Enderby Island is the place that I have had the best opportunities to photograph Yellow-eyed Penguin / Hoiho. Good numbers and areas of relatively open vegetation make it easy to see them as they move between land and sea.

The image I got of an adult and chick in the Southern Rata forest in 2016 was going to be hard to improve on but I was hopeful for some new images showing these attractive birds.

As always we avoid approaching birds directly but when standing still the birds have little hesitation to approach us as they continue their journey to or from the beach.

Most of the birds encountered on the move between forest and shore are adults leaving or returning on foraging trips but there are also plenty of juvenile birds resting up around the island.

This final image was at the north east of Enderby Island when it had started raining fairly solidly. It shows a young penguin resting in the rain among the gentians and megaherbs. This gave an opportunity to include the pink blooms of Anisotome latifolia as out of focus foreground elements echoing the pink of the gentians and penguin bill.

Photos with Nikon D850 and Nikkor 500mm f5.6PF lens