Land of Rivers • 2008 • episode "Part 3" • Hidden India

59:15

Members of the weasel family are often portrayed as the villains of the natural world, but do they deserve this reputation? By following the adventures of a tiny orphaned weasel named Twiz, this film reveals the true nature of these pocket-sized predators, which relative to their size have a bite more powerful than a tiger’s. In Yorkshire, a unique garden rigged with over 50 cameras gives a rare insight into the dramatic life of a mother stoat as she tries to raise her first family. And new science uncovers the problem-solving abilities of the honey badger, the secrets behind the ferret’s legendary flexibility, and the remarkable sense of smell of the wolverine. Together, using their extraordinary skills, this feisty and fearless family have conquered the planet.

Natural World • 2019 • Nature

29:03

Helen looks at volcanoes. With shocking eyewitness footage of eruptions, and new thermal imagery and ultra-high speed photography, we can now capture on camera the complex processes crucial to understanding how and why these forces of nature erupt.

Part 2 • Dangerous Earth • 2016 • Nature

46:27

Forty miles north of Honduras, near the Bay Island of Roatan, is a spectacular and pristinely preserved coral atoll: the Mesoamerican Reef. Explore the abundant and diverse marine life, lush vegetation, and magnificent caves of this rare underwater wonder.

3 • Great Blue Wild • 2017 • Nature

44:52

Oxygen – we all need it, we can't live without it. It's integral to life on this planet. And it's probable that, as you watch this film, you will be breathing in an oxygen atom that was also breathed by Genghis Khan – or by the first ever apes to stand upright on the plains of Africa. The oxygen that we breathe is made from two oxygen atoms joined together – O2. They were first joined more than 3 billion years ago by the earliest blue-green algae to evolve. The oxygen molecule first came from bacteria and was present in the fires that destroyed the dinosaurs and the chemical reactions in all human cells, and as ozone they protect the earth from radiation. Since then, both together and apart, they've had the most extraordinary adventures. Each of the two atoms in an oxygen molecule is virtually indestructible – so they have been first-hand players in some of the most dramatic events in the whole of Earth's history. It's often said that we are breathing the same oxygen that the cavemen did. The life of a single molecule of oxygen is traced on it's astonishing journey spanning millions of years, from its creation, into photosynthesis, through the age of the dinosaurs, early man, and on into today.

2008 • Nature

46:23

From mountain zebras to shy and secretive caracals, Karoo National Park showcases a diversity of creatures who have adapted to demanding environmental conditions. Scale the varying altitudes of this nature reserve's vast landscape.

S1E4 • Great Parks of Africa • 2017 • Nature

59:09

Today Earth is a human world, home to eight billion people and counting. Humans now have a greater effect in shaping Earth’s surface than many natural processes. In this episode, Chris Packham explores how dramatic twists in Earth’s story enabled humans to go from being part of nature to controlling it, and what we can learn from this epic tale before it’s too late. The story begins 66 million years ago with the catastrophic impact of the asteroid that wiped out the (Non-avian) dinosaurs. From the ashes of the desolation that followed, a new animal family rose to power. This was adaptable and inventive enough to emerge out of the harsh new world – the mammals. It began with a distant ancestor that shared many traits of the much maligned, but evolutionarily brilliant, rat. Due to a series of extreme geological and climatic events, mammals evolved into early primates feasting in the newly formed tropical rainforests, and then to early humans travelling vast distances between forests in places like East Africa’s Rift Valley. Earth’s story is a saga spanning 4.5 billion years, but it’s only in the last 11,000 years - with the rise of farming - that our species has started to dramatically impact our planet and its ecosystems. The human chapter of Earth’s story might end in disaster, but Chris is keen to argue for a different ending, where all of humanity’s achievements to date “…were just our dress rehearsals, because in the very near future our species will need to reach the zenith of its achievements and… all humanity will have to learn to put our Earth first.”

S1E5 • Earth: One Planet, Many Lives • 2023 • Nature