Sunday 2nd December 2018

The Yellow-eyed penguin chicks are growing and developing so quickly!

​Hello friends and family
It is always good to get past nasty November. We now have 54 healthy chicks with a good chance of surviving to fledge. We will be weighing, micro-chipping and screening them for malaria in 3 weeks’ time. The weather has remained unsettled, very windy and damp.

Little penguin chicks check me out

​I went to town on Monday and take the opportunity to check out other people’s bee hives – most still have only one super on them for collecting honey. Robbie and I did the rounds on Tuesday and we found one of our breeding females in the gay guy’s house. She was back there on Thursday.

Terns and Oyster-catchers all together

​Wednesday was the day for our Hui with TRONT, TROM and DOC. The site visit was made special by a penguin coming home while we were there.  There are also lots of Red-billed Gull chicks which are very cute. Robbie and Joe did the rounds with me on Thursday and we found an undersized chick at home alone. We will keep a watchful eye on this chick as its mother is only 2 and dad hasn’t bred in years.

The babies are big enough to come outside

​I did some weed-eating on Friday and eyed up the lawn but decided it would pass muster without a mow – by Saturday it was a jungle!
Hiltrun and I did the rounds on Saturday. The Thursday chick had put on 300 g so is Okay for now. We did find a chick that was only 2/3 of the size of its sibling. We compare chick size all the time and this was new. I will be supplementary feeding this chick at the nest for the next week and see if it will catch up.

Get hothouse -get skink

We had some of our local supporters visit on Saturday afternoon (hence the concern about the lawn). It was great to hear their caring and encouragement. It was also a chance to discuss strategy around how we can save this species.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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