'Unusual spring' brings early arrival of penguin eggs

Photo: Penguin Rescue

Spring has sprung at Moeraki and the first yellow-eyed penguin eggs have arrived early.

Penguin Rescue manager Rosalie Goldsworthy said despite a mild winter and a warm, early start to spring, volunteers were surprised to find the first two eggs at Moeraki on September 11 and there were now nine eggs at the peninsula.

"I've been here for 16 years — I've never known it to be this early," Mrs Goldsworthy said.

"It's just an unusual spring."

With the laying season typically lasting three weeks for the next couple of weeks, volunteers would be celebrating each egg laid by the world's rarest penguin species.

And with a two-to-one male to female ratio and roughly 150 individual birds on the peninsula, she hoped the birds would match last year's breeding season success.

In the 2017-18 breeding season, 45 nests — two fewer than the 2016-17 breeding season — produced 86 eggs, and by the beginning of March, 50 chicks had fledged.

Again last year Moeraki chicks were threatened by an avian diphtheria outbreak: 66% of chicks were treated and 80% of treated chicks survived. And for the first time the Moeraki birds suffered from the mosquito-borne avian malaria: the blood-parasite disease killed "at least" 16 Moeraki yellow-eyed penguins.

• Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony research scientist Dr Philippa Agnew said there were now 138 breeding pairs at the colony, an increase of 24 breeding pairs from this time last year. At present, after about 260 eggs were laid, there were 182 eggs and 72 chicks at the colony.

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz