I’m freezing I’m hypothermic and we
slipped in the water and we couldn’t
believe what we saw the Penguins were
beautiful at this point I didn’t care if
a leopard seal came and killed me I mean
I’m living a dream at this point I could
care less we’re having so much fun this
is where march of the Penguins ended one
of you’ve got all these emperor penguins
jumping into the water and for myself as
a photographer I stare at that thin blue
line of water her ice where animals
enter that world and I am so hungry to
know what it looks like down there that
I’ll almost do anything to get in there
and see what what what’s going on but
we’ve seen them on the surface well
here’s a little video clip of what they
look like when they flop into the water
this was all shot by a yacht on Edna
Honor project much more graceful in the
water
so this was our home for the next month
and just to give you an idea of scale
and size and this is very important this
is where we’re working right in here
this iceberg right here is probably four
or five times bigger than this National
Geographic building this iceberg is
probably a hundred times the size of
this building it’s probably 75 feet tall
from ice to top and several hundred feet
deep underwater and almost half a mile
say and half a mile massive chunks of
ice but this set up for the perfect
season for us to go work with emperor
penguins usually there’s chaos and ice
breaking up but this ice the way it
formed in this Bay provided a nice
little sheltered area for us to work and
so we got into camp we we flew in by
helicopter we set up our camp we were
like kids in a candy store we were so
excited we packed up our snowmobile
packed up our equipment we raced out to
the sea ice the first day it was getting
late in the evening and we slipped into
the water yo Don and I and we couldn’t
believe what we saw the Penguins were
beautiful the visibility was probably
close to a thousand feet it was
unbelievable to see this but what was
really exciting is when we were on our
way to Antarctica we couldn’t believe
the news we got that scientists had come
out with this this paper saying that
emperor penguins released millions of
micro bubbles around their entire body
as they raced to exit the surface and it
acted like a lubricant to reduce the
friction and the drag around their body
so they could increase speed to exit the
water to a gain height but more
importantly to avoid the predation of
leopard seals and so now we had this new
science and we were so excited that our
project now had more meaning and more
weight it was lucky that we had to wait
the six years for this project to come
to fruition and so all we saw that first
day were a few micro bubbles coming out
of this one penguin but we were hopeful
to return the next day that night we
went back to our camp by snowmobile and
as we’re heading home we see all these
weird marks in the snow and these belly
drags and we didn’t realize that all the
Penguins the teenagers get bored and so
the teenagers will leave the colony
they’re not going out to sea to feed and
they’re just kind of hanging out and so
they love to inspect anything that’s new
airplane
Tan’s camp they love the color red and
you know I was sitting there my first
night I went to bed it was about minus
20 I’m in my sleeping bag and I’ve got
these three penguins right outside my
tent pretty much leaning against my tent
this is my tent here and this is my
right where my bed was and they’re doing
these huge cooker cooker here these big
calls and I’ve got tears rolling down my
cheeks again I’m going oh I’m living my
dream instead of polar bears you know
sniffing around my tent now there are no
polar bears here and this is so romantic
by the third night this was getting
really old
that’s this calling because it kept me
up I couldn’t sleep and on this project
I double shifted I’d work underwater all
day and then I would work all night
photographing penguins above water so I
was working about 16 to 20 hours a day
just to get this story done in a short
amount of time and so by the third night
of the calling I hate to admit this but
I’d walk outside and see these four foot
tall emperor penguins and they were
starting to look like footballs you know
and placed placed in those those hold
kickers that they use from football and
I assist I mean of course I would never
heard a penny when they were amazing but
it you know I sleep is important when
you’re working in this environment so we
returned back to the ice edge in the
next day all full of hope and so excited
and there’s our old friend the leopard
seal you Don and I are high five and we
also have a surgeon with us a doctor
Dean gushie in case we got hurt by
anything or bitten by a leopard seal or
whatever and with that was one of the
protocol of working here and there’s a
leopard seal more like excellent and
there was this tiny hole in the ice so
the leopard seal disappeared and if I
say from here to the stage is about say
12 feet away 15 feet away and I’m
standing there and yo Don is standing
here and I’ve got the doctor standing
