Love Is in the Air Penguin Island

There's a very special island off the south coast of Australia

where thousands of penguins come to breed...

..and thousands of people come to watch.

Unique to this corner of our planet, the smallest of all penguin species,

the Little Penguin, is battling to survive in a human world.

But a dedicated team of scientists has sworn to guard them

from people, predators...

DOG BARKS

..and this year, from the hottest summer since records began.

As starving chicks struggle to hang on

and their parents scour the oceans for a dwindling supply of fish,

what will it take to protect the pocket-sized creatures

of Penguin Island?

Late in the afternoon,

and the last chance for a Little Penguin called Bluey

to grab a bite to eat before heading home for the night.

Bluey might spend days, even weeks, out at sea.

But he'll always eventually come back to the same beach

at the largest protected Little Penguin colony in the world,

on Phillip Island, Australia...

..and there'll be busloads of admirers to welcome him home.

Penguin fans pour in from round the world.

Everybody wants to catch a glimpse of these cute Aussie animals.

-I come from China.

-Yeah, I'm from Germany.

-Bavaria.

-Taiwan.

From the United States of America. Kansas City, Missouri.

Yeah, we want to see the penguins!

-I'm excited.

-We came all the way to see the penguins.

-Because in Taiwan we don't have penguins.

-Oh, we just love the penguins.

The Little Penguins for the last few hours have actually been forming groups called "rafts"

and the reason they form these groups is for safety in numbers.

So, if we can ask you all to please be nice and quiet

and stay seated and watch these Little Penguins coming ashore.

You can hear a pin drop as everyone waits for the first penguin to show.

Penguins are nervy little things.

Faced with a predator on land, they'd stand no chance of making a run for it,

so they won't risk coming out of the water till dark.

Penguin!

Amazingly, the quick dash across the beach that Bluey and his pals

make every night generates a cool 16,000 tourist pounds each year,

and that's for every penguin.

Once the penguins go offstage, the audience return to their comfy hotels.

What they don't get to see is this,

the remarkable private life of Australia's Little Penguin.

It takes Bluey an hour to climb up from the beach

to his old burrow in the garden of a cliff-top beach house.

Last year, he raised two healthy chicks here with his long-term mate, Sheila.

Penguin partners separate over winter, and it's been weeks since he last saw Sheila.

Now spring is coming,

penguins return to the colony to meet

and mate near their old burrows.

But there's no sign of Bluey's Sheila yet.

A hundred yards away, penguins are still clocking in.

This route home bypasses all the tourists.

Right at the back, a weary female begins the long hike up the cliff.

Penguins have an acute visual memory for landmarks at sea and on land.

She's picking up the pace.

She remembers her way home.

Sheila and Bluey are reunited at last.

They celebrate with the Little Penguin's unique courtship shuffle

and then get down to business starting a new family.

The penguin breeding season has officially begun.

Little Penguins have adapted to live along the warm southern coastline of Australia.

For thousands of years, they dug their burrows all over the coast of Phillip Island,

until human settlement started to gobble up their habitat.

Now the island's last remaining penguin colony

clings to one rocky peninsula.

And that's where Bluey and Sheila have made their burrow.

It's a prime sea-view location for a penguin hideaway.

All new building has been stopped here and the remaining houses

slowly removed.

This will be the last season when people and penguins live together,

because the island peninsula has been designated

a fully protected nature park.

The park already has its own research facility,

where critical penguin study has been conducted since 1968.

Top animal biologists now flock here from across the world.

For the first party I've made a list of the birds that were breeding.

These experts know there's much more to the Little Penguin than its cuddly public image.

PENGUIN SQUEAKS

Perceived as cute fluffy, furry little animals, and once you meet them, they're the toughest creatures

and they have the hardest life, and you can't not admire that.

No-one knows penguins like Marg Healy.

She runs the park's wildlife hospital.

I cut my hand yesterday,

and he keeps scratching me right where the cut is, like they know.

She nurses dozens of birds back to health every year and has grown to love and respect them.

Every single penguin I've ever met is different. They really are.

They might look the same to other people, but I can pick penguins by looking at their facial features.

If you've ever had a dog, you know that that dog is

not going to be the same as any other dog you ever meet.

You're full. You are.

Marg provides whatever the animals need to make a speedy recovery.

What are you doing, Jack? You're nocturnal. You're nocturnal!

GALAH SQUAWKS

It's really hard for babies in care, because they're so lonely.

And they actually need nurturing like

sort of small children.

Springtime on Penguin Island means love is in the air.

It's time to check up on some of the 13,000 penguin couples

that breed here,

in one of the planet's most-studied penguin colonies.

