My Penguin Year

Lindsay McCrae's passion for wildlife began at an early age. At school he built wildlife ponds and gardens, while evenings were spent watching a badger's sett near his home in rural Lake District. His passion for watching wildlife soon turned into a need to capture what he was seeing on film. He took out a loan from his mother and invested in his own camera at the age of 15 and never looked back. Lindsay has been filming wildlife professionally for over 10 years and has travelled all over the UK and across the world filming everything from emperor penguins in Antarctica to orangutans in the Indonesian jungle.

In 2019, Lindsay won the BAFTA award for Factual Photography and the Royal Television Society award for Cinematography.

An unprecedented portrait of an emperor penguin colony in Antarctica, generously illustrated with the author's breathtaking photography.

"Reveals the brutal beauty of Antarctica and its most beloved creature." — Christian Science Monitor
“For 337 consecutive days, cameraman Lindsay McCrae made his home among 11,000 emperor penguins. In Antarctica, he watches as the colony experiences birth, death and everything in between. Annotating his photos, he writes of how penguins and humans alike adjust to an environment where temperatures can reach 60 degrees below zero. Filled with color photographs, this is a treasure.” — Los Angeles Times
"Part adventure story, part evocation of the last untouched place on Earth, this is mesmerizing."  — Daily Mail, “Books of the Year”
"Unforgettable. ... Readers will laugh, cry, wince, and even bristle at the incredible word-pictures McCrae paints of the birds' courting, births, and deaths." — Booklist
&#8220A remarkable memoir. … Amid ice, whales, petrels, seals and vast shoals of fish, McCrae followed thousands of emperor penguins for nearly a year. … Most gripping are his fine-tuned observations of these beautiful metre-high birds.&#8221 — Nature
"My Penguin Year is an immersive insight into the life of a wildlife filmmaker and the challenges of surviving in the harshest, most unforgiving environment on Earth. ... Evockative" — The Herald (Scotland)
“Twelve men have walked on the moon. But how many have spent an entire season with the Emperors in the frozen south? Lindsay McCrae has, and this is his wonderful story–a dramatic saga forged by passion, honesty, and rare skill.” — Chris Packham, BBC Springwatch presenter 
&#8220A gorgeously illustrated memoir.&#8221  — Telegraph (UK)
"McCrae shares the joy and heartbreak of filming the penguins. ... With beautiful descriptions of the stark landscape, harsh weather conditions, challenges of filming, and isolation during the dark Antarctica winter, this work lovingly and accurately details emperor penguin behavior in an engaging memoir that will appeal to wildlife enthusiasts, adventurers, and armchair travelers." — Library Journal
“A touching story of courage, survival and persistence, My Penguin Year is a must-read for nature lovers and those who enjoy a stirring memoir.” — BookPage
"Delightful and picturesque. ... It's hard not to be enchanted." — Washington Independent Review of Books
“A stunning and often gut-churning account of the lifecycle of thousands of emperor penguins. … An unforgettable, intimate story of survival.” — Shelf Awareness