Research Diary

The tawaki breeding season this year is a bit weird.

While in Milford Sound chicks are already ganging up in crèches – something the young ones do when 3-4 weeks old – the penguins in Doubtful Sound are all over the place.

Some nests have big chicks that don’t have any next door neighbours old enough to cuddle with yet. So dad will have to do. In other nests, the chicks have just hatched.

It would seem that the La Niña conditions over the last winter have thrown a spanner in some of the penguins’ works so that they had to work overtime (as in ‘find more food’) to prepare for breeding which made them return a few weeks later than normal. Others, however, apparently managed to come back as planned.But why do we see this in one fjord, but not the other?

As we said… all a bit weird this year.

Last September we deployed our new miniature penguin camera on a breeding female tawaki from Milford Sound/Piopiotahi. The results were incredible.

After the penguin spent the day foraging in the fjord, she returned the same night allowing us to recover the camera. The device recorded roughly 2.5 hours of footage and provides a fascinating insight into the foraging behaviour of tawaki.

While the camera was rolling the bird caught more than 50 individual fish larvae, simply by picking them up in a sort of drive-by fashion – blink and you miss it.

Particularly fascinating were the captures of three squid. When viewing the footage, it really seems like a bad idea for squid to squirt out ink when under threat. Commonly believed to be a strategy to confuse potential predators, for tawaki the ink seemed to indicate that there is prey to find. Squirting proved counterproductive for the cephalopods.
Also fascinating to observe were the pursuits of sprats directly underneath the surface. The agility of the sprat allowing them to do sudden U-turns seems to give the fish a fighting chance.

From a penguin perspective, it is extremely cool to see that all the prey captures occurred from below, where the prey item was clearly visible against the light backdrop of the water surface. So much for the countershading theory…
We plan to deploy more devices this coming season to get a better understanding of the prey composition and the varying foraging strategies of the penguins. So stay tuned!

After almost three long years of trying to get research permits allowing us to add Erect-crested and Eastern Rockhopper penguins to the Tawaki Project portfolio, we today received the signed permit documents.

So expect to learn a lot about penguin species many people do not even know they exist!

UPDATE: While we had planned to go in the first Bounty/Antipodes expedition in late 2021, the funders have pulled out of the project. However, we are working on a new funding scheme and are confident that it will happen in 2022!

The Tawaki Project transponder gate is back in business! After being down for almost a year due to hardware issues, we managed to get the gate back out this weekend, just in time to identify any of the tawaki that are about to finish their annual moult in Harrison Cove.

There are still a good number of birds in the colony, although literally heaps of feathers everywhere indicate that many birds have already finished the job and are out and about. Identifying the penguins with our wand readers is nigh on impossible because the birds are way back in their rock shelters.

But that’s what we got the transponder gate for. Any marked penguin that walks under it gets identified, and its walking direction determined (via light barriers). In the medium to long term, this data will help us to determine how many of bird return to breed each year and allow us to determine critical parameters to monitor the Harrison Cove’s tawaki population trajectory.

Finding new tawaki colonies often borders on a miracle. Doubtful Sound with all its side-arms and connecting fjords features some 400 km of coastline. Most of it is covered in lush green rainforest that has hypnotic properties if you stare at this green wall for a while through binoculars in the hope of spotting a tawaki landing site.

Somewhere halfway up Doubtful Sound, we found a new, uncharted tawaki colony. While sea kayaking the fjord in late August, Sam Goodall Outdoor Multisport spotted tawaki on a seemingly random rock and snapped a photo which he later relayed to us via Instagram. Armed with a description on where to find this spot, we cruised up and down about 800 m stretch of shoreline in an effort to find Sam’s spot. We were about to give up when we noticed a horizontal tree trunk just above the water line, which matched Sam’s photo.

Covered in lush green forest an old rockfall just behind that tree offered potentially good breeding habitat.

We explored the site, squeezed into narrow caves and – of course – there they were. Tawaki dads guarding their chicks.

The small colony of 5-10 breeding pairs has been mapped as “Sam’s Spot”.

When the Tutuko headed towards the Shelter Islands after our 1-hour survey, we looked back towards the green wall behind which Sam’s Spot is hidden. We asked ourselves how many of these tiny pockets of forest harbouring tawaki colonies there are in Doubtful Sound – and the other fjords. It could be many.

