La Marche de L'Empereur

I had an opportunity to watch Luc Jacquet's March of the Penguins, a National Geographic Feature Film that tracks the Emperor Penguins journey across the ice desert of Anatarctica. According to the film, thousands of penguins leave their ocean home every winter, battling ice storms, 100mph winds, and 90 below tempatures to travel 70 miles (walking single file) inward to mate and reproduce.

Once at the traditional penguin breeding ground, the film shows the impressive birds performing a ritual courtship of intricate mating dances and ecstatic songs until the birds pair off into monogamous couples and mate. The couples will stay "mated" together for the duration of the mating season.

As the Anatarctic weather gets more bitter, the females eventually lay one single egg. After the egg is laid, the females will return to the sea to eat (the females go without food while they are producing the egg), while the male penguins are left for two months without food and shelter from the harsh polar winters to guard and hatch the egg.

After eating and storing food for two months, the female penguins will return in time to see the hatched egg. The females will now watch the young birds, while the male penguins returns to the sea to eat. The males and females will alternate watching and feeding the chicks for several months until the weather warms and some of the ice melts. Once this happens, the the adults will leave the chicks, and the chicks will eventually find their way into the sea.

If you like nature movies, then you'll love March of the Penguins because it shows the penguins in their natural habitat doing all the amazing things they do - the little dances, sliding on their stomachs, and swaying their hands back and forth like Ray Charles. You'll find yourself cheering for the families, and you'll be sad when some of the families lose their egg, or one of the parents dies on the back-and-forth journey. The film is narrated by Morgan Freeman. I give the movie an A. It's only in select theathers. I along with Swamps and GAT saw it at La Fonda Gardens in Buckhead.

Check out the official site for times and locations: March of the Pengiuns.