Big Blue • 2017 • episode "S1E4" • Blue Planet II

Category: Nature

The big blue is the world's greatest wilderness, far from shore and many kilometres deep. It's a vast marine desert where there is little to eat and nowhere to hide. Yet it's home to some of the biggest and most spectacular creatures on earth. This episode reveals what it takes to survive in this savage and forbidding world. We witness feats of incredible endurance, moments of high drama and extraordinary acts of heart-wrenching self-sacrifice. Every animal in the big blue must find their own unique way to survive.

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Blue Planet II • 2017 - 2018 • 8 episodes •

One Ocean

In recent years, our knowledge of life beneath the waves has been transformed. Using cutting-edge technology, One Ocean takes us on a journey from the intense heat of the tropics to our planet's frozen poles to reveal new worlds and extraordinary never-before-seen animal behaviours.

2017 • Nature

Take a Deep Breath

Take a Deep Breath

The deep is perhaps the most hostile environment on earth, at least to us - a world of crushing pressure, brutal cold and utter darkness. We have barely begun to explore it, and yet it is the largest living space on the planet. Scientists already think that there is more life in the deep than anywhere else on earth. This episode takes us on an epic journey into the unknown, a realm that feels almost like science fiction. We discover alien worlds, bizarre creatures and extraordinary new behaviours never seen before. We encounter savage hordes of Humboldt squid hunting lanternfish in the depths and coral gardens flourishing in absolute darkness, with more species of coral to be found in the deep than on shallow tropical reefs.. Narrated by David Attenborough,

2017 • Nature

Coral Reefs

Coral reefs are home to a quarter of all marine species. Survival in these undersea mega-cities is a challenge with many different solutions. A turtle heads to the reef's equivalent of a health spa - but she must use trickery to avoid the queue. A remarkable Grouper uses the fish equivalent of sign language to collaborate with an octopus, flushing their prey out of hiding holes. A metre-long, ferocious-jawed Bobbit Worm hides in its tunnel. Monocle Bream retaliate by squirting water to expose its sandy lair.

2017 • Nature

Big Blue

The big blue is the world's greatest wilderness, far from shore and many kilometres deep. It's a vast marine desert where there is little to eat and nowhere to hide. Yet it's home to some of the biggest and most spectacular creatures on earth. This episode reveals what it takes to survive in this savage and forbidding world. We witness feats of incredible endurance, moments of high drama and extraordinary acts of heart-wrenching self-sacrifice. Every animal in the big blue must find their own unique way to survive.

2017 • Nature

Green Seas

Footage of wildlife inhabiting underwater kelp forests, including thousands of giant cuttlefish spawning along a restricted area of rocky reef off the south coast of Australia. Males outnumber females 11 to one, which leads to fierce competition. Larger males use brute force to drive off competition, while their smaller rivals use deception by mimicking the appearance of females. The programme also features tiger sharks hunting for green turtles in fields of seagrass and spider crabs trying to avoid predators while they shed their shells.

2017 • Nature

Coasts

At the coast, two worlds collide. Coasts is the story of how our Blue Planet’s wildlife survives in this ever changing world. It’s a roller-coaster ride of heart stopping action and epic drama, with characters from beautiful to bizarre. This episode is a rollercoaster ride of heart-stopping action and epic drama, peopled with characters from the beautiful to the bizarre. We meet fish that live on dry land and puffins that must travel 60 miles or more for a single meal, and witness a life-and-death struggle in a technicolour rock pool.

2017 • Nature

Our Blue Planet

Our Blue Planet

Blue Planet II explores parts of the ocean that nobody has ever visited, encountered extraordinary animals, and discovered new insights into life beneath the waves. In Our Blue Planet, Sir David Attenborough examines the impact of human life on life in the ocean. In this final episode, we uncover the impact that our modern lives are having on our best-loved characters from across the series, including devoted albatross parents unwittingly feeding their chicks discarded plastic and mother dolphins potentially exposing their newborn calves to pollutants through their contaminated milk. Scientists have even discovered that increasing noise levels may stop baby clownfish finding their way home.

2017 • Nature

Oceans of Wonder

Oceans of Wonder

This extended special of the nature documentary series journeys from the equator to the unexplored depths, meeting the best-loved characters from the series.

