Egg-laying picks up at Oamaru Creek penguin colony

A little blue penguin peers out of its nesting box at the Oamaru Creek colony on Thursday.

After a slow start to breeding this year, the Oamaru Creek little blue penguin colony is catching up to its popular counterpart across Oamaru Harbour.

Monitored as a control colony for the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony's commercial colony at the old quarry site at the base of Cape Wanbrow, the Oamaru Creek penguins started the breeding season later than the birds at the tourism operation.

By the second week of August there were 17 eggs at the commercial colony at the old quarry, and at the Oamaru Creek colony only a single first egg had been laid.

Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony research scientist Dr Philippa Agnew said at the time, that shifting the roughly 250 nesting boxes at the site might have slowed the start of breeding; when the boxes were moved as a part of the coastal erosion protection work done there by the Waitaki District Council over winter, monitoring crews noticed different birds in different boxes.

Work using heavy machinery has now left the beach with rock armouring in place.
A new fence protecting the Oamaru Creek colony has been erected and the nesting boxes have been spread out.

Older trees have been cleared and about 40 new seedlings have been shifted into the area.

And, Dr Agnew said, there were signs breeding success this season at the Oamaru Creek colony was "catching up slowly''.

This week 63 chicks and 164 eggs were counted at the commercial colony, while at the Oamaru Creek colony there were 129 eggs and 10 chicks.

"They've coped, they're settling into it and carrying on with their egg-laying,'' Dr Agnew said.

"And they're getting up the rocks just fine. We can see poop everywhere so they're obviously managing to find their way up, no worries.''

The birds at both colonies would continue to lay eggs until Christmas and the last chicks would not fledge until March.

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz