BBCFor those of you who can’t wait until Sunday (November 18) to watch the second episode of the highly anticipated Dynasties series, I have great news.
The BBC have teased fans by telling us the focus of the episode, by releasing a video montage of emperor penguins titled ‘why filming emperor penguins is hardcore’.
That’s right folks. This week, we’re travelling to the Antarctic to get to grips with how emperor penguins battle through gruelling winters and survive using the only ways they know how.
You can take a look at the trailer for the series below:
The video teasing the second episode was posted on BBC Earth’s Twitter account, and it listed five reasons why filming was so difficult this time round.
You immediately got a sense of the type of things the crew had to endure by their caption, which read:
Could you hack two months of darkness?!
Take a look at the video below:
Could you hack two months of darkness?! 🐧#Dynasties pic.twitter.com/xl3Uru0Z3Z
— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 14, 2018
The number one reason was the fascinating fact emperor penguins can endure wind chill temperatures below -70°C, meaning the Dynasties team needed five layers of clothing before stepping out of their base.
I don’t know about you but I complain when it’s -1°C, so how they survived at those temperatures I’ll never know. Maybe they had hot chocolate on tap?
Second, was the fact the sea is the safest place in the Antarctic winter, yet the penguins begin to arrive when all the other animals leave the continent.
The next hint they gave us of the difficulties the team faced, was parents travel up to 120km to feed their chicks, going back and forth to the sea up to 10 times – so you can imagine how much travelling the camera crew had to do to capture the amazing footage.
Yet another difficulty the crew faced was the fact each penguin has a unique call, helping them to find their offspring in a noisy environment.
And last, but definitely not least, was the hardcore fact the Dynasties team spent 337 days straight on location and didn’t see the sun for over two months. Two months?! I bet they got a shock when they came home.
Despite the difficulties the crew faced, you can guarantee they put their all into it, and will have produced yet another spectacular episode for us to enjoy.
And at least it’s some happy news after the devastating news about David the chimp. David, who found fame in the first Dynasties episode, was found dead shortly after wrapping on the shoot.
BBCDavid captured the hearts of the nation as leader of his troupe, surviving vicious challenges from rivals. But months after filming ended, the chimp was discovered beaten to death.
One of the directors of the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project, Jill Pruetz, confirmed the news, telling The Telegraph:
He died from wounds inflicted from what I’m sure are these young males. There aren’t other animals that would have inflicted wounds like that – especially when you have multiple individuals attacking a single individual.
He was very aggressive that’s why he held onto his dominant status for so long. He was pretty clever but our best interpretation of what happened is that these adult males jumped him.
Hopefully this episode won’t break our hearts in a similar way, but to be honest, I’m not holding out much hope.
The episode will air this Sunday on BBC1 at 20.30.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).