​Hello friends and family
The days are rolling into one long sequence of feeding penguins, fish, organising resources and medication. I gave a talk to the Oamaru tramping club on Monday night and delivered a load of cardboard to the Toptip on Wednesday.

​We had a week of wild seas and many of our chicks chose to fledge into it. The sand has been washed from the landings and is swirling in the coastal waters. We have had one chick return already!

​Vicki came and cleaned on Thursday – bless her!  The Council sealed parts of Lighthouse Road on Thursday which will mean faster cars but less dust

​Sue and Merrin visited from Dunedin. This was a great chance to catch up on Malaria information and to discuss where to from here in terms of releasing penguins back into the mosquito environment.

Paul, Jen and Olivia arrived on Thursday evening which was so wonderful. They have been fitting into the spaces not filled with penguin stuff ever since. I so enjoy having them here!
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
And so the mayhem continues!

​By Wednesday we had 7 adult YEPs in care – 3 with injuries and one with Malaria; we had 1 juvenile YEP with Malaria and 36 chicks, one with Malaria and one with a loss of appetite. The Malaria is detected by examining blood. Once the penguin has symptoms, it dies. Treatment costs at least $30 per penguin. Every penguin that is moved gets a blood sample taken that we check with the microscope for plasmodium as we need the information in a timely fashion so we can act to save the penguin.

​5 Penguins have died, one confirmed positive for Malaria. The team have swung into action and we are confident that we have done all we can do to manage this penguin crisis. By Friday it was very bleak indeed. I even passed on the Toptip which shows you how bad it is. The Malarone to treat Malaria arrived at the vets on Friday afternoon so we have begun treating 7 penguins, with one more to start today.

This morning we had another dead chick. This leaves us with 49 left. How precious they are
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
Last Sunday we did the first of the 90-day checks and found 10 underweight chicks. We brought 8 of them in and left the other 2 because we took their sibling so they will get all of the parent’s food. We will be checking every second day and doing a re-weigh of all chicks in the colonies on Sunday. This weight loss is sudden and unexpected. 

​To cope with the extras, Robbie came on Monday and constructed pens inside the aviary. This means we don’t have to disturb the settled 11 chicks. By Tuesday we had picked up another 6 chicks plus 2 starving mums who had given up. The aviary had 9 chicks by the end of the day! It did not stop there – on Thursday we had our 3rd starving mum and 2 more chicks. The total was 33.
Robbie came back on Friday to construct a new enclosure by the water tank to house the adults.
It took us both most of the day, but we completed the building on the day. He came back with the Wainak team on Saturday and sorted out the floor with smooth rocks to help keep the penguins clean.

​Our penguin team spent yesterday in the field, weighing all of the chicks left in the colonies. We now have 36 of them in care, leaving 17 with their parents. Some are in because their mums have collapsed with exhaustion and 2 have a dead dad. All of them are under the 5 Kg cut off for 90 days.

We will be busy!
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family               Happy birthday Gavin
On Sunday, Jan, her mum, Dan and I went to Orakunui to enjoy the bird life and it was wonderful. The cold southerly that has been a theme this week was in full force, but we were able to escape into the forest. After lunch Dan walked down to the bottom gate and we picked him up there before heading back to feed penguins.

​Jan and I did the rounds on Monday. On Tuesday Dan and I went  to visit Margaret and Rodney who were both in fine form and on Wednesday morning Dan did the Toptip shop for me while I was trained to take blood from penguins to run our Malaria screening programme. Lisa and Lizzie from the Dunedin wildlife hospital came up and so too did a film crew from Dunedin. They were very helpful.

​On Thursday morning I took Dan to the bus and Jan, Robbie and I were joined by Hamish to do the rounds on Thursday. We found our fist skinny chick this year. It has a very inexperienced young mum and was losing weight. It has joined the other 11 chicks in rehab.

​ In the afternoon Anne and Pascal arrived. They are a young French couple who are touring the world, making videos to support conservation. We have asked them to record the coastal strip, so we have the resource to support our efforts to get it protected.

Yesterday Hamish’s article was published  https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/north-otago/vigilance-paying-colony Once again he has represented the situation well.
Have a great week!
Rosalie 
​

​Hello friends and family
The week began with a storm and so we had a quiet day until Jan arrived with a rescued penguin. This was our first pre-moult underweight adult of the season and he had a large scar on his abdomen from surgery the previous summer. His name is Nigel and he has settled in well. On Monday the two Daniels went for a swim and found the water was not too cold. We went out for dinner at the tavern on Monday night to celebrate young Daniel’s academic achievement award and everyone’s upcoming birthdays.
 
