Good fences make good neighbours...

Wire fences are not to keep animals out; they are there to protect penguin beach landings and nesting areas from people. Most of the fences, like this one, have penguin doorways, so the birds may come and go as they please.

And they do just that, even when there are no holes in the fence. After digging a hole under the fence just big enough to squeeze through, four rather particular birds have taken up residence under the lighthouse. It is a little far from the ocean, but these birds don’t mind. Yellow-eyed penguins have been known to nest a kilometre inland. No rolling out of the nest and into the water for these penguins…it’s a long walk before breakfast to the ocean.

Juvenile penguin crossing... at Katiki Point penguins always have the right of way.

Besides learning how to feed themselves, juveniles must practice being an adult, so their different colour scheme sets them apart from adults for good reason. When a juvenile male flirts with someone else’s missus, he may not really mean it, and he shouldn’t be taken to task too harshly if he is still young. A flipper slap will sort the young one out, no need for biting…

Chomp will have to get used to swimming with a little less flipper action.

And speaking of bites, last week we found a penguin with a very distinctive flipper bite. Dee Boersma who is visiting our Centre for Science Communication suspects it’s a sea lion bite. Rosalie has dubbed him “Chomp” and is treating him for infection. He was in fairly good shape considering. The bite wasn’t fresh and he wasn’t starving so he’d managed to feed himself despite his wound, but he is not as fat as he should be before the moult so he’ll be fed and given antibiotics in hospital until he’s finished moulting. After this moult, he will have a yellow head band and yellow eye.

At Katiki Point, none of the juvenile penguins from last year were banded so we know that Chomp is not from our colony. We are glad to have him and hope he stays (less than 2% of yellow-eyed penguins wander to places other than where they were born) because very few of our own juveniles returned from last year. When we release him after his moult, he will have to learn to swim with a little less power…but we will be looking out for him, on land at least, if he gets in trouble.

So if it’s so easy, find the chick in this photo:

Chick vs. Flax

And I told you there was a chick there! A good sniffer helps, because the chicks and nests stink of old fish. But then titi nests, little blue penguin nests, and seals have a funk about them too (although the smells are all slightly different) and they are all over Katiki Point. The colour of the dirt and the chicks’ grey down match so well that chicks hiding on the ground under the canopy are easy to miss. Even with a parent hovering nearby, as was the case when we visited, the chicks stay well hidden.

In fact Rosalie discovered two new nests earlier that week. Well they weren’t exactly new, just so well hidden she missed them previously; over visits twice a week for three months!

Here, these chicks are easier to see although I had to plant myself in the dirt to get the shot:

This is a bit easier...

So far, so good at Katiki Point. All the chicks look happy and well fed. Here’s to a healthy new year for yellow-eyed penguins!

Penguins preening next to the lighthouse.

Last week I helped Rosalie and Wayne check nests. When I walked through the gate, I was greeted by two penguins who took turns preening each other and giving me evil territorial looks as I walked past them. These days, six of them hang out next to the lighthouse and have no chicks to care for. It makes it difficult for Rosalie to get out of her driveway in the mornings. Imagine being blocked in by yellow-eyed penguins!

The yellow-eyed penguin chicks have doubled in size since my last visit. Covered in dark gray fluff, with comically huge feet and beady black eyes, they are as shy as their parents. They vary in size from nest to nest, but the wee ones will soon catch up with their bigger cousins because it is time to lay on some serious fat.

Closely guarded chicks.

In order to feed their chicks, penguins regurgitate part of their meals…and the smell of a penguin nest is….well…kind of like a bowl of Thai fish sauce left sitting in the sun. Some chicks are big enough to wander but a parent is always hovering nearby. Soon the guard phase will be over, and the chicks will be on their own all day long.

The island at the tip of the point is buzzing with life. On the left, red billed gulls (which have seen large population drops in recent years (Mills, et al. 2008)) are nesting and on the right, white fronted terns are doing the same. It is a raucous party all day long, very noisy with birds swooping in and out, squawking over territory, mating, and sitting on nests. The titi (sooty petrels or mutton birds) are in burrows and nearly invisible as are the little blues which may be sitting on a second clutch of eggs.

Red billed gulls on the left...

and white fronted terns on the right.

The white fronted terns are elegant birds; beautiful in flight. They have been away for three years so Rosalie is delighted to see them nesting there again. There are some brand new seal pups around too, but the one I saw was looking a little worse for wear because Mum must have been off fishing.

It’s all happening at Katiki Point.

I’ve loved living in many places, having different jobs and meeting all kinds of people. And in my travels I have come across people who believe there is a formula for the way things should and shouldn’t be. For them, homosexuality is an abomination of nature.

But nature is all about variety; in the natural world anything goes. And as for abominations? Nature does not even acknowledge them. A female praying mantis eats the head of the male after mating, bed bugs make a hole in the side of the female wherever they like in order to mate (it’s called traumatic insemination), and sometimes, on a kinder, gentler scale, birds make a pair bond with members of the same sex.

Lester and Lulu hanging out during the day in their nest box. Wishing they had chicks?

