Sunday 10th December 2017

The chicks are starting to come out of the nest boxes and explore

​Hello friends and family
I enjoyed the heat on Sunday and Monday and was very grateful that it was cooler on Wednesday when Jan and I did our stint at the warehouse in Oamaru to raise funds for the penguins by selling calendars. We id not sell many calendars, but it was a good PR exercise to be seen in the community.

New gull chicks

​Stewart was able to join us on the monitoring rounds on Thursday and it was great to catch up. It is now time to start regular beach searches for stranded penguins as Crested penguins will be beginning to moult from now on.

A relaxed little family that has moved into the bush for shade

We had one chick die this week. It was slow to grow and stopped growing altogether.  The rest are developing beautifully.
The statistics are; from 45 nests we had 71 chicks hatch. Some birds only laid one egg and some eggs were not viable. 15 of the chicks died – 4 at the Moeraki colony and 11 here. We have 56 chicks left. Of these 40 were treated for diphtheria and 16 did not get symptoms so were not treated. Our focus now is to get these chicks to fledging!
Have a great week.
Rosalie
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