Sunday 1st October 2017

Feeling so proud of his new nest and new egg!

​Hello friends and family
We did a monitoring round on Tuesday and found 80% of the nests we found last season. These are worrisome times – we have spent the previous year building up to this point and really need to at least hold our numbers to feel that the penguins have a chance of a future. We face the same tensions each year – where are all the penguins from last season? We know that 4 of our breeding females died, but where are the others?

Found in the reserve - a dead White Faced Storm Petrel in breeding plumage

​Julia and Tama visited on Wednesday and it was great to be able to discuss monitoring and rehab issues in an open and honest way. They understand the stress of waiting for penguins to lay eggs, and the absurdity of having your success resting in the behaviour of penguins!

Yay - the Titi are back. They arrived from Siberia on 25th September

​Lelie and her husband visited on Thursday because they want to help us save penguins. Their main interest is Little penguins so it was nice to be able to sing the praises of the Helps at Flea Bay and the good work done by the Picton aquarium for their birds. It was also nice that there are 2 new Little penguin boxes built by Walter, sitting at my front door, waiting to be planted in the forest.

So are the Spoonbills!

​In the afternoon, Sue and Mirram arrived in their giant camper. We went out to Fleur’s for dinner which was such a treat. Friday’s weather was very kind for showing them around and it was such a lovely catch up. They left on Saturday morning and Chris and Hiltrun arrived. Hiltrun and I did the Yellow-eyed penguin nest round and we now have a total of 43 nests with eggs and one injured male in care that had probably been fighting.

The last thing we want to see - a bleeding penguin under a bush, needing help

Have a great week!
Rosalie
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