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Waiting to Fly: My Escapades With The Penguins Of Antarctica
A tour de force of nature writing, Ron Naveen's Waiting to Fly captures the spirit of the gentle and charming creatures called penguins while also beautifully rendering the frozen, windswept landscapes through his magical prose.In Waiting to Fly, Naveen weaves together the stories of his own experiences as a field scientist with the adventures of earlier explorers who have studied these fascinating flightless birds. He recounts tales of daring voyages in the Antarctic's dangerous seas and of the men who had to survive for months in this treacherous terrain. These stories of humans struggling to overcome the elements are paralleled with the lives of the very humanlike penguins. Naveen fell in love with penguins sixteen years ago, and ever since they have held a strong place in his mind--whether he is counting their numbers on the icy shores of the seventh continent or studying their behavior as they go through their hectic and productive lives. We see that their natural and healthy lives, unfettered by the clamor and clutter of our workaholic existence, can teach us much about ourselves. Penguins don't spend time reasoning, planning, pondering, or worrying. They're very, very busy, with lots of work to do and little time to do it. The penguins in this delightful and informative book emerge as distinctly resourceful and beguiling personalities. While penguins amuse and intrigue us, their comically deceptive exterior belies the reality that they may have mastered survival a bit better than we have, and watching them may change our relationship with the earth--and with each other.
384 pages, Paperback
First published February 3, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 6, 2015
I lost this book. I don't know where. I usually hate losing books but I have to admit there is some relief in losing this one. Its the story of a lawyer who never liked being a lawyer and whose childhood hobby of bird-watching had grown into a full-blown penguin obsession.
Detail, enlivened by passion, makes for an interesting natural history book, but a lawyer wrote this and its dry, dry, dry. A couple of pages is devoted to the etymology of the word 'penguin'. Is it from the Welsh pen gwyn, 'white head' (I would have thought this unlikely being as penguins have black heads) or is it from the ... or perhaps from the.... And then Spanish spell it thusly, but in the Portuguese it differs in this way... and yet another obvious variation in ten other languages *yawn*.
Also I didn't need endless reminders that these penguins shoot out pink semi-liquid shit in any and all directions and don't mind who they hit.
If I find this book again I will probably 'have' to finish reading it because it wasn't bad enough to throw across the room, but gee, no more pink shit, history of some expedition to kill seals, or stuff about derivation of words please.
I've put a spoiler flag on this because the excitement of pink projectile shit is like the high point of interest as far as I read, and I wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone!
Detail, enlivened by passion, makes for an interesting natural history book, but a lawyer wrote this and its dry, dry, dry. A couple of pages is devoted to the etymology of the word 'penguin'. Is it from the Welsh pen gwyn, 'white head' (I would have thought this unlikely being as penguins have black heads) or is it from the ... or perhaps from the.... And then Spanish spell it thusly, but in the Portuguese it differs in this way... and yet another obvious variation in ten other languages *yawn*.
Also I didn't need endless reminders that these penguins shoot out pink semi-liquid shit in any and all directions and don't mind who they hit.
If I find this book again I will probably 'have' to finish reading it because it wasn't bad enough to throw across the room, but gee, no more pink shit, history of some expedition to kill seals, or stuff about derivation of words please.
I've put a spoiler flag on this because the excitement of pink projectile shit is like the high point of interest as far as I read, and I wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 25, 2007
Even if I were to set aside my lifelong interest and obsession with penguins, I think I'd still give this book five stars. For a book that packs a lot of history an a lot of science, it has a nice narrative. I'm also insanely jealous of Mr. Naveen. There's a picture of him on the back with a penguin in his lap. It just climbed up there. I want a penguin.
December 30, 2019
Ron Naveen has dedicated his life to surveying and studying penguin colonies in Antarctica. This is his story, intertwined with the history of penguin study and Antarctic exploration.
While I was really interested in reading more about Antarctica and learning more about penguins, this book wasn't quite all I hoped it would be. It was an interesting look at surveying penguins and what it's like being a researcher in Antarctica, but his writing style was kind of painful. He'd be on one topic, chase it around squirrel-like from point to point before maybe circling back to what he was initially talking about. While he had many interesting stories and facts to share, his writing made it really hard to follow at times. I think with a little editing and cleaning up this would be an incredibly fascinating book - the content there was great.
