Flashback

Travel writer Sara Wheeler remembers encountering emperor penguins in Antarctica, 1994

This was taken on New Year’s Day, on the embayment of the Mackay Glacier in Antarctica. The temperature was -10C, and I was in the middle of a seven-month solo journey gathering material for my book Terra Incognita, travelling around and staying at various science camps. Here, I was with a team of fve benthic geologists from Idaho, who were mapping the seabed. The ice I’m kneeling on is 12ft thick. The guys were sending remotely operated vehicles down through the ice to look at all the rocks and debris on the seabed brought down by the glacier. That’s one of the key indicators of climate change: what the glaciers are bringing down, and how quickly they’re bringing it down – how deep it is. There’s a lot of donkey work in camp, so I spent hours spooling tubes through holes in the ice.

Just before this picture was taken, I was on a Skidoo with one of the team’s junior scientists, when suddenly we saw these emperor penguins – the frst I’d seen, because up until then I’d been in the interior of the Antarctic, where there’s no life at all. We stopped the Skidoo and started creeping towards them. As I approached, I realised they weren’t afraid of us – they have no land-based predators. I got right up close. I was making a documentary for Radio 4 at the time, so I had a microphone in one pocket and an analogue recorder in the other. The batteries were in my bra so they wouldn’t lose their charge in the cold – I had to hoick them out and I was thinking, ‘Oh no, the penguins are going to leave.’ But I could have taken hours about it; they weren’t going anywhere. I recorded them quacking away – like ducks but louder.

We spent at least an hour there, and they were very interested in us. They would turn their heads around and quack, and then others appeared. I always thought that the anthropomorphisation of penguins was sentimental, but actually when you’re with them you’re even more prone to it. It was as if they were saying, ‘My God, look at this one, come and see her.’

I had lots of other encounters with emperors, and I got slightly fed up with them in the end. My friend, a painter, had a cuddly toy penguin that she put down on the ice, and it was like the most exciting thing that had ever happened to them. I feel they’re still talking about it now.

They’re so glossy. Because every flament has to be covered in such a huge amount of fat, they look luminescent. I didn’t touch them – I felt that I shouldn’t. But they wanted to touch me. Not, like other animals, because they were looking for food, but out of curiosity. That frst experience was so moving – to look at this wild animal and see it had no fear. Interview by Jessamy Calkin Sara Wheeler’s latest book is O My America! Second Acts in a New World (Vintage, £10.99)

My friend had a toy penguin that she put down on the ice, and it was like the most exciting thing that had ever happened to them. I feel they’re still talking about it now