My Penguin Year
Lindsay McCrae
HarperCollins, Inc.
Copyright © 2019 by Lindsay McCrae
It is April of 2017 and –25 degrees Celsius (–13 F) and Lindsay McCrae, while numb from the Antarctic cold, is nonetheless invigorated by the prospect of what is to come: “Straight to the north, black shimmering specks appeared like a mirage just above the horizon. At first just a few, but as my eyes adjusted, tens, then hundreds rose as if they were appearing from the other side of the Earth, advancing over its curve. Were the emperors actually returning … marching towards me in great long lines like I’d imagined? If so, this was the day I thought I’d never experience. One of the most extraordinary sights Earth’s natural world has to offer. This was the day I’d dreamt about as a child.”
I have a confession to make: exhausted by Trumphoria, and the insurrection it inspired, I’ve been disappointed by my fellow mask-refusing humans, and so I was thrilled when my brother Tom gifted me “My Penguin Year.”
As a child, I was enthralled by penguins. They were a trolley/bus ride from the crowded three-and-a-half-room Bronx apartment we shared with the roaches. And I regarded it as a privilege to visit their penguin house. Well, Lindsay McCrae made it to their real home.
No Bronx streets, stickball, or zoo for McCrae: he grew up in the English countryside in Cumbria, in the Lake District, exploring his “idyllic” local woods and riverbanks. His “most fascinating find was a family of badgers in a little patch of woodland … By the age of eight I had already decided I wanted a career filming wildlife.” At age 12, he sent “Springwatch,” the BBC’s nature show, a detailed map of the teeming wildlife nearby. Delighted by his enthusiasm, they lent him a camera. So he filmed his badgers, the “birds singing in the trees, bluebells blowing in the wind, even a snail working its way up a fallen log. They were the perfect ingredients for creating a film sequence on the life in the wood around the badgers’ sett …” Having made several documentary films, I appreciate those moments when another filmmaker is born.
Years later, he was filming “wolves in Alaska” then “armadillos in the Brazilian Pantanal almost on the equator. I was living my dream. Working freelance meant I didn’t know where I’d be sent to next … It was always a surprise.”
But always he dreamt of the penguins. Until the BBC asked him to film the emperors, requiring an 11-month trip to Antarctica, from December 2016 to November 2017.
“My Penguin Year” is more than one book: it’s both the story of how remarkably difficult it is for emperor penguins to survive, and the story of how remarkably difficult it was to film their struggle. Made more complicated by the fact that, to fulfill his penguin dream, for 11 months Lindsay McCrae would have to turn his personal life upside down:
“I had recently bought a house with my girlfriend, Becky, whom I had been with for six years. She had uprooted her whole life to move up to the Lakes to be with me … Becky used to work in television … [and] we were used to being apart for a month or five weeks at a time … She was always the one getting left behind, the one holding everything together at home so I could concentrate on work and live my dream …
“She took one look and knew I was up to something … ‘Go on. How long? … Three months? Four? Five?’ She got to six and the smile had vanished … ‘Emperors, Antarctica,’ I replied, thinking this might make her understand … The species didn’t appear to matter … ‘Eleven,’ I replied … ‘Absolutely not! I can’t believe you’ve even contemplated asking me!’ She disappeared down the garden towards the house … I guessed that was a no then … With only one evening remaining before I’d promised to give Miles an answer, Becky returned from work … Before I could speak, Becky announced, ‘You can go! We’ll make it work. Don’t worry.’”
Unlike me, McCrae had never actually seen a penguin up close … But “they held a special place in my heart … In nature, nothing quite defines perfection like an emperor penguin. Out of the world’s 17 species of penguin, they’re the largest at up to 115 centimetres [45.27 inches], and they’re the heaviest, tipping the scales at almost 25 kilograms [55 pounds].”
First, McCrae proposed to Becky, then got fitted with a massive amount of polar gear; trained to deal with fires, mountain rescues, and wilderness medical emergencies; and learned that Becky was pregnant. Then, accompanied by a recurring guilt, left Becky for the emperors.