I am fascinated by Antarctica and would love to travel there or get to winter there. I think it'd be such an interesting experience. Unfortunately, due to the circular style of writing, this is definitely not one of the better Antarctica books I've read.
If you enjoy penguins or are as interested in Antarctica as I am, I recommend you check this out - just be prepared for a bit of a slog of reading. I'll go 6 of 10 overall and 2 of 5 for readability.
For more reviews, check out bedroopedbookworms.wordpress.com!
While I was really interested in reading more about Antarctica and learning more about penguins, this book wasn't quite all I hoped it would be. It was an interesting look at surveying penguins and what it's like being a researcher in Antarctica, but his writing style was kind of painful. He'd be on one topic, chase it around squirrel-like from point to point before maybe circling back to what he was initially talking about. While he had many interesting stories and facts to share, his writing made it really hard to follow at times. I think with a little editing and cleaning up this would be an incredibly fascinating book - the content there was great.
I am fascinated by Antarctica and would love to travel there or get to winter there. I think it'd be such an interesting experience. Unfortunately, due to the circular style of writing, this is definitely not one of the better Antarctica books I've read.
If you enjoy penguins or are as interested in Antarctica as I am, I recommend you check this out - just be prepared for a bit of a slog of reading. I'll go 6 of 10 overall and 2 of 5 for readability.
For more reviews, check out bedroopedbookworms.wordpress.com!
October 2, 2016
_Waiting to Fly_ by Ron Naveen is an enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and well-written account of the author's years of field experience with the penguins of Antarctica, mostly as a researcher but also before that as an expert guide leading tourists on expeditions to view the seventh continent's wildlife.
Naveen's research and interests as described in the book focused on finding all breeding sites and determining population numbers of three species of penguin found on the Antarctic Peninsula and its many adjacent islands (which he called a "banana belt" compared to the much sparser wildlife and brutal climate of the rest of the continent). All three species were related and referred to as brushtailed penguins, which include the species known as gentoos (third largest of all penguin species, ranging up to 35 inches and between 10-19 pounds, noted for bearing white patches on their heads and a bright, red-orange bill), chinstraps (so named because of the characteristic thin black line that bisects their white faces), and Adelies (which he said look the most like little tuxedoed animals, with a prominent white eye ring set against an all-black head and a sharp contrast between the white of the belly and breast and the black of the head and back).
The author vividly described his adventures studying the penguins, of switching from ship to ship to reach the various breeding sites, making transfers at sea, "ship-hopping" as he put it, trying to avoid long layovers at research stations, back-tracking, or worse, being stranded. The risk of a "busted schedule" very real, his tight timetables could be derailed by the unpredictable weather and ice of the region.
Of course getting to the sites was only half the battle, as Naveen and his colleagues had to deal with difficult conditions when performing their censuses. Some islands for instance were difficult to land on due to weather conditions and/or shore topography. At other times Naveen only had hours, even in some cases barely and hour and a half to complete his work, as he had to leave early because the ship (or in some cases the aircraft) had to press on or weather and sea ice conditions cut his time short.
The penguins themselves did not come up short in producing challenges either. The sounds of many thousands, tens of thousands, or in some rare sites, nearly a million penguins erupting in ecstatic display could be deafening. The smell of tens of thousands of breeding penguins could be overpowering, the smell sometimes detectable for miles. In late summer, when the snow had melted, water, guano, and mud could mix together and produce a pungent and "indescribable cauldron of muck."
Naveen also described the difficulties of counting such large numbers, counting sometimes by "fistfuls" (figuring out about how many nests fell within a closed fist, stretched at length in front of his eyes) and "fingerfuls" (approximating penguin numbers that fit in a finger-length, stretched and extended).
Naveen also participated in studies at sites that did detailed analyses of particular penguin populations, measuring them, weighing them, analyzing the stomach contents of select birds (a messy and delicate procedure), and banding birds so that they could be tracked year after year.
