(light music) (birds chirping)
It's a sight few get to see.
(water splashing)
This is Greece.
(wind whistling)
From Mount Olympus, to the pelican lakes.
(pelicans squawking)
A kingdom inhabited by the big,
the small, and the pushy. (bug crunching)
(air whooshing) (bird squawking)
(dramatic electronic music)
Untouched nature at the heart of Europe.
(dramatic music)
(light dramatic music)
Mountains make up more than three quarters
of the Greek mainland.
These peaks reach a height of nearly 3,000 meters,
where temperatures drop to minus 20.
(birds chirping)
Down in the valley, one place never completely freezes,
Lake Kerkini. (pelicans squawking)
This is where pelicans come for the winter.
There's plenty of prey to last them through to the spring.
(water splashing)
A pelican needs at least a kilo of fish a day.
That takes cooperation with the cormorants.
They dive and pelicans scoop the frightened fish
into their punches.
The cormorants snap up the fleeing survivors.
(birds squawking)
Gulls fly above.
Waiting for the right moment to swoop for the pickings.
(water splashing)
There's plenty for all.
(pelicans squawking)
But why not take your neighbor's?
It may not be that easy.
(water splashing)
(pelicans squawking)
And then find a perfect spot to dry off,
and celebrate in the sun.
(pelican honking)
Dalmatian pelicans have hairy heads.
That's how you recognize them.
But they keep the rest of their feathers perfectly groomed
and oiled for the twin tasks of swimming and flying.
(birds squawking)
A pelican leaves.
Winter is over.
(water splashing)
Within days, all have departed.
(wings flapping)
Heavy birds need their three meter wingspan.
They'll fly 200 kilometers westwards
to higher breeding grounds now free of ice.
(light dramatic music)
Beneath them the rivers flow,
bringing snow melts to the valleys.
(waterfall trickling)
They fly over the forests of the Pindus Mountains,
a last refuge for brown bears.
(bears growling) (birds chirping)
After their hibernation,
a female and her cubs are on the lookout for food.
The cubs keep eye contact, so as not to be left behind.
(birds chirping)
Their mother keeps an eye on them too.
(bear cub groaning)
(bear sniffing)
Constantly testing for food or for the scent of others.
Tree climbing isn't just a game.
It can save a young bear's life.
(bear cub growling)
Fully grown bears can't climb trees.
(birds chirping)
(shrubs rustling)
(bear growling) (ominous music)
There's danger in the air.
An adult male is nearby.
If this bear encounters the family, the cubs are in danger.
He could kill them.
(bear panting)
The cubs hide deep in the woods.
(woodpecker tapping)
The female is the last to leave.
She surrenders the clearing to the intruder.
(bear panting)
(water trickling) (gentle music)
A grass snake emerged from hibernation
takes its first drink in many months.
(soft harp music)
It seeks its prey on land and in the water.
(water trickling)
Alternating heat and cold
helps regulate its body temperature.
(light music)
Humans have to build bridges here,
where water cuts its own way through the limestone.
The flight of the pelicans is nearly over.
The reed beds of Lake Prespa are an ideal breeding site.
By March, 1,500 pairs, the world's largest colony,
have arrived to raise their young.
First, it's time to repair or build their nests.
It's the reeds they come for, and sometimes struggle with.
(light music)
(water splashing)
The nesting island gets bigger and bigger,
but it's always full.
(birds squawking)
The female adds the last touches for her precious eggs.
(wings flapping)
It's a tight fit in the colony.
Males and females together settle down to wait.
It'll be at least 30 days before the chicks
are ready to hatch. (birds squawking)
(gentle music)
100 kilometers to the south is the Vikos Gorge.
Very narrow and up to 1,000 meters deep,
it's one of the deepest gorges in the world.
Embedded in its steep sides is a tree,
at once familiar and very rare; the horse chestnut.
The ice age killed this tree throughout Europe.
It's survived only here.
Humans brought it back to decorate parks and gardens.
These are the last wild examples.
(light dramatic music) (birds chirping)
The call of a western rock nuthatch.
A male is calling for a female.
(birds chirping)
But she's too busy digging for food.
(beak tapping) (light playful music)
So he returns to some vertical hunting.
The tastiest morsels are in damp crevices or under stones.
