In July 2012, as we approached our 25th wedding anniversary, my husband Ralph died suddenly, following a major heart attack. In my grieving state, I knew that keeping busy and having goals were essential to my healing, but I had no idea what direction to take.
- Penguin's-eye view: take a bumpy ride into the deep blue with this spellbinding footage from Antarctica
- "We were the first": researchers in Antarctica stumble across animals that have never seen humans before
- "Seeing these iconic birds marching through the wilderness fills me with wonder": a day in the life of a penguin researcher
Several months later, a friend was showing me photographs from her trip to Antarctica and it suddenly came to me: penguins. I have loved penguins since I was a child and delighted in their tuxedo-like plumage and funny antics, not to mention their diversity and incredible behaviour. Without thinking, I found myself announcing that I was going to photograph every species of penguin in its natural habitat. And with that, Mission Penguin was born.
At this stage I wasn’t sure how many species of penguin there were. I quickly confirmed that there were 18, scattered across the southern hemisphere, in some of the remotest places in the world. This was going to be a challenge – but there was no going back.
During my marriage, I had seen three penguin species: the African penguin in South Africa; and the little and yellow-eyed penguins while on South Island, New Zealand. This meant tracking down 15 more species to complete the quest.
Most people associate penguins with snow but many species have evolved to thrive in quite different habitats. While I’d already seen penguins on African beaches, I was amazed to find that some species breed in forests, and another in deserts. Others even make their home close to the equator. Mission Penguin would clearly require a lot of travel so, to minimise my flying time and carbon footprint, I grouped closely located species together.
Mission penguin
My inaugural expedition was in February 2016, to the Antarctic Peninsula and the Falkland Islands. Antarctica was like another world. The sheer beauty of this icy white landscape was mesmerising and gave me a sense of deep peace.
I was just getting over the euphoria of my first landing on the continent when I spotted a lone chinstrap penguin, which waddled right over to me. It appeared to be smiling at me, though the apparent ‘smile’ was actually a narrow black band of face feathers running from ear to ear, which resembles the strap of a black helmet. This was my first new species and, while I was elated, I couldn’t help but shed a few tears. My healing journey had begun.
The chinstrap is one of three penguin species that live on the Antarctic Peninsula, a group collectively known as brush-tailed penguins on account of their long, stiff tail-feathers. Soon I had spotted the other two: the Adélie, sporting distinctive white eye-rings; and the gentoo, with its bright orange bill.
The expedition ship next moored at Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands, the South Atlantic archipelago where I was hoping to see another four species. With ruggedly beautiful coastlines, fewer than 4,000 people and more than a million penguins, the Falklands would quickly become one of my favourite destinations.
Banded penguins
The southern rockhopper was my first crested penguin. This tenacious bird nests in dense colonies on cliffs up to 60m above sea level and is known to take ‘showers’. It must leave the colony daily to forage for food, and the return journey to its cliffside home is incredibly arduous. I watched as rockhoppers, which appeared as tiny black specks in the waves, suddenly leapt from the water and frantically ‘hopped’ up the cliff-face, trying to reach safety before the next wave arrived. They were frequently knocked off their feet and swept back into the turbulent swell, only to try again. The southern rockhopper, it seems, knows how to persevere and bounce back from life’s challenges.
I’d seen gentoo penguins already, on the Antarctic Peninsula. But on the Falklands I witnessed all stages of the species’ breeding cycle – from mating to nest-building (for which they collect pebbles from the beach), newly hatched chicks and older chicks chasing their parents to demand a meal. I also saw them swim. The gentoo is the fastest-swimming penguin, reaching speeds of up to 35kph, leaping in and out of the water like a dolphin. These encounters gave me fantastic photo opportunities.
With sightings of Magellanic, king and a few macaroni penguins, I’d now spotted all the species I had hoped for from this first expedition. With the three I had previously seen, this made 10 of the 18 – so I was already just over halfway there.
There are four species of banded penguin. They are the most northerly of all penguins, found in South America and southern Africa, and look very similar in appearance, with monochrome bands striping their faces, neck and chests. I’d seen the Magellanic and African, which just left the Humboldt and Galápagos. So my next trip, in April 2017, saw me landing in Lima, Peru, and catching a boat out to the Ballestas Islands.
The number of Humboldt penguins has dramatically declined over the past 100 years. Traditionally this species nests in holes burrowed into a thick layer of guano (bird droppings) that covered rocks in its breeding grounds along the coast of Peru and northern Chile. But since the 1800s, much of this guano has been mined and shipped abroad as fertiliser, leaving only bare rock. Unable to burrow, the Humboldt’s numbers have plummeted. So I was relieved when I spotted two Humboldt penguins on top of an island, amid a huge colony of Peruvian boobies.