I really enjoyed the author's detailed depictions of the three different species. Though often two and sometimes all three species will nest in the same area, each species differs enough that they seem to successfully cohabitate. While gentoos were often nonmigratory, Adelies and chinstraps were migratory and additionally arrived at nesting sites weeks apart from one another. Each species differed also in their degree of nest site and mate fidelity, as well as the type of terrain they favored, not only for nesting but hunting as well, as each species hunted at different depths (with gentoos diving the deepest, up to 500 feet beneath the surface), staying underwater for different periods of time, favoring different ice conditions (chinstraps did well with minimal sea ice, while Adelies did better with much more sea ice), eating different percentages of fish and krill, and staggering peak demands for food with their chicks fledging at different times.
The three species also differed a lot in personality and temperament, Naveen's descriptions making for enchanting reading. Chinstraps for instance are very boisterous, assertive, quarrelsome, and above all loud (early explorers called them "stonecrackers" due to their ear-splitting voices, the loudest of all penguins). Naveen described being surrounded by a "howling potpourri, all seemingly unglued," each penguin trying to out-shout its neighbor. Gentoos in contrast were much calmer, easy-going, more playful, and a great deal less irritable than chinstraps.
Naveen also covered a fair amount of penguin history, covering in great detail the experiences of two notable early researchers, Thomas Wyatt Bagshawe and Maxime Charles Lester, who spent over a year in the early 1920s on a tiny island studying penguins, as well as the history of the knowledge of and study of these penguins. The Adelie penguin was named for the wife of the French Antarctic explorer Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont d'Urville, while gentoo might derive from an anglicized version of the Portuguese "gentio" ("gentile"), a name used by Muslims in India to describe Hindus (also the Hindi word "jantu" means "creature" or "insect").
So what did Naveen learn? Though the three species are hardly endangered, populations of all three are declining. Though the Adelie are in part declining from a reduction in their favored pack-ice feeding grounds, all three species are declining due to declining krill populations because of a reduction in sea ice. Krill use winter sea ice as nurseries, safe havens where the larvae can feed on algal blooms, safe from penguins, seals, and whales. Additionally, excess UV-B radiation through a diminished ozone layer may be depressing phytoplankton stocks - krill food - by as much as 20%.
A wonderful book that is both great nature writing and travel writing and has great color photographs, my only complaint was the lack of maps.
Naveen's research and interests as described in the book focused on finding all breeding sites and determining population numbers of three species of penguin found on the Antarctic Peninsula and its many adjacent islands (which he called a "banana belt" compared to the much sparser wildlife and brutal climate of the rest of the continent). All three species were related and referred to as brushtailed penguins, which include the species known as gentoos (third largest of all penguin species, ranging up to 35 inches and between 10-19 pounds, noted for bearing white patches on their heads and a bright, red-orange bill), chinstraps (so named because of the characteristic thin black line that bisects their white faces), and Adelies (which he said look the most like little tuxedoed animals, with a prominent white eye ring set against an all-black head and a sharp contrast between the white of the belly and breast and the black of the head and back).
The author vividly described his adventures studying the penguins, of switching from ship to ship to reach the various breeding sites, making transfers at sea, "ship-hopping" as he put it, trying to avoid long layovers at research stations, back-tracking, or worse, being stranded. The risk of a "busted schedule" very real, his tight timetables could be derailed by the unpredictable weather and ice of the region.
Of course getting to the sites was only half the battle, as Naveen and his colleagues had to deal with difficult conditions when performing their censuses. Some islands for instance were difficult to land on due to weather conditions and/or shore topography. At other times Naveen only had hours, even in some cases barely and hour and a half to complete his work, as he had to leave early because the ship (or in some cases the aircraft) had to press on or weather and sea ice conditions cut his time short.
The penguins themselves did not come up short in producing challenges either. The sounds of many thousands, tens of thousands, or in some rare sites, nearly a million penguins erupting in ecstatic display could be deafening. The smell of tens of thousands of breeding penguins could be overpowering, the smell sometimes detectable for miles. In late summer, when the snow had melted, water, guano, and mud could mix together and produce a pungent and "indescribable cauldron of muck."
Naveen also described the difficulties of counting such large numbers, counting sometimes by "fistfuls" (figuring out about how many nests fell within a closed fist, stretched at length in front of his eyes) and "fingerfuls" (approximating penguin numbers that fit in a finger-length, stretched and extended).
