In the afternoon of the 9th of January i went on a wildlife tour at Dunedin. I was picked up from my camp side at about 3:30 pm by the tour guide. The tour guide first of all brought me to the harbour of Dunedin, where a small ship was waiting. We then drove out on the sea to the cliffs at a lighthouse where albatrosses and other bird colonies had their nests. This could be a supporting point of my theory that many animals can be seen at lighthouses, because they might use the light of the lighthouse as an orientation at night.
I talked to the guide about my theory, and he said, that this could also be "by accident", because light houses often are built at very extraordinary places in nature, which are for example far out on the sea or almost like a small island and by that give a good protection for the animals, which is why animals might choose to live there.
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| lighthouse where the albatross colony lives |
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| two albatrosses flying above the light house |
After this small boat trip we went on to pick up some people who had watched the albatrosses from a viewing plattform. I was not allowed to go to the plattform, because you can only go there if you pay for it. But there are also public viewing plattforms where you don't have to pay. From outside of the plattform nevertheless we had a beautiful view on the harbour of Dunedin. From this harbour a big ship was currently heading out to the open sea. Our guide told us that this harbour is the caldera of an old volcano, so the area around the harbour is all of volcanic nature. Our guide also told us that we wouldn't have to worry because the last time that this volcano erupted was around 150,000 years ago.
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| the harbour of Dunedin |
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| sheep being scared of us |
From the top of the cliff we had a beautiful view on the penguin beach, which was on our left hand side. In order to see the penguins we had to walk down to the beach.
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| the penguin and sea lion bech |
On the way down we saw some blue penguins, which were hiding inside their nests. It's really hard to see a blue penguin walking around. The guide told us that they built these nests so blue penguins have a better protection.
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| a blue penguin hiding in his nest/cave |
On our way down to the beach we saw our first yellow eyed penguin, which was standing on the way we wanted to take down to the beach. Because it was standing in our way, we had to go around it.
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| yellow eyed penguin trying to cool down in the wind |
The behaviour that the penguin was lifting it's wings, so told us our guide,
means is a sign that the penguin is feeling hot and it tries to cool down in the wind.
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| yellow eyed penguin trying to cool down in the wind |
As we got closer to the penguin it stopped lifting its wings and just stood around. But it was not scared at all. Our guide also told us that the yellow eyed penguins are territorial penguins and compared to some other penguin species this is why that cannot be seen standing around in crowds. If they see another foreign penguin entering their territory they will chase it away.
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| yellow eyed penguin standing around |
Then suddenly another penguin arrived and pointed with its head into the sky, as if it wanted to greet the other penguin, but i have no idea what this behaviour means. I should have asked the guide.
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| two yellow eyed penguins (the left one just arrived) |
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| yellow eyed penguin couple making out infront of us |
After we left they were standing around again and trying to cool down in the wind.
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| 2 yellow eyed penguins trying to cool down in the wind |
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| yellow eyed penguin returning from the sea |
We then walked to some other viewing points were we saw more penguins and even some penguin babys. Our guide told us that the babies were standing there waiting for their parents to return and bring something to eat. But then the parents came back and they had nothing to eat. So the babies were crying and the parents kind of trying to ignore the crying of the babies until they were giving up.
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| two yellow eyed penguins standing around ;) |
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| yellow eyed baby penguins waiting for their parents to bring something to eat |
On the beach we also saw a sleeping sea lion. I'm so happy that i finally saw one, after my disappointment at the Waipapa Point light house , even though it was asleep. The guide told us that at this time of the year few female sea lions were around, because it was breeding season, so most of the male sea lions were out on the sea most of the time to look for a female sea lion. We were really lucky to see one. Obviously the sea lion needed some rest, so it was chilling on the beach.
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| sleeping male sea lion |
they lift their head to see whether there is a female sea lion around. If they see one they get excited and get active and probably start walking around.
If there is no female sea lion, they turn back to sleep.
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| male sea lion looking out for a female sea lion |
Before we headed over to the cliffs with the seals i let someone take a picture of me at the penguin beach :).
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| me at the penguin beach |
So after our small walk to the penguin beach we walked over to the right hand side of were i took the foto of the sheep were lots of seals were playing around. I thought i had some nice pictures of the seals, but as i found out today, the quality of the picture was not very good. But i also recorded some small videos of the seals, which i hopefully can upload some day.
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| adult seal at the seal cliffs |
10. January 2013
On the 10th of January i went for a hike for a couple of hours to one of the mountains around Dunedin. I think the highest point was about 700 meters high. Not that high, but the walk in general was quite far. And i could still see enough from all the landscape around Dunedin. I took this panorama picture from the top of the mountain.
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