Autumn in Atka Bay, Antarctica.
Just a few weeks ago, this was open sea.
Now, a new frozen landscape is forming.
This new world appears devoid of life.
Well, almost.
An emperor penguin.
And he is not alone.
Thousands of emperors are coming to this frozen bay.
They are here because the new ice provides the safest place
for them to breed.
The ice will last nine months,
before melting away next summer.
And they will need every day of those nine months
to raise the next generation of this great emperor dynasty.
But to do so, they will have to survive the coming winter.
The coldest and the cruellest on earth.
Emperors pair up anew every year...
..and although winter is fast approaching,
the process of finding the perfect partner cannot be hurried.
PENGUINS SQUAWK
New couples perform a graceful ritual
that will cement their commitment to each other.
Moving together in synchrony
is the key to creating a powerful bond.
And this bond needs to be one of the strongest in nature...
..because the survival of every family here,
and therefore the survival of this dynasty,
depends upon it.
A penguin is beautifully designed for many things...
..but mating is not one of them.
PENGUIN SQUEAKS
Unfortunately, not all the penguins have been able
to find the perfect partner.
And, with time fast running out,
this female forgoes the formalities.
PENGUINS SQUAWK
But this couple has already bonded too tightly
to be split apart by an interloper.
Penguins unlucky in love
head back to spend the winter feeding at sea,
because there's no food out here on the ice.
The couples now face weeks of waiting while their eggs develop.
But one pair appears to have got ahead of schedule.
A bulge on a penguin's belly is normally the sign of a parent
keeping an egg warm on its feet.
But she seems to be trying to keep a snowball warm.
They appear to be getting in some practice for the real thing.
The days are becoming shorter and colder...
..until finally, the sun sets for the last time for two months.
It won't rise again until the spring.
Now, they live in a twilight world,
under the bright Antarctic moon.
For this couple, the long wait for their egg is almost over.
The female senses it.
Her contractions have begun.
PENGUINS SQUAWK
The next generation of emperors is on its way.
Producing an egg takes a huge amount of energy,
such that the females lose a quarter of their body weight.
She hasn't eaten for over a month
and needs to return to the ocean to feed.
She can't take her precious egg with her,
so she must pass it to her partner to care for.
He has a special brood pouch to keep it warm,
close to his skin.
If he doesn't get the egg off the ice quickly,
it will freeze.
Now, she is free to go.
But she does seem rather reluctant to leave.
He will now have sole responsibility for their egg
all through the long, harsh winter.
He won't see his partner again
until the egg has hatched.
Over the next few days, every female in the colony
hurries away on the same 15-mile march to the sea.
drives the temperature down.
To keep themselves and their eggs warm,
the males now perform one of the most spectacular
demonstrations of cooperation in nature.
One by one, they lock themselves into a huddle...
..creating a giant incubator made up of over 4,000 male penguins.
Each individual constantly tries to push into the best possible
position to keep himself and his egg warm.
As a result,
the entire huddle is forever on the move.
Storm force winds now drive the temperature down to -60 Celsius.
For the emperors on the outside,
facing the wind,
the conditions become unbearable.
They have no choice but to break off
and try to get round to the sheltered side.
He must get back on his feet,
but without letting go of his egg.
If he fails, the embryo inside
will rapidly freeze and die.
Once they arrive on the sheltered side of the huddle,
they get some relief from the wind.
When a blizzard sets in here,
it rages for days on end.
Now, the casualties are revealed.
Battered, starving and exhausted,
there is still no relief for the survivors.
The storm has driven them nearly a mile
from the safest path of the ice.
It's a weary march back to where they started from.
Now, they re-form their huddle,
to be ready for the next storm...
..which will come, inevitably.
Only after two months of brutal weather
does the polar night finally come to an end.
And with it comes a hint of warmth.
The return of the sun coincides
with the appearance of the newest members of the colony.
CHICK SQUEAKS
In a matter of days, there are thousands
of hungry mouths, all demanding food.
Their fathers haven't eaten anything for nearly four months.
