For nearly a year, 50 animatronic cameras disguised as realistic life-size penguins, eggs and rocks infiltrated penguin colonies to record the tough challenges penguins face from the moment they emerge from the sea to raise their chicks until they finally return to the water. This series reveals the intimate, emotional and sometimes amusing behavior of nature’s most devoted parents bringing up their young against the most extraordinary odds.

Growing Up:
As their chicks become increasingly independent, emperor and rockhopper parents place them in a crèche and go fishing. Humboldt chicks are left in their burrows as the adults head for the beach. Emperor chicks go skating while rockhopper chicks practice jumping skills. Eventually all the chicks leave for the sea, tackling the same hazards as their parents before them, from sea lions to predatory birds, high cliffs to glaciers.