here and the seals gone and we’re
looking and we’re looking and we’re
looking and all of a sudden that seal
exploded out of the water
and all I saw was an explosion of water
all I had time to do was raise my arm
like this and the seals face he was six
feet high in the air his face hit my
face right here like this his eye hit my
face he bounced off me and while I
bounced off him believe me he was
probably wasn’t a big seal luckily he’s
probably maybe 600 pounds but to say oh
I just got
urged and run over by 600-pound grizzly
bear it’s serious I mean I got hurt he
threw me off into the ice
I was bruised I I couldn’t breathe and I
slid back down the wet I swear he
brought all this water he was lying
there and relying back-to-back and we’re
both stunned he’s probably never seen
why do you guys laugh this is serious
and he’s probably never seen a person
before and and he I’m sure now that I
dove under that ice you can look up and
you can see people look just like
penguins and so when he came rocketing
out of that water you could see his
mouth was open he was coming in for the
kill he and they can’t catch em poor
penguins in the open water we realize
just on the first day they have to do
this ambush type attack and so he came
in to knock us over and he did well date
the other two guys vo Don and Dean got
away I was in the middle he knocked me
down
I couldn’t breathe we’re lying
back-to-back I’m looking at him stunned
he’s looking at me and I didn’t know if
he was going to bite me but all he
wanted to do was get back in the water
and later that day the seal came out of
the water again made another mistake and
took our surgeons arm in his mouth and
but didn’t bite he just mouthed him
gently slip back into the water scared
himself again now important on this
project is we brought along a bottle of
scotch
that was for emergency purposes only and
so we we went back to camp and we
hammered that thing like a salmon on a
hootchie I mean we we drank that Scotch
so fast and just because we’re our
nerves were shot we had two attacks in
one day I was all banged up and bruised
I didn’t know if I could continue for a
few days and so we went home we didn’t
dive we came back the next day and boom
a bigger leopard seal starts lunging at
us and that’s why you don and I said we
could be done this projects over and if
you’re on wasn’t his experience as he is
here’s sorry
this is this is the special part of
working with great people is it he
slowly processed this and I mean I was I
was finished you know two attacks and in
the day scotch is gone I’m hurt and
you’re ons like nope this this is the
happy Swede now he’s like we must solve
this seal of course we’re not finished
don’t be silly you know we must continue
but we didn’t die for three days we
stayed and we processed we thought we
analyzed we watched the leopard seals
come and go and then finally on the
third day we’re just looking each other
and thought you know what we just got to
go for it and again this is overriding
what your gun gut instinct is telling
you not to do but we decided that we had
to get in the water and I took this
picture of you on for insurance purposes
pretty much but the water here’s 28
degrees Fahrenheit and and it’s so
slushy that you can’t see as you swim
the ice is mixing with the salt water
and you can never see anything so if
something’s gonna come and attack it you
know it’s gonna happen you can’t carry a
knife or have a theory of how you’re
gonna get out of this you just have to
throw caution to the wind and just go
for it so we jump back into the water
and what was really amazing about this
is that once we got back in the water
nothing came back to us and we were they
were in the area but they left us alone
completely opposite to the the leopard
seals that we photographed an Antarctic
Peninsula and what was what’s happening
with these leopard seals because they
can’t believe it or not a leopard seal
sitting right here cannot catch these
penguins cannot catch these penguins
they’re way too fast for a leopard seal
so what they do is they hide under here
in the black with their bad they’re back
up against the ice and as these penguins
come and exit the water the leopard seal
intercept them and so that’s why we
couldn’t see them under the ice it was
very black now if you want to under what
do you what do you think it sounds like
under there under the ice it’s kind of
eerie you have a lot of Weddell mating
Weddell seals this time of year whether
you’re sitting on the ice are you in the
water list this is what it sounds like
when you’re just waiting in the water
pretty cool huh so you’re sitting there
listening to this and you’re you know
waiting for this leopard seal to go
you’re you can’t feel your hands you
can’t feel your face you can’t feel your
feet I mean so that’s the environment
that you’re working in now there’s no
way that I would have on my 1st 2nd 3rd
or 5th assignment just jumped in and
finish the story it was through this
process of learning through these
assignments to persevere through these
situations and on that day magic
