Amazing drone video shows baby penguins jumping off 50-foot cliff 

For the first time ever, emperor penguin chicks have been caught on camera jumping off a 50-foot ice shelf in Antarctica. Bertie Gregory, an award-winning British cinematographer for National Geographic, captured this spectacular, heart-stopping moment as the baby penguins were leaving their colony for the first time to travel to the ocean for their maiden swim. But the feat wouldn’t have been possible without a camera drone equipped with a telephoto lens.

Emperor penguins usually breed and raise their chicks on sea ice which forms around the Antarctic continent every winter and breaks up every spring. When the chicks are around 5 months old, they lose their baby feathers and travel to the sea where they take their first swim – normally entering the water from a height of about 1-2 feet. This is a rite of passage known as fledging.

Now, scientists have been aware that some emperor colonies were breeding and raising their chicks high up on the permanent ice shelves because high-res satellite imagery has provided evidence of the same. But it’s never been confirmed just how these colonies descended the precipitous ice shelves – until now.

The National Geographic team was on location at Atka Bay on the Ekström Ice Shelf in Antarctica for the 2025 installment of the Emmy Award-winning SECRETS OF franchise when the chicks began to leap from the summit, smashing into the icy ocean waters below – completely unscathed. Take a look at the drone video below:

It’s worth mentioning that that having a high-endurance drone with a telephoto lens was an important factor for them team because it allowed them to capture animal behavior from the air like never before without disrupting or impacting the penguins.

Bertie and the production team worked from a tented camp near the main penguin colony for almost nine weeks. The team worked for two months in -5-degree temperatures and flew drones to the very limit of their capability. Staying through the point of nearby ice breaking up and drifting out to the Southern Ocean, the team filmed until a storm closed in, ending all filming for the rest of the Antarctic summer.

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