McCrae flew to Cape Town, South Africa, took a massive Russian transport plane, then, to reach the German research station Neumayer III, flew for three hours in a smaller plane with skis. “With such a flat expanse and in an environment where the air was so pure, I could see as far as the curvature of the Earth allowed me to … but still so blinding to my eyes that I needed to wear heavily tinted sunglasses …
“In between the platforms was Neumayer’s impressive collection of machinery … On the first floor was a boot room filled with lines of pegs like my old school cloakroom, only polar clothing and huge snow boots had replaced blazers and sandals. A shiny steel kitchen lay opposite with utensils hanging in neat lines from the air vents. Over a counter I could see a dining room with three long tables … at the end of the room, two enormous glossy photographs dominated the wall. One showed a bright aurora australis illuminating the sky over the station, and the other an emperor and her young chick. ‘That’s why I’ve travelled here!’ I said out loud …
“The station leader arranged to give us a tour of the surrounding ice during our first afternoon … Following a line of flags, the fleet of seven skidoos sped along the snowy surface … Within 10 minutes, in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, everyone stopped … At the front of each line, lead birds periodically paused, causing a comical pile-up effect down the line. Extending their necks, each penguin looked impatiently over the shoulder of the bird in front … The spectacle playing out in front of me was exquisite … I felt like I was on a different planet and had no idea that this level of beauty existed …
“Sliding on their bellies, two emperors began to rush over … I dropped to my knees and sat back on my ankles … they both rose to their feet, bowed and with their signature trumpet call, introduced themselves. Being so close, the intensity of the sound went straight through me … They seemed so relaxed standing just a few feet away and I could feel their charming and peaceful personas … it was hard to imagine them battling the dark, raw, seemingly never-ending winter that I’d come here to film them in … I felt like the luckiest man alive and I found it hard holding back the tears. In front of me, just a few metres away, was one of the world’s most famous and favourite creatures in its natural habitat …” [Emphasis added]
But its natural habitat is not ours. Having just come in from trying to write in 14-degree weather at an outdoor table at Fuel coffee shop, my idea of cold would be a walk in the park for the emperors. And McCrae soon learned that life in the Antarctic was all about the ice and death-inducing cold, which often made it impossible for him to get outside, not just to see what the penguins were up to, but to spend the hours necessary to capture their lives on film.
In clear but beautiful prose, McCrae tells us: “As soon as emperor penguins re-form their colony each autumn, the timer starts ticking. Reproducing on a temporary surface that often melts away during the summer, the colony enters a race against the sun. They must raise their chicks to an age where they can support themselves before the sun generates enough warmth to melt and break up the ice. Due to this, emperors waste no time in starting the breeding process each year. Rather than searching through the whole colony for their previous year’s partner, the emperors find a new mate every year …”
McCrae was immediately confronted by that ticking timer and the reality that the ice covering Atka Bay had broken up in a matter of hours. And that the penguins wouldn’t return until it froze again: “With no penguins for a couple of months while they spent their time feeding, I wondered how I’d cope …”
There’s a certain tyranny to documentary filmmaking: the undeniable need to capture all the individual elements that, when woven together, tell the story in a way that makes sense. The emperors returning to the land they’ve chosen, the penguin they pick to mate with, the particularly difficult struggle to keep their valuable egg viable in such inhospitable conditions, the great distance the females trek to find food for their chicks, and the continuing battle with the brutal elements to defy death and ensure life.
Which is why “My Penguin Year” is fraught with a continuing tension for both the emperors and the filmmaker. McRae tries to get every shot he needs in conditions where he can barely see a yard ahead; his fingers, feet, and face are freezing; and he can’t tell one penguin from another.
