Happy Penguin Awareness Day
The little penguins living in the 40,000 strong colony on Millowl started breeding very early this year.
The conservation team observed that penguins were laying eggs around July and August, and then saw a lot of chicks through October.
However, there was a little bit of a drop off in conditions out at sea when a lot of those chicks were hatching, so our penguins were finding it harder to find food and raise those chicks.
Unfortunately, there were a few failures early on. The good news is that the little penguins are right back at it and have laid a lot of second clutches, and we have a lot of chicks in the colony at the moment. It's still a struggle for our penguins out there searching for food, trying to find enough to raise those chicks. We're wishing our little penguins a successful rest of the breeding season. You can help our little penguins by adopting a penguin through the Penguin Foundation, and those funds go back into the research and conservation work being done here at Phillip Island Nature Parks.
Photo credit: with thanks to Peter Fogarty