The last tawaki to be fitted with a satellite transmitter was opposite to what is generally called “the early bird”. In fact, this male bird was two weeks behind as other birds fitted with tags.

We first heard of the tawaki in mid-February, when Richard got a message from Tom Woodhouse, a DOC ranger from North Otago who went out for an evening paddle along Kakanui river about 10 km south of Oamaru. He spotted a puffed up tawaki hauled up in a tiny cave in the sandstone cliffs on the Southend of the Kakanui estuary. The bird had just started to drop feathers, so we knew that this guy would not be ready for a satellite tag before early March.

On 6 March, one week after Jean got her device and was released at Penguin Place, Thomas and Ursula drove up north to Kakanui for the deployment. They made their way along the cliffs until the stood in front of Tom’s cave. The penguin was hunched over a pile of feathers and has almost completed the moult. Almost.

The tawaki’s feathers still looked rather dull, a pretty clear indication that they were still growing, and that the penguin hadn’t properly preened his new plumage. He would need another couple of days at least. So, the team would have to come back in a few days.

Thomas and Ursula left Tom – naming the bird after the DOC ranger who discovered it seemed appropriate – and drove back to Dunedin.

Three days later, the entire East coast was engulfed in thick fog. This was welcome weather for the final satellite tags deployment since there was hardly any shade near Tom’s cave, and the cave itself was far too small to fit the device in there. But with this fog, the conditions outside were quite pleasant and not nearly as hot as the day before.

It seemed as if the Kakanui River had risen quite a bit since the last visit. Thomas and Ursula had to wade through knee deep water to get to Tom’s cave. And when Thomas crouched down to get the tawaki out of the penguin’s abode, he found the cave empty; the huge pile feathers had disappeared. Obviously, the river had flooded the cave in the past days. Tom, the penguin, almost certainly got wet feet. Had he left already?

Thomas kept walking along the sandstone cliff and there he was. The tawaki was sitting on a small ledge about 2 m above the water. 20 minutes later, Tom (the penguin) was back in his cave, out of the sun as the fun began to burn away, wearing the last of the 18 satellite transmitters.

Tom spent another couple of days in his cave before he swam down the Kakanui River and out to sea in the morning of 11 March. He travelled east for the first three days and then turned south. He has been swimming that way ever since, hardly deviating from this course. When New Zealand entered its four-week Covid19 lockdown, Tom was about 350 km northeast of the Auckland Islands. Four days ago, he passed Campbell Island and is now approaching the edge of the Campbell Rise. Jean is only about 80 km east of his current position.

Who knows, maybe our last two penguins team up in the coming days? We’ll see…

The final tawaki that ended up in rehabilitation because it decided to moult in a place where it would not find the peace and quiet it needed, is a one-year old female. Unlike some of the other penguins that chose ‘silly places’, this one had the right idea, but still chose a bad spot.

Jean, as she would later be named by the staff at Penguin Place helping her through the moult, came across these really inviting looking caves that were embedded an impressive rock walls topped by dense New Zealand flax patches. At high tide, the water would go all the way past the entrance of the cave, which is probably was probably the case when Jean arrived. She likely swam straight into the dark cave, thinking how lucky she was to find such majestic yet secluded and silent spot to go through a feather change.

Problem is, at low tide the water retreats exposing a flat sandy beach stretching for a couple of hundred metres to the water’s edge. With very few exceptions, tawaki avoid landing on sandy beaches like the plague. They prefer to emerge between rocks that provide shelter if needed. So, it seems doubtful that Jean would have walked into the cave at low tide.

Another problem with Jean’s choice of a moulting spot is that majestic caves found along a sandy beach in New Zealand generally are major tourist attractions. And this certainly applied here, for Jean chose the famous Cathedral Caves in the Catlins.

To make matters worse, January to March is peak season for tourism in the Catlins, and at low tide, hundreds of people walk over to the caves and explore them thoroughly. Which is the worst thing that could happen to a young and little tawaki girl that has just started to drop her feathers.

