Raining – Good News For the Penguin Tour
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007After some whale watching in Kaikoura, we traveled down to the Otago Peninsula. Otago (pronounced Otahgo like how the brits say tomato) is known for having a great variety of wildlife, including the great royal albatross, blue penguins, yellow-eyed penguins, sea lions and seals. We took a tour of a yellow-eyed penguin colony. The yellow-eyed penguin is native to New Zealand and there are only 4,000 of them in the world. In case you are a bit penguignorant, like we were, penguins do not only hang out in cold icy weather. That is the emporer penguin that gets all the fame, but that is only one of many types of penguins, ranging in size, color, etc. It was a windy, rainy day but we decided to go anyway. The tour was comprised of Paula, Dan, and the guide. Sweet, right? The guide took us through a series of shelters that hid us, slightly, from these shy little guys. As luck would have it, they like the rain and tend to be more active in it. We were able to see a baby penguin taking his first steps out of the nest to explore the rain. We also saw a number of other penguins swimming and moving around in their daily activities. The penguins were at the stage where they have new babies that they have to feed so the way they do it is Mom will stay home with baby penguin for several hours while Dad goes out to catch some food (fish, squid, etc.), then Dad will return, hang out with his “wife” for a half hour and then Mom will go out to catch food while Dad stays home with the babies. They feed the babies by regurgitating their food to the babes…yum:) The penguins were absolutely lovable and we had a great time!
dan and paula
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