I went and saved penguins this weekend. Okay, maybe not directly, but in doing things this weekend I probably increased the likelihood of at least one penguin living a slightly longer and happier life and that's pretty good work for one weekend.

These aren't the penguins I saved/helped. These are Oyster Catchers that I snapped pictures of as the ebbing tide threatened to suck my kayak into the crashing waves of the beach. Let me explain...

This is Fergus:

He and his wife own a penguin reserve and run regular ecotours of the area so that tourists can ooh and ahh over the Yellow-eyed Penguins that nest on the shore.... the rarest penguin of them all. We were not tourists; we were volunteers. This included only the slight difference in that we spent about 4-6 hours each day doing manual labour like clearing a path through New Zealand bush and removing overgrowth around important shrubs. Other than that, we were fed delicious homemade meals like pumpkin soup, lasagna and chocolate cake (with chocolate sauce!), slept in nice hotel-like rooms and had interesting conversations with Mary and Fergus while going through their extensive library.

We were also allotted some time to explore the area, which is shown above as the view from Mary and Fergus's place where we were staying. Right on the beach! They had kayaks so I tried a bit of that but the tidal current was pretty darn strong and I have not kayaked a lot.

Here's Lindsey on a rock. The penguins came ashore on one of the rocky shelves in the background at dusk after a long day of foraging. These Yellow-Eyed Penguins are the only penguins that nest in forest, so this particular population was devastated when a local farmer's brush fire got out of control and fried through most of their habitat. It's good to know there are people like Mary and Fergus out there working to protect interesting creatures like this! Maybe I'll be one someday...