Penguin Chicks

Here are the first two penguin chicks I saw this season. Little dark blue-grey balls of fluff.

It is now that the nest boxes are really important - the growing chicks need mum and dad to go out and get food for them. The penguin parents leave in the early hours of the morning and come back after dark, usually around 10 o'clock. This means that the chicks are left alone all day, so they are vulnerable to predators.
Their natural predators in the nest are other birds. The black backed gulls (the big gulls we see around Normandale School) love a big, fat, juicy penguin chick.
The boxes protect the chicks from seabird attack but not from introduced predators such as dogs, cats, stoats and rats. We have traps out to try and catch the rats and stoats (we found a big rat in one of our traps on this trip).
We rely on people to keep their cats indoors at night, especially at dusk and dawn when the cats hunt the most. We also want them to keep their dogs inside or on a leash when they are walking them at the beach. A dog like a terrier would have no trouble digging into these nest boxes and getting these chicks.
It's scary being a penguin chick.

Checking Penguin Boxes

Joel at Kau Bay

Last week I went out to check the boxes in Kau Bay on the northern end of the Miramar Peninsula. As it is the school holidays I took my son Joel along with me. As usual (it seems) I was on a North facing beach so the wind was blowing hard from the North!
We had to find and check the penguin nest boxes in the area but this time we had no map! We turned it into a treasure hunt. Our job was to find the boxes, check them, use the GPS to mark them and photograph their position so the next time they're checked it will be much easier.
The first box we found was number 9 so we worked back around the headland and found the ones we had missed. It was good having Joel with me as he was an excellent finder and much better at climbing under trees.
In all we found 22 boxes, but some numbers were missing and we dug up a couple of boxes that were buried in stones.
Out of all those boxes only two were occupied by Little Blue Penguins. It was a great day though and we got some useful information.

An occupied nest box - see how the flax and grass help hide the box and give the penguins cover as they are coming and going from their nest.

The Little Blue Penguin in the nest box. Can you see the egg just in front of its foot?

Penguin Stocktake

On Monday I went out with some volunteers from NZ Forest and Bird to do a penguin stocktake of  part of the south coast between Moa Point and Tarakena Bay. We were looking for the penguin boxes that were already there (and whether they were being used), sites for new boxes and possible natural nest sites. We were also looking at options for planting new to create safe habitats and shelter for the little blue penguins.

Hunting for nesting boxes.

Sadly all I saw were two skinks, who were much too fast for me to get a photo of, and no penguins.

The storms from June had damaged the coastline and trees here. Can you see how the storm piled up stones and debris on the shore and killed off the trees?







If you look closely at this picture you can see new leaves on this 'dead' bush. They will recover in time and I'm sure the birds will return to this area.

Checking The Traps

As part of looking after the Little Blue Penguins on the South coast the zoo looks after some pest traps. On Thursday I went out with Lynn to check some of the traps. If you remember the weather on Thursday it wasn't pleasant - really strong winds and icy rain.

Checking a trap.

Lynn walking in to the wind.

Little Blue Penguins nest in burrows on the shore in among the bushes. What sort of animals would be their predators? Think about what will eat the birds, what will eat their eggs or their chicks.

What animals do you think we are catching with these traps?