And when he finds something, he brings it to her.
First, she rejects the gift.
And then, she relents.
They built clay nests in hollows in the cliff face,
architectural masterpieces.
The opening is perfectly engineered.
So that squeezing in expels a little unwanted dust.
Now it's time for a little spring cleaning.
(light playful music continues)
In between shifts, there's a chance to hunt.
The fire bug's bright pattern signals that it's inedible.
So it strolls across the rock without a care in the world.
Big mistake, the nuthatch gets the bug,
but he doesn't eat it.
He builds with it.
Mashed up, it'll harden to fill holes
and cracks in the nest.
Protein and chitin combine to a perfect cement.
(beaks tapping)
Female and male work as a team.
Every now and then, time for a quick snack.
This work will continue for generations.
(light music)
Central Greece has another world famous rock scape.
Meteora's sandstone cliffs.
They raise the Meteora monasteries
up to 300 meters into the sky.
The monasteries were built from the 11th
to the 16th centuries by monks seeking peace and security.
An Egyptian vulture strolls at the foot of the cliffs.
(light music)
It's attracted by the remains of a sheep.
But it came here to breed in a niche in the rock wall.
It needs peace and security too.
There used to be 50 breeding pairs here.
This is the last breeding couple.
There's one other male here, but he has no partner.
Sighting a passing herd of goats,
the male in the nest sets out.
(goats baaing)
Down below the goats are busy remodeling the landscape.
They'll eat everything and dispose of what they don't need.
(goat droppings thudding)
In this harsh landscape, dung is an essential resource.
(wind whistling)
It's in demand from different quarters,
for different reasons.
Food, yes.
But goat dung contains carotenoid,
the substance that makes vultures' faces orange.
And an orange face is more attractive to females.
From feces to faces.
And there's another winged poo predator.
Someone else needs the poo just as urgently.
(beetle buzzing)
A dung beetle.
Distance is no object.
Work starts straight away.
(goats baaing)
First, get to the warm, soft interior.
Then, sculpt it into a ball.
When another beetle comes along, fight for your spot.
(beetles rustling)
Trouble is, more are coming.
A fast worker leaves.
Peace again.
(ominous music)
Head down, he wheelbarrows backwards.
Scoffing at obstacles.
(ominous music continues)
A living Sisyphus.
Sometimes he rolls the ball.
Sometimes the ball rolls him.
(ominous music continues)
But he's not unobserved.
(suspenseful music)
A sheltopusik, a legless reptile,
at one and a half meters, Europe's longest lizard.
A dung beetle would make a welcome snack.
(bird cawing) (light flute music)
This is a European roller.
It's an insect eater too.
The dung beetle has found the perfect place for its stash;
to eat it, store it, and lay eggs in it.
(light dramatic music)
Just time for one last trip.
(dramatic electronic music)
To the roller's nesting hole in a clay cob wall.
(light dramatic music)
Pleasantly cool in summer,
the clay wall offers perfect breeding conditions.
(birds squawking)
Generations of birds have hammered
and scooped out homes here.
(birds chirping)
Including other insect hunters like these bee eaters.
And they won't say no to a butterfly.
For these acrobats, and midair transfer is nothing.
There's a clear pecking order here.
The top notch is reserved for the little owls,
clever enough to claim the best view.
(ominous music)
They keep themselves to themselves.
Beneath them, are the jackdaws;
sociable birds that like having neighbors.
(playful music)
They're playful and clever.
For them, the whole wall is a playground.
They enjoy exploring in groups.
One destination is the vultures' nest.
The female sitting on her eggs has no choice
but to tolerate them.
Meanwhile, the solitary male vulture
has also entered the pair's territory.
The expectant father immediately attacks his rival.
(dramatic music) (vultures squawking)
The interloper stands his ground.
But the father has defended his nest and his brood
for one more year.
(gentle music)
Beneath the monasteries,
there lives an alien looking creature.
The Empusa is a kind of praying mantis,
perfectly adapted to its surrounding.
(gentle music)
It keeps its weapons, it's spiked forelegs,
in perfect condition.
The Empusa only eats flying insects.
A bee's sting holds no fear for it.
And it starts to munch from the opposite head end.
