Roaring Bay home of the world's rarest penguins

I arrived at Roaring Bay a few hours before sunset when a certain exclusive resident starts to arrive home.  The Yellow Eyed Penguin is one of the rarest types found and its future is seriously threatened with numbers rapidly declining. They are only found on New Zealand’s South Island and a couple of other remote sub-antarctic islands. In The Catlins a few hundred now remain. I grabbed my binoculars and headed down to the viewing hide set up to enable easy scanning of the rock-strewn beach so as not to not cause the penguins any disturbance. The Yellow Eyed Penguins living at Roaring Bay are undoubtedly exceptional little guys surviving such inhospitable habitat. As they arrive home on the tide they almost look like ducks on the water until they clumsily belly flop onto the shore. Exhausted after a long day at sea fishing they then begin their slow trundle up the challenging terrain to their nest in the coastal vegetation. I was fortunate to spot three arrive on the beach whilst two were cautiously shuffling their way homewards. Their name comes from their distinctive markings described to me as yellow painted eye liner – such an appropriate description.