Sunday 27th September 2020

Proud dad

​Hello friends and family
We have stopped the slide!
We now have 38 nests which is the same as last season. For the first time in 8 years, our numbers are holding. I am confident that we will get more, but for now, knowing that we are not facing yet another decline is fantastic!  Hiltrun and I found the 38th nest yesterday – 2 young penguins - she is 2 and he is 3. You can be sure that they will get the very best care.

Clematis blooming in the moeraki colony

​We also put out the dummy eggs yesterday. These are placed in the nests of spare males to keep them from trying to steal the neighbour’s eggs. We did this now because some of the breeding pairs are very stressed – not incubating yet and running away. We put out 9 eggs here and 10 in the Moeraki colony. I will be keeping a close watch to make sure that things calm down in the colonies. Some of the males may yet attract a partner so we can uplift the dummy eggs if they are not required. There are still 3 pairs thinking about breeding.

still waiting

Yesterday we had the annual meeting of Penguin Rescue Soc Inc and there was about 20 people there. We had a guest speaker who spoke about dogs and wildlife, Hiltrun presented the annual report and Patrick agreed to join the committee. Jennifer and Will were wonderful hosts and the Moeraki hall was once again, a great venue. I was able to get the data show working so was pleased about that! One of the attendees complimented us on holding a very interesting AGM.
The meeting supported our decision to develop an App for penguin monitoring and approved the grant of $25 k to get it off the ground.
These are exciting times!
Have a great week
Rosalie
​