A pair of doting dads

We have reported here many times that we have a surplus of males in our yellow-eyed penguin colony and that the lonely males can cause havoc among the breeders when they also want an egg or chick resulting in fights that can kick the egg out of the nest or kill a chick. To our delight we had three male-male pairings this year (that is 6 fewer males to worry about) and we trained them up with plaster eggs and when the time came and we needed homes for eggs coming from difficult 'homes' they took to parenthood like ducks to water. Here is one of the three pairs proudly guarding his chick. One of these two males is a young sweet 2 years old and never bred before. His mate is older and has bred with females in the past, but his last wife died last year. They received one fertile egg from us so not to tax the youngster too much and so far so good - they are doing a fab job - and they are so PROUD!! (and so are we....)

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