One of our outings while in Australia was a day tour from Melbourne to the coast of the Great Southern Ocean (we love that name — it sounds like the sea in a grand fantasy novel) to see the Parade of the Fairy Penguins. The penguins in question are the smallest species of penguins in the world. They typically stand only about 30 cm or 1 foot tall. But more about them in a moment.
Brighton Beach
Our first stop on the way out of Melbourne was at Brighton Beach.
Our guide reminded us that in the late 19th century, Australia was not yet a nation. It was a collection of British colonies, known collectively as Terra Australis. The late 19th century in the British world was a time of modesty and prudery. Well-off locals owned beach-front cabins whose purpose was a private place for beachgoers to change from their modest street clothes to their equally modest bathing costumes.
In Victorian times, these cabins, known as “bathing boxes,” were plain and simple, not the colorful collection we see today. By the 1950s, the boxes were neglected and in bad shape. Preservationists won out over those who called for them to be removed, and part of that renaissance was the addition of bright colors along with renovation. Today, owners personalize their own boxes — all within heritage and planning regulation color parameters, of course.
Moonlit Sanctuary
One of our most fun stops on the way to see the penguins was a visit at the Moonlit Sanctuary on the Mornington Peninsula outside of Melbourne. This is an open-air “biopark” with the mission of conserving native Australian wildlife, especially threatened species, while educating visitors and fostering changes in how people think about and treat animals. The park explicitly aims to display the fauna that lived on the Mornington Peninsula and within the Western Port Biosphere Reserve before European settlement, and to work toward the recovery of threatened Australian species.
We’re not fond of zoos that hold wild animals in small enclosures mostly for us humans to gawk at. But places dedicated to helping wounded or endangered animals and to working to preserve endangered species interest us quite a lot.
Here’s a visit with the native Australian animals that we met at the Sanctuary.
Wombats
Wombats are nocturnal marsupials, so finding one active in the heat of the day was reportedly unusual. This one was happy to wander about, scratch himself, eat, and drink water.
Indigenous accounts describe wombats as important food animals and, in some regions, as figures of wisdom, resourcefulness, and guardianship of underground places, burrows, or sacred sites, although such themes vary by Nation and story. *
Wallabies and kangaroos
Like, what’s the difference? The main differences are size, body proportions, habitat, and behavior: kangaroos are larger long‑legged grazers of open grasslands, about as tall as humans, while wallabies are smaller, compact browsers of forests and rough terrain.
Most species of kangaroos and wallabies are not in risk of extinction. In fact, kangaroos are doing so well that they need to be managed, rather like deer in the US and Europe. Kangaroo meat is sold in major supermarkets in Australia. (We didn’t eat any kangaroos.)
Most of the activity that we saw was from wallabies.
The kangaroos were more interested in taking naps.
This girl is either albino or what is called leucistic. True albinos lack all melanin, so they have white fur plus pink or red eyes and pale skin; leucistic animals can look white but have normal eye colour and some pigment. Either way, a white kangaroo is very rare, something like one in 50,000 to 100,000 kangaroos.
Emu
The name “emu” probably comes from Portuguese and Arabic as a word for a large bird. There are over 250 distinct indigenous languages in Australia, which means that there is a huge range of indigenous names for this bird. For example: dinawan in Wiradjuri, nguruny in Bundjalung, noori in Ngemba, barrimal in Dja Dja Wurrung, myoure in Gunai, courn in Jardwadjali, and many many more. *
In many Aboriginal cultures, emus function as important totems and appear in Dreaming stories, art, and ceremony, often associated with strength, endurance, and ancestral creation beings (including the “emu in the sky” dark‑cloud constellation). *
Long-nosed Potoroo – or the rat-kangaroo
They’re near-threatened. They live in wet and dense forest as well as coastal heath woodlands but their distribution is fragmented. Predation by foxes, cats and dogs is the major threat to the long-nosed potoroo, but they also face problems due to land clearing and habitat destruction.
These ones popped out from under a boardwalk just across from a canteen area where we were having a snack.
Tasmanian Devils
We can’t erase our childhood association with this Tasmanian Devil:
The real ones are ugly-cute, vulnerable, and under threat of extinction.
Devils used to be on the mainland of Australia but are now restricted to Tasmania where they are found in varied habitats from the coast to the mountains. They are nocturnal and are the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial.
Tasmanian devils face extinction in the wild because of a contagious cancer that appeared in 1996 called the Devil Facial Tumor Disease. This is characterised by cancers around the mouth and head. The number of devils has declined to 10% of their original number and the decline continues.
In response, a managed population of around 500 animals has been established in wildlife parks and zoos across Australia.
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We wondered how these little guys got their name. It’s from the early European settlers. They were spooked by the animals’ loud, eerie screeches and their fierce-looking, dark bodies with red ears and big teeth.
Koala
Mid-afternoon is siesta time for koala. They are mostly active at night and around dawn and dusk. We were lucky that this one decided to shift their sleeping position while we watched.
