Sunday 29th April 2018

The new Rock-hopper is very curious

​Hello friends and family
I enjoyed having only 3 penguins in care for two days and then on Monday Jan phoned about a penguin stranded at Moeraki – it was a Rock Hopper, and then later in the day we rescued a Juvenile penguin from Hide Bay. I talked to Julia from Penguin Place and she said that they had about 20 penguins in care, so I will keep a look out for stranded penguins up here.

Mr and Mrs 91 working on their pair bond just before release

​Kat came up on Monday afternoon to talk about penguin injuries and to offer to help us prepare for next season. She is a treasure for the penguins! On Tuesday I removed the Varroa strips from all the bees and Wednesday was quiet. Thursday was my day for personal maintenance – I had 2 immunisations and a tooth extracted. The immunisations were free, but the tooth extraction was $225 – if I had known it would be that expensive, I would have pulled it out myself!

The hospital before the upgrade

​Jan came out on Thursday afternoon and saw a penguin struggling in Harry’s Bay. It was Dianna who had an injured leg – when we picked her up she was bleeding profusely so we bandaged her to stop the bleeding. She is making progress and can now stand up.

Our new flock of gannets

​On Friday Chris came up and we met with the Ngai Tahu team and their planting consultant. We advised them of how much the penguins are struggling near the people. Even though there were no chicks down the south end of the colony, all the females except one, needed help to survive the moult. The upside of Friday was that our new flock arrived! 

I think I will live in this box

Yesterday was a wet one so I caught up with some computer work
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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