My Penguin Year: Life Among the Emperors
A must read for anyone fortunate enough to travel to the Antarctic. However, for the majority of us, this might be better paired with a pre and post viewing of the “Emperor” episode of the BBC series “Dynasties” (season 1, episode 2). I also strongly suggest this book for any new or expecting parents, as the devotion and bond between a male and female emperor penguin when raising their offspring serves as a truly inspiring and humbling example of what it means to truly dedicate oneself as a loving partner and parent.
Suggested Readers: Birders, Animal Lovers, Filmographers/Photographers, New and Expecting Parents
An incredible account of an experience that most of us cannot even fathom: cold, well below zero. Severe winds. Perpetual darkness. Isolation. And an extended period of time away from one’s partner while enduring the planet’s longest, most brutal winter. That is the life of an emperor penguin. However, it is also not too dissimilar to what is experienced by cameraman and author Lindsay McCrae. Filming for the magnificent BBC series, “Dynasties,” McCrae and a small film team set out to spend eleven months capturing the life cycle of the emperor penguin. The conditions are unforgiving. The danger is absolute. There are plenty of moments in the book where things could go from bad to outright disastrous. Among the stress and pressure is a strong longing for home. They say home is where the heart is. That is exactly where McCrae’s new wife and unborn child are- on the other side of the world, home, in England’s Lake District.
Extraction is impossible. To beat boredom and loneliness, the team focuses on the film and subjects themselves to conditions that take the human body to the brink of its limit. The danger, truly, cannot be understated. At the very least, it makes for an extremely captivating read. And yet, despite the danger, the crew manages to capture some of the most touching moments and examples of love and devotion displayed by any creature in the natural world.
I might be slightly biased in my enjoyment of this book. As an avid photographer who loves to travel, go on adventures, and watch any of the BBC’s series connected to David Attenborough (and as someone who places Antarctica at the top on their bucket list), there is little reason why I wouldn’t love this book as much as I do. However, there is something else to this story that strikes me on a profound level and speaks to my beliefs as a naturalist and altruist. The emperor penguin is the only species that makes a living in an environment so extreme that it more resembles an alien world rather than the Earth many of us know. How?
Quite simply, whether by instinct or an underappreciated intelligence, they recognize that survival is not every bird for itself: survival is love, trust, devotion, and cooperation. Truely amazing social skills that require a high degree of empathy within any creature. When an emperor penguin lays its egg, just prior to the most brutal part of polar winter, the mother transfers the egg to her partner and begins her incredibly long trek back to open water so she can spend the next two months feeding. This is not a gesture of reckless abandonment; egg laying is a taxing ordeal and the mother needs to regain her strength so she can return with a stomach full of fish after the chick hatches. During her absence, she trusts that the egg, her offspring, will be safe under the devoted care of her partner. The father will spend over 60 days standing, without food, to incubate the egg in its brood pouch while balancing it atop his feet. Again, all of this during the planet's harshest winter. But for the males (and their eggs) to survive, they do something truly remarkable. They cooperate. To avoid freezing to death, the males huddle together to keep each other warm. To ensure that no member of the group gets too cold (or too hot!), they take turns circulating from the huddle’s warmer center to its frigid outer edge. Frankly, they have no choice. If the penguins on the outer edge freeze, eventually they all will. But by taking turns, cooperating, and valuing each other’s wellbeing, they endure long enough to raise the next generation. The penguins understand that putting oneself before all others means death for the colony. Working together offers the best chance of survival.
In a world currently undergoing a mass extinction due to climate change and habitat destruction, I sometimes cannot help but wonder how humans would respond to being left alone in a harsh, desolate world. Would we finally work together and understand that our fates are inescapably intertwined? Or would we default to the “every man for himself” mentality? Only one of these options actually leads to survival. The other just allows for a few last individuals to remain standing long enough to recognize the inevitable fall.
