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From our scientist, Hiltrun Ratz, PhD
scientist@penguins.org.nz |
It's crunch time for our yellow-eyed penguins. The time of egg laying is fast approaching and we have two males for every female - this surplus of bachelors is making life interesting in the colony: many stay home during the day now and guard their nest site and/or their mate. You need both if you want to breed so the 'married' males make sure that the 'wife' is not being seduced by the single neighbour and their house is not being taken over. So there is much singing and displaying and running round happening! We are expecting our first eggs in mid September - fingers crossed for a good season!
We have a long standing wonderful sponsor who has now sponsored four nest boxes for our yellow-eyed penguins - here is one of them and it looks like this 3 year old male has taken a shine to it. Since taking this photo he has been spotted with a 'girlfriend' i.e. there is a pair now occupying this box. In mid September we will start looking for our first eggs in the colony - fingers crossed his girl is ready and will bless him with eggs!
Courtship in birds is visual and auditory: they display and sing. Here a yellow-eyed penguin is displaying the sky-point which is "giddaye, gorgeous, wassup??" in penguin language (with a Kiwi accent of course!). The other one is busy preening - one wonders if s/he noticed?
And here it is: the juvenile yellow-eyed penguin acting like a grown-up among all these adults, on his way home after fishing looking fat and gorgeous!
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