(light eerie music)
A bush cricket rocks back and forth,
imitating the wind in the grass.
The Empusa prepares its weapons.
(bugs chirping)
But with a one-armed grab, (suspenseful music)
the hunter becomes the hunted.
(bug crunching)
The sheltopusik is still searching for prey.
(suspenseful music)
As the cricket rocks on.
This is the cricket's threat posture;
spiked arms raised, ready to attack.
But scale is against it.
(suspenseful music)
(cricket crunching)
It could have fought off a smaller enemy.
(dramatic music)
(uplifting music)
This is a landscape fit for the gods.
The peak of Mount Olympus, the Throne of Zeus.
(uplifting music)
It's formed of layers of rock forced upwards
over the last 60 million years.
Here, almost 3,000 meters above sea level,
they say the sun only shines when the gods descend
to the mortal world.
Or when they return.
Attracting masses of clouds and damp air,
Olympus is usually shrouded in vapor and fog.
On a plateau 500 meters down the mountainside,
enough fresh grass and wild herbs grow
to feed the rare Balkan chamois.
(light music)
All they will need to survive the burning Greek summer.
Just 200 of this rare sub species
live in Olympus National Park.
(chamois grunting)
The young cavort happily in the meadows.
(grass rustling)
What looked like fun is also training for life on the steep,
rocky slopes of Mount Olympus.
(wind whistling)
In the Pindus Mountains, two bear cubs emerge
from the edge of the woods, attracted by the lush meadows.
Cubs rarely appear on their own like this.
If something has happened to their mother,
their outlook is bleak.
The two great dangers they face are human beings
and adult male bears.
(bees buzzing)
(birds chirping)
That's a new sound to a young bear,
a corn bunting loudly claiming its territory.
No danger from that quarter.
But every bit of experience helps.
A red fox has spotted the two of them.
The bears have picked up the fox's scent.
Now they are less sure, better to leave the meadow
to the unknown interloper.
(light jazz music)
Just like the bears, the Hermann's tortoise
likes fresh, juicy greenery.
For most of the year,
tortoises are very laid back creatures.
But now, there's something in the air.
The male has picked up the scent of a female.
(swanky jazz music)
It's mating time.
Not easy for the smaller male to keep up with the female.
And if she lowers her shell, that means no.
He doesn't give up.
The underside of his shell, the plastron,
is concave to stop him sliding off.
His calls stimulate the female.
(tortoise squeaking)
The faster and higher he squeaks, the better.
(tortoise squeaking)
When she's had enough, she simply moves on.
(swanky jazz music)
(birds chirping) (light music)
Early morning on Kerkini Lake.
As soon as the sun appears,
the cormorants leave for the hunt.
(wings flapping)
(water splashing)
Back in the breeding grounds,
many species build their nests close together.
Families await the hunters' return.
(birds squawking)
If the male cormorant doesn't come back from the hunt,
it means certain death for the young.
The female must stay on the nest,
shielding them from the sun.
Even from this high vantage point, there's no sign of him.
(light eerie music)
(birds squawking)
The cormorants are still gathered in their hunting flock,
forcing the shoals of fish ahead of them.
(birds squawking) (water splashing)
It was a good days hunting,
and the young can have their share.
(light music)
On Prespa Lake, the young dalmatian pelicans
are well on the way to adulthood.
Still their parents have to look after them.
They can't hunt on their own yet.
And even swimming can be a challenge.
Among the tousle-headed dalmatian pelicans,
and great white pelican drifts past.
They share the same nesting areas.
(light music)
These great white pelican chicks are just two weeks old.
When the parental bill nears,
an infant beak gapes expectantly.
A semicircle of white pelicans gather to fish.
They forced the prey before them,
and scoop them into their bills.
They transport them to the nest in their stomachs.
And then, regurgitate them for their chicks.
On the shore of Lake Kerkini,
little egrets hunt on their own;
using their long, thin legs to dislodge prey from the mud.
(birds squawking)
A young egret stimulates its mother to bring up its meal.
But its sibling grabs it and swallows the lot.
In the communal nesting area, overcrowding can cause crises.
(dramatic music)
The spoonbill nest is the scene of a serious squabble.
A glossy ibis has designs on their nest and he's well armed.
