Emerged from the sea, right on cue...
Saw at Boulders Beach, South Africa.
Magellanic penguin - walking back from the ocean and preening in the nesting grounds.
The blue penguin colony right in the town of Oamaru is quite commercialized with grand stands, a guide and a substantial fee to watch them return from the ocean at dusk. We saw about 150 return to their nesting boxes. The operation does protect the colony in this almost urban environment.
Heard only, grumbling and muttering inside nestboxes. Saw the captive ones being fed.
Nesting season so not much chance of seeing them in the daytime.
Penguins (order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae) are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid, and other forms of sealife caught while swimming underwater. They spend about half of their lives on land and half in the oceans.
