For the animals in the polar regions, autumn means dramatic battles and epic journeys. Time is running out - the Arctic Ocean is freezing over and the sea ice is advancing at 2.5 miles per day around Antarctica. Polar bears gather in large numbers on the Arctic coast as they wait for the return of the ice. Soon, tempers fray and violent sparring contests break out. Meanwhile 2,000 beluga whales head for one special estuary, a gigantic 'whale spa' where they will thrash their snow-white bodies against the gravel and exfoliate. Inland, the tundra undergoes a dramatic transformation from green to fiery red. Here, musk ox males slam head-first into each other with the force of a 30mph car crash as they struggle to defend their harems. Frisky young caribou males play a game of 'grandma's footsteps' as they try to steal the boss's female. Down in Antarctica, Adelie penguin chicks huddle together in creches. When a parent returns from fishing, it leads its twins on a comical steeplechase - sadly there's only enough for one, so the winner gets the meal. Two months later and the chicks are fully feathered apart from downy Mohican hairdos - they're ready to take their first swim - reluctantly though, as it seems penguins are not born with a love of water! And with good reason - a leopard seal explodes from the sea and pulls one from an ice floe, a hunting manoeuvre that has never been filmed before. As winter approaches and everyone has left, the giant emperor penguin arrives and makes an epic trek inland to breed. The mothers soon return to the sea leaving the fathers to hold the eggs and endure the coldest winter on earth.
4/7 • Frozen Planet • 2011 • Nature
This is the ultimate hidden kingdom - the urban jungle. In the colourful and chaotic streets of Rio, a young marmoset is separated from his street gang and forced to confront of the dangers of the city alone. In the futuristic metropolis of Tokyo, a rhinoceros beetle escapes his captors and begins an extraordinary journey through this alien world to find sanctuary.
3/3 • Hidden Kingdoms • 2014 • Nature
The great flood in the Okavango turns 4,000 square miles of arid plains into a wetland.
5/6 • Nature's Great Events • Nature
A look at how bats avoid bumping into each other at night; why a bottlenose dolphin seeks out the help of a scuba diver; are cicadas expert mathematicians.
S1E21 • Nature's Strangest Mysteries: Solved • 2019 • Nature
Making Of (Special Fly On The Wall inserts at the end of each programme will explore, in greater detail, how the BBC's Natural History Unit was able to capture such stunning footage for the first time.)
Extra • Life in the Undergrowth • 2005 • Nature
Explores how animals sense time and how some can alter their metabolism for survival.
