The Icebird lives in the rich Antarctic Ocean. It shuns land except during the brief breeding season when it comes ashore carrying all it needs to sustain life on the alien land.

Adelie penguins, slaves to a strict timetable of breeding, are drawn to the same patch of Antarctica each spring. To ignore the rules of time and place is to invite hazards for young and old alike. This film shows how 40,000 of them surmount the domestic dramas of jealous neighbours, savage predators, chilling blizzards – and a heat wave of just 4 degrees above freezing!