“One calm morning, Stefan and I had kitted up and made our way to the ice shelf edge … I scoured the horizon with my binoculars … In the distance, weird black specks lined the horizon. Against the purity of the white landscape they stood out. Through my binoculars it became clear: the emperors were finally beginning to return …”
This day, McCrae was saved from the cold, having been called back to the station to be greeted by the sound of Walter, his new son, screaming. “All of a sudden, Becky’s face filled the screen, her mum and cousin accompanying her. ‘I wish you were here,’ she said to me, shedding tears of joy at the birth of our new baby boy, but also tears of sadness that we weren’t together. My own tears began to trickle down my cheeks …”
Unfortunately, while the penguins were just a few 100 meters from the edge of the ice shelf, they were still beyond McCrae’s reach. The ocean wasn’t frozen enough to support his 154 lbs. and the additional 44 lbs. of camera gear: “With only 17 days of light remaining before the sun disappeared for over two months, the pressure started mounting … The emperors had already had two weeks to find a partner and mate … I began to think they may all have already paired up. The thought of missing these key pieces of behaviour was terrifying …”
Which is why they decided to see if McCrae could slowly work his way closer to the penguins. “With one end of the rope secured to the safety anchor of two skidoos parked next to each other, Will and Stefan helped lower me down … [where] two birds standing separately from the colony caught my eye … One bird circled the other and as it bowed its head to the ground it drew my eyes down to a bulge on the other one’s feet. A swelling on a penguin’s belly usually suggests the presence of an egg. I blinked a couple of times, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Not only did it appear that the birds had paired up, courted and mated, they’d started laying eggs! …
“I tilted the tripod head down from the pink sky onto the faces of the two emperors, each bird facing the other in a moment of calmness. As I steadied the shot, one bird bowed its head. I went with it, watching as the bulge on the other one’s belly rose and filled half my frame. As if in slow motion, each feather covering the bulge began to unravel. Lit up like diamonds in the glowing light, the white feathers began to reveal the penguin’s egg … With the camera still running I held my breath to keep the image as steady as possible and prepared myself for my first ever glimpse of an emperor penguin egg. What was revealed amazed me. A large circular snowball. The penguins were incubating a block of ice! …
“Using their beaks to push bits of ice onto their feet isn’t unheard of in emperor behaviour, and it was something I was desperate to see and document, but to watch such a clear example play out in front of me, with a ball of snow the same size as an egg actually being incubated upon a penguin’s feet, was extraordinary … [and] I realised I hadn’t missed all the courtship behaviour after all …”
McCrae picked out another emperor: “It leant forwards until its beak nearly made contact with the ice, seemingly defying gravity as it remained balanced on its two flat feet. Parting its beak slightly, it inhaled as deeply as possible and following a short pause rapidly straightened its body, exhaling all the air and producing a long, almost unnatural, trumpet-like call …
“Within 10 seconds, it stopped and repeated the process. Still nothing … I continued to track my penguin with the camera through several calling attempts, but each one met with no luck … I tilted the camera downwards and followed its reptilian feet as they stepped across the ice … With claws crunching into the snow one by one, they lifted the bird as it called … A pair of feet filled the right of my picture, empty ice on the left. I concentrated and waited, just like the penguin … [when] a second pair of lizard-like feet stepped into my picture. A reaction. Had a partner been found? …
“Both birds flung their heads backwards at lightning speed, before bringing their beaks back to the centre slowly after making a circling motion with their necks. Their sharp bills rose again, crossing and resting on each other in a touching moment of togetherness. Everything one bird did, the other mimicked. The synchronised ritual was taking place without a moment’s hesitation, and I began to wonder if the whole procedure was predetermined, innate behavior …
McCrae became increasingly aware of how little time he had “[as] the weather was starting to make each part of the penguins’ breeding process perilously short … For the following two months the sun wasn’t due to make an appearance again … [meaning] they would have to perform nearly every key piece of behaviour to start their next generation during the harshest, darkest times, with mating, egg-laying, incubation, and possibly hatching all occurring in darkness.” Luckily, McCrae was able to modify a special camera that worked in low light.
