A few weeks ago, as i was touring this beautiful island, i pulled up beside the beach in my campervan to have dinner and bunker up... After sunset i start hearing these strange noises...

Sometimes they sounded like a cross between a pig and a cat, other times it sounded like a weird growl...

:
I know the sights and sounds of my country and i had never heard of such a thing...
So i went out in the dark with a torch to investigate...
Only a few meters from my van i get shocked by this growl coming from the shrub beside me... GGGRRRRRR...

"What in the hell is that"... I was scared... At the bottom of the shrub i notice a burrow...
I slowly bend down to have a look and this is what i see...
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Penguins... :) Two fairy penguins... The smallest penguin species on earth... :)
I ended up naming the one closest to the camera Big Poppa cos he is still the biggest one iv seen...
I'd found a colony of penguins... The surrounding shrubs were full of them...
They come in after dark when there are no predators and sleep in their burrows...
Then their out before the break of dawn to go fishing and playing out at sea...
I dedicated the next 4 evenings to watching and documenting these fury little creatures of God...
These are some stills i took out of the videos i filmed so the picture quality isn't the best...
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I saw the path they took the night before so i stood on a park bench where they waddled right by me...:)
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Count how many there are here... A big family...

Their bewildered by the light and are hesitant to come towards it but i coaxed them in eventually... LoL...;)
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Another family scurries off as they pass me... Hehehe they are soooo cute...
Now im in another town on the other side of the island and iv landed myself in the middle of another penguin colony...
Awesome... I watched them just before and some of them are staying just meters away from me, again...
In fact i can hear them now and if i go outside im bound to see some more...
Interestingly i was watching two birds i had never seen before yesterday right here...
White bellied sea eagles... :)
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Glorious and majestic i saw them soaring hiiiigh in the sky and i watched them with my monocular for a good while...:cool:
Then later before sunset i noticed the seagulls in a panic and saw the two sea eagles again down lower...
Maybe they were looking for any stray penguins that had decided to come in too early...
Apart from owls, raptors can't see well at night, their famous eagle eye vision is only capable in the day...