happened we were in the water I was in
the water alone and I’ve got my legs
locked underneath the ice so I can’t
move and all of a sudden about 200
penguins returned from the open sea and
it was just one of the most beautiful
things I’ve ever seen
and also realized right away that they
accepted me that I was not a threat I
was worried that I’d be perceived as a
leopard seal or a predator and this big
penguin right here was actually laying
against my head and so I had him and
I’ve got a fisheye wide-angle lens on
and I’m actually using him to frame so
I’m thinking well he’ll look good here
if I can use him to frame the top part
of my picture and Allisyn these other
penguins came rushing into the frame and
this is the picture that just one of the
BBC wildlife photographer of the year
but we still never got our bubbles we
wanted to see this release a bubble so
he waited and I’m lying there again
frozen in the blue water staring into
the blue water there’s nothing there
I’ve been in the water for about two
hours waiting and waiting all sudden
this penguin came by me and it was like
someone turned on a tap and he had
millions of bubbles pouring out of his
feathers as he rocketed to the surface
and I realized as I’m watching these
this is where I love being the scientist
the biologist and and the photographer
and the conservationists all wrapped
into one you get to do so many things
with these observations and pictures and
so the Penguins are coming to the
surface and I realized that they were in
control of when the
release the bubbles it wasn’t something
that just happened that as they came to
the surface the bubbles expanded out of
their feathers and lubricated their
bodies the ones just off to the side
here they didn’t need to release any
bubbles the guys who are just under me
saw me last second like oh maybe we
should speed up and they released this
big gush of bubbles and they just you’d
see them double or even triple their
speeds as they released these bubbles
around their body completely coating
their bodies look at this one in full
display bubbles coming off the crown of
the head so they would squash their
crown feathers and the air was forced
out they would release air out of their
lungs and that all that air would run
along their bellies they compress all
the feathers on their back look at that
just compressing all the highest point
of their body the whole belly they’re
releasing bubbles and that it just coats
their whole body as they come to the
surface
achieving incredible speeds there’s a
closer look at bubbles pouring off the
penguin at this point I didn’t care if a
leopard still came and killed me I mean
this is I’m living a dream at this point
I could care less we’re having so much
fun micro bubbles running down the belly
of a penguin and what was neat also is
that these penguins could selectively
you know if I swam towards him I just
tried it once for fun to see what would
happen I swam towards him and boom they
all exploded in bubbles together just
they could release him instantly and it
was like swimming you know into the the
flares off a fighter jet where all the
bubbles are pouring and I was shooting
ten frames a second most of the time I
felt so bad for my editor Sadie because
she had the look at fifty six thousand
pictures this whole thing was going on
so fast everything I was like you know
just hammering frames just to try and
capture how fast this was and he was
just happened so fast and as I swam into
these penguins into these bubbles this
is one picture and the next picture was
which is one tenth of a second later you
can’t see anything it worked I mean I’m
just surrounded in a sea of bubbles look
like stars and there was no chance of
seeing a penguin incredible escape
strategies and here’s a penguin that’s a
individual penguin as he’s coming to the
surface it swims in a corkscrew fashion
and it’s doing this so I think it’s
doing this so it can look 360 degrees
it’s alone it
doesn’t have other emperor penguins
watching its back so now is it raucous
to the surface it’s a lone corkscrew and
it creates this beautiful pattern as it
comes to the surface so this is how it
happens this is I’m going to talk to you
quickly through the physiology the
biology of what happens these penguins
return from see where they dive to
depths up to 1,700 feet deep they’re
feeding on ice fish they’re getting fish
out from underneath the ice they’re
eating squid krill and so they’ve now
they been at sea for up to a month three
weeks to a month and they’ve come back
now to the ice edge and their whole goal
is to get a belly full of food about six
pounds of food and get it back to their
chicks so but now believe it or not this
distance right here is the danger
distance right here this penguins safe
but you know once it commits to an exit
trajectory then it’s in danger so what
it’s doing is it stopped here at first I
was wondering what it was doing if it
was bathing or not but it’s fluffing up
his feathers he’s filling his feathers
full of air and you could see him diving
here you his feathers here all sort of