(dramatic music)
Normal family life is disrupted.
The ibis stages a sit-in.
(birds squawking) (dramatic music)
Violence flairs.
The ibis the female spoonbill away, exposing the chicks.
(suspenseful music)
The spoonbill chicks stretch their necks far out
of the nest to protect their heads.
(birds chirping) (dramatic music)
The chicks are defenseless and could be badly injured.
The ibis doesn't let up until it's won.
(suspenseful music)
This is how you collect nest material.
But the spoonbill father prefers a shortcut.
The male and female build a new nest for their young.
(bright music)
Before long they're together in their new home.
(light music)
The tortoise is looking for a place to lay her eggs.
Somewhere she can dig.
Somewhere out of the sun.
Her back legs scrape and shovel,
making a hole where the eggs will be warm,
but not too warm.
(gentle music)
Every now and then she has a rest.
Then she lays three to six hard-shelled eggs.
The eggs are about the size of table tennis balls.
They'll hatch in two to three months.
(gentle music)
In the dense forests of the Pindus Mountains,
the mating season of the brown bears is beginning.
For a whole year, males and females have had nothing
to do with one another.
In June, males start to seek out receptive females.
Once he's found her, he won't leave her side.
He plays it cool, just staying there feeding beside her.
(gentle music)
But he's always alert for possible arrivals
he'll have to repel.
There's little foreplay.
And if they do mate, the male will not be there
to raise his offspring.
The mother does that alone.
Greece's last umbrella pine forest
is in the Peloponnese in the southwest of the country.
Once this forest covered a vast area,
now it's just a few square kilometers.
The forest harbors at dark secret.
(ominous music)
This mole cricket is alive,
impaled on a thorn by a woodchat shrike.
No bigger than a sparrow, the shrike has a hooked beak,
like a bird of prey.
It dismembers its still wriggling victim.
That makes it easier to eat.
(light dramatic music)
When there's more than enough to eat,
the shrike lays in supplies.
These killing fields are a sign of a healthy ecosystem.
Some of the prey serves as wedding gifts.
Soon, they'll start building their nest.
Dusk in the pine forest. (crickets chirping)
(light eerie music)
A Syrian spadefoot toad awakes.
It waited out the daylight hours underground.
In the glow of the full moon, it sets out to hunt.
(light music)
(leaves rustling)
Frogs and toads don't just use their eyes to see;
with no muscles for swallowing,
they use their eyes to push food into their stomachs.
Before daybreak, the spadefoot digs its way back underground
to avoid both dehydration and its enemies.
At the same moment, a baby tortoise emerges from its shell.
(gentle music)
It's alone from day one,
constantly coping with new situations.
(gentle music)
It's never seen an ant before,
but that's just a minor irritation.
But then it meets a real monster.
This Hermann's tortoise is 70 years old
and weighs one and a half kilos.
The little one will need a while to catch up.
So, it had better start eating.
Even that has to be learned.
It isn't so easy getting a grip on smooth leaves.
(gentle music)
Finally, it's done it, the first meal of its life.
(wind whistling) (light eerie music)
(birds chirping)
Autumn, Greece's oldest forest is in Rhodope Mountains,
close to the northern border with Bulgaria.
This forest has been spared the ax.
On the cliff sides,
the Balkan chamois are preparing for winter.
They're building up fat reserves.
They already have their warm winter coats.
The kids that were born in spring are mostly weaned,
but a few still want the security of their mother's milk.
Chamois are real mountain specialists,
their heart and their lungs are well-developed
for high altitude living.
(light music)
They can run at 50 kilometers an hour
in the most extreme rock scapes.
The power of the sun is gone.
Winter takes over.
(light dramatic music)
The Pindus Mountains can have up to two meters of snow.
The pelicans leave Prespa Lake.
It'll soon freeze over.
They'll return to their winter quarters on Kerkini Lake.
Vikos Canyon is icy, cold and quiet.
Even the rock nuthatch has stopped singing.
(light dramatic music)
The bear cub sees his first snow.
The female and her young consumed the last acorns,
beechnuts and chestnuts.
They'll need their fat reserves in the long winter.
(bear growling)
Soon, their hibernation will begin,
in their cave deep in the wilderness of the Vikos Canyon.
(light dramatic music)