March 26th, 2023

​Hello friends and family
Each day I check the landings for failed fledglings and injured adults. It means that I can get on with stuff, not worrying about birds suffering down the hill. Jan has been coming in the afternoons to help me feed the patients and that makes it easy. The penguins are mostly easy to feed, and we get through the task quickly.

Penguin beach on Sunday

​On Tuesday we had a storm. The limiting factor is the high winds. When you are walking through bush in high winds, branches break off and so it is dangerous. We cancelled the monitoring round, but my checks meant that we did not have to worry too much. The penguins stay out at sea when it is rough to avoid being pounded by the surf, which reached out about 1km.

The same beach on Wednesday after the storm

​On Wednesday we went to lunch at Vanessa’s café to celebrate Jan’s birthday. I picked up one of the chicks that had been released last week and released 4 penguins. Robbie found Mrs Kawariki. She was pre-moult and only 4.5kg but has survived!

I'm okay but please help my wife

​Thursday was our big catch-up day. We released 2 penguins but picked up 13 – 5 from here and 8 from the Moeraki colony. Our breeders are coming home. Some of them that were well underweight were just sitting in their boxes waiting for us. Some were lucky to be found but they all would die without help. 

wild water

Yesterday we did two more rescues. The first was a chick that had been out fishing for over an month but wasn’t doing very well. It beached in Moeraki and a good lady stayed on the beach with it until I could come, to stop dogs killing it. The second was Mrs 299. She weighed only 4.7kg and had come into moult.
Have a great week!
Rosalie