Field researcher Leanne Renwick examines Bluey to see if

he's got what it takes to raise a new penguin family.

This male weighs almost one and a half kilograms,

so for an adult male at this time of year that's a really nice weight.

He's big and fat and healthy.

I guess it just shows that he can catch food so therefore will be able to provide for his chicks.

Scientists have now amassed more than 40 years' worth of data

on the personal life of the Little Penguin.

This is a scanner.

See, most of the penguins here now actually have a microchip inserted just under the surface of the skin,

and that's a way that we can identify each individual.

For some, home is a wooden nest box

installed by scientists trying to safeguard the penguin habitat.

Wherever they've built new facilities for tourists

or where natural burrows are scarce, they've placed artificial burrows

to encourage penguins to live close by.

Like behind the kitchens at the visitor cafe,

a successful new penguin housing project.

After dark, the so-called Penguin Cafe springs into life as the males begin sparring

for the best-dressed females and the best-appointed love nests.

Penguins who live here are certainly not shy.

They've grown used to the bright lights and the clatter

of human activity.

And in the breeding season, they give as good as they get.

PENGUINS CALL

Too bad if you want a quiet cuppa after work!

Once they've claimed a nest box, penguins won't tolerate uninvited guests.

This is Rocky.

He's a three-year-old ready to start a family.

He's fitted out an A1 love nest.

Now he just needs someone to share it with.

Being a bit on the chubby side is the secret to attracting a mate.

It shows you're a successful fisherman and can provide for a family.

Tonight, the boys are scoring left right and centre...

..everyone, that is, except for Rocky.

Oh, and the cafe's perennial bachelor, Spike,

who's constantly nest-building.

Spike is already two years old.

He's determined, all right, but, it seems, a bit dim-witted,

and he too is yet to find a mate.

He's watched all the home-improvement shows, it seems.

He thinks he's quite the catch.

But, erm, not for that one.

It's back to the renovations for Spike.

Which penguin will be first to find their perfect match,

fastidious Spike or fat Rocky?

Two weeks later, and spring has truly sprung at the cliff-top burrow.

Bluey is sitting on two new eggs that Sheila has laid.

She's gone to sea.

Now she's 30 miles offshore looking for fish.

They can only hunt one at a time,

and soon they'll have two hungry mouths to feed.

Meanwhile, Bluey is minding their precious eggs.

He's not the only one that's housebound.

All over the colony, penguin mums and dads

take turns to keep their eggs warm and protected from predators

for 35 long days, until they hatch.

Bluey has a human neighbour, Elizabeth Lundahl Hegedus,

although she will be leaving in six months.

Her house is to be demolished as part of the grand plan to make this a complete penguin sanctuary.

Already her garden is full of breeding pairs.

There are penguins all over the whole area.

Wherever you see this vegetation over there, there, there'd be penguin burrows spread out.

It's been more than 30 years since Elizabeth

first came from Sweden to live on this exposed outpost in Australia.

Oh, there's a penguin, possibly sitting on eggs.

It's got a very good, solid beak, which indicates that it's a male, and he's getting a bit worried.

We've got the two artificial burrows over here.

They've got eggs there, normally they will stay with the eggs for three or four days each.

Obviously, they don't like having their roof suddenly opened up.

I wouldn't, either.

Penguins like Bluey try to raise two chicks each season.

On average, only one will survive.

Bluey's hungry,

but he must guard the eggs till Sheila gets back tonight.

Anyway, the beach is a no-go zone during the day.

It's dangerous out there.

The skies are full of gulls that will swoop on any unsuspecting prey.

In broad daylight, there is just nowhere to hide.

Bluey will not budge an inch.

And he cannot leave his precious eggs for one second.

Careless parents who go looking for food leave behind a power breakfast

for egg thieves like these hungry silver gulls.

GULLS SQUAWK

Even copperhead snakes will case a penguin burrow on the off chance of a quick feed.

But not on Bluey's watch.

Hopefully, the relief guard will be on her way soon.

Penguins are starting to raft up before coming ashore.

Maybe Sheila will be among them.

Some are already approaching the Parade beach.

Like many island locals, Elizabeth works here as a Parade guide.

You know that it's not till quarter past seven?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, good!

They sort of looked expectant,

and they've got another 25 minutes

to go before somebody's going to turn up, so...!

But there's a catch to this line of work.

Pesky people, mostly.

The penguins are always nice.

Even when they bite you, they've got a good reason for it.

RADIO: 'We're going to open the doors in a minute.'

So, now you get the stampede.

You go sideways round... No penguins come up in the middle.

