Standing as tall as a school ruler and weighing about the same as a bottle of milk is the worlds’ smallest penguin, the Little Penguin or Eudyptula minor, more commonly known as Korora in New Zealand and Fairy penguin in Australia. In New Zealand we recognise four variants – the Northern, Southern, White-flippered and Chatham […]

Fiordland crested penguins, or Tawaki are about to arrive on New Zealand’s West Coast beaches, locate their nests, woo their mates and prepare to breed. Weird, but they lay two eggs, one big and one small, however usually only the second larger egg and chick will succeed. If it’s not predated. And if the parents […]

This post contains graphic images that some readers may find disturbing. Photos of a shag that was snagged in a tree after it became tangled in recreational fishing line are a shocking reminder to make an effort to minimise seabird by-catch when you’re out fishing this summer. Shags are undoubtedly the most persistent and frustrating birds when you […]

A walk along New Zealand’s coast over 800 years ago would have been very risky. You were highly likely to break your ankle as you collapsed one (or more) seabird burrows honeycombing the countryside. There were literally billions of seabirds inhabiting not only the coast but also far inland, breeding successfully on virgin land in […]

Last year, Forest & Bird member Emma Cronin received funding to deliver her Black Petrel Education Project to schools across New Zealand and further afield. Like many of our seabirds, the Black Petrel, or Petrel Negro – sensibly – spends the winter in warmer climes, in this case Peru and Ecuador, before returning to NZ […]

I cautiously peered into a gnarled puriri tree and stared eye to eye with a black petrel. I was elated – the birds were back, all the way from South America and preparing to breed, right here in my backyard. ‘My’ backyard is not mine at all, but is where my husband and I currently […]