2018 • Nature

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Born Equal

The second episode of Andrew Marr's exploration of Darwin explores the impact of Darwin’s ideas on society and politics. Darwin’s first port of call on the Beagle was Salvador in Brazil – then a major port for the international slave trade. His experience there confirmed his enlightenment views of liberty and progress and his hatred of slavery. But his theory of evolution that began to take root on that epic voyage would describe a world of conflict, ruthless competition and struggle. It would be taken up and abused by some of the most reactionary movements of the late-19th and 20th centuries. The phrase “survival of the fittest” would help propel Darwin’s theory as a scientific justification for eugenics, enforced sterilisation and genocide. But after the Second World War, Darwin’s theory finds redemption in the United Nations statement on race which confirms Darwin’s long-held view that all humans are members of the same race and deserving of equal treatment. This is further reinforced in the extraordinary work of a small Jewish community in New York who used DNA testing and a voluntary and anonymous form of selective breeding to eliminate a debilitating disease from the Jewish community. DNA testing is the final frontier of Darwin’s Dangerous idea. But the lessons from history suggest that the new choices we face about what to do with the knowledge Darwin has given us when combined with genetics and DNA testing remains a major social and political challenge.

S1E2 • Darwin's Dangerous Idea • 2009 • Nature

Madeira: Island Ark

Madeira: Island Ark

Fortey travels to Madeira to examine what happens to a volcanic island as it nears the end of its life-cycle and starts sinking back into the sea. Here, in the island's laurisilva forest, he examines the remains of an ancient forest that once carpeted all of Europe, finds island lizards that live to be four times older than their mainland counterparts, and meets a huge wolf spider. With the help of local divers, he also discovers an unexpectedly rich marine habitat populated by whales, dolphins and unusual deep-sea species that have much to tell us about the changing nature of our seas.

Part 3 • Nature's Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution • 2016 • Nature

Chasing the Wind

Chasing the Wind

Discover how humans have partnered with the horse throughout the centuries, creating more than 350 breeds found all around the world.

S1E2 • Equus Story of the Horse • 2019 • Nature

Nature's Misfits

Nature's Misfits

Bill Bailey introduces a delightfully eccentric cast of creatures that have chosen to do things differently. Odd, unconventional and unusual - these are animals that don't normally grab the limelight. They include the parrot that has forgotten how to fly, the bear that has turned vegetarian, a chameleon that is barely bigger than an ant, and a penguin that lives in a forest. Nature's Misfits reveals the extraordinary and rarely seen lives of these evolutionary oddballs along with their strange habitats, unusual forms and the incredible hurdles they overcome.

Natural World • 2014 • Nature

Easter Island Origins

Easter Island Origins

They are some of the most famous and mysterious monuments on the planet. Nearly 900 giant stone heads scattered across a remote island in the middle of the Pacific. Now, brand new evidence is challenging everything we thought we knew about Easter Island’s awe-inspiring statues – and those who made them. Drawing on the latest science, this authoritative documentary radically rewrites the story of Easter Island.

2024 • Nature

Oceans & Australia

Oceans & Australia

Ch1. Oceans In Cape Verde, Gordon starts the adventure with a look at one of the world's largest populations of nesting loggerhead turtles. He then heads to the Bahamas with Caribbean reef sharks, California to see young elephant seals and the British Isles to attach featherweight cameras to a squadron of gannets. Ch2. Australia In New South Wales, Gordon encounters a marsupial facing a complex set of challenges when he meets a population of kangaroos that are being pushed to the very brink by a coastal development boom. How are they surviving on the edge of this urban expansion? Gordon meets the scientists driven to find out more about what the roos are feeding on as they are pushed onto the coastal fringes. As we become immersed in their world, we get a better understanding of kangaroos' social lives and the impact of human encroachment on their diet. In southern Australia, we head to Adelaide, where one of the team's toughest challenges yet is to create the lightest of cameras to find out what the lure of the big city is to a colony of newly arrived fruit bats. Their appearance is a bit of a puzzle. Are they a threat to the local commercial fruit crops or have they found other ways to adapt to city life? For the first time ever, the fruit bats take our cameras up above the cityscape, showing us a unique view of their nocturnal worlds while providing information crucial to their future. In Queensland, we help scientists find out if koalas really deserve their dozy daytime reputation when we join researchers at a reserve to discover some incredible revelations surrounding their night-time manoeuvres. The team's tech allows us to shadow them after sundown, unveiling their remarkable agility and surprising navigational skills. Specially designed with tree-hugging in mind, koalacams offer an insight which could help koalas as we find out what they need to survive - not just here, but elsewhere in the country.

S2E1E2 • Animals with Cameras • 2021 • Nature