Life's just fine for the 320 residents of the ‘Penguin Hilton' over at Te Maunga.

Oiled Wildlife Centre manager Brett Gartrell says the penguins are being cared for as if they were staying at a Hilton.

SunLive reporter Andrew Campbell and photographer Cody Stevens took a one hour media tour of the ‘Penguin Hilton'. Pictured here is a little blue penguin enjoying the freedom of clean wings.

After going through the oil removal process the little blue penguins are settling in and getting used to their accommodation.

The newbies, who are still in recovery, get to swim in a pool every day, but the birds whose feathers have largely regained their waterproofing get to live in the enclosures.

They hang out by the pool all day, they get fed, and the staff bring in upturned fish bins for the birds to roost under at night.

Brett says when leaving at night, centre staff hear the penguins talking and they are still talking when they arrive back in the morning.

'When they first come in they are pretty terrified of us, but they lose their fear pretty quickly,” says Brett.

Stressed birds bite.

The centre has collected 1300 dead birds, stored in a reefer container awaiting post mortems.

They have 320 live penguins, and 10 died after arriving at the centre.

Most of the live recovered birds are little blue penguins and they are the ones that have recovered best.

There are also three shags, a gannet, a couple of shearwaters and a few petrels – and the dotterels.

Each of the penguin enclosures can comfortably hold 30-40 penguins and they are fine, says Brett.

The endangered dotterels are more high maintenance.

They are flighty and stressful, they require individual enclosures.

The dotterels were not oiled, they were moved as a pre-emptive measure to prevent them getting oiled.

Upon arrival, oiled birds' first stop is a heated tent where they are fed and allowed to regain their strength for a few days before they start on the washing process.

Oiled Wildlife Centre manager Brett Gartrell inspects a penguin's swimming pool.

It is very stressful for a wild bird and involves being handheld for 30-40 minutes while its feathers are soaked in canola oil to lift up the heavy fuel oil – and then washed off with detergent.

After a trial and error process using a variety of detergents, they discovered US product ‘Dawn detergent' works best. Manufacturer Proctor and Gamble has flown a tonne of it out.

Brett has no idea why it reduces wash time by 20-30 minutes. The locally available detergents just didn't really cut the heavy fuel oil.

They were washing 30-40 birds a day, but they haven't had the same intensity over the last couple of days.

'We are just waiting for the last few to come good for washing,” says Brett.

After the wash they go through the rinse, now held in the original mobile unit, a former shipping container Massey University has on standby for such an eventuality.

After the 15-20 minute rinse the birds are basically in recovery.

They are still unable to be released into the wild because the feathers aren't waterproof, but they get to swim in a pool each day.

'Because they are not waterproof after an hour they are brought back in to dry off,” says Brett.

'The stress levels in the birds go down amazingly once they can get out here and have a swim.”

The birds ready for the new enclosures signal their readiness by taking longer and longer to get out of the pool, and take to circling the centre when it's time to dry off and warm up.

The pools at penguin city are fresh water because all the wastewater and tank run off has to be able to recycle through the Tauranga City Council's wastewater treatment plant.

'Over the course of a week we will put them in a pool and gradually bring them back up to oceanic salt,” says Brett.

The specialised enclosure units are filling with birds that are ready to go back to the sea, says Brett.

They are waiting until the immediate threat of the oil is removed.

Photos by Cody Stevens.

The swimming tanks.

The penguins are communicating.

Bird enclosures.

Women are going gaga over penguin cuteness.