Hunting the Elusive YEP

February 13, 2014

There are 17 species of penguins of which six live and breed in New Zealand and the other 11 have been sighted here.  The yellow-eyed penguin (or YEP as we like to call them) are endangered and in 2003 they counted as few as 1000.  Because they are so rare, the yellow-eyed penguin habitats are protected and have become quite the tourist attraction.  If you want to see one, it means getting up at dawn or hanging around until dusk.  You see, the adults head out to work early every morning, leaving their warm and cozy nest, setting out into the cold dark ocean filled with dangerous sharks and leopard seals.  They are out hunting their own food and bringing some back to feed their wee chicks that stay behind hiding out in the nests.  So before the day breaks, the YEPs scamper out of the nest and into the sea, returning only under the cover of dark.  Now, if they happen to see you standing on the beach when they return, waiting to take their picture with your handy dandy camera complete with flash and zoom, they would be frightened off and head back to the perilous ocean.  So, the smart folks in New Zealand have built these penguin hides by the beach so you can watch them, and they can’t see you.  How cute is that! 

After having said all that, we have yet to see those little yellow-eyed buggers.  Well, not quite true.  We did see one lonely chick that was sheltering just at the edge of the hide.  He was molting pretty bad and was definitely not at his (or her) best.  It also doesn’t help that we don’t like to get out of bed before 7AM and the timing of their evening trot back to the nest seriously conflicts with our sundowner time.

The last few days, we have been traveling down the coast, stopping at cliff tops and clambering down to beaches, spotting seals lingering on the shores and playing in the surf and just generally taking it all in.  It is a spectacularly beautiful coastline, even on a cloudy day.