About Us
A colony of around 1,400 little penguins lives on the breakwater at St Kilda Pier, just minutes from central Melbourne. They are little penguins (Eudyptula minor), the smallest penguin species in the world.
The colony has been studied continuously since 1986, and volunteers still monitor and protect it today. You can watch the penguins come ashore at dusk from the viewing platform at the end of the pier — see our guide to visiting the breakwater and watching them responsibly.
Follow us on Facebook for colony news, or find out how you can help protect the penguins.
Seeing the St Kilda penguins
The colony can be watched from the elevated boardwalk at the end of St Kilda Pier during free, ticketed viewing sessions held every night. The sessions are run by Phillip Island Nature Parks, and booking ahead is essential — places are capped and they do go.
Two sessions a night
The first starts about 30 minutes after sunset, the second about an hour and a half after sunset. Each runs for roughly an hour, and each is capped at 150 people.
Free, but you need a ticket
There is no charge. Tickets are released every Tuesday from 10am AEST for the following week’s sessions, through Phillip Island Nature Parks. Turning up without one does not get you onto the boardwalk.
The boardwalk
A 150-metre elevated boardwalk opened in October 2025. It holds visitors at a safe distance from the burrows, uses wildlife-friendly lighting, and closes each night once the sessions finish.
Getting there
Trams 12, 16 and 96 all stop near the pier; you can also take a train to Balaclava and pick up tram 16, or the 606 bus. Parking near the Sea Baths is paid and limited, so public transport is easier at dusk.
Session times shift through the year with sunset, so check the time on your ticket rather than assuming last month’s. The penguins come ashore after dark year-round, but how many land, and how quickly, changes with the season and the weather.
The rules that keep the colony safe
These are not house style — little penguins are protected under Victoria’s Wildlife Act 1975, and interfering with the birds or their habitat is an offence.
- No flash, no bright lights, no phone torches. A camera flash at close range can disorient a bird that has just come out of the water in the dark.
- Don’t touch, feed or approach them. They are wild animals, not an exhibit. Watch from behind the railings and let them pick their own route home.
- Keep your voice down. Noise carries over the rocks and turns birds back at the waterline.
- Take your rubbish with you. Fishing line and plastic are among the most direct hazards on the breakwater.
- Dogs stay on a lead on the pier, and off the breakwater entirely. An off-lead dog is one of the few threats here that can kill several penguins in a single visit.
If you find a sick, injured or entangled penguin
Call the Zoos Victoria Marine Response Unit on 1300 245 678. Don’t try to catch or move the bird yourself, and don’t put it back in the water — a penguin ashore in daylight is often ashore for a reason.
How a colony ended up on a breakwater
The St Kilda breakwater was not built for penguins. It was constructed for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, to shelter the yachting events, and the loose basalt boulders piled along it happened to produce exactly what a little penguin looks for in a nest site: deep, dry, shaded cavities with a short walk to the sea and no easy way in for a predator.
Penguins were first recorded nesting there in 1974. The colony now numbers around 1,400 birds — which makes it one of the few little penguin colonies anywhere in the world sitting inside a major city, a few kilometres from a CBD, rather than on a remote island.
What the colony is up against
An urban colony faces pressures a remote island one does not, and most of them are things visitors can influence:
- Dogs off lead on or near the rocks.
- Fishing line, hooks and plastic left on the breakwater, which entangle birds and their chicks.
- Artificial light along the foreshore, which disrupts birds trying to come ashore under cover of darkness.
- Boat and propeller strike in the shallow water around the pier.
- Heat — burrows in exposed rock can become dangerous during a Melbourne heatwave, and the birds cannot simply move somewhere cooler.
About Fairy Penguins in Australia
Long before scientists settled on the name “Little Penguin,” Australians simply called them Fairy Penguins — and the nickname has never really gone away. Eudyptula minor is the smallest penguin species on Earth, and the southern coastline of Australia is one of only two places in the world where it breeds, alongside New Zealand.
- SizeRoughly 30–33cm tall and about 1kg
- Also calledLittle Penguin, Blue Penguin, Fairy Penguin
- Found only inSouthern Australia (WA to NSW) and New Zealand
- DietSmall fish, squid and krill caught at sea
- LifespanAround 6–7 years in the wild
- ColourSlate-blue back, white belly — built-in ocean camouflage
Fairy penguins spend all day fishing far offshore and only come ashore after dark, waddling up the beach in groups called rafts to avoid circling gulls and other predators. On land they nest in burrows dug into dunes, tussock grass or rock crevices — and famous colonies at Phillip Island, Tasmania’s Bicheno, Granite Island in South Australia and Penguin Island in WA now draw visitors from all over the world to watch the nightly parade.
Foxes, off-leash dogs, habitat loss and boat strikes are the biggest threats to these colonies, which is exactly why our own St Kilda breakwater colony is so remarkable: the penguins moved in on their own, with the first nesting documented in 1974, and the colony has been studied continuously since 1986, right in the middle of a capital city.
Read the story of our own colony →
Why little penguins can’t fly, but swim like torpedoes
How deep do little penguins dive, and how do they hunt?
What the guides actually do at a St Kilda penguin viewing session
How far St Kilda’s penguins swim in a single night at sea
Why almost no penguins actually breed on mainland Australia
