St Kilda's Penguins

St Kilda breakwater is home to a colony of around 800-1000 fairy penguins. A friend mentioned that he was on guard duty and so we headed down to investigate.

St Kilda's "yuppie" penguins lead a blessed life. Their home was built for them, as the breakwater provides perfect housing. Their food source is abundant and a short 10-15km swim away. They have no natural predators near the breakwater.

To contrast to the penguins of Phillip Island. They swim out for 2-3 days to hunt for food, over 60km in a typical trip. The predators around the island mean they will come ashore as a large group to ensure that most of them survive.

Penguins are blinded by white light, but are fairly blind to the red spectrum. Thus, flash photography is forbidden and torches or other strong light should be covered by a red filter. This made photography rather interesting.

The photo above is taken with a 5D Mark II and a 50mm f/1.4 lens at f/2.5 and ISO 6400. A bit of processing in Lightroom and a tighter crop completed the image. I tried using higher ISO settings on the camera, but the level of noise made it difficult to get a crisp photo.

For future trips, I plan to bring my own flashlight to allow more time to capture a good penguin pose. My 100mm f/2.8 lens will also make it into the kit bag. Mid week or in winter should also reduce the number of tourists competing for penguin time.

If you have a spare evening, it is worth a trip down to see the penguins. A short walk from the shops on Fitzroy St or Ackland St in St Kilda.