People often say that they ‘would do anything for their children. Anything.’ And yet, out of denial, inconvenience, or other constrictions, we continue to sacrifice the wellbeing of future generations for our own immediate interests. We desperately need to take a page out of the emperor penguin’s book. We too need to work together. Because ultimately, like the emperors, we only get through this together.
Excerpt:
“Calling together, both birds stood tall, as if showering off their egg and brood pouches to each other. I wondered if they were signalling to one another that they were ready. The male again leant forwards, delicately scraping the tip of his beak across the surface of the precious egg. The female still seemed reluctant to relinquish her power over the egg. I zoomed my camera lens towards the egg and without warning she abruptly but carefully parted her feet, stepping backwards, exposing the fragile egg to the elements and freezing ice on which it lay. It filled my frame. The male reacted immediately, keeping the tip of his beak within an inch of the egg even when not actually touching it. He stepped forward, his eyes entering the top of my picture. With his wide-open eyes it was obvious he was aware of the importance of the moment but he didn’t seem to panic; he had to be quick enough to prevent the egg from freezing, yet not so quick that he risked cracking it. Using the very end of his beak, he gently dragged the egg between his feet, the point facing away from him, and in a final manoeuvre cautiously brought his feet together, lifting the egg upwards and away from the lethal ice. Together, they’d successfully completed the most risky part of their breeding process and I could breathe a sigh of relief. I had got it.
The only thing left to happen now was the female leaving to head out to sea; the process had been incredibly quick and I readied myself for the final act. It seemed like role reversal; from the male paying extreme interest in the female’s egg, it was now the female that paid interest in the male’s egg. It wasn’t that she wanted it back, she just wanted confirmation it was safe and that she could trust him before she disappeared. He slouched, lowering onto his feet, blanketing his egg with his feathers. Dropping his shoulders, he closed his eyes. As he shivered in the cold, the male knew this was it and the female got the message. He was ready. She turned around. Walking away, she momentarily hesitated and glanced back. I couldn’t help but translate it as, ‘Stay safe, I won’t be long.’ Her head dropped, she fell onto her belly and started to toboggan away into the distance.
The egg was now the sole responsibility of the male through what were arguably the toughest conditions on the planet. As the wind picked up, the female vanished into the snowdrift as she made her way north in the direction of open water. Weak and hungry, she had no idea how far her journey would be and I was amazed she still had the energy.
I sat back and turned to Will, who’d been at my side watching the whole process as I’d filmed. The whole courtship ritual and mating process, which had taken almost two months, had concluded in an incredibly short but significant moment. The process had taken under forty-five minutes from start to finish, but having had my own eyes buried in the camera capturing as much detail as possible, what I’d just witnessed hadn’t quite sunk in.
The strength of the bond between the two birds was overwhelming and, all of a sudden, I was struck by the parallels between a pair of emperor penguins and my relationship with Becky. The pair had just separated, not knowing whether they’d ever see each other again, the female unaware of whether their egg or its father would make it through the winter, and the male unsure if his partner would survive two months out at sea. As I thought of the moment I’d left Becky and our unborn baby at the front door of the house, disappearing round the corner in the car, it hit me. Witnessing moments such as a pair of emperors laying an egg, transferring it between them and saying goodbye to one another was why I’d travelled to Antarctica, why I’d sacrificed such a huge amount. I was seeing natural events that only a handful of people could say they’ve ever witnessed, and these were the moments I’d dreamt about. Tears filled my eyes and froze immediately to the top of my cheek and balaclava; clearly, my emotions were very close to the surface.
I looked at the male and knew how he felt. I knew the bond between the two birds was strong but I had no idea it was that strong and I just wanted to go over and give him a hug. For the next sixty or more days he would be a single parent, battling to survive the darkest, coldest and windiest winter on Earth while at the same time caring for a fragile egg that balanced on top of his feet. The prospect was simply one of the wonders of the natural world.”
New York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2019]