Richard Henry of Resolution Island writing in the Otago Witness in 1896, described these
penguins at nesting times: “They must come in thousands, perhaps at night, for we seldom see
them in the water, though the bush is just full of them near the shore. In quiet places — little caves in the rocks above the tide — are crowded, and as we pass by in the boat we can see them
sitting in pairs or standing in rows like soldiers.
“When we go into a cave for eggs the
idlers scuttle away first, then most of the hatchers — all rushing and tumbling over each other in their silly hurry, and most of them screaming and squalling like geese with colds, while
some are grunting like pigs. The fools never think of going into the water, where they would
be quite safe from us, but huddle up in a narrow place as tight as they can crush, and all the
outsiders are hammering with their fins to drive them in tighter. And they can hammer — at the
rate of about 300 strokes a minute! It is a regular clatter, and they can make this with one
wing - while using the other as a prop.
“Of course we have nearly forgotten the taste of
hen eggs, so the penguin eggs suit us right enough if they are not too stale. They are very
easy to boil, because it does not matter whether they are on for three minutes or six, they
all come out the same, and they are twice as large as hen eggs”.
The nesting colonies,
according to Henry, are always near fresh water which he often saw them drinking. “Some birds
will go a quarter of a mile into the bush to find water, sometimes up a steep gully. One of the requirements of a nest appears to be a dark place where the young ones can get out of the light
to avoid sandflies.” Henry said that they make their nests in all sorts of places in the bush, hollows at the roots of trees or under clumps of bush flax. He also observed that there were
many families of Weka staying close to the penguins in the hope of stealing eggs or young ones
from the nests and that he had to break his dog from hunting them.
Since Richard Henry
wrote about the “thousands”, the Fiordland crested has declined significantly in numbers to
2000–3000 pairs with a status of endangered. Wekas and dogs remain a problem along with human
disturbance and mustelids. However, another early writer, Charles Edward Douglas, observed,
“They are rather formidable birds when on shore for a dog — that don’t know how to tackle.
I have seen a valorous king(crested) penguin, with its back to a rock, keep at bay three dogs,
and a man had better take care his fingers don’t get too that formidable beak.
“Its a wonderful thing to see a penguin coming through the surf. How he manages to dodge or
dive under seas and escape being dashed on the rocks, is only known to themselves. A grebe as
a diver is nowhere with him. Out at sea, the penguin swims very low and looks at a distance
like a sick or waterlogged duck, and on land their gait is more amusing than graceful. They
come ashore (in July/August) in some places in hundreds, and generally at night and proceed
inland, at once marching straight over everything, like a kiwi in a hut. And if a tent is
pitched on the beach, with a door facing the sea they march right and try to get through the
back. Their cry is like the wail of a baby and is weird and disagreeable at night when a fellow wants to sleep. Any man contemplating matrimony ought to spend a month or two among the
penguins, and will have some idea what is ahead of him”.
Most of the penguins breed on
the remote coastline of South Westland and on islands in Fiordland. Chicks are brooded and
guarded by the male, who fasts, and occasionally by the female during feeding visits, until
they are about three weeks old. Chicks then come together in creches where they are fed by
both parents. Adults eat mainly squid, octopus and krill and small fish.
