First swim

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Synopsis

David Attenborough visits the most southerly Adelie penguin colony in the world, at Cape Royds in Antarctica. The summer is very short so the penguins have to breed fast. Elapsed time footage shows how the colony dwindles as the penguins leave at the end of the breeding season. When the young adelies grow waterproof feathers they head for their first swim, but brash ice has already clogged up the bay. Their parents are too heavy to get across or under it, but the young, lighter penguins can attempt to cross the jumbled fragments of brash ice. But danger lurks. The slow and clumsy youngsters are attacked by a leopard seal which pushes up through the slushy ice. The seals often play with their victim for 20 minutes before killing and consuming it.