Against The Odds

The world’s smallest penguin has made one of Australia’s largest cities its home.

- Doug Gimesy

IT’S A NIGHT LIKE any other in the bayside suburb of St Kilda. A frosty wind is blowing and the lights of the city dance on the water, tinted pink and purple by the retiring sun. As grand as this scene is, it’s not what’s drawn me to the rocky breakwater at the end of St Kilda Pier. I’ve come for something far more captivating, although largely unexpected, just a long stone’s throw from the centre of Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne.

In the fast-fading light, and just past the pier kiosk, I hear a quiet crunch – the shuffle of light feet on gravel. Then I see it – a little character, no taller than a school-kid’s ruler, waddling out from between two large rocks on the beach side of the wall. It’s in no rush, which is a true treat for me and the other keen observers who’ve come to witness the night-time ritual of St Kilda’s charming little penguins.

“What’s that?” I hear you ask. “Penguins?” That’s right. There’s a 1400-strong huddle of the birds right under the noses of 5 million Melburnians, just 5km from the city centre. How did they come to settle in bustling Port Phillip Bay?

For the answer we need to dive back in time to 1956, when the 750m-long rock wall I’m now standing on was built to form a harbour for sailing events during the Melbourne Olympic Games. After the athletes moved on the penguins moved in. And while no-one’s exactly sure when this happened, locals recorded two breeding pairs in 1974. Before then there was only the occasional penguin seen in the bay and under the old St Kilda Pier, but these were thought to be wanderers from the 32,000-member Phillip Island colony, a 110km swim to the south-east. Fast-forward 12 years to 1986, when a proposal to redevelop St Kilda Harbour prompted Monash University seabird expert Professor Mike Cullen to visit the breakwater.