Fairy Penguins

One of the highlights of our visit to Bruni Island was waiting up until after sunset to watch firstly short-tailed shearwaters returning to roost and then fairy penguins returning to feed their young.

Short-tailed shearwaters are amazing birds. They raise their young in burrows in locations around Tasmania and parts of the south coast of mainland Australia. By day, they fly out as far as the Antarctic to collect krill to feed their young by night. As summer ends in Australia they fly all the way up to the North Atlantic and Baring Sea to spend the summer up there before flying back south to mate and raise young.

The fairy penguin adults also spend the daytime catching fish and return at dusk to feed their young in the burrows. It was completely dark by the time they started coming in, but we were able to see them by red light of the parker ranger’s torch.

Our return walk along the beach was under a star-lit sky. Both the lack of light pollution and the fact there are more stars in the southern hemisphere made the walk a memorable experience.