Luckily, it did not take long for Cheryl Pullar, the local DOC ranger to get wind of Jean’s predicament. Equipped with a crate she rescued the bird from the cave and gave it an exclusive ride to Penguin Place, where Jean would spend the rest of her moult.

On 27 February, it was Jeans day to be released. Thomas and Richard provided her with a transmitting parting gift before she was released where all the other Penguin Place tawaki had been send on their journeys in the previous weeks. After one more night on the beach, she was off on the 28th.

But then she did something unexpected. She swam north! She made it all the way to Oamaru before it dawned on her that this wasn’t the way she was supposed to go. After a couple of days she turned back and solely made her way back down to where she had started her journey. On 3rd March she swam past Penguin Place and continued south-westwards until she was halfway between The Snares and Auckland Islands in mid-March.

Since then Jean has been on a mission to prove her individuality. She keeps going south east and has since crossed the entire Campbell Rise. For the past two weeks she has been dawdling around some 200 km east of Campbell Island.

Talking about ‘silly places’ for penguins to moult at. It would seem as if Shag Point is a magnet for moulting tawaki seeking their own private silly place to drop all their feathers.

About 500 m up the road from the public behind which Katiki decided to spend three weeks of misery, another young male penguin had a similar idea. Only this one thought the public picnic ground would be a sufficiently quiet place for him.

Well, he was wrong. While the prospects of the tawaki landing on a barbecue were slim, becoming a plaything for a family dog seemed a much more likely outcome. So, off to Penguin Rescue the penguin went (where Katiki was already enjoying Rosalie Goldsworthy’s five-star catering services).

On 20 February, with 4.2 kg of meat on his bones, it was time for the bulky boy to be released. But as the weather did not look overly promising – and the experience of Rainy’s deployment still on Thomas and Richard’s mind – it was decided that the penguin would be fitted with his tracker in the comfort of Rosalie’s garage.

Once sporting his unit, the tawaki was transferred into his personal crate and loaded on the Penguin Rescue truck. His release site was a five-minute drive across paddocks to Okahau beach. Richard joined the bird on the back of the truck, less for fear of the crate falling off but rather because there was little room for a person of his size in the front cab.

Okahau, which Rosalie decided would be the penguin’s name, peeped out of his crate as he was carried past soft release pens full of moulting Yellow-eyed penguins/hoiho. Surely, the tawaki felt sorry for the other birds that looked more bedraggled then he did but also were poorly equipped in the head ornamentation department. No crest? Not cool.

When Richard plonked down Okahau’s crate on the red sandy beach and opened the door, the penguin stepped out and appeared positively confused. Where was his pen? What was he doing here? Was this the end of the wellness holiday?

Incredulous he took a step towards the water, before having second thoughts and waddled up to the rocks that Katiki also preferred to a seaward’s departure. And there he remained for the next four days, before coming to grips with the fact that what he’s supposed to do is head south.

Okahau, followed a route that was remarkably like Christopher’s. Three times both penguins’ paths literally crossed with some satellite fixes within a just a few metres from another. But Christopher had left two days before Okahau and he would always maintain his head start. However, there is a clear difference between the two – Okahau seems not to be interested in mountains as he swam straight across the Macquarie Ridge and just kept going southwest.

Today, Okahau is about 2,200 km south of Adelaide, Australia.

Our team had just returned from Doubtful Sound, when they received a call that another tawaki that moulted at Penguin Place was ready to be released. Unlike the other birds that had been fitted with satellite tags out on the Otago Peninsula, this one-year old male did not receive and food during his stay at the rehabilitation centre. Because Christopher, that he was called by the Penguin Place staff, was a massive 4.1 kg when he was brought to the centre about a week into the moult. The penguin, therefore, qualified to start in the ‘East Coast’ group of birds.

Christopher was quite lucky. Because he chose to moult at Waldronville, the long sandy beach just South of Blackhead (where Tereza had hauled up in the rocks). The beach is popular with surfers, families – and dog walkers.

What many people do not realize, dogs are the single most important terrestrial predator in penguins. Stoats, rats or possums – the introduced pests targeted by New Zealand’s Predator Free 2050 effort – only play second fiddle when it comes to confirmed penguin kills. Particularly hard hit are Little penguins, not only because that species is found all around New Zealand, but also because the smallest of all penguins likes to breed close, if not right inside, human towns.