Yet they have kept back a vital reserve,
a kind of thick penguin milk,
just for this moment.
But it's only enough to keep the chick alive for a few days.
The females must return soon with food.
For some, it's already too late.
The first of the females are returning.
Fat and well fed, more arrive,
all with food for the chicks.
And not a moment too soon for the waiting fathers.
A mother's first sight of her young chick.
CHICK SQUEAKS
With their bond reaffirmed,
the whole family celebrates.
Now at last, he can hand over his precious chick to its mother.
But there are less fortunate females here,
whose chicks have died.
Yet their parenting instinct is still strong.
The sight of a youngster being handed over
is irresistible.
More chickless females join in the melee.
The chick appears to be safe...
..but it is no longer with its true parents.
The prospects for a kidnapped chick are never good.
Despite their immense efforts over the last three months,
this couple have nothing to show for it.
For those couples that have been successful,
it's the father's turn to head back to sea
to get a much-needed meal for himself...
..and to take his turn collecting food for the chick.
The mother is now able to bond
with her new baby...
..and, urgently, to feed it.
Its first taste of sea food.
But the times of hardship are not over.
Another storm,
and another white-out.
For some, this is a catastrophe.
They have tumbled into a ravine in the ice...
..with steep, slippery walls.
Chicks are now a deadly burden.
Mothers carrying young cannot grip the ice.
If she doesn't get out,
they will both die.
This mother has had to make a terrible choice.
To save herself,
she has abandoned her chick.
One mother, at least, is not prepared to give up on her chick.
Mother and chick are safe.
There is, occasionally, a respite from the brutality of Antarctica.
Clear skies, gentle winds...
..and a particularly spectacular display of the Southern Lights.
The Aurora Australis.
As the sun climbs higher every day,
it warms the ice.
Soon, the emperors' frozen world
will start to melt away.
For the last few weeks,
the mother and father have taken it in turn to feed their offspring.
But its growing appetite will soon force both parents to go away
fishing at the same time.
Now it's time to encourage the month-old chicks
to stand on their own two feet.
CHICK SQUEAKS
Sometimes, it takes a well-timed kick.
Now, both parents can head off to sea to go fishing.
For the first time,
the chicks will have to face the elements
without a parent to protect them.
Other adults certainly won't look after them.
So, lone chicks gather together for comfort.
As the temperature drops to -25,
the chicks instinctively create their own mini-huddle,
just as their fathers do.
This is no time
for a youngster to be alone.
If they're lucky,
some chicks may still have the protection of a parent
taking a break from fishing.
But for the majority, the huddle is their only shelter.
Even in this weather, adults must still head back and forth
to the sea to bring back food.
The instinct to follow adults is still strong.
But in a blizzard,
that is a bad idea.
The adults' disappearance
leaves the chicks in confusion.
Lost and alone, his only hope
is that this adult is heading back to the colony, and not away from it,
across the frozen wastes.
With the last of the big storms over,
summer has arrived.
The ice that has been the penguins' home is melting.
These chicks are almost fully grown, and approaching independence.
Before they leave for the sea, all emperors - adults and their chicks,
must moult.
For the youngsters, this marks the arrival of adulthood.
Against all the odds, two thirds have survived.
But the annual disappearance of their ice world is a reminder
Ocean temperatures are expected to rise year-on-year.
This Antarctic sea ice on which all emperor penguins rely
to complete their extraordinary life cycle.
But, as the whole colony prepares to leave Atka Bay...
..these parents have successfully raised the next generation
in this emperors' dynasty.
To capture the extraordinary story of the emperor penguins,
the Dynasties team had to travel to the end of the Earth.
Neumayer research station will be home to the film crew
for nearly a year.
There's about 70 tonnes worth of food.
We've got about 15 boxes of white cabbage.
Neumayer has everything they need.
But it's a different world outside.
It's really easy to feel quite comfortable inside, and...
HE SIGHS
This place, it's...
wild, really wild.
It's worth reminding ourselves of that every now and again.
Oh, I've got to go inside!
The crew need five layers of clothing before they can even
think of leaving the base.