all fluffed up and as he’s diving he’s
got a lung full of air he’s spilling off
some air diving down some extra air
spilling off his feathers it was
interesting the scientists said it’s
impossible for emperor penguins to
release air when they’re diving down it
only comes out when they when it comes
up and so that’s where it’s fun to play
biologist as well and say well actually
here’s a picture of them diving down
releasing a fair amount of bubbles but
what they do is now they’re worried
about the leopard seal this is their
moment that they’re vulnerable when they
have to exit the water so they go down
to about 30-40 feet deep this water is
so clear you could watch the whole show
go on thirty to forty feet deep
they’re milling around and they’re
looking up and they’re constantly
sending out like work parties to go look
under the ice looking for leopard seals
and once they’re sure the coast is clear
they start to exit one by one and look
at that jet stream of air coming off
that penguin as they rocket to the
surface when there was a leopard seal in
the area they released more bubbles when
there was a not a leopard seal there
they knew they were quite relaxed so
there was probably electric seal hiding
underneath that ice because they were
really nervous releasing a lot of
bubbles and this is when they get hit we
saw some penguins get taken but we
you get this chaos like this they create
too many bubbles just for themselves and
so penguins swimming through this and
all that chaos going on that’s when the
leopard seal can come out and whack a
penguin and take it and these penguins
wait you know anywhere from sixty to
ninety pounds if you can imagine that’s
a lot of food for for a leopard seal so
this is your Don’s video of the
Emperor’s exiting the water you’ll see
how fast they are there’s probably a
leopard seal there when they’re going
that fast releasing that much air this
is slow-motion of the same thing just
look at the bubbles pour off their
bodies so when there’s not a leopard
seal there they don’t need to think that
they’re very relaxed they don’t jump
very high so these guys are just
clearing the ice just enough to land on
top of it you know this guy’s super
relaxed you can see the little spirals
of water patterns going down his back
and this is where I was just having fun
I mean it’s so hard to get this picture
out of fifty six thousand frames
probably twelve to fifteen thousand
frames or of just this happening cuz you
would be all lined up ready to shoot and
you you couldn’t look through the
viewfinder cuz it happened so fast and
you’d be hammering away and penguins
would be flying on either side of you
and you’re missing the picture there’s
another one come out of the water but
this is when there’s a leopard seal
there when there’s not a leopard seal
there they barely clear the ice when
there’s a seal there these guys they get
incredible Heights you know four or five
feet in the air and then they land on
the ice and they’re really funny because
they they land so they go so high and
they land they knocked the air to
themselves so they go pushes the air
past their vocal cords so sounds like a
little rap concert when you get it like
hey you get a whole bunch of them coming
out it’s kind of fun to watch so this is
one trying to avoid his buddy
there’s a leopard seal here for this
they can’t wait to get out of the water
it’s amazing they don’t Breakers they’re
so tough
that’s a leopard seal is right there
under the eyes trying to get them and
that’s why they’re coming out in such
mass or panicking now they just want out
of the water and the final image of the
coverage of an emperor penguin launching
out of out of the water and it was
amazing for me at this point near the
end of the shoot photographing these
pictures and watching these emperor
penguins realizing that he had they had
evolved this incredible credible
physiological adaptation to release
bubbles to avoid leopard seal predation
and yet the one thing that they couldn’t
prevent the one thing they had no
control over is the loss of sea ice the
loss of their habitat and that’s what
we’re causing with these penguins to our
carbon emissions are causing the
temperatures to warm are causing this
sea ice to disappear and these pay
emperor penguins just like the seals
like the polar bears they need this ice
as part of their ecosystem and I really
just want everybody the only way I can
see change happening is that we think
about money all the time we think about
our families we think about love you
know we think about all these things we
need to start factoring the environment
into aller all of our all of our
thinking and our thought processes every
day when you buy something a vehicle a
car or a house or you know whatever
you’re doing in the holiday where you’re
going to go with your family is just
good think about the emperor penguins
think about the polar bears we if we’re
gonna have any hope in reversing the the
tremendous warming change is happening
in the polar regions and we have to
start changing our own behavior now
thank you very much
