Little Blue Penguin in Ngunguru Bay

Oh I'm a lucky girl....although it's autumn now, the weather and sea is still warm, so we went over to the beach to have a swim. The tide was going out and there were many shoals of sprats swimming around in the shallows. Then lo and behold, along comes a Little Blue Penguin chasing the sprats like crazy, right into the shallows, gobbling them up! It was so exciting! We knew these penguins live around here somewhere, as we've seen a couple of dead ones on the Ngunguru Sandspit. But never a live one, and not one swimmming in close proximity. This cute little penguin wasn't terribly concerned that we were in the water, and actually swam right up to me.

This is another reminder of how cool it is to live at Ngunguru. Just last year a group of dolphins came into the river and the whole school, plus a dog, got into the water to play with them. My daughter , Sophie, got to touch one of them. The young ones came right in amongst the kids, while the older ones stayed out in deeper water, doing great leaps. A pic is below. Maybe I'll get a photo of the little blue penguin one day too. :-)