Naveen also participated in studies at sites that did detailed analyses of particular penguin populations, measuring them, weighing them, analyzing the stomach contents of select birds (a messy and delicate procedure), and banding birds so that they could be tracked year after year.
I really enjoyed the author's detailed depictions of the three different species. Though often two and sometimes all three species will nest in the same area, each species differs enough that they seem to successfully cohabitate. While gentoos were often nonmigratory, Adelies and chinstraps were migratory and additionally arrived at nesting sites weeks apart from one another. Each species differed also in their degree of nest site and mate fidelity, as well as the type of terrain they favored, not only for nesting but hunting as well, as each species hunted at different depths (with gentoos diving the deepest, up to 500 feet beneath the surface), staying underwater for different periods of time, favoring different ice conditions (chinstraps did well with minimal sea ice, while Adelies did better with much more sea ice), eating different percentages of fish and krill, and staggering peak demands for food with their chicks fledging at different times.
The three species also differed a lot in personality and temperament, Naveen's descriptions making for enchanting reading. Chinstraps for instance are very boisterous, assertive, quarrelsome, and above all loud (early explorers called them "stonecrackers" due to their ear-splitting voices, the loudest of all penguins). Naveen described being surrounded by a "howling potpourri, all seemingly unglued," each penguin trying to out-shout its neighbor. Gentoos in contrast were much calmer, easy-going, more playful, and a great deal less irritable than chinstraps.
Naveen also covered a fair amount of penguin history, covering in great detail the experiences of two notable early researchers, Thomas Wyatt Bagshawe and Maxime Charles Lester, who spent over a year in the early 1920s on a tiny island studying penguins, as well as the history of the knowledge of and study of these penguins. The Adelie penguin was named for the wife of the French Antarctic explorer Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont d'Urville, while gentoo might derive from an anglicized version of the Portuguese "gentio" ("gentile"), a name used by Muslims in India to describe Hindus (also the Hindi word "jantu" means "creature" or "insect").
So what did Naveen learn? Though the three species are hardly endangered, populations of all three are declining. Though the Adelie are in part declining from a reduction in their favored pack-ice feeding grounds, all three species are declining due to declining krill populations because of a reduction in sea ice. Krill use winter sea ice as nurseries, safe havens where the larvae can feed on algal blooms, safe from penguins, seals, and whales. Additionally, excess UV-B radiation through a diminished ozone layer may be depressing phytoplankton stocks - krill food - by as much as 20%.
A wonderful book that is both great nature writing and travel writing and has great color photographs, my only complaint was the lack of maps.
March 13, 2021
Penguins...Antarctic penguins...this book is about the author's work and passion...Antarctic penguins. It is a delight to read and will tell you everything you ever wanted to know (and might not have wanted to know,) about the breeding seasons of Antarctic penguins. But of course, tied to the penguins, is the health and vibrancy of the Antarctic peninsula...which is tied to the health and vibrancy of all of us...humans, penguins, and all!
March 27, 2022
3.5 stars. The guy clearly knows his penguins - he’s unabashedly obsessed, and that’s fine. At times, I was thoroughly engaged with the book but overall the writing made it a bit of a slog. I most enjoyed the historical perspectives he provides, but honestly if I hadn’t recently returned from my own trip-of-a-lifetime to Antarctica, I don’t think I could have mustered the will to finish it.
June 19, 2014
So far , for me it is hard to visualize the magnificent views if these different areas and islands. This has got to be quite the task to go in and collect data in all kinds of conditions and not knowing how much time is available etc. this book is interesting however
July 26, 2023
Great book, although it was a bit of a slow start. I re read the beginning of the book through into the first chapter after I finished it and I recommend that extra step, if you find it a slow start...
January 25, 2010
Insomnia, meet your match.
Read
August 9, 2013I got part way through it and never finished.
September 23, 2013
Not the most exciting writing but if you have an obsession with penguins this book is enthralling.
August 19, 2016
Review to come.
September 9, 2023
Loved the info and the content of the anecdotes. Hated the self-important attempts at poetic language.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews