Sunday 13th March 2022

During and after - the moulting season is in full swing

​Hello friends and family
The week began with rain which was enough to keep the place green for another few weeks. All excitement was well deflated when we found 2 dead adult penguins at the Moeraki colony on Tuesday. We also brought in a Juvie and Mrs 26 who were both underweight to moult. Every time we do a monitoring round, we face the unexpected.

One of the first breeders in to moult - looking chubby

​Wednesday was my day at the TopTip shop. There were plenty of people dumping rubbish, but not a lot of buyers so it was a quiet morning. 

The Top Tip shop

​Elaine joined us on Thursday, and we had bloods taken and tested. One of the dead penguins had a heavy Malaria infection, the other was not possible to tell. Fortunately, we did not find any more dead penguins, but we now have 12 penguins in care. In the afternoon I headed down to Dunedin for my one year check up at the hospital, so was able to take the dead penguins down to go for autopsy.

A positive malaria slide - we are seeing too many of these

​On Friday, after doing this and that, I backed the car into the side of the garage door! How is this possible you ask? It has bells and whistles and cameras and all. It beeps at the rise into the garage, so the warnings are useless.
It was easy – I over thought the task and was very pleased when it slipped into the garage just fine yesterday.

Our visiting Sea lion

Have a great week!
Rosalie