Otago Peninsula, Pilots Beach, Little Blue Penguins coming home

The staff at the Royal Albatross Centre recommended I return that evening for a rather special homecoming. Each night at dusk huge numbers of Korora or Little Penguins arrive back at Pilots Beach just beneath Taiaroa Head on the Otago Peninsula. A purpose-built boardwalk allows visitors to experience the noisy and calamitous arrival without distressing or disrupting the penguins. Just as darkness appears to consume the shoreline the penguins begin to congregate into what is known as a raft to make a collective group return to dry land. As I waited silently I spotted dark shapes moving swiftly across the water as the rafts began to reach the shoreline. Loud squawks emerged out from the darkness. Then small dark silver specks started to tumble onto the beach, belly flopping ashore and then clumsily climbing up onto their flippered feet. And so, the penguin march began. It started with a few and then gradually these curious and cute little guys were all around us, scrambling over the rocky beach, meandering along well-worn penguin pathways to the grassy headlands above. Excited yelps cut through the night as penguins were reunited. Some paused for a while directly under my feet on the boardwalk. Others comically shuffled up a pathway to return shortly afterwards obviously having taken a wrong turn in their eagerness to arrive home. I checked with my guide who elatedly told me that over one hundred and fifty had returned that night, a thrilling result as numbers continue to increase following the protective measures put in place.