Release of the Penguins

 Tags: sea,marine,birds,penguin,red oyster catcher,shells,eggs,SAMREC

We are Holidaying in Port Elizabeth again.   We both have family here so we come often.
On Saturday we went to SAMREC (South African Marine Rehabilitation and Education Centre) to witness the release of the penguins.
First we got to see penguins (and a gannet and a cormorant) interacting in a natural way in an unnatural habitat that had been built for them.

Then the carers and volunteers fetched the young penguins due to be released one at a time from the enclosure,   They told us about the birds, their names, how they got to be there and the arrival and departure weights.   They clipped of the identity tags and sprayed each one on the tummy with a blue dye that lasts a week so if the penguin arrived back at the centre they will know it was one of the released birds.   They were put in crates and taken down to the beach in a bakkie with all of us ambling after them in untidy groups.
A temporary barrier was made to clear a path to the sea and then the crates were opened and the long walk to freedom began.


One little straggler didn’t seem to want to go,   His name was “Valiant” but he wasn’t.

Finally he was taken into the sea by one of the volunteers and he soon joined another of the bunch who was a bit timid and the two of them swam off into the sea together.

The beach at Cape Receif looked interesting like it might be a source of hidden treasure.   In particular I wondered if I could find 8 shells big enough to serve a fish starter for the Murder Mystery Dinner I was planning for New Year’s Eve.   So Brian and I collected shells.   The beach was pretty unspoiled so much bigger and nicer shells could be collected.
In our hunting we cam across 2 eggs just lying on the sand in a kind of circle of stones. 

We found out afterwards that they were red oyster catcher eggs.   Most likely somebody had come across them and made the circle of stones in an effort to protect them.
By now we were quite far along the beach so Brian suggested that, instead of walking back along the beach and then in the opposite direction along the road to the car,  we cut across the bushy sand dune to the road.   This turned out to be much more adventurous than anticipated with the direct route being very heavily bushed and impassable so we had to do a kind of zig zag best option approach.   Naturally it was also a lot further than we had estimated.   Nevertheless we found treasure!  In a slight hollow about 2 metres in diameter we found lots of intact, undamaged shells.   I have always thought of them as ashtray shells because when I was a little girl people used them as ashtrays.   They are often sold at beach shops with other shells inside them as a pack.   I managed to get 10  (in case we had extra guests to our party) and even then we could be picky and rejected some because they were too sandy.   We did finally get to the road and very pleased with ourselves we were too.