Burnie's Little Penguin colony experiences a baby boom late in the season

With 14 years involvement with the Friends of Burnie Penguins, chairperson Evelyn Devito said she had never seen this number of chicks so late into the season.

"Over the last three to four years we've noticed changes in the colony but this year was much more marked," Ms Devito said.

She said she could only guess why there were so many chicks in the second batch this year, compared with the normal few.

"Penguins are opportunist animals, we can only surmise that there must be plenty of food out in Bass Strait as a new crop of babies has appeared," she said.

On whether this could become a permanent change, Ms Devito said it may be just a one year only event but only time would tell.

Volunteers begin guided tours from October 1st each year, Ms Devito said five years ago this would be the time birds begin mating but more recently there had been babies a couple of weeks off being ready to go out to sea.

"Normally tours stop March 1st, but this year we will be giving guided tours through to Easter because we know the visitors are around.

"If this becomes a permanent change we would need to rethink how we do things because we would need more volunteers.

"But we'll make decisions as we need to make them."

She said the tours are free, bookings weren't required and donations were very welcome.

"We rely on donations to run, and we've experienced a lower number of visitors because normally there's international visitors.

"It's a good time to get down there if you haven't before because on the other end of things the adult birds are fattening up and moulting.

"While moulting the penguins are on land for 17 days and at night we get to see them and they do look funny."

Tour times adjust to the when the sunsets.

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