you
slipped in the water and we couldn’t
believe what we saw the Penguins were
beautiful at this point I didn’t care if
a leopard seal came and killed me I mean
I’m living a dream at this point I could
care less we’re having so much fun this
is where march of the Penguins ended one
of you’ve got all these emperor penguins
jumping into the water and for myself as
a photographer I stare at that thin blue
line of water her ice where animals
enter that world and I am so hungry to
know what it looks like down there that
I’ll almost do anything to get in there
and see what what what’s going on but
we’ve seen them on the surface well
here’s a little video clip of what they
look like when they flop into the water
this was all shot by a yacht on Edna
Honor project much more graceful in the
water
so this was our home for the next month
and just to give you an idea of scale
and size and this is very important this
is where we’re working right in here
this iceberg right here is probably four
or five times bigger than this National
Geographic building this iceberg is
probably a hundred times the size of
this building it’s probably 75 feet tall
from ice to top and several hundred feet
deep underwater and almost half a mile
say and half a mile massive chunks of
ice but this set up for the perfect
season for us to go work with emperor
penguins usually there’s chaos and ice
breaking up but this ice the way it
formed in this Bay provided a nice
little sheltered area for us to work and
so we got into camp we we flew in by
helicopter we set up our camp we were
like kids in a candy store we were so
excited we packed up our snowmobile
packed up our equipment we raced out to
the sea ice the first day it was getting
late in the evening and we slipped into
the water yo Don and I and we couldn’t
believe what we saw the Penguins were
beautiful the visibility was probably
close to a thousand feet it was
unbelievable to see this but what was
really exciting is when we were on our
way to Antarctica we couldn’t believe
the news we got that scientists had come
out with this this paper saying that
emperor penguins released millions of
micro bubbles around their entire body
as they raced to exit the surface and it
acted like a lubricant to reduce the
friction and the drag around their body
so they could increase speed to exit the
water to a gain height but more
importantly to avoid the predation of
leopard seals and so now we had this new
science and we were so excited that our
project now had more meaning and more
weight it was lucky that we had to wait
the six years for this project to come
to fruition and so all we saw that first
day were a few micro bubbles coming out
of this one penguin but we were hopeful
to return the next day that night we
went back to our camp by snowmobile and
as we’re heading home we see all these
weird marks in the snow and these belly
drags and we didn’t realize that all the
Penguins the teenagers get bored and so
the teenagers will leave the colony
they’re not going out to sea to feed and
they’re just kind of hanging out and so
they love to inspect anything that’s new
airplane
Tan’s camp they love the color red and
you know I was sitting there my first
night I went to bed it was about minus
20 I’m in my sleeping bag and I’ve got
these three penguins right outside my
tent pretty much leaning against my tent
this is my tent here and this is my
right where my bed was and they’re doing
these huge cooker cooker here these big
calls and I’ve got tears rolling down my
cheeks again I’m going oh I’m living my
dream instead of polar bears you know
sniffing around my tent now there are no
polar bears here and this is so romantic
by the third night this was getting
really old
that’s this calling because it kept me
up I couldn’t sleep and on this project
I double shifted I’d work underwater all
day and then I would work all night
photographing penguins above water so I
was working about 16 to 20 hours a day
just to get this story done in a short
amount of time and so by the third night
of the calling I hate to admit this but
I’d walk outside and see these four foot
tall emperor penguins and they were
starting to look like footballs you know
and placed placed in those those hold
kickers that they use from football and
I assist I mean of course I would never
heard a penny when they were amazing but
it you know I sleep is important when
you’re working in this environment so we
returned back to the ice edge in the
next day all full of hope and so excited
and there’s our old friend the leopard
seal you Don and I are high five and we
also have a surgeon with us a doctor
Dean gushie in case we got hurt by
anything or bitten by a leopard seal or
whatever and with that was one of the
protocol of working here and there’s a
leopard seal more like excellent and
there was this tiny hole in the ice so
the leopard seal disappeared and if I
say from here to the stage is about say
12 feet away 15 feet away and I’m
standing there and yo Don is standing
here and I’ve got the doctor standing
here and the seals gone and we’re
