An evening spent in search of penguins :-)

At work we had heard that a species of penguins not often found in this area was seen down by the cliffs near an area called sharks tooth. So my friends and i made it our mission to head off for the evening and find this little guy.

We made our way accross the base of the cliffs, making sure we were not going to be there at high tide. There was a stench of seals in the air, and sure enough we crossed many on our way, mindful to stay a good distance as the New Zealand fur Seal can be fairly dangerous.

Gregory went off to check out a small cave, he told us to all take a look and sure enough in the safety of a small dark cave we came accross a small penguin. We realised it was a Little Blue penguin. This is the smallest species of penguin. The Blue penguin is the only species of penguin to come ashore after dark to its nest or to moult. At sea they feed on fish close to the surface but they can dive to depths of 50m. This was a great sighting as iv only really seen them at sea. The little guy looked very lonely and cold, but im sure he was fine. The Department of Conservation have given the blue penguin a "lower risk - near threatened" status as the population in areas not protected from predators has been declining. We left this little blue in peace for the night. Some of the team continued along to look for the other species which had beed seen in the area a few days ago.

"guys iv found it" we heard a shout from Stephane, we clambered over ridges and limstone crevices, by this time it was getting dark, and we could still smell the seals. We put on our torches and helped eachother along, the moonlit ocean looked stunning.

Eventually under a small eroded limestone feature we found him, he was very cute and fluffy. There was some uncertainty as to which species he was, after a week of debating on encounter kaikoura's facebook page it was decided he was a juvenile Fiordland Crested penguin. The juvenile has thin eyebrow and whitish chin and throat. They come ashore to moult in caves on rocky areas mainly in the South Westland and Fiordland, they are rare and endemic to New Zealand.

I've decided penguins are one of my favourite types of birds, they always make me smile. We managed to get a few pictures and then realised it was pretty late and dark, and we had gone further than we expected. We knew there were some steps back up towards the peninsula somewhere so we went in that direction, through grasses, accross pebble beaches where shells glistened in the flashlight of our phones and head torches. Eventually we found the steps and luckily didn't have to dodge too many seals. We climbed upto the peninsula. It was a great walk, a great way to spend an evening. Its amazing to think that these little penguins just sit there under the cliffs and surrounded by the walls of dark caves waiting for the sun to rise for the next day. It made me realise that there is so much you can still see beneath the stars, you just need to go to bed later and open your eyes.