Little Penguins

Little Penguins at St Kilda

Little Penguins, also known as fairy penguins or blue penguins, are the smallest member of the penguin family and one of the most adaptable.

In St Kilda they live on the edge of a bustling urban and marine environment and, as many tourists can testify, are boldly asserting their rights to live alongside the humans who gather every night on the boardwalk at the end of the pier.

They are very social birds who use a range of sounds to communicate with each other. If you visit the boardwalk at the end of the pier after sunset you may hear them calling.

Natural Habitat

Living for between 16 and 20 years in the wild, little penguins are the smallest of all the 17 species of penguins in the world and are native to the south coasts of Australia and New Zealand.

Due to their size you will not find little penguins in the colder environment of Antartica. They simply do not have sufficient body fat to keep themselves warm in such an extreme environment.

Description

Penguins are flightless seabirds that have flippers instead of wings and they “fly” through the water, using their webbed feet to steer.

Both adult male and female little penguins are blue on top with a white underbelly, which provides an excellent camouflage against major predators such as sharks and seals.

As penguins spend a large part of their day in the water searching for food, it is important that the birds remain waterproof to help them retain body heat. This is done in three ways:

Penguins have the highest density of feathers of any type of bird.
Their feathers are covered in an oily substance which is produced by two oil glands located at the base of their back. This oil is spread over their body during the preening process.
Each year penguins moult, losing all their old feathers and growing new feathers, to ensure that their feathers are in 'tip top' condition.
This moulting process, which usually takes a month, occurs around March each year, and during the moulting process the birds are unable to swim to catch food to eat, so will generally lose around half their body weight before moulting is complete.

As both males and females have the same coloring, are of similar size, and have no visible genitals, the only easy way to distinguish a male from a female is by the shape and size of its beak. While the beak of a female is the same thickness along its length, a male's beak becomes much thicker around its nostrils.

Their beaks are extremely powerful, allowing them to catch fish and dig burrows, and the bottom of their feet is rough, like fine sandpaper which enables them to climb quite steep rocks on the way to their burrows.

Diet

The movements of the little penguins at St Kilda have been monitored using GPS and satelitte transmitters. During the day they travel an average maximum distance of 13 km from the colony, to the area known as Hobsons Bay at the mouth of the Yarra River. Over the course of the day the penguins swim a total horizontal distance of over 40 km while performing about 800 dives in search of food. As Port Phillip Bay is relatively shallow, their average dive depth is only 8 m, but little penguins are capable of diving to over 60 m. They are able to sleep on the water, so do not need to come into shore every night.

The penguins at St Kilda feed principally on Australian anchovy, southern garfish and luminous bay squid. Dietary studies of the penguins have found that the St Kilda penguins only feed on juvenille anchovies and garfish, so continued successful spawning of these two fish species is vital for the health and success of this colony.

Penguins do not drink fresh water. Instead as they swim along they take in small amounts of salt water and their bodies have the ability to filter out and excrete the salt via glands located each side of their eyes.

As young chicks are unable to swim until they have a full set of adult feathers at around 9 weeks of age, either parent must return to their burrow to feed their chick each night. The young chick will put their little beak inside the parents beak, causing the parent to regurgitate some of the fish that the parent has caught and eaten during the day.

Penguin Burrows

At St Kilda, the little penguins live between the rocks along the breakwater, which was built to shelter the yachts competing in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.

Although looking uncomfortable to us, these burrows provide a perfect environment for Port Phillip Bay's only permanent little penguin colony. To explain, it is best to compare the conditions for these penguins compared to those available to the Phillip Island colony, the biggest in Victoria:

The Phillip Island penguins swim, on average 70 - 80 km a day looking for food while the St Kilda penguins only need to travel to the waters off Williamstown for their food.
There are many sharks and seals in the waters surrounding Phillip Island, predators of the penguins. It is uncommon for either large sharks or New Zealand fur seals to be found in the waters in the top end of Port Phillip Bay.
Except where breeding boxes have been provided, the penguins at Phillip Island must make their burrows in the soft sand dunes lining the beach. Due to the softness of the sand, these burrows are not deep and must be maintained regularly, affording the birds little protection from land based predators such as feral dogs and cats, seagulls and foxes. In contrast, the St Kilda penguins can burrow deep between the boulders on the St Kilda pier. As well as affording the penguins better protection, the rocks are volcanic and have great thermal properties; keeping the penguins relatively warm in winter and cool in summer.

Penguins generally leave their burrows just before dawn each day to go fishing, and will return around dusk.

Breeding

From around the age of three, a little penguin is able to breed provided that there are sufficient quantities of food around.

Two eggs, slightly smaller than a chickens, are typically laid in spring, and these generally hatch within 35 days of laying. The chicks that emerge are not much taller than the egg and is covered with fluff, known as down, rather than feathers.

Up until the age of around two or three weeks, both parents take in turns staying in the burrow during the day while the other parent is out fishing in order to protect the eggs or chicks from predators. By the age of four weeks, chicks are usually as big as their parents, allowing them to be left at home while both parents fish.

From four until nine weeks of age the chicks will gradually lose their down, which is replaced with adult feathers. Once the chick has a full set of adult feathers, its parents will stop feeding it, forcing the chick into the water to search for its own food.

When they are around two months old they leave their parents and go to sea. Little penguins typically do not return to their natal colony for up to three years, when they come back to the breakwater to breed, but we often see them after only a few months at St Kilda.

How you can help protect the St Kilda's Little Penguins

Members of the public play an important role in keeping our urban penguins safe by making sure litter is not left on the ground where it can wash into the stormwater system, on the beach, the pier or the breakwater and by keeping dogs out of penguin areas.

Fishermen can also assist by being careful with hooks and line. Unfortunately we do find penguins entangled and injured by both discarded fishing line and litter.

You can also help protect the St Kilda Penguins by becoming a Penguin Guide during the daylight saving period from October to March each year. For more information on becoming a Penguin Guide, click here

If you find a sick or injured bird please call Wildlife Victoria 1300 094 535.