My Penguin Year, Lindsay McCrae, Hodder & Stoughton, £20
Around this time last year, there was a flurry of debate about whether a camera crew on a BBC wildlife documentary should have broken the “golden rule” of non-intervention by assisting penguins trapped in a gully.
That incident is a small but significant part of cameraman Lindsay McCrae’s account of the making of the film, for which he spent 11 months at an Antarctic research station, away from his new wife and missing the birth of his son, to fulfil a lifelong dream.
Growing up on the edge of the Lake District National Park, McCrae had set his heart on being a wildlife cameraman at the age of eight. When he was 14, he wrote to Springwatch, telling them about a family of badgers he’d been observing. To his surprise they wrote back and even made a short film about him, beginning a relationship with the BBC’s Natural History Unit that culminated in the offer of his dream assignment: to go to Antarctica to film the breeding cycle of emperor penguins. The hitch was that he would be there for nearly a year, just after he and his girlfriend Becky had bought a house together. It was an agonising decision for them, but the chance for the penguin-mad McCrae to fulfil a lifelong dream won out.
Those who read the book and see the resulting documentary will probably agree that it was a sacrifice worth making. My Penguin Year is an immersive insight into the life of a wildlife filmmaker and the challenges of surviving in the harshest, most unforgiving environment on Earth. McCrae, his two colleagues and nine German staff shelter in the Neumayer III Research Station, an incredibly well-equipped, well-stocked, safety-conscious establishment “like a ship on stilts”, from storms so fierce that even stepping a few metres from the front door is to risk never coming back.
The penguins’ ability to survive and reproduce in such conditions is a constant source of wonderment to McCrae. The birds take up residence on the ice sheets every year to breed, the females then leaving for two months to replenish their body weight while 5,000 males nurse the eggs on their feet, stoically enduring whatever the weather can throw at them. McCrae captured behaviour never documented before, like thousands of emperor penguins forming a huddle against the wind, and his fascination with the creatures developed into a real empathy. After one spring storm leaves the ice littered with dead chicks, he and his colleagues agree to intervene by fashioning a ramp which will provide trapped penguins with an escape route from a gully. Controversial it may have been, but having followed McCrae’s story this far, you wouldn’t expect or want them to do anything different.
But McCrae’s writing, as evocative as it is, in no way prepares you for the footage he shot, and only after watching the documentary, part of the Dynasties series available on the iPlayer for another five months, can you appreciate the beautiful and terrifying majesty of the surroundings.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here