Tasmania 7 – Fairy Penguins!

We left the glorious sights and sounds of our last grand but empty (of people) beach and wandered cross country, stopping along the way to enjoy sights such as this:
These kids were having a great time floating down river to the sea. What a great place to be a kid!

We stopped at Low Head, a point north of Launceston on the north shore of Tassie.

Low Head Lighthouse

 

 hebe

Our caravan park was extremely functional, new and well-maintained, right across from the tidal river and not far from the sea. On check-in, I asked about penguins and that’s how we ended up going on a guided tour of a fairy penguin colony about 3 minutes’ drive north.

As darkness falls, the parents, who have been at sea fishing all day, start to emerge from the waves onto the beach. We all couldn’t help but laugh as they appeared as if by magic, only their glistening white bellies visible in the darkness. They’d shake themselves off, do a little shuffle to find their land legs and then start waddling up the beach, through the rocks and thorn bushes, toward their waiting chicks.

 

 

The guides held their orange-spotlights (orange light apparently doesn't bother the birds' eyes).

We were told to stand aside while they came up, or even to sit on the ground for taking photos, and just wait quietly. Amazingly, they came right to us, beside us, around us, and even under one woman’s legs as she sat with them outstretched, resting on a rock!

 

 

All of this took place while the cries of both the waiting chicks and the arriving parents echoed back and forth between land and sea.

This fat chick is waiting outside its burrow. The adults weigh only up to a kilo but the chicks become much heavier as the parents keep feeding so that, on their own in a few weeks’ time, the chicks have a little extra to keep them going until they figure out how to catch their own fish.  

Here, the father stands guard outside a burrow while the mother penguin regurgitates food for the chick inside.

close-up of mother and chick in burrow

 

Unfortunately for these fairy penguins as for so many other marine species, humans are taking so much of the same foods from the sea that the penguins’ numbers are declining.