 Fed and washed - the chicks are changing very quickly. Hello friends and family This time of the year we get lots of visitors. Most of them are friends, or friends of friends and so I have to be a bit social, and drink lots of tea and let jobs slide. Urgent jobs are always done – like feeding and cleaning, but some jobs I just delegate to the rest of the team. I have been particularly lucky with the two Daniels who step up graciously to all sorts of tasks – leaving me to be the hostess.  The Tawake - Fiordland Crested penguin, responding well to care. Young Daniel went home on Wednesday, leaving the other Daniel fully trained in penguin chick feeding. I have not had to feed them all on my own yet, but it will be easy as they are all now trained to feed from the hand. We have 58 penguins in care and can feed then prepare the next meal with two people in under an hour.  Another predated sea bird.... As well as feeding and cleaning, we test the penguin’s blood for Malaria and found the last chick that we brought in has Malaria. We have a Fiordland Crested Penguin with a bacterial infection and a White Flippered penguin that has very poor feather quality. We have added our trapping lines to the NZ Trap web site and can now record catches straight into our phones in the field. This is my idea of excellent – single data entry.  How many pups can you count? Last night Daniel and I went to Elaine’s Karaoke party. It was a lot of fun and I am a bit slow this morning!
Have a great week! Rosalie  Resting up before the moult Hello friends and family Life is busy with just routine tasks. On Monday the TV3 reporters came and, interestingly, they had done some research beforehand and so the whole thing went smoothly. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/01/otago-sanctuary-takes-action-to-save-yellow-eyed-penguin-population.html On Tuesday a new volunteer, Nicky from Palmerston came out for a look around. She will be doing beach searches near her home which is just great. I put the truck in for its warrant of fitness and it failed – I need a new windscreen. Jan and Robbie came out to re-bait the traps and we caught our 4th ferret.  White fronted Terns - beautiful Big Daniel arrived on Wednesday and little Daniel went off to visit friends in Karatane. Robbie came out on Thursday and he had a crack at some of the thistles while I watered the ferns. Big Daniel weed-eated the paths for the penguins.  Still blooming Friday was the day that a team came up from Dunedin to help weigh all the chicks and train up Robbie and Jan for micro-chipping. What a treat for us to have these penguin people visit. The chicks are all doing well – the heaviest over 6 Kg and the lightest around 5. They are getting better every day and feeding them is now fun.  The team at work On Saturday one of our Penguin Rescue members came down from Christchurch with a group of young Chinese women who helped by weeding at the Moeraki Colony. We got the 6th ferret and brought the last of the chicks in from the wild. It had stopped gaining weight and its parent was no longer closely guarding it, so in it came. We also got an unmarked Juvenile that is feeding from the hand. Maybe it had a band that fell off. I was also able to read about the autopsy report for our chicks in the media.
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/north-otago/ferret-main-suspect-killing-penguin-chicks Sometimes it is a bit like riding a roller coaster! Have a great week! Rosalie  Lined up for dinner! Hello friends and family We are busy shuffling fish from the freezer, to the laundry, to containers and then into penguins. The extreme weather that we have had means it is a challenge to get the fish defrosted in the serious quantities required.  Small charity - one size must fit all! The American group from Lee McRae college who are studying wildlife rehabilitation visited on Sunday, but the weather was too bad to do anything outside. They came back for the day on Monday and protected cabbage trees in the morning and cleaned penguin pens in the afternoon. Their vet, Lee spent the day with us on Tuesday and we talked a lot about feathers. In flying birds, the shafts of the feathers tell the story of the bird’s health. We think that the state of our penguin feathers currently reflects their health when they grew the feathers for their last moult. The starvation event last year is showing up as degraded feathers now. We will be extra vigilant in our monitoring.  Our Pohutukawa is excelling itself On Tuesday we did the rounds and again on Thursday. We weighed the chick still in the colony and it is now 2.5 Kg – double its weight last time. I have released the two adult males and will keep the rest (5) until they moult. We have done running repairs on the enclosures and went to town on Friday.  It is calm in the colonies and the penguins look great On Saturday, Daniel and I walked the coast with Elaine and then Daniel went fishing while I put supers on the bees. Then we went to the Tavern for tea to celebrate Daniel doing so well at school last year. Dinner was Yum!
Have a great week! Rosalie  Adjusting to their new home Hello friends and family I wish you all the best for the next year and the next decade. Onwards and upwards! This is the decade in which we save Yellow-eyed penguins (and other iconic New Zealand species) from the brink of extinction – one penguin at a time if necessary.  The light is on at mid-day because of smoke from the Australian fires Last Sunday, with 2 chicks predated and 3 missing, we made the call to uplift all the rest and keep them safe from predation and Malaria until they fledge which will be early February. The youngest one is still being protected by its parents, so it is still in the colony. The decision was difficult, but once made, straight forward to implement. We have since been advised by a predator control expert and have caught 2 ferrets and Joe shot a cat. We have had reports of other predators in the colony so know that we made the best decision.  The Pohutukawa is magnificent Either Jan or Robbie have been coming for every feed, so it has been okay. By Wednesday the first of the chicks were feeding from the hand, and so they are settling as well as can be expected. Michelle and Charlie joined the feeding team on Friday so that spreads the load.  Waiting for help - this juvenile survived Malaria as a chick. ON Saturday the team assembled to microchip the 48 penguin chicks and screen them for malaria. It took the whole day and I was the only one who left early as I picked Daniel up from the airport. What an achievement. Most of the chicks had put on about a kilogram so they are doing well.
Have a great week! Rosalie |
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