As the final plane departs, they know that it'll be the last
till winter is over in eight months' time.
Now the plane's just left and that's us on our own, now.
Nobody will be coming in case something happened.
We are now all by ourselves.
When the team head out to explore, they discover
just how careful they'll have to be working in this hostile world.
We've come across an enormous crack,
so we're probably on an unsafe piece of ice at the moment.
ICE CREAKS
Oh, my God!
Did you just hear that?
A deep crack in the edge of the ice shelf like this
can be extremely dangerous.
Oh, my word, it just goes straight down.
This area's definitely not safe.
An incredible reminder of how...
..how unpredictable this place is.
It's just mind-blowing.
Six miles from the station, the permanent ice meets the ocean.
This is where the penguins will soon be heading.
Once the sea is frozen, the team will have to cross
the treacherous, newly-formed ice to reach them.
I've found a decent spot for the, uh, for the guys to lower me down
onto the sea ice for the first time.
So Will's going to act as a bit of a safety man for me,
in case anything goes wrong.
These are our first few steps onto the sea ice.
It definitely feels a bit nerve-racking,
knowing that there's a couple of hundred meters
of water underneath us.
To find a safe route, the crew must check the depth of the ice
all the way.
Ice around 30 centimetres and above is stable.
This is a great moment for us.
We finally made it to the colony.
Yeah, it's really special.
When it's this still and there's this many birds in front of you,
And...
It makes the place look absolutely beautiful.
A few weeks later, the sun sets for the last time,
and Antarctica reveals its harsher side.
We think it's probably minus 50.
The sun is somewhere below the horizon.
It still won't be visible for another...
..six weeks, probably.
Erm, so this is something that we're going to have to get used to.
It's easier said than done.
Oh, God!
And then, the storms come.
We've got proper, proper weather now,
and really, really strong winds.
The colony's just in front of us.
Sometimes, it disappears behind the snow.
It's been hovering around 100kph now, since this picked up.
What these penguins are having to put up with out there,
it's just mind-blowing.
We're finally coming to the end of this storm.
There's all sorts of weird rattling sounds and...
To be quite honest, I don't know how this station
manages to stay standing.
Finally, the sun returns,
but the storms continue.
A break in the weather reveals something the team had not expected.
But I can hear a heck of a lot of noise coming
from just over the brow.
Oh, man!
Oh, my word.
There are... There are birds down there with chicks.
Film crews have to capture events as they unfold,
whatever their feelings.
I know it's natural, but it's, um...
HE SNIFFS
It's bloody hard to watch.
Oh, my word.
I think we're just going to have to observe them for a bit
and see exactly what's happening.
We've come back up onto the top because the weather is coming in
again and we were just about to pack up,
and an adult with a chick on its feet managed to
make its way up.
It's amazing, it's using its beak, and then when it got to this last
little lip, erm, its wings.
Oh, man, if only the other 50 in there could do the same.
Hopefully the weather will clear again tomorrow and we can get back
down here, and fingers crossed, there'll be a few less birds
in this hole.
Two days later, the weather allows the team to return to the colony.
Already, the gully has claimed more casualties.
The team decide to act.
We've given it a lot of thought.
We've decided that we are definitely going to dig a shallow ramp
that they will hopefully use.
It's very rare for the film crew to intervene.
But they realise that they may be able to save at least some
of these birds simply by digging a few steps in the ice.
Oh, man! Will, look.
Oh, my goodness.
We were literally just about to leave but
the first birds are definitely making their way out,
which is brilliant.
So, hopefully, they'll just make their way back to the colony
and them and their chicks will have a much better chance
of survival, because there's no chance that they were going
to survive down there at all.
The crew follow the chicks as they grow up.
And after months with the emperors,
their time in Antarctica is finally coming to a close.
We're coming to the end of the trip now, and, um...
Yeah, we've had a...
We've had an amazing year, and...
HE SIGHS
I'm obviously desperate to get home.
But there's, um...
There's an odd part of me that doesn't want to leave.
What a privilege, eh?
Next time:
A lioness battles against the odds...
..to protect her family.