The diminutive little penguin is another native New Zealand Bird that is at risk. Here are 7 facts about the country’s most common penguin.
New Zealand is a land of unique and fascinating wildlife, many species of which can’t be seen anywhere else in the world. Some of the iconic birds include kiwi, kea, kereru, and tui. Those are mainlyforest birds, but let’s not forget about the native penguins. The native penguins include the yellow eyed penguin, Fiordland crested, and of course the little penguin. Unfortunately, most of the native penguins, including the little penguin, are now at risk of extinction. Despite that, they are still common in the country and can be seen in several places.
7 Little Penguin Facts
The little penguin used to go by the common name of little blue penguin, but that has changed and now they are more well known by the shortened version. In te reo Maori they are called korora.
This is the world’s smallest penguin. It measures a mere 33 cm long and weighs only about 1 kg! That is short, but also super lightweight.
Unfortunately, these birds suffer the same fate as many of New Zealand’s native bird species with a declining population and a reduced range. They can still be found on the main islands, but habitat destruction, and predation by introduced species (such as dogs) has reduced their range to areas where there is less disturbance.
Little penguins can be found throughout the coasts of the North, South, and Stewart Islands in addition to many offshore islands. For the most part, they are sparsely dispersed and in small populations, but there are a few areas with large breeding colonies, such as at Banks Peninsula and Oamaru.
During the day little penguins are out at sea looking for food. Generally, they remain within 25 km of shore, but they may go farther outside of the breeding season. They will leave land first thing in the morning and then return to shore at dusk. This makes it quite challenging to see them, both on the ocean or on land. If you are lucky you may see one floating along the surface of the ocean as I was fortunate enough to witness offshore of Stewart Island. Another good time to see them is at dusk when they come ashore. There are some well known areas along the south eastern part of the South Island, such as Banks Peninsula or near Oamaru where you may get this opportunity. We spent dusk sitting, watching for them to come ashore on Matiu-Somes Island once, but no luck.
Unsurprisingly, these penguins are not able to fly. Yep, they are birds and have wings, but those tiny wings are no longer used for flying. Rather, those wings are used by the birds to help them swim. Those tiny little wings help propel them in the water when swimming and they can attain speeds of up to 6 km/hr.
We may not have seen any little penguins come ashore at Matiu-Somes Island, but we did see a couple walking up a hill in the bush to their nest boxes a bit later. These little penguins spend all day at sea and then when they come ashore they may walk as far as 300 m up or 1.5 km from shore! That is a long walk after all day at sea.