The koala gets its name from an ancient Aboriginal word meaning “no drink” because it receives over 90% of its hydration from the Eucalyptus leaves it eats, and only drinks when ill or times when there is not enough moisture in the leaves, such as during droughts. *
Moonlit Sanctuary participates in a conservation program called the Koala Corridor Project. The goal of this program is to expand and connect healthy territories for wild koalas.
Koalas, one of Australia’s most beloved natives, are facing significant challenges both locally and nationally. Their numbers are dwindling due to threats like disease, dog attacks, and road hazards. The greatest danger, however, comes from habitat loss as the trees they rely on are increasingly felled.
Today, koalas are confined to small pockets of remnant bushland or isolated in narrow strips of marginal habitat. These areas leave them vulnerable and eager to disperse—but can they do so safely? *
Fairy penguins
On our tour, we were getting closer to dusk.
Wallabies were foraging in the brush.
Our tour guide / driver screeched to a halt and exclaimed, “Echidna!” Trundling across the road was this little guy. While this type of echidna, called short-beaked, is doing fine in the wild of Australia, they have very poor eyesight so crossing the road is not a good life choice. Fortunately, our driver had much better eyesight than the echidna. They really are quite strange little beasts; here’s a link if you want to dive deeper.
But let’s get on with it: we have an appointment with some fairy penguins.
The site for the nightly arrival of the fairy penguins is Summerland Beach on the southwest coast of Phillip Island. Phillip Island is known for penguins, seals, koalas, wallabies, and more; for rugged coastal scenery; surfing; and, of all things, motorsport. The Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit is apparently a big deal, but seemed at odds with all the other natural and ecologically-focused attributes of the place. We skipped that.
The anticipated stars of our outing were the so-called fairy penguins. They are also known simply as little penguins, blue penguins or little blue penguins. They are the smallest species of penguin in the world.
These penguins need two habitats: the open ocean and burrows on land near the beach. They spend about 80% of their lives at sea, which is their main feeding habitat. However, they require burrows in the sand or soil for courting, mating, laying and incubating eggs, and raising chicks. The burrows protect the penguin families from heat, wind, and predators. Large birds such as Pacific gulls, raptors, and even ravens are particularly dangerous predators.
The challenge for the penguins is to feed out in the sea and then to return to their burrows to regurgitate the food back for the chicks and, especially during the incubation period, the remaining partner. The parents take turns going out to feed. The transit across the beach between burrows and ocean is the most precarious time for the penguins. Their strategy is to cross the beach at dusk and in groups.
And that was what we were there to see. When the light is dark enough, each evening — on average (and that is an important distinction) — a few hundred emerge from the sea in the surf and trundle across the open beach up the scrub-brush hill to their burrows.
We discovered that very many humans come to Summerland Beach to witness the little penguin parade. And we mean very many. We found huge parking lots full of tour busses and private cars. We passed through an impressive modern building that would make a good airport terminal, and over about 500 meters / 1600 ft of handsome boardwalks to the dunes above the beach. There we found two sets of concrete bleachers almost completely filled with loud unruly spectators. We estimated that a couple thousand people were waiting for the arrival of the penguins.
To our initial disappointment, photography was not permitted. The reasoning was sound: bright lights, especially flash, can distract and confuse the penguins, who are already skittish. Try to get a large crowd of eager tourists not to use their phones to take photos in this day and age. Also try to get a large crowd of eager tourists not to stand up en masse at the sight of a couple little penguins.
When we had been walking along the boardwalk on our way to the beach, we joked that we hoped this so-called parade would not be like so-called meteor showers. The meteor showers that we’ve stayed up late to watch over the years have included one meteor every three minutes — at best.
We were prescient. Over the hour during which we sat intently focused on the darkening surf and beach, only a few pairs of little penguins emerged from the surf; they milled around a little bit, got nervous, and dove back into the water. Finally, a group of five penguins body-surfed onto the wet beach, stood up, clustered and milled, and then bravely waddled across the beach and into the brush of the sandy hill. And that was it.
This is what the internet said we would see.
This is an approximation of what we actually saw.
Since we were visiting via an organized group tour, we had to get back to the bus by 9:30 pm. Meeting this deadline meant that we had to maneuver through the immense crowd along the boardwalk. We’d spent an hour in anticipation of a parade of cute penguins while dealing with rule-breaking illicit photographers, people who were happy to stand up and block all the people behind them, people who wandered all over the place and yelled across the stands at friends or family on the other side. All the chaos exacerbated our disappointment at the meager penguin appearances. It was like trying to get to a meeting that you’re late for through a long airport concourse packed with people.
During our maneuver through the crowd, we came upon a surprisingly upbeat staff person. She said matter-of-factly, “It’s moulting season. Many of the adults remain in their burrows until the completion of moulting.” Turns out that we visited at the peak of the colony’s moulting season. Sigh. Nature does what nature wants.
When we got back to our bus and our tour guide, we reported, “Too few penguins. Too many people.” Our guide reminded us that the penguins don’t come ashore to entertain us — can you believe it?! So, no one can predict when and where they will emerge along the beach.
We understand the draw of the place, and the benefit that all the revenue from all the admission tickets brings to conservation objectives. But, we also longed for a more restricted crowd size, both for the experience of the humans and for the lives of the little penguins.
February 2026