Yellow-eyed Penguins

For those of you that might now have been following along on my stories at 10000 Birds, then here is a quick update on my hopes to find my first penguins. My first actual wild penguins were the little Blue Penguins, that we got to see come ashore at the small Penguin viewing site, near Portobello, on the South Island. Now don't get me wrong, it was wild penguins, and they were my first, but there was a bleacher like setting with 50 people, all waiting for these diminutive little bird to come home to roost. I got way more out of finding the Yellow-eyed Penguins in the wild, without paying a very large fee, and it was just me and a few sincere birders. I don't remember your names, but thank you so very much to the couple for my home state of Oregon, for giving me the heads up, on where they would be coming up the hill. And so, I give you my very first wild penguins, the endemic, and somewhat rare (approximately 500 birds)   Yellow-eyed Penguins!

This one was just laying down to sleep off a hard day out at sea chasing fish!