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Last week, almost all the colony had emptied out and there were no penguins in the nest boxes… apart from ‘The Shire’, which is a neighbourhood near our kayak shed (they were the only one home for some reason).

This week’s monitoring rounds the whole colony is back, (except from birds from “The Shire”, no one's home, they didn't get the memo, they're on their own schedule apparently)

Anyway, love is in the air!

Every nest box in the colony had a love up pair of snuggly penguins in it.

And everyone is looking fat and healthy and starting to build nests.

One of the cutest stories this week takes place in the “Westeros” neighbourhood.

This is where the monitoring team delightfully found a lovely young couple in a nest box that hasn't been used in years. A21

Dr Rach scanned the birds, and the cool thing is they both had microchips, so we knew who they were and where they were originally from.

They were both microchipped at 6 weeks of age, and now they have returned to the colony as young adults.

It turns out they also didn't go far from where they were raised.

These young birds were raised in neighbouring nests. So, he literally fell for the girl next door!

One of them is from nest box F36 and the other from G30 just across the path from each other, and now they live about 10 meters up the hill from their parents’ homes. So, they both live close to their in-laws. Yikes.

The newlyweds are both under two years old, so they may not breed this year, But it’s amazing to see now that with the microchipping, and knowing who’s who, you can see how faithful they are to a location and staying in their neighbourhood.

We wish this couple the best of luck!