Little Penguin in Burrow, Victoria Australia

(Click image to enlarge)

The little penguin (Eudyptula minor) is the world's smallest penguin species. They are commonly known as blue penguins due to its unique blue and white feathers, little blue penguins, and fairy penguins. They are about the size of a bowling pin and native to Australia and New Zealand. The one in this photograph is a member of a colony of about 40,000 individuals living on an island off the southern coast of Victoria, Australia. It is the world's largest little penguin colony.

The penguins leave their underground burrows and enter the sea each morning before sunrise to feed on small fish, anchovies, pilchards, garfish and krill. They return to their burrows at dusk, making them the only penguins that are primarily nocturnal on land.

This behavior makes them nearly impossible to photograph. Flash photography disorients the birds and is illegal, as is all photography between sunset and sunrise. I was lucky to accidentally find this penguin peeping out of its burrow atop a roughly 100 meter (328 feet) high cliff on the island's coastline, not long after sunrise.