A Tawaki Project double-whammy! 🎉 After Myrene’s paper came out last week, we’ve now got a follow-up study highlighting just how adaptable tawaki are finding food at sea - a huge advantage in our rapidly changing world. As always, Open Access and free to read: peerj.com/articles/196...

After three years of hard work, @myrene_ventures has published her first scientific paper! 🎉 It suggests Tawaki might handle our changing world better than many other penguins. It’s Open Access - go have a read! doi.org/10.7717/peer...

The big Bounty-Antipodes Expedition 2024 report is finally out! It's jam packed with the info about the work we've been doing on the sub-antarctic Bounty and Antipodes Island including penguins (obviously), albatross, elephant seals - and more archaeological discoveries! -> bit.ly/bounty-antip...

Tawaki are notoriously hard to find, making it nearly impossible to know their exact population size. This also means we can't easily tell whether their numbers are stable, growing, or declining.

The 2025 tawaki moult period is coming to an end. In Patra/Doubtful Sound most penguins have finished their 'scruffy' phase and are sporting a new coat of feathers. In the next week or two they will all leave on their big autumn-winter journey to the subantarctic region.

We're having a déjà vu! Different species (Erect-crested penguin), much closer to home (NZ mainland), but same story as yesterday. 🤪 www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin...

News about the Snares penguin in South America has hit the national news too. 🐧🌎 www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/...

CNN Chile: A Snares penguin has appeared in Punta Arenas. Described as a 'historic sighting', it might not be as unusual as it seems. We do know of Snares penguins on the Falkland Islands. In recent years, other tawaki species were spotted in Argentina. Still cool!! www.cnnchile.com/pais/pinguin...

Tawaki are showing up along the southeast coast of the South Island for their annual moult. They should be pretty difficult to spot - unless they come out of their hideyholes for a quick drink. In that case, it's important to give them room and leave them in peace.

Not bad... the news page of Science reports on the camera loggers we developed to be able to see what tawaki do underwater... www.science.org/content/arti...

Just a week ago we were packing and prepping for pick up from Antipodes Island. 2.5 months of exhausting field work flew by with this amazing team. Couldn’t ask for better people to study penguins with. Thanks for another great season @tawaki-project.org

Last day of streaming from the Antipodes Islands. We're going home tomorrow. tawaki.cam/antipodes

Some of the penguin colonies on the Antipodes Islands are pretty inaccessible. This is particularly true for most of the sea cave colonies. To get an idea about the number of penguins we use small #fpvdrones to take a closer look. It becomes a virtual visit without the disturbance of a human.

Coming home to the Anchorage Bay colonies can be challenging for Erect-crested penguins even on relatively calm days. Slithering through kelp to get to the rocks beyond while the surge is trying to pull you back out is an art form in itself.

The choir. We're not quite sure what this trumpeting is for - other than perhaps making one's presence known. The urge to trumpet bounces between birds so that it is hardly ever quiet in an Erect-crested penguin colony.

Antipodean albatross youngster practicing its moves. It's another few months before the first take-off.

Easterly storm at the Reef Point Erect-crested penguin colony, Antipodes Island.

Dead straight!

I guess that's why they call it Stack Bay?

Mapping new tawaki nests on Many Islands in Dusky Sound. Year after year we find penguins in new spots, often because people spotted a bird scrambling ashore somewhere. Slowly we are filling in the gaps on the map of tawaki breeding sites. At this rate we need several life times to find them all.

Somewhere along Acheron Passage...

The film star is back. The male tawaki from nest SE70c is guarding a new chick. He was featured in the tawaki segment of season two of 'Our Planet' on Nerflix.

A rock solid tawaki nest in Thompson Sound, Fiordland

A pretty wet start to the field season proper. After loading our gear and food onto the Tutoko (and after a couple of rigs were installed for a film crew that will join us in a few days) we were off. When we got to Seymour Island the rain stopped just long enough to do nest checks on the island.

This is a tragedy! The base for our tawaki work in Piopiotahi / Milford Sound has taken a major hit. Luckily this happened when no one was at the observatory. But, boy, that is heartbreaking... www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

After successful beta test of our Zooniverse project 'Penguins From Above' we are scrambling to get all our drone data ready for the power of AI - Actual Intelligence! The power of the crowd helps us count penguins! -> www.tawaki-project.org/2024/05/19/p...

Meet Peter, one of the Erect-crested penguins that volunteered in our pre-moult satellite tracking study this January. The penguin left its fledgling chick and went on a 1,000 km journey. Peter returned on 29 February, just in time for the albatross team to take off the device!

