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From our scientist, Hiltrun Ratz, PhD
scientist@penguins.org.nz 
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to all you penguin lovers out there. May the new year be filled with fat, healthy and happy penguins - always!  S/he is a singleton yellow-eyed penguin chick that is rather spoilt: one parent is still always at home - the parents don't have to work quite so hard to feed just the one, rather than two so it is well guarded even while many other chicks wait patiently on their own during the day for the parents to return. The ocean seems less murky, the chicks are looking well fed and we hope that the food crisis is coming to an end.  This pair of 7-week old yellow-eyed penguin chicks have had their box sponsored by a kind supporter of our work. Thank you!  Our chicks in the kindergarten have learnt how to eat nicely! They line up and wait their turn politely and take the food out of the hand. This means we don't have to hold them and it keeps their feathers intact as they grow them. from all of us here at Penguin Rescue and our penguin chick kindergarten. Thank you all for your interest and support over the last year - we could not do what we do without such a wide network of others who also love penguins. We wish you all a wonderful day today and always and may there always be (fat) penguins in your life for you to love! This is our oldest chick: first hatch and now newly sponsored. Boy, do they grow up fast once they are over the difficult first three weeks! It is almost 2 months old! Mum is a two-year old and dad is an old hand at all this chick raising business. Fingers crossed all goes well!  The mum of these two precious fluffballs is Poppy, a 3 year old yellow-eyed penguin lady who was sponsored as a chick way back then. She has featured last year while raising her first chick with her mate Wotan (RIP) and this year has a new mate who used to be her neighbour (his wife ran off with Dylan up the hill!!) So far so good!  Yes - it is the blessed family! This is the last photo of both chicks at the nest. The little one on the right was not thriving and fell behind in development and weight. So we tried to feed it at the nest for a week and gave it antibiotics (in case it was sick) but it was not catching up. So we made the difficult decision to bring the wee one into rehab and look after it there. Ciara is only 2 years old and we are reluctant to put such a workload on such a young - and oh so precious female - but we had no foster parents available that could have taken one of the chicks. So we were extra vigilant with this nest and it paid off. This chick has company in the hospital as it's neighbours are there too. Their mother got injured and the chicks did not grow. So we have a wee kindergarten in our rehab wing now. It is cuteness overload and everyone has learnt to eat from the hand!  This fortunate yellow-eyed penguin father has two beautiful chicks as well as a kind sponsor watching over him from afar!  This family has a newly sponsored box. It's called Changri-la but the chicks and the adults were sitting in the corner so it was impossible to get a photo of the box name as well as the family. It is them however - thank you so much for caring!  |
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