Heading north to Ecuador, I similarly managed just a glimpse of the rare Galápagos penguin, listed as endangered by the IUCN, on the island of Fernandina, but had great views of a myriad of other wildlife, such as giant tortoises, marine iguanas, frigatebirds and boobies.
Crested penguins
My next target group was crested penguins, made up of seven species, of which I still had five to see. As their name suggests, they all sport dynamic headwear, in varying shades of yellow. Many are found on remote subantarctic islands off New Zealand, which are surrounded by some of the roughest oceans in the world, and where visiting opportunities are limited.
In November 2018, I managed to secure a place on an annual expedition and, despite the choppy seas, got close enough to photograph the Snares penguin, endemic to the islands of the same name; the erect-crested penguin on both the Bounty and Antipodes archipelagos; and the royal penguin on Macquarie Island, where we were allowed to land. It was a relief to feel solid ground beneath my feet, and much easier to photograph my subjects. The royal penguin is virtually identical to the macaroni but with white cheeks instead of black. It is quite feisty and squabbles were breaking out in the surf, on the beach and at the densely packed breeding colony. Once hunted to make oil – yielding 500ml per bird – the royal is now thriving, with around 850,000 pairs.
The expedition returned to New Zealand’s South Island, where I headed to the south-west coast to see another crested penguin, the Fiordland. This penguin, like the Snares, breeds in temperate rainforests, nesting among tree roots and rocks. Our ‘walk’ to reach them was not for the faint-hearted, as we slipped and slid our way down to the beach. The penguins use their strong claws to grip and there was a constant flow of birds travelling between the Tasman Sea and the colony. It was easy to see who was going where, as the birds coming from the sea to return to their chicks were pristine, whereas the ones leaving the colony were as muddy as we were.
At the edge of the Earth
By now I had seen 16 of the 18 species. The end was in sight. But the final two were more challenging than anticipated. About 90 per cent of Moseley’s (or northern) rockhopper penguins breed at Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic Ocean, the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world. There is no airstrip and it takes seven days to reach the islands by boat from South Africa.
This penguin has the longest and most flamboyant head plumes of all the crested penguins, and watching them blowing in the strong wind, as I struggled to hold my camera steady, was quite a spectacle. It’s not just a pretty face, though: a Moseley’s can dive to a depth of 100m in pursuit of prey, and is able to hold its breath for more than two minutes.
The most challenging part of the trip was getting home again. We had left the UK on 28 February 2020, in the early stages of the Covid-19 outbreak. In the three weeks that we were away, the whole world changed. This left us at sea – quite literally, as South Africa had closed its ports. After our captain finally managed to negotiate entry to Cape Town, we flew home, straight into UK lockdown. At least I had plenty of time to sort my photographs.
I was scheduled to attempt completion of Mission Penguin that November, with a trip to Antarctica to seek out the most iconic of penguins, the emperor. Not only is this the largest penguin species, it is also the most southerly breeding, with the males incubating their single eggs throughout the bitter winter months, huddling together in vast packs on the ice for warmth.
One last chance
Due to the impact of the virus, the trip was postponed for two years. When I finally set sail from the Argentine port of Ushuaia and reached Antarctica in November 2022, the weather deteriorated and it was looking unlikely that we would be able to launch the helicopters to reach the emperors.
While I was thrilled to spot a distant emperor penguin on an ice floe and so complete Mission Penguin, it felt like an anti-climax. I went to bed dreaming of the spectacular colony that could have been. Miraculously, I awoke to a blue sky and calm sea – and the good news that the trip was back on. The sight was beyond anything I could have imagined, with hundreds of birds attending to their fluffy grey chicks. Tears streamed down my face. I had made it – Mission Penguin was truly accomplished.
Crossing the turbulent Drake Passage as we began the long journey home, I spent two quiet days in my cabin, reflecting on the past 10 years. What an amazing privilege to have shared my grief and experienced healing with these delightful creatures. It’s sad to think that future generations may not be so lucky, as penguins are seriously threatened by climate change, overfishing and coastal development. If we act now, we can all make a difference, so that others can experience the joy, and healing presence, of penguins.
Main image: Gentoo penguins returning to feed their chicks on Sea Lion Island in the Falklands/Credit: Ursula Clare Franklin
Discover more related content