Each night, without fail,

the penguins shoot straight past the gawping masses

and trundle on with their busy lives.

365 days a year, evening rush hour passes across Elizabeth's front lawn,

with a steady stream of honking commuter traffic.

Bluey waits patiently for Sheila.

Fossil records show that at least 65 million years ago, penguins traded in their wings for flippers,

which means the only way up those cliffs is on foot.

For many, it's a half a mile to reach their burrows.

That's a huge trek if your legs are only two inches long.

Meanwhile, back at the Penguin Cafe, a group of eligible females arrives.

With any luck, one will be Spike's perfect match.

This is Tash.

She lost her chicks last year when food ran short.

Now she's looking for a new partner to try again.

Hmm...

an older divorcee -

could be bachelor Spike's lucky night.

PENGUINS SQUAWK LOUDLY

Courtship is notoriously rowdy.

Only when they actually start mating do things quieten down.

Penguins don't have external sex organs like mammals.

It's believed that Spike's flipper beating and back massage

stimulate Tash.

Their reproductive tracts, called cloacas,

come together for all of a second,

and hey presto, sperm is transferred.

Once they've mated, males jealously guard their females.

With no time to get her back to his carefully prepared pad,

Spike quickly bundles Tash into the nearest empty nest box,

out the way of any rivals.

PENGUINS GROWL

It takes a moment for young Spike to realise

that nest box is not in fact empty.

And that flipper-beating sound coming from inside

is a really bad sign.

Spike can only take so much.

Suddenly it's pandemonium at Box 1/62.

THUDDING

The penguin inside is none other than Rocky,

Spike's neighbour and rival.

It's the usual fight for boxes, burrows and birds,

and 13mm of razor-sharp beak can be a deadly weapon.

The fight continues outside.

And just when the fellas are flagging,

Tash rushes out and joins in.

Having mated with both males,

she's not sure just who goes with who right now.

Spike settles it and shoves Tash into a box that IS actually empty.

Rocky is still short of a soul mate.

And now those two newlyweds really rub his beak in it.

They're at it again!

Not far away, in Elizabeth's garden, Bluey, the loyal dad left to guard

the eggs, is still home alone,

waiting for his partner, Sheila, to return from her fishing trip.

And then something starts to stir beneath him.

The first little chicks of the season

are set to make their grand entrance.

With a birth weight of just 45 grams, Sammy, the first hatchling,

must try and eat his way to more than a kilo

to increase his chances of survival at sea.

He and his little brother, Tom,

are very hungry now, but their father hasn't eaten in days.

They need their mum, Sheila.

By the time Elizabeth turns in, Sheila is still not back.

It looks like Bluey's on his own again for another long night.

A night-vision camera

shows us what happens next.

A fox has got in behind Elizabeth's house.

In desperation, Bluey tries to conceal his tiny chicks.

It is little protection.

A prowling fox could take them all in a flash.

Next morning, word spreads

that a fox has been stalking through the colony.

We've had instances where a fox has come out here at night,

and they can sometimes kill 30 or 50 penguins in a night.

It's horrific. And they tend not to eat them, either.

You just turn up in the morning

and there's just dead penguins everywhere, basically.

They soon find evidence of the predator's killing spree.

As she does her morning rounds, Leanne checks on Bluey's burrow.

I actually think that I can hear tiny little chicks.

Bluey and the chicks have escaped the fox for now.

This chick is probably about a day, one, one or two days old.

And hopefully Sheila will make it back to feed her hungry family.

So, it weighs...

53 grams.

The little hatchlings won't last another night.

They desperately need their mother home with food.

But first, she'll have to make it past the fox.

Penguin parents scurry home as quickly as they can.

Struggling to catch up is a female penguin weighed down with fish.

Sheila is back at last,

with her devoted partner, Bluey, and two new offspring.

From now on, the couple will take it in turns to baby-sit,

heading off for one or two days at a time to find fish.

And Bluey can at last go and feed himself.

The kids are not the only ones who are starving.

Sheila now gives the boys regular feeds.

They've already survived gulls, snakes and a prowling fox,

but they are vulnerable while stuck on land,

unable to feed or move fast from predators.

And they've got another eight weeks of it before they grow strong enough

to feed themselves out there in Australia's Southern Ocean.

Bluey's got his work cut out for him, too.

Trawling the oceans for fish for the family

for two whole months is no mean feat.

But they're plucky things, Australia's Little Penguins.

Next on Penguin Island,

chicks Sammy and Tom are old enough to be left home alone.

It's time for the two young brothers to meet their fans.

But sometimes, people and penguins come too close.

Then all of a sudden,

there's a life to save on Penguin Island.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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