Before I get too far in this tonight … I need to tell you to go check out Andrew’s blog (link on my page) if you want more detail about what we’ve done. That just doesn’t seem to be coming out in what I’m writing tonight and this is supposed to be the last post for the night.
So … Penguins. We only missed them because we didn’t come in December. Evidently, that’s a major month in the penguin breeding and chick rearing cycle, and had we come to New Zealand (specifically Portobello and Omaru) then, we would have seen hundreds of little blue penguins and the rarer yellow-eyed penguins. As it was, we saw 12 little blues and 1 yellow-eyed penguin. They are such wonderful animals! I think part of that is because I still think they are some of the funnier animals God created – kind of like the palm tree of the animal world. The little blues were so great. They’re only 1.2 kilos at full weight and only 1/3 meter tall. The 12 we saw were on a protected site, checking out the path to make sure it was clear and then scurrying to nesting boxes.
I’m not complaining, though. We’ve been really lucky to see lots of great animal life on the South Island. We got to see animals I didn’t even know lived in the same habitat … not just penguins but also dolphin, albatross, shag (a kind of bird, sea gull sized), and a kiwi (or was it a dummy furball placed by the nature park staff) (the kiwi was on the north island, in Rotarua). We didn’t see the elusive kea, an alpine parrot that supposedly lives near the end of the twice hiked flat hike. Plus sheep (of course, it’s NZ!), cattle, deer (which they farm for venison … evidently a pest prior to farming – they’d been introduced by settlers and it didn’t turn out so well), and bunnies (which we almost mistook for penguins in the dark).
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