Sunday 11th March 2018

The White flippered penguin with badly worn feathers

​Hello friends and family
The week began with wet weather – first very muggy and then a little colder. I was rescuing, transferring and releasing penguins and am left with 6 Yellow-eyed penguins, 4 Cresteds and a White Flippered penguin. The preserving of garden produce continues, and the growth of lawns, hedges and weeds is getting harder to ignore!

Breakfast is ready!

​Jan came and did the rounds with me on Wednesday and was there for the rescue of a YEP with an eye injury and an Erect Crested starving at Anderson’s lagoon. The vet came on Thursday and checked the 2 injured penguins.

When you go down to the woods today....

​Friday was the day that Walter came with his team to harvest the honey for the season. We started with the Lighthouse Hills apiary first and 2 of the hives had fallen over - thankfully the bees had survived but Varroa was present. Walter examined all the hives and made sure they were ready for winter.

Too late to save, major organ damage has happened

​Yesterday was a dark day – one of the Erect Crested penguins died over night and the other one died too. We found a dead YEP that had fatal wounds and a moulting Juvenile YEP that had died in the Moeraki Colony.

When fat is truly beautiful

​Just at penguin feeding time I got a call about a bee swarm in Hampden, so Owen and I went to retrieve it. We had no luck catching it – I don’t think the queen was where we were. That was a nice distraction anyway.

Bye honey, I am off to work..

Today I will be releasing the last of this season’s chicks and a fully moulted juvenile. I wish them well.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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