When breeding, crested penguins have less of a problem with dogs because their breeding colonies are usually far away from any human settlement. Tawaki, of course, are the exception from that rule. Dog kills of tawaki have been observed at Jackson Head and other sites along the West Coast.

Dog kills are always by uncontrolled canines that either roam around freely at night or are poorly controlled by their owners. Even more infuriating, dogs never kill penguins to eat them – they just kill for fun. That’s why dogs can wipe out entire penguin colonies in one night, because they are never satisfied with their first or second kill.

Quite clearly, Christopher’s choice to moult on a dog walkers beach falls into the category of ‘moulting in a silly place’. In fact, after DOC was contacted by a member of the public about a moulting tawaki on the beach, the rangers found the penguin as a dog was just about to have a play with it. The bird was uplifted just in the nick of time. Sadly, last week an Erect-crested penguin making the same mistake and hung out on the beach, got mauled by a dog. So not even the Covid-19 lockdown prevents dog attack on penguins…

Lucky Christopher spent the next three weeks without any other major interventions at Penguin Place and was released shorty after a satellite tag had been fitted to him.

He spent another couple of nights on the beach before taking off on 22 February. During his first couple of weeks at sea, Christopher travelled south into what was considered the low productivity region of New Zealand’s subantarctic ocean (which, as previously pointed out, likely was different this year). Then he swung around travelled westwards passing the Auckland Islands until he reached the Macquarie Ridge, an underwater mountain range that stretches from southern Fiordland two thirds of the way to Antarctica. Even though the mountain range is some 1000m below the ocean’s surface (with the exception of Macquarie Island, which actually is nothing other than the exposed bit of the Ridge), Christopher seems to know it’s there, because he has been swimming along the mountain range for the past month, although he’s about to reach the end of it soon.

Today, Christopher is about 400 km south of Macquarie Island.

The last tawaki to be fitted with a satellite tag on East Shelter Is, and therefore, the last of our ‘normal’ moulters, is a lovely female that occupied one of the two caves at Richard’s honey pot site. Like most other females, she was a calm and cooperative bird that under any other circumstances would have provided the team with a relaxed deployment experience.

But the weather, that developed into a major distraction during Sheldon’s deployment, turned for the worse. Not only kept the wind picking up every minute, but the team was plagued by the bane of device deployments – rain.

On penguins, external devices like dive loggers and satellite tags are attached using the so called ‘Tesa-tape-Method’. It utilizes a special kind of adhesive tape that is threaded under the penguins’ back feathers with the sticky side of the tape facing up. Several rows of tape strips are attached to the feathers before finally the device is placed on the bird and the loose ends of the tape then slung around the unit. A brilliant method that was developed first on penguins in Antarctica.

Problem is, in Antarctica it does not rain, but in New Zealand it does. Especially in Fiordland. Raindrops hitting the sticky side of the tape strips remove all the stickiness, making the tape useless for device attachment.

Thomas was busy arranging the tape strips on the penguins’ lower back when thick drops started to fall. Panicking, Thomas tried to shield the tape with his hands while barking orders to “get a raincoat or something, I dunno!!!”

A few seconds later, a rather intimate situation had developed between Thomas, Myrene and the penguin as all three were huddled under a green oilskin jacket, while operating in the light of head torches, halfway decently protected from the rain. As if on cue, the rain stopped again once the satellite tag was wrapped up securely in the tape and the top layer of epoxy needed to be applied.

This deployment could have been a nightmare, if the penguin would have not been so cooperative. Rainy, an obvious choice for a name, was calm and content on Myrene’s lap throughout the entire procedure. Richard returned Rainy to her cave and while the team rushed head over heels to the landing site to get off the island, Rainy calmly preened the feathers around her device and walked back into her lair.

That evening, Rainy took a wee trip down to the water, swam a few laps around the island before heading back in for a good night’s rest. She continued to go on several day trips before finally embarking on her winter journey in the morning of 28 February. Like Sheldon, she followed a more or less straight southwestern trajectory, stopping occasionally for a day or two, presumably to utilize a prey patch she encountered on the way.

For the past week she has been doodling around in a reasonably small area some 700 km west of Macquarie Is.