At Katiki Point, Lester and Lulu have been a couple for at least two years. They live together in a nest box under the lighthouse, call to and preen each other, and have prepared a nest bowl. But their nest is empty because Lulu is actually a male penguin. Although penguins are difficult to sex, I can’t help thinking the naming error was an appropriate mistake. Lester and Lulu have made all the right moves that would make them good parents. This year they have even been taking turns on the nest and spend time there together during the day, despite the fact that they don’t have any eggs or chicks.

Homosexual behaviour in birds and animals is more common than one might think. Examples in nature include nematodes, dolphins, birds, snails, toads and rams. In a Hawaiian Laysan albatross colony, 30% of the pairs are females and many of these “lesbian” pairs have been raising chicks together for years. It has led to a population boom in a colony that was once struggling. Several zoos have had homosexual penguins, and a few have even given their odd couples chicks to raise which they have done successfully. (Two different zoo stories linked here.)

At Katiki Point, if a penguin parent is injured or does not return to the nest, Rosalie has to foster out chicks to parents with one or no chicks. Who knows? Maybe Lester and Lulu will get their chance to be penguin parents after all.

“We had a very special visitor this week,” said Rosalie, “Do you want to see if he’s still here?” Silly question! I grabbed my camera and we walked down to the headland.

With a wave hello...

The gloomy skies hadn’t stopped the tourists and we met a British couple admiring the baby seals below the cliff. Rosalie leaned over a little further and smiled at the beautiful sleeping giant. The sight of him made us laugh out loud (in delight) and the elephant seal responded by opening his big black eyes to stare back at us. At the sound of our voices he heaved himself up and galumphed into the water. Shy but still curious, he stayed close to shore and watched us from the safety of his watery home.

More at home in the water. Best diver ever.

Southern elephant seals are rare visitors to the South Island. They live in the southern Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans that surround Antarctica. As the largest seals in the world, they can reach a whopping five metres in length. They also have the biggest sexual dimorphism of any seal and perhaps any mammal: bull elephant seals can weigh as much as 4000 kilos. That’s ten times heavier than some females. They are amazing divers: after more than twenty minutes at 1400 metres, they only need two minutes at the surface to catch their breath before they dive again. And to think that this amazing seal’s body was built entirely by fish and squid. We are grateful, at Katiki Point, that penguins are not to his palette.

Although he had the beautiful tawny colour of a breeding male, he was only three metres long and even when he is ready, may not get much of a chance to mate, ever. That right is reserved for only 2-3% of the males who may mate with up to 100 females in a season. But this teenager is still a success story because 90% of male elephant seals die before they even reach breeding age.

Our visitor has yet to develop the nose that earned this seal its name, but this is what his face might look like when he is fully mature…not sure if it is scary or funny. I think both.

Here's looking at you...

There are 23 nests at Katiki Point, and 23 nests at Barracouta Bay (one more than last year), all together 46 pairs of yellow-eyed penguins sitting on eggs and hopefully able to raise up two big fat chicks. She is happy to see Diesel (the 20-year-old patriarch of the colony) and Lady Diesel have returned because every year that Diesel comes back is a bonus. Despite his age he is a dependable and successful breeder. Lady Diesel was in hospital for a very long stay last year, and seeing her on her nest is very satisfying.

Perhaps she will come back today?

Glass half empty? Mostly females are missing, so their partners prepared beautiful nest bowls and then waited in vain for their return. They now face the breeding season alone. Normally, a suddenly-single male would find a juvenile female to replace his lost partner. Their first attempts at breeding might fail, but eventually they’d get it right. In a year or two the eggs would be fertile, their chicks would fledge and they would have a successful partnership. But this year, not one juvenile has returned to Katiki Point. At the best of times, juvenile mortality is about 70% (the first winter in the ocean is TOUGH) but this year it looks like we may have lost all of them.

Rats!

The goal for the penguin hospital this season, however, is no different than any other season. Keep the birds as healthy as possible on land because we have no power over what is happening in the ocean. Let’s hope this summer the ocean will provide abundant fish exactly where the fish should be.

Shy Mollymawk, Osborne Beach.

Graeme at the Department of Conservation identified it as a Shy Mollymawk and thought it must have had a hard time in the strong winds. These birds are declining in alarming numbers, so DoC will be doing an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Shy Albatross (Mollymawk) in life. Photograph by Mark Jobling, Creative Commons. "I now belong to a higher cult of mortals – for I have seen the albatross." wrote Robert Cushman Murphy an American ornithologist in a letter to his wife in 1912.

Albatross and their Mollymawk cousins are amazing birds. They know how to catch every nuance of the wind and fly gracefully like a glider. Most of their life is spent on open ocean and visits to land are for breeding purposes only.

These days they must share the open ocean with fishing boats. Seabirds, including penguins, get caught and drown when they go for bait on long lines but real numbers of drownings are hard to come by because long term monitoring of bycatch is political and problematic. The word “bycatch” gives no indication of the horror of drowned seabirds, sea turtles, and sea mammals that are caught in fishing nets every day and dumped back into the ocean as waste.

