February 2020

The
tawaki of Doubtful Sound breed in vast caverns under washed out tree
root systems. These caves sometimes extend several metres under the
forest floor. And th epenguins not only breed in there. They also return
to moult.

Over 3-4 weeks each bird looses about 150,000 feathers – more or less at once – and grows an equal amount of new ones. The old feathers are shed and form huge piles. A feather pile from a single bird is impressive. But if you have 6, 8 or more tawaki moulting in one of these caves together, you get an underground winter wonderland.