Tuesday was the day that Charlie came to visit and the boys built penguin houses in the morning and in the afternoon, they did a beach search of Keeper’s bay and found a pre-moult juvenile to keep Nigel company. She has a lot of feather damage and is very hungry. While they were doing that, we distributed Mosquito dunkers and checked on the penguin chicks in the reserves. In the evening, young Daniel and I rescued a White flippered fledgling from the beach at the Boulders, but it was beyond revival and died during the night.

​On Wednesday I delivered young Daniel to Christchurch airport, so he could fly home directly to Christchurch. It was great having him to stay – next time I hope it is for longer. On Thursday we were doing the monitoring rounds when we found a severely wounded penguin. He was going to need extensive surgery, so Daniel delivered him to the Wildlife hospital in Dunedin where he will get the best care.
 
On Friday it was the dull jobs that got to the top of the list. We cut thistles and carted gravel. I was going to change the SD card on the gannet camera but didn’t because there was a gannet there with the decoys. Daniel re-did the foundations of the laundry waste water tank and I mowed the lawns. Then it was housework for me and gorse wrestling for Daniel!

Chris and Hiltrun brought Pat up for the day on Saturday and we worked in the Moeraki colony. We now have 14 YEPs in care – 11 chicks, 1 Juvenile and 1 adult here and an adult in the Wildlife hospital in Dunedin
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
These are busy times!
On Sunday afternoon I picked up grandson Daniel from the airport in Dunedin. It was raining all the way and so Daniel, who was not sure of the waterproofness of his suitcase, had to nurse it all the way home. We called into the supermarket and got some oven fries for the air fryer and Daniel is in charge of chips for his visit.

​On Monday we did a beach search and Daniel began feeding the Yellow-eyed penguin chicks. He had remembered how to feed from his last visit and has stepped up from Crested penguins to Yellow-eyed ones. That evening we went to Anderson’s Bay lagoon and picked up 2 Little penguins, and an adult who is still alive and a fledgling that died the next day. There were 2 more dead ones that had stranded there in the previous 48 hours.

​On Wednesday we went to Oamaru in the morning and to Waianakarua in the afternoon. We went to a Pizza lunch, and took Roxy, Jan’s dog with us. Daniel and Roxy kept company while the adults sorted out the world – awesome! In the evening I picked up cousin Daniel from the turnoff and so for the rest of the week we are enjoying two Daniels.
Jan, Vicki and Robbie came out on Thursday for a working bee and 20 more cabbage trees have been protected, as well as the soft release pens being completed.

​Saturday was a red-letter day with real gannets consorting with our decoys at Okahau Point. What abundance we enjoyed – there were shags, gulls, gannets, penguins, oyster-catchers and Titi too numerous to count. We have now micro-chipped all chicks bar one in hospital – he needs to fatten up a bit. 

Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

Hello friends and family
Happy New Year!​

​A big thank you to all the support for my award as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to conservation. I heard from people that I had not heard from for over 30 years. It was great, and I enjoyed myself immensely. I was thrilled by the level of support, both local and distant, for the penguins here at the lighthouse.

​On New Year’s Eve, after a drink at the Tavern, Jan and I went down the hill to check out the local night life – so many birds live here it is amazing. We saw 8 different species of native birds in great abundance. Wow.

​Robbie and Barb came out on New Year’s Day and we did the rounds and worked on the aviary which was mosquito proofed by Thursday. Jan has been coming out between her split shifts and doing the afternoon penguin feed. 

Yesterday we micro-chipped another 18 of the chicks. Now we have only 7 left to do. This lot were all a good weight and quite cooperative. We also celebrated Hiltrun’s imminent birthday.
So, we have a new year and our top priority for penguin conservation remains getting some legal protection for the coastal strip between the 2 penguin reserves. As more and more penguin habitat is lost to coastal erosion and more intensive land use, this becomes more important. This needs to happen soon while there are still some penguins left.
Have a great week and an awesome year!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
I hope you enjoyed Christmas and broke out of habits even if just a little! I was spoiled – 7 for Christmas lunch and then Merran and Sue arrived to share some time and discuss bird health. Sue reminded us not to underestimate the issues around poor nutrition and that was very helpful and reassuring that we have behaved responsibly, intervening with our penguin chicks.

​And so, 2018 comes to an end. What a year! It started with 14 penguins dead from Malaria – a disease that had not been identified during my previous 16 years and so it was devastating. The team rallied around, and we determined to minimise the impact of this disease on Yellow-eyed penguins at Moeraki, to the best of our ability. 

​We have spent the winter preparing, reading, up-skilling and building. Everyone in the team, plus many more have stepped up and done the extra to get us to the point where we are confident that scale of die-off will never happen here again.

All we need is for the weather to be on our side and all will be well.
Enjoy the rest of the holidays and may 2019 bring you joy and happiness.
​

Rosalie
​