Sunday 1st March 2020

parents going into the moult

​Hello friends and family
The weeks certainly fly by when I am so busy! I can’t remember what happened on Sunday, but on Monday we were visited by the Genome department of Otago University. There is such a wealth of knowledge about bird diseases and other interesting stuff, their visit was such a pleasure! 

Free at last

​It was a working bee day on Tuesday and Tracey, Jules and Robbie came. We brought in a penguin which we found later had Malaria and dosed the soft-release chicks with a Malaria prophylactic. This set us up for Wednesday when Stephen from the ODT came and we opened the soft release pens for 25 of the chicks https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/north-otago/yellow-eyed-penguins-ready-wild. By the next morning, there were only 3 left! The rest had fledged, and we wish them well!

The Erect crested penguin just before release

​We released a White flippered penguin and the Erect crested on Thursday and took all but the very last chick to soft release.  We re-sited the tent for the next moulting pair and did the rounds, not finding any penguins of concern, but Elaine arrived with one from Katiki Beach in the afternoon. In between, I have done some beach rescues of little penguins – there are many dying along this coast right now. One that I picked up I sent to the Wild-life hospital and it died from its dog bite wounds.

The 3rd Fiordland crested was keen to leave.

Hiltrun and Elaine came out yesterday and we did the rounds, admiring fat moulters as we went, and trying to do an audit of our breeding pairs as they all come home to moult.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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