The secret lives of Fiordland’s diminutive crested penguins, the tawaki, have been revealed in a series of short films by Braydon Moloney.

The Australian filmmaker loved every rain-soaked, flooded minute of his week in Fiordland in September last year, stalking 55cm-tall penguins through the forest with Dunedin husband-and-wife scientists Dr Thomas Mattern and Dr Ursula Ellenberg.

Now, he’s stuck in the small town of Swan Hill, about four hours’ drive north of Melbourne, wishing he could be back in his South Island happy place.

It’s not all bad. One of Mr Moloney’s short films, The Tawaki Project, has been selected for the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival, screening in Wanaka and online on June 28.

Mr Moloney can also escape the winter and begin a conservation job in Cairns soon.

And he counts himself lucky that prior to COVID-19, he had spent the last seven years making conservation and environment films in New Zealand.

“I came to Dunedin to study science communication course at the University of Otago and after that, I ended up staying on in New Zealand. I was with Natural History New Zealand for six years, working on all sorts of projects around New Zealand.’’

Mr Moloney took the footage for The Tawaki Project in September 2019, and edited it in January.

The Tawaki Project team of scientists, researchers and field workers was formed in 2003 and is supported by the New Zealand Penguin Initiative, Antarctic Research Trust, Global Penguin Society, West Coast Penguin Trust, New Zealand Department of Conservation, and University of Otago.

While studying at Otago, Mr Moloney made a predator control film on Secretary Island for the Department of Conservation and had always wanted to film penguins.

He felt very happy when Dr Mattern allowed him to tag along on a trip to Milford Sound in September.

“I am addicted to the untamed wilderness... You never know what is around the next corner. It is so removed from the rest of the world – it is spectacular, tranquil,” he said.

He had met Dr Mattern while working on Natural History NZ projects for the TVNZ series “Our Big Blue Backyard’’.

“The week we were in Milford Sound it rained so much the roads were closed and the tourist operators were shut and we couldn’t go to the field site. Finally, there were only four days that we could go, a very narrow band of time... It was touch and go. No guarantee we could see anything.”

The team was staying in a Department of Conservation house in Milford village and Southern Discoveries transported Dr Mattern and Mr Moloney to Harrison Cove every day.

That meant a 45-minute tour of Milford Sound – “one of the world’s most spectacular commutes,” Mr Moloney said – before being dropped off at the Harrison Cove Discovery Centre. 

They then kayaked to the penguin colony across the bay, getting there about mid-afternoon to begin a patient wait for penguins to begin arriving from 5pm.

“One of the things that didn’t make the film was Thomas had data loggers in little back packs on some of the penguins, to see how deep they dived. We would have to wait, sometimes until 2am, before we could see and catch these penguins with their backpacks on. We were out there until really late most nights.”

In the early morning, they kayaked back to Harrison Cove and crawled into their sleeping bags for a short kip before Southern Discoveries picked them up and gave them another tour back to Milford village.

There, they would spend about four or five hours drying out, cleaning up and recharging their batteries before getting back on the boat for another night in the field.

“We got quite sleep deprived because of the logistics,’’ Mr Moloney said.

“I would love to come back. We have sort of discussed there is another field site we need to explore and film.

“But I can’t come back for the festival, unfortunately, because of Covid. The travel bubble prevents that.”

Despite the difficult terrain and relentless weather, that one wet week produced gold. Mr Moloney intended to make a single, three-minute film but ended up with enough footage for several short films.

He chose The Tawaki Project, featuring Dr Mattern, to enter into the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival.

Dunedin scientist Thomas Mattern.

“Thomas is a funny guy. He is very passionate about what he does. He lives and breathes penguins. He will do whatever it takes to get to them,” Mr Moloney said.

Dr Mattern’s wife, Dr Ursual Ellenberg, was just as big a part of the project, Mr Moloney said.

“They both do the hard yards out in the field but they swap between who has to stay home to look after the kids, just like the penguins they study. So, I was following Ursula for the first few days of filming and following Thomas for the rest.”

Until recently, most of the scientists’ work with tawaki had been done on the West Coast.

In Fiordland, the birds were not as accessible, so not much was known much about what they got up to there.

Mr Moloney said the scientists discovered the Milford Sound population “lived in an enclosed world”, where they bred, fed and behaved differently to the West Coast populations.

On the coast, tawaki pairs might, at best, be able to raise one chick to maturity, but in Milford, the parents were prospering and successfully raising up to two chicks, he said.

Dr Mattern was now considering extending his study to Doubtful Sound, Mr Moloney said.

SEE IT

The 18th NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival is on in Wanaka and in Queenstown June 26 to 28 but it will also be broadcast online nationally from June 26 to July 5, with the purchase on an online festival pass. Click HERE for details.

The Tawaki Project screens in session 6 of the festival, “Nature and the Environment”.