Not so luckily, though, McCrae up to now had missed emperors mating, either because they were on the opposite side of the colony, or other penguins blocked his shot. Then, while kneeling, he picked out two penguins: “The male had been trying continuously to pull the female to the ground, wrapping his neck around hers and putting his full weight on to her. I took a gamble and thought maybe this couple were close to mating. Next thing I knew, the female opened her wings and leant forwards, lowering herself gently onto the ice, inviting him to mate. Lifting her tail was her sign to the male that she was ready. He seemed surprised; I wondered if he’d come to the conclusion that today wasn’t his lucky day …
“It was very difficult for the male to climb on top of the female and it was almost comical watching him try. Hurrying into action, he used his beak and feet to climb onto her back. Once he had mounted her, though, it was over in seconds, and the male soon lost his balance, rolling off onto his back in an ungainly fashion. The female looked to her side to see her partner flapping upside down and, seemingly embarrassed, gave him a poke with her beak. The next generation of emperors was on its way …”
And McCrae saw how these new pairs would stand together tightly: “The bond between the males and females was one of the strongest I’d ever seen in nature and the affection they showed towards one another was adorable. Rubbing their heads against one another with their eyes closed, pressing their chests hard together, even lying down with a wing resting on their partner’s back, they clearly cared for each other … [Emphasis added]
Well into polar night, the low-light camera enabled McCrae to shoot for four or five hours at a time: “All of a sudden my eyes were drawn to a pair of emperors, about 50 metres in front of me … As I zoomed in slowly, I focused on the feet of both birds … Before I could steady the camera, and without any warning whatsoever, an egg appeared between the female’s feet! Within the space of 30 seconds from having first locked onto the couple, the female had laid her egg. My camera hadn’t recorded any of it. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. I’d missed it … Despite having a huge number of birds still to lay, I couldn’t help but think that was to be my only chance.” A feeling I know well: the despair of the filmmaker who missed a critical shot.
It took a few days before it was safe to venture back down to the penguins. “The more I looked around the colony, the more single males I could see standing with bulges already on their feet. A lot of birds seemed to be laying either during the night or out of my sight … all of a sudden I noticed a bird in a hurry, trying to get out on the far side … In close attendance behind was another emperor, following every step. Once out onto fresh ice they settled down together, standing so close their feathers entwined. Towing my camera sledge behind me, I made my way round the colony, ensuring I didn’t take my eyes off them … Settling down, I sat on the ice with my legs spread wide, the camera in between …
“Following weeks of gestation, it was clear how much producing an egg had taken out of the female … She’d lost approximately one third of her bodyweight, which for any creature is an enormous amount … The male seemed to know what was about to happen, becoming more and more attentive towards his hobbling partner … I altered my focus onto her head. One single shot of an egg arriving wouldn’t have been enough, so to help make an egg-laying sequence I tried to cover as much of her as possible. It was a risk: by moving the camera, I was in danger of missing the key moment …
“She was continuing to show signs of pain; it was clear her contractions had started. Her tail bobbed, flicking snow between her … All of a sudden the tip of the egg appeared between the female’s feet, hanging with its pointed end down. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. I didn’t dare blink … With the egg visible, she adjusted her stance. As if to reward me for my efforts she turned and faced me, her feet displaying perfect symmetry in my viewfinder. Her toes curled inwards and as her tail flicked forward to cushion the fall, the whole egg appeared on the ice. I’d got it. Between her feet lay a perfect white egg …
“Immediately, both birds trumpet-called in unison, breath pouring out of their mouths as they seemed to celebrate together. Within seconds, to prevent it freezing on the hard ice between her ankles, using the tip of her long sharp beak, the female levered the egg onto the top of her feet, carefully covering it with a thick blanket of her white front feathers. At sub –40 degrees, it wouldn’t have taken long for the embryo inside to freeze … The male immediately started showing interest in the egg and without giving his partner any time to recover from her ordeal he started trying to take charge of it. Advancing with his head low, he nearly knocked the female off her feet. He was clearly keen to get hold of the egg but with the female appearing reluctant they eventually settled down, resuming their couple’s stance next to one another …
“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 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 … 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 … 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 60 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.” [Emphasis added]
Dark for most of the day, it was brutally cold. If McCrae ventured outside, his eyelashes would freeze. The only way the penguins could manage was to huddle together.
As difficult as it’s been for McCrae, it gets even more challenging for the emperors: “Winter conditions in Antarctica are well known to be the most atrocious on Earth and surviving such conditions was behaviour I felt I simply had to record … [While] trying to reach the colony of emperors during a storm that had already begun would have been quite frankly stupid …” McCrae gets himself in position close enough to the penguins to shoot as the storm begins.
