A young penguin is a long way from home after braving an intensive journey from the icy terrain of Antarctica to New Zealand's sandy shores, arriving at Birdlings Flat Beach in Canterbury this week in an extremely rare occurrence.
On Wednesday evening, local resident Harry Singh had been strolling along the beach, about 46 kilometres south of Christchurch, when he came across the Antarctic or Adélie penguin, a species native to the ice-covered continent.
According to an online encyclopedia of New Zealand birds, Adélie penguins are rarely recorded far from the Antarctic coast or sea-ice and are "very rare vagrants" to mainland New Zealand. As reported by the encyclopedia, there are only two other documented instances of an Adélie penguin arriving on Aotearoa's shores - an adult corpse was discovered north of the Flaxbourne River mouth in Marlborough in December 1962, and a live bird was found in Kaikoura in January 1993.
Singh, who was quick to share footage of the special encounter to social media, noticed the penguin was not returning to the water. Posting to Facebook, Singh said he and his wife remained at the beach for more than four hours to monitor the bird, which he said was "continuously eating stones".
"[We] did not want it to end up in a cat or dog's stomach," he said.
After a few hours, Singh started to search for specialised rescuers on his phone and eventually made contact with Thomas Stracke, who operates a Christchurch-based rehabilitation service for sick and injured penguins in the Canterbury region. He has been caring for penguins for more than 10 years.
Singh later confirmed on Facebook that Stracke had picked up the penguin and had taken some blood for testing. Footage posted to Singh's Facebook shows the penguin bundled in a blanket-lined container and being placed in the back of the car.
Speaking to Stuff on Thursday, Stracke said he "never expected" for the penguin to be an Adélie when he received Singh's call on Wednesday evening.
"I was quite surprised," he said. "It probably just lost its way."
Stracke arranged a vet to accompany him and drove down to Birdlings Flat, arriving at the beach at about 10pm where Singh was still waiting.
He told Stuff he believes the penguin is about one to two years old but is unsure of the gender. The blood test indicated the penguin is slightly underweight and dehydrated, he said, but otherwise appears in good health.
Anita Spencer, a senior biodiversity ranger at the Department of Conservation, confirmed to Newshub the penguin had been in the care of Thomas Stracke and his co-worker, Kristina Schutt. She said the department had been liaising with the carers and providing support.
Spencer confirmed that as of Friday morning, the penguin has been released back into the wild. The bird was taken to a safe stretch of shoreline, Magnet Bay, at the southern end of Banks Peninsula near Christchurch, she said.
"We do want to thank Thomas and Kristina for their efforts in looking after the bird over the last 24 hours. When they picked up the bird he was underweight a bit dehydrated - and a little worse for wear," Spencer said.
"Thomas and Kristina fed the bird and got his fluids up. They were happy to take advice from the Department of Conservation, South Island Wildlife Hospital and this morning, Kristina was part of the release of the animal into wild."
In contrast to the above information, Spencer said this is the third time an Adélie penguin has been encountered in New Zealand since 1993.
