Penguins Day 3 - Wednesday 8th May

On the way to this morning’s drop off point for our nest rounds, we came across two dead penguins right in the middle of the road. One was by the side of the road and had probably been clipped by a car. The other was very much squished in the middle of the road. It was not a nice sight, and I think Richard was quite upset.  There are not that many people living on the island, and there is nowhere to go in a rush, so why can they not slow down and let the penguins (and other birds) pass?  They were deliberately left in the road so that the first coach of tourists of the day could see them, get upset, and maybe someone would react. Apparently traffic calming measures have been requested, but no action is being taken. And as there is no way to tell who did it, no-one is penalised even though they have killed an endangered animal.
 
Another morning spent checking nests, but on a different route and with a different companion. This morning, Nancy and I checked the ‘Sandy Beach’ route with Richard. The first hour was a bit of struggle to find the right nests, as the route was in between sand dunes and bushes on the shore, and less linear than the day before.

My job today was to use the poking stick to lift the penguins and check for eggs and chicks. This was harder than it sounded given the depth of the bushes, and I didn’t want to harm the birds.  I also had to ID the adults, which was quite hard to do. We came across quite a few birds that were not recorded, so we took new photos.

We also re-opened a closed nest, and also found a day old chick – a P0 – which was very cute.

The route ended at the harbour so we had a quick look around the souvenir shop and used the facilities which waiting for a lift. The other group finished around the same time, and so one of the post-grads picked us up in the truck. We took the long route back to the house so that we could get a tour of the island, passing through the second swift tern colony near the quarry and circling up round the other side of the island. The red and white lighthouse is a good indicator that we were close to home.  We saw fallow deer and springbok en route, as well as several ibises down on the shoreline.

It started to rain when we got back, so we had another chill out hour after lunch while some of the students went off and completed a task.  By mid-afternoon the rain had stopped and it was a beautiful clear day. We returned to Sandy Beach with bin bags and rubber gloves, and picked up over a dozen bags full of trash.

Later in the afternoon, an hour before sunset, Richard took David and I on a ‘game hunt’ while the others did some data entry.  The aim was to monitor the deer population on the island, so we drove quite a circuitous route around the island, including some off-roading (which was quite uncomfortable on the back of the ‘bucky’). We saw lots of fallow deer, and fewer numbers of springbok and steen deer.  We had lovely views of the sunset on the west side of the island, which I am sure my camera won’t do justice to. We had plenty of time to stop and take photos as the bucky was over-heating …

Back to the house for a quick shower. Davide the post-grad student from Sicily is treating us to gnocchi, so I’m excused cooking duties tonight.  It gets dark around 6pm, which makes me feel quite sleepy … hopefully no nightmares about being chased by leopards tonight!