OUR LITTLE BLUE PENGUIN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 86, 12 April 1941, Page 16 (Supplement)

OUR LITTLE BLUE PENGUIN

By A. W. B. Powell

THE preconceived notion that a penguin is exclusively an inhabitant of Antarctic seas has resulted in the failure of many people to recognise these birds even when they actually see them in local waters. Actually the little blue penguin is of common occurrence in the Hauraki Gulf and New Zealand coastal waters generally, and at times makes its appearance even in the fairway of Auckland harbour.

One placidly caln. Now Year's Day, about six years ago, during a brief ferry trip from Dcvonport to the city, I counted lifteen of these birds idly floating like ducks, oil the surface. Further out in the harbour and gulf these birds are no novelty, as every yachtsman knows. They are commonly seen breaking the surface after cnergetic dives and lengthy underwater swims after fish. An Adept Swimmer

The little penguin is. an adept swimmer, aiul lias no difficulty in overtaking tlie small iislies that form its staple food. More remarkable than the penguin's mulerwate • swimming prowess is its apparent ability actually to swallow its prey whilst still under water.

Our little blue penguin is a solitary specie? never congregating in large netting colonies as in tlie case of miv-t of the southern species. Each nesting pair selects a small cavern or rock cleft at no great distance from the sea on any secluded islet or mainland coast locality. On land the little blue is not nearly so active, merely waddling about with body bent forwards.

From August to about December the species is encountered a>hore on nesting business, and woe betide the human who takes too keen an interest in penguin affairs by probing into their eaverns'and burrows with unprotected hands.

Although this penguin nests sporadically all round our shores, certain localities are more favoured than others. They are frequently found nesting on tlie less accessible sections of our Auck-

land west coast, and are equally common on the seaward and less frequented chores of Kawau Island.

W hen suitable natural caverns arc not a\ailable, the little blue is quite capable of constructing a suitable site bv burrowing under roots, logs or tree stumps, and, providing the foreshore is not too steep, they may wander some hundreds of yards from the sea up into the busli in search of a nesting site.

]'-ven Xew Zealand does not mark the northern extremity of peniniin distribution, for the same little blue occurs in iasniania and round the southern half of Australia from tlio Swan Kiver to Moretun Bay in South Queensland. Penguins in ge;.:al are strictly of Southern Hemisphere occurrence and only in a few instances arc they found far from Antarctic or sub-Antarctic m\i>, the exceptions being southern Australia as just noted. South Africa and the (Galapagos Islands.

Ihe little blue makes a poor pretence at a nest, just a few sticks, leaves or seaweed, and in this two dirtv white eggs are laid. These are laid any time fr°"J the end of September to December 111 the south, but tliey hav» been found as early as August in Xorth Auckland.

lcnguins have long been rcsident"Tii New Portland, for several extinct species are known as fossils from the lower Miocene deposits of Oamaru, including a giant that stood between four anil five feet in height.

Only the little blue penguin is of normal occurrence in the north, but stra~glers of the southern species have at • Mid times made an appearance in northern waters. Dr. Oliver, in his '"New /.ealand Birds, mentions that the bandsome king penguin which nests onlv at Macquarie Island, in the Xew Zealand area, has licen known to strav as far north as Auckland Harbour, 'in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters the king penguin has a wide range, extending from Tierra del Fuego to Kerguelen island.

The origin of penguins in general ias been the subjcct o" much controversy and even now opinion is divided on this question. One authority considers these birds always to have bean primitive and cites tlie fact of their featherbeing uniformly distributed — not arranged in patterns with bare areas of .-kin—as evidence that they have not descended from flying stock. The flippershaped wing has caused divergent ; heories to be expressed also.

The more reasonable view, howler. seems to be that the penguin special adaptation to suit it» *9® environment and lias gone throu c series v-t modifications both est . and in internal bony structure or_ to produce a win:: suitable, as 3 " . . pointed out. for '-flying-"' under ««* in«tcatl of in the air. . It is this modification of th structure of tlie penguin wing'■ nishes the more significant en jjo favour of the theory that the Pf c t o wing really is a special environment and not a has alw.iv? remained primitive. The fact that fossil turallv nut dis-iinnar iron dav. flourished in period, .-ome -0.,.00.000 years t rates the <liiliculty in tracing trv of such an ancient group.