Sunday 18th September 2016

18/9/2016

A lonely male penguin keeping company with a juvenile.

Hello friends and family
I am home again after 4 weeks away visiting family and we have our first Yellow-eyed penguin eggs of the new season. I arrived back on Tuesday evening and Chris and Hiltrun came up, with dinner, so we could do the nest rounds on Wednesday. We found one egg here and 3 single eggs at Okahau point which indicates a first lay date of 14th September, which makes this an early season – good news – early means a good food supply!

My mountain from lake Mangamahoe.

Like all breaks away, I have come back with renewed energy and focus. I am going to be here, saving penguins for as long as it takes to ensure Yellow-eyed penguins do not go extinct on the South Island. Inspired by some awesome relations, I am going to put away my ageist thinking and just get on with the work at hand.

The Kaikoura coast from the lookout.

I drove the camper as far north as Whangarei, across the North Island from the Mount to New Plymouth and all the way home again. It did not miss a beat, in spite of being loaded up with bird stuff – thank you Mandy – and trees that we could not source in the South Island. I managed to catch up with most of the rellies and some dear friends as well.

The view outside Paul and Jen's window.

On Saturday, Hiltrun and I did the second nest check and found 6 nests here with eggs and 7 at Okahau Point. The wonderful part of all this is that we have seen all of the Okahau point females so we are hoping for 100% survival. Yes, 2 of them were in hospital over the summer (10%) but if we achieve this, it will be awesome – one of the breeding females is 24 years old!