 Growing up in a boxthorn bush Hello friends and family These are busy times and on Tuesday, the team came out and we began the process of doing the blood screening for the chicks. With only 11 chicks in the wild, we were able to get this done in a timely way, the rain held off and the chicks behaved nicely. In the afternoon, the French filming crew arrived; this was Florine the videographer, Louis the sound technician and Anna the star. They will be here for a time to produce an educational documentary, part of Penguin Rescues goals – education about the plight of the penguins.  How many seal pups? On Wednesday, Dan took the crew to Trotter’s gorge to see native bush and on Thursday, Elaine prepared the slides.  We went up the lighthouse on Wednesday It was wet all day Friday, which gave us a chance to examine the new government document about the rapid decline of the Yellow-eyed penguin in the northern population – here. It is 162 pages long and designed to be balked at. Fortunately, with Dan here and the help of AI, we were able to unravel the key points and have put the summary, along with the link to the original article on our website https://www.penguinrescue.nz/spatial-risk-assessment-of-threats-to-yellow-eyed-penguinhoiho.html  Our oldest chick is thriving This will inform our actions over the next season and is why we uplifted the juveniles. Things have remained quiet in the field which does simplify things!  The first Pohutukawa bloom raised from seed sourced locally Have a great week! Rosalie   Our oldest chick is rapidly gaining his waterproof feathers Hello friends and family On Sunday evening we caught another Juvenile Hoiho and then went to Oamaru to pick up grandson Hamish off the bus. What a treat to see him again and looking well.  The gulls keep trying new places to nest but have no success yet On Monday we checked for penguins in the morning, including at Katiki Beach, and in the afternoon, went to the Bluffs to install a new automatic trap at the north end. On Tuesday we weighed the chicks down the hill and shifted the penguins out of the hospital and into Robbie’s rehab and weighed them too!  This is the first ex-Tasmania stink horn we have seen here The Crested is doing very well, the Hoiho are not gaining much weight so will need to be with us a bit longer. On Wednesday we went to the Albatross centre and had lunch before we picked up our penguin holidaying at the OPERA. For the rest of the week, Dan and Hamish did jobs at Okahau – clearing weeds, protecting trees and tidying up old houses.  Noel loves to sit on the point On Saturday we took Hamish to the bus – off on the next big adventure, and Dan spent some time compiling songs for Penguin Rescue. We scored 25mm of rain during the week too!  Our youngest chicks are outside, exploring their world Have a great week! Rosalie   Katiki Point from the air Hello friends and family Dan and I picked up Mr 26 from the Dunedin Wildlife hospital and brought him home on Sunday, then we went to lunch at the Tavern. In the evening, we got a phone call from a local and rescued a Snares crested penguin from the beach at Moeraki, in almost the same spot as last week’s Hoiho.  Showing his best side Monday was pleasant, so we did some tree work at Okahau. Jan and Bronwyn joined us on Tuesday and we weighed the chicks down the hill. They are all doing just fine and are at their cutest – getting a bit of penguin attitude which is always welcomed.  The Snares crested penguin This year we are trying a new procedure for Juveniles, where we uplift them pro-actively to ensure that they get through the moult successfully. This takes them out of the ocean at peak Barracouta season. We picked the first one up on Monday night, the second on Tuesday and the 3rd on Wednesday. Wednesday was our morning at the Toptip and from there we went to lunch at Elaine’s to mark the end of 2025.  The gull babies are struggling with harsh weather conditions Jan joined us on New Year’s day to weigh the chicks at Okahau. 2 of them are of concern and we will reweigh them today. They will come into care if they have not made good progress. Elaine came out on Friday, and we processed the blood samples from the 3 Juveniles – one Malaria and 2 infections – a big shock to us all.  Jan giving the chick a health check On Saturday we found a mother compromised so today we will test her blood and that of her chick.  Adults annoyed with us for visiting after hours Have a great week! Rosalie   Hello friends and family We say goodbye to 2025 with relief – it was a below average year, and we have learned some lessons, but are pleased to put it behind us.  It began badly with 6 Penguin deaths in care – 3 of unknown causes, 1 injured and 2 of Malaria – we have not had more that 2 die in our care for 10 years. Despite the mild weather, our seedling crop was miserable and failed to thrive. I lost a freezer full of fish and meat in October, then Nasty November delivered a savage blow – ¾ of our chicks died, mostly from RDS (red lung disease).  We are looking forward to a much better 2026. The recently released DOC report on the state of the northern Hoiho population says we must do better with adult and juvenile survival, not just the chicks. To that end, we will be uplifting the juveniles that are hanging around in the new year and will support them through the moult.  Mr. and Mrs. 212 taking a day off The team has been out to do the monitoring rounds, the chicks are doing well, and the adults are looking chunky still. They are going post-guard which is normal for this time of the year.  Home alone in the boxthorn I got a call from the McTavish family about 5pm on Boxing day. There was a Hoiho on Moeraki beach, so I went and picked him up, Mr 172 – he is a good weight but being in the wrong place is often a sign of trouble.  Mrs. 165 ready to leave Elaine came out and we took bloods yesterday and he has no rampant disease. She dropped me at the top of the hill on her way home and I walked the coast, checking for other stragglers. Dan arrives today and we will bring the New Year in with a check of the Titi. Happy New Year to you all  Full of promise Rosalie   Our Pohutukawa is ready for Christmas Hello friends and family Merry Christmas Another quiet start to the week – so enjoyable! Liam has been potting up tiny trees and coming on beach checks.  