“In no time at all the light breeze had turned into a blizzard … [and] chunks of ice were blown through the air above head height. Visibility rapidly reduced, engulfing the majority of the huddle … [And] the penguins knew they had to do something to prevent themselves being buried alive … The colony was on the move; the longer the storm roared, the further it travelled. Every few minutes I grabbed my camera and moved to keep up with them, making sure I didn’t travel out of sight of the skidoos … ridges of snow either side of their track began to resemble small mountains … One by one, each male negotiated the ripples across the ground. Shuffling their feet up and over an inch at a time, they carefully traversed the solid mounds with their eggs precariously balanced on their feet …
“The lead emperor was forced onto his belly; this was disastrous. He was holding onto his egg for dear life … His tail, tucked in between his feet, appeared to be wrapped around the egg: the only thing that had prevented it from falling out. Using his beak as an ice axe, he dragged himself forward out the way of the impatient queue of birds behind …”
McCrae is honest enough to share how his commitment to his art occasionally overshadowed the empathetic emperor-lover within. He was determined to get the shot: “he dug his beak into the snow and pushed his neck upwards. Creeping his claws forward, he slowly arched his back until his balance returned him upright. It was incredible to see how flexible the male could be without letting his precious egg slip away. The storm continued to intensify and despite it becoming almost impossible to stand up against its strength, my excitement grew. Adrenaline was pumping through my body as the behaviour that was unfolding in front of my camera was truly unique. Even biologists who’ve studied emperors for years rarely get the opportunity to observe the birds in such callous conditions …”
And the potential cost of that commitment: “The wind immediately caught the camera like a sail and swung me round … Slamming the three tripod feet back onto the ice, I just managed to save myself and the kit before we tumbled onto the ground. In wind peaking at close to 100 kilometres per hour [62 mph], falling over with the camera balanced on my shoulder could have broken my neck … That evening, we spoke about our experience, both Will and I with wounds to show for it. Will’s fingers had blistered back up and each tip was numb as he inspected each one carefully. Between my eyes, a large red raw patch had already started to scab over. Fortunately, it wasn’t quite frostbite, but almost …
“Eventually, after day six, the blizzard began to subside … Over the course of the storm the prevailing winds had pushed the rotating group of penguins almost a mile across the sea ice and with nowhere left to go other than tight up against the cliff of ice, they’d begun to march in single file back to where they’d started … Across the landscape were dropped eggs, each with a single straight crack from top to bottom. The liquid embryo inside had frozen and expanded, forcing the shell to part slightly. Drifting snow rose and fell over each egg with the wind. They’d become part of the landscape.
“It was my first encounter with death amongst the penguins but surprisingly, it didn’t affect me in the way I’d thought it would. Seeing the odd bird walking around without an egg, however, did. Knowing the enormous effort they’d put in to caring for that egg, I couldn’t help but feel for the males. The females who were feeding at sea had no idea …
“As I approached the shifting colony, directly ahead of my skidoo lay a black mound on the snow … Jumping off, I immediately knew what I was approaching. It was an adult emperor lying dead in the snow … Between its outstretched feet and one of its wings, the tip of an egg protruded through the snow. Before me were two lives that had fallen victim to the storm … The average lifespan of an emperor penguin is 20 years and I wondered how old the bird that hadn’t survived was. Was this its first breeding year or its 15th? …What they were having to endure was beyond my imagination. I had no idea that weather on Earth could actually get this bad, let alone that there was a creature that could survive in it …”
A documentary filmmaker soon discovers the necessity of perseverance: “For over two hours I patiently sat watching and waiting for my opportunity to record the chick’s emergence … The tiny chick, who had been chipping away at the inside of the shell for the previous 24 hours, was finally able to lift the lid and prise itself out. With large parts of shell falling away onto the ice and the soft membrane flapping in the light breeze, the young and weak emperor uncurled its folded neck …
