Today I had one of those odd little moments at work which go some way towards balancing out the rest of it. On our last trip of the night, we were leaving the island to head back towards town, and while I was standing there in the dark and cold and rain, waiting to cast off the line, I could hear some weird noises drifting across the water.

As the boat moved further out into the bay, the evening commuter traffic appeared, bobbing along in a little fleet. It was the bay's entire population of fairy penguins (also called little blue penguins) coming home for the night. I knew they lived in holes in the rock wall under the wharf, but I'd never seen them arriving before. I guess there were about 15 or 20 of them. They were all chattering away to each other. Normally when you're out on a boat here, you see penguins in ones or twos, just catching a glimpse of them before they dive away from the boat. It was incredibly funny seeing a whole crowd of them going someplace with an obvious purpose. There was a real "end of a hard day's work" attitude about the group, too, which was *hilarious*. Like all penguins, they have so much personality it just seems wrong for a bird.

Now that I know what time they come back in the evenings, I'm thinking of going over there on a day off, and sitting on the wharf to watch them climbing out of the water and going back into their holes.