looking and we’re looking and we’re
looking and all of a sudden that seal
exploded out of the water
and all I saw was an explosion of water
all I had time to do was raise my arm
like this and the seals face he was six
feet high in the air his face hit my
face right here like this his eye hit my
face he bounced off me and while I
bounced off him believe me he was
probably wasn’t a big seal luckily he’s
probably maybe 600 pounds but to say oh
I just got
urged and run over by 600-pound grizzly
bear it’s serious I mean I got hurt he
threw me off into the ice
I was bruised I I couldn’t breathe and I
slid back down the wet I swear he
brought all this water he was lying
there and relying back-to-back and we’re
both stunned he’s probably never seen
why do you guys laugh this is serious
and he’s probably never seen a person
before and and he I’m sure now that I
dove under that ice you can look up and
you can see people look just like
penguins and so when he came rocketing
out of that water you could see his
mouth was open he was coming in for the
kill he and they can’t catch em poor
penguins in the open water we realize
just on the first day they have to do
this ambush type attack and so he came
in to knock us over and he did well date
the other two guys vo Don and Dean got
away I was in the middle he knocked me
down
I couldn’t breathe we’re lying
back-to-back I’m looking at him stunned
he’s looking at me and I didn’t know if
he was going to bite me but all he
wanted to do was get back in the water
and later that day the seal came out of
the water again made another mistake and
took our surgeons arm in his mouth and
but didn’t bite he just mouthed him
gently slip back into the water scared
himself again now important on this
project is we brought along a bottle of
scotch
that was for emergency purposes only and
so we we went back to camp and we
hammered that thing like a salmon on a
hootchie I mean we we drank that Scotch
so fast and just because we’re our
nerves were shot we had two attacks in
one day I was all banged up and bruised
I didn’t know if I could continue for a
few days and so we went home we didn’t
dive we came back the next day and boom
a bigger leopard seal starts lunging at
us and that’s why you don and I said we
could be done this projects over and if
you’re on wasn’t his experience as he is
here’s sorry
this is this is the special part of
working with great people is it he
slowly processed this and I mean I was I
was finished you know two attacks and in
the day scotch is gone I’m hurt and
you’re ons like nope this this is the
happy Swede now he’s like we must solve
this seal of course we’re not finished
don’t be silly you know we must continue
but we didn’t die for three days we
stayed and we processed we thought we
analyzed we watched the leopard seals
come and go and then finally on the
third day we’re just looking each other
and thought you know what we just got to
go for it and again this is overriding
what your gun gut instinct is telling
you not to do but we decided that we had
to get in the water and I took this
picture of you on for insurance purposes
pretty much but the water here’s 28
degrees Fahrenheit and and it’s so
slushy that you can’t see as you swim
the ice is mixing with the salt water
and you can never see anything so if
something’s gonna come and attack it you
know it’s gonna happen you can’t carry a
knife or have a theory of how you’re
gonna get out of this you just have to
throw caution to the wind and just go
for it so we jump back into the water
and what was really amazing about this
is that once we got back in the water
nothing came back to us and we were they
were in the area but they left us alone
completely opposite to the the leopard
seals that we photographed an Antarctic
Peninsula and what was what’s happening
with these leopard seals because they
can’t believe it or not a leopard seal
sitting right here cannot catch these
penguins cannot catch these penguins
they’re way too fast for a leopard seal
so what they do is they hide under here
in the black with their bad they’re back
up against the ice and as these penguins
come and exit the water the leopard seal
intercept them and so that’s why we
couldn’t see them under the ice it was
very black now if you want to under what
do you what do you think it sounds like
under there under the ice it’s kind of
eerie you have a lot of Weddell mating
Weddell seals this time of year whether
you’re sitting on the ice are you in the
water list this is what it sounds like
when you’re just waiting in the water
pretty cool huh so you’re sitting there
listening to this and you’re you know
waiting for this leopard seal to go
you’re you can’t feel your hands you
can’t feel your face you can’t feel your
feet I mean so that’s the environment
that you’re working in now there’s no
way that I would have on my 1st 2nd 3rd
or 5th assignment just jumped in and
finish the story it was through this
process of learning through these
assignments to persevere through these
situations and on that day magic
happened we were in the water I was in
