FLYING SOUTH

Amid glistening landscapes and colossal icebergs, there's much more to Antarctica than its populations of penguins, as any intrepid birder will discover, if willing to brave the coldest place on Earth.

- David Lindo

Antarctica is a destination that many of us dream of visiting. After all, who wouldn’t want to walk in the footsteps of the likes of Hillary, Scott, Shackleton and latterly, of course, the great Attenborough?

Strange it may sound, but Antarctica never featured on my own birding bucket list. Don’t get me wrong – like millions of others, I was mesmerised by the mind-blowing images of towering, blue-rinsed icebergs on the BBC’s Frozen Planet; not to mention the antics of ‘criminal’ Adélie penguins, the continent’s most emblematic bird family. Despite these wonders, and even though I’ve ‘done’ cold before – I’ve shivered in the Cairngorms and waded through waist-high snow in the far north of Norway – Antarctica, to me, was the final frozen frontier; certainly not somewhere for a self-respecting resident of Notting Hill.

How things can change. I have now been to Antarctica twice in the space of three months, and it was all that I imagined several times over, plus a large dose of what I did not foresee. Much has been written about the seventh continent – enchanting, fragile and hostile are words that come to mind when I try to describe this other-worldly land.

Antarctica is a place where you can experience the wildlife adventure of a lifetime while learning in the very classroom of climate change. The Antarctic Peninsula – the snaking, rugged finger of land that projects north from the main continent, and the focal point of my trip – is one of the fastest-warming areas on Earth, second only to regions of the Arctic Circle. According to the British Antarctic Survey, the mean annual temperature here has now increased by 3.2°C in the past 60 years.