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Andrew Scott narrates a special programme which celebrates winter and explores how animals and plants rise to the challenges it brings. With their world encased in snow and ice, animals must find the most inventive ways to survive and even benefit from the cold. Caribou become ice road travellers as it gets slippery underfoot, stoats make their own fur bedding, and snow monkeys find a warm bath. Emperor penguins are built for the cold weather, but even they must find their own tricks to endure the world's most savage winter.
S1E3 • Earth's Seasonal Secrets • 2016 • Nature
Sir David Attenborough chooses his favourite recordings from the natural world that have revolutionised our understanding of song. Each one - from the song of the largest lemur to the song of the humpback whale to the song of the lyrebird - was recorded in his lifetime. When Sir David was born, the science of song had already been transformed by Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual selection: singing is dangerous as it reveals the singer’s location to predators, but it also offers the male a huge reward, the chance to attract a female and pass on genes to the next generation. Hence males sing and females don't. Today, new science in the field of birdsong is transforming those long-held ideas. Scientists are discovering that, in fact, in the majority of all songbird species, females sing - and it is only now they are being properly heard. Through this revelation and others, we can understand that animal songs are marvelous examples of the spectacular survival strategies that species have developed in order to stay alive.
2021 • Nature
David Attenborough journeys to both Polar Regions to investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the people and wildlife that live there and for the rest of the planet. David starts out at the North Pole, standing on sea ice several metres thick, but which scientists predict could be Open Ocean within the next few decades. The Arctic has been warming at twice the global average, so David heads out with a Norwegian team to see what this means for polar bears. He comes face-to-face with a tranquilised female, and discovers that mothers and cubs are going hungry as the sea ice on which they hunt disappears. In Canada, Inuit hunters have seen with their own eyes what scientists have seen from space; the Arctic Ocean has lost 30% of its summer ice cover over the last 30 years. For some, the melting sea ice will allow access to trillions of dollars worth of oil, gas and minerals. For the rest of us, it means the planet will get warmer, as sea ice is important to reflect back the sun's energy. Next David travels to see what's happening to the ice on land: in Greenland, we follow intrepid ice scientists as they study giant waterfalls of meltwater, which are accelerating iceberg calving events, and ultimately leading to a rise in global sea level. Temperatures have also risen in the Antarctic - David returns to glaciers photographed by the Shackleton expedition and reveals a dramatic retreat over the past century. It's not just the ice that is changing - ice-loving adelie penguins are disappearing, and more temperate gentoo penguins are moving in. Finally, we see the first ever images of the largest recent natural event on our planet - the break up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, an ice sheet the size of Jamaica, which shattered into hundreds of icebergs in 2009.
S1E7 • Frozen Planet • 2011 • Nature
Asia - the most varied and extreme continent - stretching from the Arctic Circle to the equator. Walrus gather in huge numbers in the frozen north and brown bears roam remote Russian volcanoes. This is a world of the rarely seen, from yeti-like monkeys in the mountain forests of China to the most bizarre predator in the baking deserts of Iran. Asia is the largest of all continents but it seems there’s not enough space for wildlife. The deep jungles provide sanctuary for the last few Sumatran rhino.
S1E2 • Seven Worlds, One Planet • 2019 • Nature
In the first episode, the team uncover the hidden lives of three iconic animals. In the Kalahari Desert the team put cameras on wild meerkats for the first time, allowing scientists to finally understand what these miniature mammals get up to underground. Heading to Cameroon, Gordon works with scientist Mimi Swift, who is desperate to understand whether Kimbang, a four-year-old orphan chimp, has the skills she needs to be able to join a chimp family living wild in the forest. Leaving Africa for Argentina, the team have penguins carry tiny cameras far out to sea on an epic journey of up to 300 kilometres (200 miles). For the first time, scientists are able to see the tactics these charismatic characters use to catch their prey.
S1E1 • Animals with Cameras • 2018 • Nature
It really is a big bad world out there. So what happens if you are the little guy? This film tells the epic survival stories of the world's smallest animals. To make a living, these tiny heroes have evolved extraordinary skills and achieved mind-boggling feats. From the animal kingdom's greatest artist to the tiny creatures that provide us with so much of the air we breathe, we discover what it takes to be a miniature miracle.
2017 • Nature