exploring their playpens.”

One should not be fooled by their sweet baby stage, Welfle says, because in a couple of weeks they’ll start throwing tantrums, too.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, African penguins, found mainly in Namibia and South Africa, are highly endangered with rapidly declining populations because of food, global warming, and oil spills. One of the reasons their numbers fell in the early 20th century, according to IUCN, was because their eggs were collected as a delicacy, thus wiping out huge populations.

The penguin colony at the Toronto Zoo began with 12 birds and now has 27. They have a lifespan of 40 years in captivity.

Welfle says these birds will live at the zoo for now, although that may change in the future.

Although smelly — birds that eat fish tend to be smelly — she says, they are “still very, very, sweet.”