the water alone and I’ve got my legs
locked underneath the ice so I can’t
move and all of a sudden about 200
penguins returned from the open sea and
it was just one of the most beautiful
things I’ve ever seen
and also realized right away that they
accepted me that I was not a threat I
was worried that I’d be perceived as a
leopard seal or a predator and this big
penguin right here was actually laying
against my head and so I had him and
I’ve got a fisheye wide-angle lens on
and I’m actually using him to frame so
I’m thinking well he’ll look good here
if I can use him to frame the top part
of my picture and Allisyn these other
penguins came rushing into the frame and
this is the picture that just one of the
BBC wildlife photographer of the year
but we still never got our bubbles we
wanted to see this release a bubble so
he waited and I’m lying there again
frozen in the blue water staring into
the blue water there’s nothing there
I’ve been in the water for about two
hours waiting and waiting all sudden
this penguin came by me and it was like
someone turned on a tap and he had
millions of bubbles pouring out of his
feathers as he rocketed to the surface
and I realized as I’m watching these
this is where I love being the scientist
the biologist and and the photographer
and the conservationists all wrapped
into one you get to do so many things
with these observations and pictures and
so the Penguins are coming to the
surface and I realized that they were in
control of when the
release the bubbles it wasn’t something
that just happened that as they came to
the surface the bubbles expanded out of
their feathers and lubricated their
bodies the ones just off to the side
here they didn’t need to release any
bubbles the guys who are just under me
saw me last second like oh maybe we
should speed up and they released this
big gush of bubbles and they just you’d
see them double or even triple their
speeds as they released these bubbles
around their body completely coating
their bodies look at this one in full
display bubbles coming off the crown of
the head so they would squash their
crown feathers and the air was forced
out they would release air out of their
lungs and that all that air would run
along their bellies they compress all
the feathers on their back look at that
just compressing all the highest point
of their body the whole belly they’re
releasing bubbles and that it just coats
their whole body as they come to the
surface
achieving incredible speeds there’s a
closer look at bubbles pouring off the
penguin at this point I didn’t care if a
leopard still came and killed me I mean
this is I’m living a dream at this point
I could care less we’re having so much
fun micro bubbles running down the belly
of a penguin and what was neat also is
that these penguins could selectively
you know if I swam towards him I just
tried it once for fun to see what would
happen I swam towards him and boom they
all exploded in bubbles together just
they could release him instantly and it
was like swimming you know into the the
flares off a fighter jet where all the
bubbles are pouring and I was shooting
ten frames a second most of the time I
felt so bad for my editor Sadie because
she had the look at fifty six thousand
pictures this whole thing was going on
so fast everything I was like you know
just hammering frames just to try and
capture how fast this was and he was
just happened so fast and as I swam into
these penguins into these bubbles this
is one picture and the next picture was
which is one tenth of a second later you
can’t see anything it worked I mean I’m
just surrounded in a sea of bubbles look
like stars and there was no chance of
seeing a penguin incredible escape
strategies and here’s a penguin that’s a
individual penguin as he’s coming to the
surface it swims in a corkscrew fashion
and it’s doing this so I think it’s
doing this so it can look 360 degrees
it’s alone it
doesn’t have other emperor penguins
watching its back so now is it raucous
to the surface it’s a lone corkscrew and
it creates this beautiful pattern as it
comes to the surface so this is how it
happens this is I’m going to talk to you
quickly through the physiology the
biology of what happens these penguins
return from see where they dive to
depths up to 1,700 feet deep they’re
feeding on ice fish they’re getting fish
out from underneath the ice they’re
eating squid krill and so they’ve now
they been at sea for up to a month three
weeks to a month and they’ve come back
now to the ice edge and their whole goal
is to get a belly full of food about six
pounds of food and get it back to their
chicks so but now believe it or not this
distance right here is the danger
distance right here this penguins safe
but you know once it commits to an exit
trajectory then it’s in danger so what
it’s doing is it stopped here at first I
was wondering what it was doing if it
was bathing or not but it’s fluffing up
his feathers he’s filling his feathers
full of air and you could see him diving
here you his feathers here all sort of
all fluffed up and as he’s diving he’s
