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From our scientist, Hiltrun Ratz, PhD
scientist@penguins.org.nz |
They are ALWAYS late! This is a yellow-eyed penguin pair where she always lays the last eggs for the season. That's ok though: she is super special as she is Diesel Dick and Sweetpea's daughter - in fact the first they raised way back in 1993 which makes her 23 years old. Her mate is also quite ancient: at least 23 years old as he was marked as an adults. They raised a chick - sorta, we had to help with it in the end. She came back to moult at the end of March weighing only a miserable 4.5kg so off to rehab she went. Pairs that moult together will stay together (on average) and so we went looking for her mate, and found him - also skinny but well into the moult. We put them together in the hospital and fed them up. Then it was time to put them back into the colony and they both ate so nicely in rehab, we thought we try feeding them near their nest site. It works - as you can see. Easy! The male has finished moulting but chooses to stick around because the one day he decided to go to sea another male kept his wife company - now we can't have that! |
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