In the past five years, the steep decline of seabird populations all over the world has made some people look for solutions to this part of the puzzle. A new bait cover for long lines that dissolves at depths greater than a seabird can dive will prevent their accidental drowning (although our yellow-eyed penguin dives right to the bottom of the ocean floor).  Read an interview with the inventor Hans Jusett (a former fisherman) and learn about his personal experience of “bycatch” at the abc Radio Australia website.

Now we inventive humans must turn our attention to solutions to climate change, so that ocean currents and the fish that use them will stay close enough to where they have always been. That way our penguins, who are creatures of habit and more tied to the land, will continue to be able to find their food.

Annabel (Year 1, Opoho School) asked that wonderful question a few months back. I love how children always go with what they know and work from there. Annabel’s experience with eggs is the chicken variety, and she knows a hen lays a lot of eggs. Not more than one a day, perhaps, but if her needs are met and she gets 13 to16 hours of light (and doesn’t go broody and sit on her eggs) she can lay an egg nearly every day. With a false sun (i.e., lightbulb) you can fool your hens into constant laying even during the darker months of winter.

Changing of the guard...yellow-eyed penguin couple in a nest box at Katiki Point. Photo by Rosalie Goldsworthy.

Although the hours of light per day are important for penguins, it is more for knowing when it’s the right time to breed. Penguins do eggs differently than domesticated chickens that have been bred to lay lots of eggs. Unlike hens, penguins spend a huge amount of energy raising their chicks. Because raising chicks takes so much effort they only lay a few eggs per year. Our yellow-eyed penguins usually lay two eggs per year but some penguins lay two eggs and raise one chick (one egg is sacrificed), others lay one egg and raise one chick, and in warmer climates penguins may lay two eggs and raise two chicks. If food is plentiful for these subtropical penguins, they might lay another clutch to raise four chicks in a year. Still, as far as egg laying, penguins are nowhere near the chicken.

The key factor for fledgling survival with yellow-eyed and other penguins is parental experience. Experienced penguin parents who know how to find food, avoid predators, and return to the nest with enough food for their chicks, raise fatter chicks. And the fatter the chick, the better it fares when it goes out to sea for the first time. A few yellow-eyed penguin researchers have shared their thoughts on what they call the “super breeders” in a yellow-eyed penguin colony. These birds are the gold of the colony because they consistently raise two chicks successfully, well into old age. When you know your colony and run a penguin hospital, your super breeders are the birds that you take extra special care to see that they stay healthy. Both Hiltrun Ratz at Penguin Place and Rosalie Goldsworthy at Katiki Point do just that.

Our speed increases as we drive the twisting roads around Portobello Bay, watching the darkening sky on the horizon, scared that we’re going to be late. As the car climbs up the rocky cliffs at the beginning of Tairoa Heads, the person in the passenger seat starts to hold on just a little tighter as they look down at the sheer drop beside the car. But it’s like walking into the theatre after the lights have gone down. Socially unacceptable and you always feel that you have missed something crucial.

"Hey, have they gone yet?" Photo by Wayne Turner

At the beginning of Tairoa Heads the driver slows down, as it is obvious now that we are in plenty of time. So much so that the first cup of tea can be drunk in the car as we enjoy the last few minutes of warmth before going out to face the elements. The beach has changed since I’ve been visiting. Now there are barriers and from October to May, a cheerful warden keeps people from startling the penguins. It’s August and tonight there are only seven of us there; a visitor and I, a family and a local who works as a warden in the summer.

With dusk falling quickly we stare out to sea, looking for the penguins rafting into the beach. Every ripple looks like a raft. I’ve only seen the rafting once, so it’s magical when a wave washes a penguin onto the beach. He stands there, looking dazed and shaking himself, as though he is as mystified as I am as to how he got there. The crowd whispers and small children, whose patience is wearing thin, are pushed to the front of the group so that they can be sure to see.

From the hills behind us the other penguins call. To their mates, or to the rest of the colony I don’t know. It’s as if they want to reassure the dazed looking penguins on the beach that yes, they are in the right place, and yes, there is a warm burrow to come back to, once they have run the gauntlet of humans who turn up every evening.

The family is getting cold, and it could well be after the children’s bedtime. They see three penguins and call it a night. The warden, my friend and I stay for another minute. Further along the beach the warden whispers to us in a loud birdwatchers whisper. He has a torch covered with a red filter, which the birds may not be able to see. He points out two animals in a hole to us. It is so dark I mistake a rock for a penguin.

“I didn’t see them,” I tell him.

“One last time,” he replies, and pans the beam to where the penguins have been.

And there they are, one on top of the other, doing what all good birds and bees do in the spring. We all laugh self consciously, and decide to leave them to mate in private. We want there to be lots of penguins for future generations to visit and that won’t happen if we hang around here just when a penguin needs some privacy.

This time we need our torches to light the way back up the hill, and check under the car for passing penguins. A second round of tea and biscuits is passed out and the passenger is given the ever leaking flask to clutch. The drive back is more leisurely as we talk penguins the whole way home.