Our work in the subantarctic region relies on the use of drones. We are incredibly lucky to partner with Drone Deploy who have the best flight app on the market, process our data in the cloud and now have implemented AI counting of penguins! Awesome!! www.dronedeploy.com/blog/countin...

Utterly hypnotic. The Erect-crested penguin colony at Orde Lees on the Antipodes Islands from above.

If you want to learn more about our work on the subantarctic islands so far, here is a fantastic podcast by RNZ and New Zealand Geographic! www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/v...

While we are analyzing data, our good friend Jeanette Goode is putting finishing touches on her latest children's book titled "Penguins Don’t Send Postcards". And best of all, it's about tawaki. Help her get it published! www.boosted.org.nz/projects/pen...

A one-year old female Erect-crested penguin just chillin' away from the buzz of the more crowded part of the Orde Lees colony.

Two islands, different story. The apparent difference in timing of breeding in Erect-crested penguins from the Bounty (Pics 1&2) and Antipodes Islands (Pics 3&4), is likely another puzzle piece that we need to understand, why penguins are doing better on the Bounties.

Want to hear about some of the work we're doing on the subantarctic islands? Well, thanks to @RNZScience and @cconcannonsci producing another great episode of the 'Our Changing World' podcast you can now do so. www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...

With all these recent subantarctic adventures, here's a link to this year's Seaweek campaign to remember the real tawaki in the house! seaweek.org.nz/creature-con...

One thing we did not quite expect was the speed at which Eastern Rockhopper penguin chicks developed. Even though "Rocky chicks" hatched 3-4 weeks after the Erect-crested penguins, the chicks moult into their juvenile plumage at the same time as the Erect-crested penguins.

Erect-crested penguins are an inherently aggressive species. Probably understandable given the limited space available for breeding. So bloody territorial disputes are quite common. Even moulting juveniles on the Bounty Islands have minor squabbles that generally amount to nothing.

While many of the older Erect-crested penguins on the Bounty Islands are still looking after chicks (the Bounty penguins are 3-4 weeks behind their Antipodes cousins), non-breeding birds have started their annual moult. Rather than dropping feathers 1-by-1, plaques of old feathers sometimes drop.

The Evohe at the Bounties. With storm delays causing a late departure from the Antipodes, we had one shot at getting on to deploy satellite tags, fly drone missions, maintain time lapse cameras, and perform disease screening. We couldn't have picked a better day than 31-Jan-2024!

Fledging is imminent on Antipodes Island. The Erect-crested penguin chicks by now have all moulted into their blue juvenile plumage and are ready to go. The first of the parent birds have left the island in their pre-moult trips and are heading south towards the polar front.

Perfectly timed photobomb by a Salvin's albatross during our 8-hour stop-over on the Bounty Islands. We got a lot of work done from deployments of satellite transmitters on Erect-crested penguins and drone surveys of the archipelago's main group, to disease screening in albatrosses and penguins.

All good things must come to an end. We're on our way back to civilization. Still 500 km from home the Tawaki Project already made the news. www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...

If images could smell... A Stack Bay Erect-crested penguin colony on Antipodes Island.

Do penguins ever sweat? Well, no. But when they get hot they have their way of coping with the heat. On a sweltering day (like it was in Stack Bay today) the birds stand there flippers outstretched, feet red to pass some of the heat off via their circulation, and panting.

Female Erect-crested penguins are having an increasingly hard time. Her partner is also out at sea finding food for their chick. This makes her very attractive to any unpaired males that are trying to stake their claim for the next breeding season. Feeding a chick while fending of suitors is no fun.

The Erect-crested penguin chicks are on their way to become proper penguins. Wind gusts blow off down revealing the blue juvenile plumage that is growing underneath. Some chicks have completed their moult and are ready to go. Others not so much. Most look as if part of an avant-garde fashion show.

Penguins in the Mist.

The first moulters have started to shed their feathers. These are mainly juvenile birds and non-breeders but they already give us an idea what a feathery chaos the penguin colonies will become when the main portion of the population gets to that stage.

We found her again! After we observed "Goldie" last year, the only isabelline Erect-crested penguin we know of, we stumbled upon her on the Antipodes south-west coast. The aberrant colouring results from a mutation which bleaches the feathers to a golden-brown colour. It is most common in females.

It is finally happening, the Erect-crested penguin chicks are moulting into their juvenile plumage. They still got a couple more weeks or so to fledge.