got a lung full of air he’s spilling off
some air diving down some extra air
spilling off his feathers it was
interesting the scientists said it’s
impossible for emperor penguins to
release air when they’re diving down it
only comes out when they when it comes
up and so that’s where it’s fun to play
biologist as well and say well actually
here’s a picture of them diving down
releasing a fair amount of bubbles but
what they do is now they’re worried
about the leopard seal this is their
moment that they’re vulnerable when they
have to exit the water so they go down
to about 30-40 feet deep this water is
so clear you could watch the whole show
go on thirty to forty feet deep
they’re milling around and they’re
looking up and they’re constantly
sending out like work parties to go look
under the ice looking for leopard seals
and once they’re sure the coast is clear
they start to exit one by one and look
at that jet stream of air coming off
that penguin as they rocket to the
surface when there was a leopard seal in
the area they released more bubbles when
there was a not a leopard seal there
they knew they were quite relaxed so
there was probably electric seal hiding
underneath that ice because they were
really nervous releasing a lot of
bubbles and this is when they get hit we
saw some penguins get taken but we
you get this chaos like this they create
too many bubbles just for themselves and
so penguins swimming through this and
all that chaos going on that’s when the
leopard seal can come out and whack a
penguin and take it and these penguins
wait you know anywhere from sixty to
ninety pounds if you can imagine that’s
a lot of food for for a leopard seal so
this is your Don’s video of the
Emperor’s exiting the water you’ll see
how fast they are there’s probably a
leopard seal there when they’re going
that fast releasing that much air this
is slow-motion of the same thing just
look at the bubbles pour off their
bodies so when there’s not a leopard
seal there they don’t need to think that
they’re very relaxed they don’t jump
very high so these guys are just
clearing the ice just enough to land on
top of it you know this guy’s super
relaxed you can see the little spirals
of water patterns going down his back
and this is where I was just having fun
I mean it’s so hard to get this picture
out of fifty six thousand frames
probably twelve to fifteen thousand
frames or of just this happening cuz you
would be all lined up ready to shoot and
you you couldn’t look through the
viewfinder cuz it happened so fast and
you’d be hammering away and penguins
would be flying on either side of you
and you’re missing the picture there’s
another one come out of the water but
this is when there’s a leopard seal
there when there’s not a leopard seal
there they barely clear the ice when
there’s a seal there these guys they get
incredible Heights you know four or five
feet in the air and then they land on
the ice and they’re really funny because
they they land so they go so high and
they land they knocked the air to
themselves so they go pushes the air
past their vocal cords so sounds like a
little rap concert when you get it like
hey you get a whole bunch of them coming
out it’s kind of fun to watch so this is
one trying to avoid his buddy
there’s a leopard seal here for this
they can’t wait to get out of the water
it’s amazing they don’t Breakers they’re
so tough
that’s a leopard seal is right there
under the eyes trying to get them and
that’s why they’re coming out in such
mass or panicking now they just want out
of the water and the final image of the
coverage of an emperor penguin launching
out of out of the water and it was
amazing for me at this point near the
end of the shoot photographing these
pictures and watching these emperor
penguins realizing that he had they had
evolved this incredible credible
physiological adaptation to release
bubbles to avoid leopard seal predation
and yet the one thing that they couldn’t
prevent the one thing they had no
control over is the loss of sea ice the
loss of their habitat and that’s what
we’re causing with these penguins to our
carbon emissions are causing the
temperatures to warm are causing this
sea ice to disappear and these pay
emperor penguins just like the seals
like the polar bears they need this ice
as part of their ecosystem and I really
just want everybody the only way I can
see change happening is that we think
about money all the time we think about
our families we think about love you
know we think about all these things we
need to start factoring the environment
into aller all of our all of our
thinking and our thought processes every
day when you buy something a vehicle a
car or a house or you know whatever
you’re doing in the holiday where you’re
going to go with your family is just
good think about the emperor penguins
think about the polar bears we if we’re
gonna have any hope in reversing the the
tremendous warming change is happening
in the polar regions and we have to
start changing our own behavior now
thank you very much
you
Please follow and like us: