NEWBURYPORT — Upon first glance, nothing seems to be amiss off the waters of Joppa Flats. Four plastic penguins, three on one simulated ice floe and another on its own platform, can be seen bobbing up and down at the whim of changing tides.
But a mystery is a foot.
Residents have been asked to keep their eyes peeled as two of the four iconic Joppa Flats floating penguin statues have gone missing. Thankfully, their caretaker, Newbury resident Michael Updike, had two spare penguins in his shop allowing him to replace them.
Updike, the son of famed novelist John Updike, places the penguins on the Joppa Flats each year by July 1 but are typically home for “hibernation” by mid-to-late fall. He brings the penguins to and from the flats on his boat and ties the ice sheets to an old mooring so they won’t stray too far.
Reached by phone on Wednesday, Updike says he bought the penguins as a novelty so that he could make his son smile. Years later, the penguins have become such a feature of Joppa Flats that the thought of not placing them back in the water each year has become a taboo subject, he said.
Asked how he felt about how popular they have become, Updike expressed modesty.
“I guess I’m kind of pleased,” he said.
On Tuesday, it was reported on the public Facebook group page Penguins of Joppa Flats by Updike’s wife, Olga Karasik-Updike, that the whole group of three had gone missing.
Updike has in the past noted multiple incidents when neighbors would find the stray penguins, sometimes in their own yards and other times in the yards of others who came across the birds and put them on his porch.
Other instances of Updike collecting the penguins for the winter have also resulted in the police being called.
However, in her post Tuesday, Karasik-Updike said that the full group of three had never gone missing at the same time.
Later Tuesday, Karasik-Updike reported that one of the penguins had washed ashore at Salisbury Beach. As of Wednesday, the other two have yet to be found.
“To tell you the secret. There were two spare penguins at home. With the one rescued yesterday they are on the iceberg and in Joppa Flats now. But we still hope to find two that are missing, and we’d like to know what happened,” Karasik-Updike said on Facebook.
One nearby resident said she saw the penguins are recently as Sunday around 6:30 p.m., according to the Facebook page.
“We do hope they will be found. It is such a joy to see them floating from our porch every day in the summer,” the resident wrote.
Newburyport resident Sandy Tilton said the Updike family reached out to her Monday to get photos of the icebergs with the penguins missing and to help spread the word so they can be found and returned.
“It’s amazing the amount of people who care so much. We still don’t know what is going on, and we are asking for folks to keep looking for the other two,” Tilton said.
Fans of the Joppa Flats penguins can learn more about them at: facebook.com/groups/744319441419086/
Daily News editor Dave Rogers contributed to this story.
Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: mpetry@northofboston.com.