“Almost immediately the chick mustered enough strength to lift its head above its body and instinctively begged its father for food … He’d fought numerous horrendous 10-day-long storms, moved on two occasions across the sea ice to a safer location and had been forced to his physical limits to maintain his own body heat to survive … Yet, standing upright, he appeared to be trying to muster something for his chick. He elongated his neck upwards, throwing his beak forwards. His neck went into spasm, forcing his wings to repeatedly lift up and out away from his body and back down … Bending over, he gently offered his open beak to his chick, triggering an impulse in the chick to open its beak wide … From behind his spiny tongue the male regurgitated a thick creamy substance … Having received its first feed, the chick rested its head on its father’s feet as he covered it with his feathers … The father closed his eyes, knowing he had done all the hard work of bringing the next generation into the world … Weighing in at only 200–400 grams (.4 to .8 lbs.) and with only a very thin layer of down, the chicks didn’t have the capacity to keep themselves warm; they had done well to survive their first major challenge …”
Again, McCrae was able to get back down to the colony. The penguins hadn’t moved as much as he expected. “Within an instant the sound of calling penguins hit me … Despite arriving during an incredibly challenging storm, chicks had been successfully hatching … And then another surprise: “I grabbed my binoculars and looked across the horizon. Tens then hundreds of emperors appeared. The females were returning. Timed to incredible perfection, fat, healthy, colourful females were on their way back to the colony after their 60 or so days at sea … tobogganing on their bellies individually … with birds arriving into the colony every few minutes or so … [and] looking out towards open sea there was a constant flow of penguins …
“For a couple of months I’d become accustomed to the silent huddle of males all trying to save energy in one group. With females returning and calling in search of their partners, males calling in celebration of their newly hatched young and actual chicks shouting for food, the dynamics had rapidly changed … The arrival of the newest members of the colony coincided with a week of some clear, calm weather enabling me to spend extended hours each day with the birds … Across the colony, more and more eggs began hatching …”
I’m going to leave the rest for you to read when you get your own copy of “My Penguin Year.” There is much more to discover, remarkable stories of the triumphs and tragedies of emperor life and death. Some realities are near unbearable: the kidnapping of a chick, and the discovery of the new-formed deep gullies caused by the raging storm, becoming an icy snowy trap for so many fathers and so many chicks. And the intervention by McCrae and his team to rescue many of the trapped penguins.
I’m incredibly grateful to Lindsay McCrae for taking me so far away from my most recent COVID life, for reminding me of the extraordinary lives some non-humans live, without, so far as we know, complaining, or surrendering to the despair. The emperors continue to persevere.
It is especially painful to acknowledge that our outrageous addiction to fossil fuels – and our many decades’ long denial of the climate crisis and unwillingness to make the transition to clean energy has only further endangered the glaciers and the glorious beings who need the ice.
As for McCrae, here are some of his concluding thoughts: “I took a walk around the birds and up onto a large snowdrift to look over the entire colony. A couple of adults followed me up … I looked back over towards the ramp that led up onto the ice shelf to remind myself that I was standing on top of an ocean. Because I couldn’t see the deep blue water beneath my feet, I’d gone the whole year forgetting where I actually was. Even the station base, floating on an ice shelf above hundreds of metres of water, was hard to comprehend.
“Within a couple of months, the sea ice in the bay would break up and the penguins would have gone. In their place there would be orcas and minke whales, Weddell and leopard seals and waves … Before I’d travelled to Antarctica, a lot of people had asked me if I was worried about getting bored of seeing only emperor penguins for such a long time … in the end I’d found it far from boring. Every day that I’d spent with them had been different and I’d learnt so much …
“I hadn’t stopped thinking about Becky since the day I’d left her and even 11 months down the line, the last image in my head of her standing at the front door waving goodbye was as vivid as when it had happened …
“A quote I read before I believed I would ever make it to Antarctica had always struck a chord with me. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, an English Antarctic explorer and author, wrote after his expedition in the early 20th century, ‘Take it all in all, I do not believe anyone on Earth has a worse time than an emperor penguin.’ I can now say I have witnessed first-hand how true that statement is.”
McCrae helped make a film that was seen by 8 million people and wrote a book that allows so many to appreciate the remarkable tenacity of the emperors, all while offering an intimate look into the best and worst days of documentary filmmaking. Great gifts, if you ask me.