What is going on out there? On Tuesday, we were joined by Jan and Bronwyn, so we were able to weigh all the chicks down the hill and give them a health check. They all looked fabulous! Then the rain arrived in the afternoon, watering all the plants and cooling things down. On Wednesday morning we went to Okahau and put wire netting around small trees that had outgrown their protectors, to protect them from rabbits. We also went to Tickle Bay and retrieved a camera that showed us 2 juveniles roosting under the boxthorn at the north end.  How to ensure that your chick looks up to you On Thursday, the cold arrived, it was much more comfortable inside, but we weighed the Okahau chicks in the morning and went to the Bluffs in the afternoon, to help Bronwyn weigh the chick there. It turned out that she would not have needed us anyway as the chick was post-guard and in the box.  Home alone - a sure sign of Christmas week. Thor came on Friday and took our juvenile down to the OPERA. She is recovered and lively, so needed company as she is pre-moult and has a few weeks of rehab to go to see her through that. Yesterday we picked up Mrs 165. She has been home for days and only weighed 4.5kg. She has an infection and no appetite – she will be with us for a few days anyway.  Mrs 165 staying home for days Have a great week and wonderful Christmas Rosalie   Our two youngest chicks are growing up fast Hello friends and family After a quiet start to the week, Mel arrived on Tuesday morning to train Robbie and I in the new microchip insertion procedure. She had 3 others with her, and we chipped the chicks down the hill. It was a well-prepared training session that went smoothly. In the process, we found Mr 26 looking unwell, so Murray brought him up the hill into care.  there are lots of seal pups arriving In the evening, our new volunteer, Liam, a young man from Germany arrived, as did Thor. We successfully retrieved the tracker from the adult at Okahau, but by 8pm the Juvenile had not returned so we will catch him on another evening. We went to town on Wednesday morning and caught up with Henry at the Oamaru Blue penguin colony. In the evening we saw the elusive Juvenile, but he raced back out to sea very quickly.  becoming independent and managing those feet Thursday was a busy one. We began at the Bluffs by microchipping the chick there and then came back here to do the 4 at Okahau. By then it was lunchtime. On the way we picked up an underweight juvenile and Elaine analysed its blood – it has an infection. In the evening, we had our Penguin Rescue Christmas dinner at the Tavern and very enjoyable it was too! At the same time, we had a severe thunderstorm with hail, so it was too wet to go down the hill to catch the juvenile with the data logger. He waited for us and we picked him up the next morning and retrieved the logger. On Saturday, Liam and I did some pruning work at Okahau.  A Leopard seal hauled out at Anderson's lagoon Yesterday we went to Anderson’s lagoon and saw this leopard seal on the beach – he would have been 2m long. In the evening, we had a fabulous dinner with Jo and Jerry. Have a great week! Rosalie   penguin care - note the chick's blue eyes Hello friends and family Delightful December has replaced nasty November and all 12 of our chicks are doing well. We have observed some glitches, where both parents have gone off fishing and left the chicks home alone. When this happens, the chicks hide and sleep, not drawing attention to themselves. The Oyster Catchers are in the opposite camp – as soon as they see movement, they run around the beach squawking, trying to draw attention away from their eggs, just lying on the beach.  Gull chicks There is a big contrast in the behaviour of the Red billed gulls and the White Fronted terns that nest along side them. The gulls squawk at such a deafening level, no one lingers near them for long. The terns stay silent and fly off, over the water.  terns On Monday, Thor and Amy came to do the second tracking deployment on an adult and a juvenile. Once again the penguins played nice and the juvenile called out to us as we walked past, just to make sure we didn’t miss him. He had left a nice pile of poop to be collected and analyzed.  last week's data logger carrier, just relaxing at home We do the rounds regularly because at this stage, the chicks can get a bone jammed in their throats. The traps are catching rats and there are so many mice, we see them running across the path. The temperature has gone up – on Friday it was 30oC. This results in the chicks being taken out of their nest boxes by the parent, and resting in the shade.  hiding in the boxthorn I will release the juvenile in care today and measure it to see if it is male or female. Have a great week! Rosalie   Tiny scraps of life Hello friends and family It has been a busy week. On Monday, Jan came out and we removed the data logger from the adult. It has been 6 years since I last did this task, and it took a few minutes for me to remember the best technique. It was not a problem as the penguin was relaxed, and Jan is a skilled holder. Sadly, we found a chick at Okahau that had been predated.  the chicks are well camouflaged On Tuesday, Bronwyn and I went down to the Dunedin wildlife hospital to deliver the dead chick and to collect our last chick, two foster chicks for here and 1 for Bushy Beach, Oamaru.  finding their feet The 2 Toms met us at the Moeraki turnoff and took the Bushy chick to its nest while we placed the 3 chicks here. Later I went down the hill to check that they were all okay, and the juvenile was home. I was able to remove his data logger in only a few minutes so that was a good thing. I also saw 2 other juveniles – one did a runner, so it is not one of ours – they are wary but not panicked to see us. Wednesday was Toptip day. It was busy all morning and I took $140+, good business for a Wednesday.  We call these chicks boofers We weighed 2 of the chicks at Okahau on Thursday – the other 2 are now out of their nest box and resting under a tree. Friday was the day for the Katiki Point Historic reserve management group meeting, so Robbie and I went to update the group on penguin issues. Yesterday we got our first rehab patient for the season – a juvenile that came from Okahau point and was roosting in a dangerous place.  The center of attention Nasty November ends today and we move on to the next phase of penguin care with proportionately ½ of the chicks we had last season. Each one is doubly precious. Have a great week! Rosalie  |
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