Maizie

Penguins each have their own personality. Every individual is different; some are bold and boisterous, others timid and coy. As a result, we can expect to find a penguin equivalent to any human being.

In the case of Maizie, the third female tawaki we fitted with a satellite tracker on East Shelter Island on 18 February, the connection between penguin attitude and human counterpart was made by Richard Seed.

Our team on East Shelter Is consisted of Thomas Mattern, Richard Seed and Myrene Otis. The three had different jobs to do. While Thomas was responsible for attaching satellite tags and injecting microchips so that the penguins can be identified later even if they have loose their devices (which some of the penguins usually actively work towards; see Tereza, for example). Myrene, who will be doing her Master’s thesis on tawaki in the coming season, was getting experience with keeping birds calm and under control during the attachment process. And Richard was the guy for the toughest job – that is, getting the penguins out of their burrows.

After a reasonably easy assignment at Abbo and Mandy’s nest, Richard came across a very accessible cave containing a slender female that – in theory – was an easy capture. Just close your hands around her back and flippers and lift her up.

While Thomas and Myrene were getting all the gear sorted for the deployment, Richard went ahead and picked up the female. But what was supposed to be an easy, turned out to be a painful job. With many an “Ouch!”, “Ayy!” and “Ooof!” Richard clambered down the bank to the remaining team, all the while getting mauled by the penguin which was biting his hands and any other body part Richard exposed to the fiery little penguin.

Myrene happily surrendered her role of holding the bird during the satellite tag attachment. Even with her head covered, the wee tawaki kept pecking away at Richard who would come out of this experience with quite a few bruises.

“Well, I’ve got a name for this one”, Richard exclaimed during the procedure. The female should be named ‘Maizie’ after Richard’s girlfriend. “As a birthday present”, he added somewhat awkwardly, presumably to convince the others that this was the reason he came up with the name, rather than the mauling the little female inflicted on him.

When Richard finally released Maizie, the penguin, into her burrow, she wasn’t having any of it. Rather than hunkering down, she came rushing after Richard in what looked like a full assault of his ankles. Maizie either tripped or changed her mind, because she ran straight through Richard’s legs and stormed off down the hill, past an astonished Thomas and Myrene.

“That’s Maizie, alright”, Richard muttered conclusively.

Maizie left the island four days later, on 22 February 2020. After following the Fiordland coast south-eastwards, she headed south past the Snares when she turned east roughly following the Snare Trough, a depression of the seafloor running east-to-west halfway between the Snares and Auckland Islands. Something worthwhile must have been in that region, as Maizie spent nearly two weeks in the area before continuing along a long undulating path westward.

Currently, Maizie is about 450 northwest of Macquarie Island.