Fairy penguins’ daily parade to be livestreamed from Australian island to ‘bring smiles’ to lockdown UK

'Little' penguins make a daily journey up the beach every evening

Fairy penguins are the world's smallest species of the bird (PA)

Organisers behind the live stream of a penguin parade in Australia hope that it will “bring some smiles” to people in the UK. 

Broadcasts of the parade will start on 15 February and will continue daily for four weeks. The event will be taking place on an island in Australia, called the Phillip Island Nature Park (PINP) in the state of Victoria.

The island is home to a colony of around 32,000 little fairy penguins, who make a journey up the beaches each night in an occurrence known as the penguin parade. 

Tourists have been going to see the parade since the 1920s and as a result of Covid- 19 restrictions preventing visitors from coming to the park, it will now be broadcast around the world instead. 

This will be the first dedicated UK broadcast of the event and will stream at around 10am GMT every day. Live Penguin TV will film the world’s smallest penguin species as they waddle from the sea up to their burrows each evening. 

The event will feature a virtual commentary from rangers at the park as well as some guest commentators, including Ray Mears. A previous live stream, put into place during Victoria’s Covid-19 lockdown, had over 25 million viewers. 

Catherine Basterfield, PINP’s chief executive said: "We hope that we can bring some smiles to our friends in the UK, all the way from Phillip Island".

The idea of streaming the event came when BBC Sports commentator Andrew Cotter went viral for commentating on the penguin parade's in 2020.

Live Penguin TV will be available to view both on the park's Facebook Page and its YouTube channel every day.