Dunedin biologist Lloyd Spencer Davis' latest book is on one of his favourite subjects: the bird that swims like a fish, writes Shane Gilchrist.
Lloyd Spencer Davis' fascination with penguins has taken him to many extraordinary places, including the Antarctic, the Galapagos Islands, Chile, Peru, Argentina, the Falkland Islands and South Africa. Yet it's a journey that has also required him to look both deep within himself as well as consider a wider view.
The Dunedin biologist has this week published Professor Penguin, in which he balances a plethora of research with anecdotes based on journals he has kept in a career spanning more than 35 years.
Scientific rigour might have required Davis to maintain a dispassionate distance from his subject at times, but the story-teller in him (he is, after all, also a film-maker and director of the Centre for Science Communication at the University of Otago) cannot help but join a few narrative dots as well as revel in nature's nuances.
Indeed, a book entry in which Davis describes one occasion in the Antarctic says plenty:''It was somehow life-affirming, to sit there before the silent pack-ice, the raucous penguins and the killer whales and to be confronted by the thought that all this splendour, all this thing we call life, was indeed so splendid that it defied description, defied our attempts to render it as numbers on a sheet.
''It was enough to know that this was life, that in that half-hour we had been touched by something fundamental about the world and about evolution itself. Life is so much more than the sum of its parts.''
On the eve of another departure, this time to China for a series of talks on science communication, Davis emphasises that despite the importance of ''putting numbers on paper'', it's also important to simply pause and enjoy certain moments.
''It is a reality check I made sure I did now and again. When you are on a scientific expedition you can be very absorbed in what you are doing ... And a moment like that, with the killer whales, that just stops you in your tracks.
''You can't do anything but look. Then you realise how much you don't know.''
Davis admits the title of his book, Professor Penguin might imply he's top of his field, but he prefers to see himself as part of a faculty, ''one of many Professor Penguins''. Certainly, he devotes no shortage of pages to other researchers, particularly those who have influenced him both personally and professionally.
''There were definitely other people I could have approached and asked to be in the book. The people I included, for the most part, are those who have had a significant effect on me.
''I asked around and they were all very generous with their time, giving me their life's research and stories.''
However, Davis says his raison d'etre for Professor Penguin was not to satisfy other scientists.
''Those people already have access to papers and academic books on penguins that I've written. This book is more aimed at the general reader who wants a good story that will entertain and intrigue them. Thus a range of scientific thrusts, from evolutionary streamlining to feeding to courtship, even the visceral intricacies of copulation (''I hope it's handled in a way that's not too salacious ...''
) are placed alongside a more personalised voice.
''Science is fed into it, but perhaps in a way that is not so obvious,'' Davis says.
''Such information could have been laid out in a cold, encyclopaedic form, but I didn't want that.''
At the risk of being obvious, the most striking thing about penguins - be they little blues, yellow-eyed, Emperor or otherwise - is that they cannot fly; caught between the need to solve the inevitable compromises of living in two worlds, the land and the sea, they look in some respects more like fish than birds.
Explaining this imperfect solution, Davis writes: ''Penguins did not really make an appearance on the Earth's scene until after the great extinction at the end of the Cretaceous when all the dinosaurs disappeared. This was before seals evolved, yet after the great reptiles of the sea went extinct. For a fish-eating bird, the sea must have looked like a large bowl of seafood chowder that had hardly been touched.
''Having become exclusively swimming and diving birds, penguins were free to get as large as they liked, which allowed them to swim further, fast for longer, and dive to greater depths to get food. Penguins evolved quickly, proliferating into a variety of forms.
''The feather survival suit of penguins, which evolved to withstand heat loss when immersed in the water, coincidentally allowed them to withstand the worst that could be thrown at them on land - even by Antarctic standards.''
Penguins and their human observers notwithstanding, Davis' book also celebrates the majesty of the Antarctic, from his first journey as a 20-something scientist to subsequent visits that always managed to both surprise and delight him.
''It's definitely the most beautiful place on Earth that I have ever been.
''I developed an unfathomable longing to go there, but it wasn't like I expected when I got there. It is undeniably harsh. You'd be a fool to treat it lightly, but it is so delicate in other ways.''
FACT FILE
Lloyd Spencer Davis holds the Stuart Chair in Science Communication at the University of Otago where, among other things, he teaches creative non-fiction writing.
He has been a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, an Anzac Fellowship and a Prince and Princess of Wales Science Award. He has also won awards for his writing, including the PEN (NZ) Best First Book Award for Non-fiction for Penguin: A Season in the Life of the Adelie Penguin.
His next book, The Plight of the Penguin, won Book of the Year at the 2002 NZ Post Children's Book Awards, as well as winning the non-fiction category at the same awards.
He received a CLL Writer's Award, New Zealand's most significant award for the support of non-fiction, for Looking for Darwin. His other publications include Smithsonian Q&A Penguins, commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution, and Penguins of New Zealand.
In addition, Davis has been a director and scriptwriter of natural history documentaries for more than 20 years. His internationally award-winning films include Eating like a Gannet, Under Galapagos and Meet the Real Penguins
