Nature's Great Events
Encyclopedia
Nature's Great Events is a wildlife documentary
series made for BBC television
, first shown in the UK on BBC One
and BBC HD
in February 2009. The series looks at how seasonal changes powered by the sun cause shifting weather patterns and ocean currents, which in turn create the conditions for some of the planet’s most spectacular wildlife events. Each episode focuses on the challenges and opportunities these changes present to a few key species.
Nature's Great Events was produced by the BBC Natural History Unit
in association with the Discovery Channel
and Wanda Films. The British version of the series was narrated by David Attenborough
. In the USA, the series was shown under the alternative title Nature's Most Amazing Events beginning on 29 May 2009 and was narrated by Hasani Issa. In Australia
, this program began airing on ABC1
each Sunday at 7:30pm from 14 June until 19 July, 2009.
The title Nature's Great Events was previously used by Reader's Digest
for a unrelated VHS
series released in 1996.
and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra
. Views of the earth from space, that illustrate the climatic events around the world, were created by design company Burrell Durrant Hifle incorporating NASA
photography.
may be affecting them. As luck would have it, the sardine run returned for the first time in three years and the team captured the shots they needed.
claimed a number of TV firsts achieved by the production team. Many of the filming techniques first used on Planet Earth
, such as the gyroscopically-stabilised
helicopter camera known as the Heligimbal, were adopted again, along with new technology. In "The Great Tide", some of the surface-water footage was shot from a boat-mounted stabilised camera, previously used in the Hollywood film industry. Innovations on "The Great Flood" included FrankenCam, a motion-control macro camera developed by Ammonite Films and capable of shooting extreme close-ups of tiny subjects. The team were also the first to film narwhals from the air and the first to reveal how grizzly bears use their feet to scoop up dead salmon from deep pools. The crew of "The Great Migration" had the good fortune of witnessing the first eruption of a Tanzania
n volcano in 40 years, and managed to shoot aerial footage of the event.
The opening episode shows how different species respond to the annual summer thaw of sea ice
in the Arctic
. The extent of the melt has been increasing in recent times, and this could be disastrous for polar bear
s. A mother emerges from her winter den with cubs, and leads them on to the sea ice to hunt. As the ice breaks up, the bears have difficulty walking and resort to swimming between floes. For others, it's a race to breed in the short summer season. When guillemot
s arrive at their nesting cliffs, the rocks are still cloaked in ice. A few short weeks later, the young launch themselves on their maiden flights, but those that crash before they reach open water present an easy meal for an Arctic fox
mother and her cubs. Aerial footage shows the arrival of belugas and narwhal
s at the edge of the sea ice. The narwhals navigate their way along leads, but can become trapped if the ice ahead is still unbroken. In the height of summer, large parts of the Arctic Ocean
are virtually ice-free, leaving some polar bears stranded on the few remaining iceberg
s. Those that reach dry land must wait for the winter ice to return before they can start hunting again. As the bears congregate, fights break out between the males. Nature's Great Events Diaries follows the camera team's attempts to locate narwhals in "Quest for Ice Whales".
The subject of the second programme is the annual salmon run
on the west coast of North America
. Hundreds of millions of Pacific salmon
return to the mountain streams in which they were born, where they will spawn and then die. Their passage upstream is fraught with danger, from rapids, waterfalls and hungry grizzly bear
s. The programme begins at the arrival of spring, with a grizzly mother leading her cubs down from their winter den in the Alaskan mountains. The bears congregate in the forested valleys, where they forage for whatever food they can find. Survival is tough for all, as shown by a pack of hungry wolves attacking an adult grizzly. It is not until July that the salmon arrive in great numbers. Other predators join the feast, including Orcas, Stellar sea Lions, Salmon sharks and the Bald headed Eagle. Those that make it past the bears risk becoming trapped in shallow reaches as the water level subsides. Relief comes as a summer storm replenishes the streams, triggered by moist ocean air rising over the coastal mountains. As they reach the spawning grounds, the salmon change body shape and colour in preparation for spawning. When it is over, the fish are close to exhaustion and they die en masse, providing an easy meal for birds and lingering bears. Their deaths are not in vain, for the nutrients from their decaying bodies help to fertilise the soil, sustaining the forests of tall pines. The diary piece, "Close Encounters of a Grizzly Kind", reveals how footage of the bears fishing using their feet was obtained.
The third instalment follows a year in the life of the Ndutu lion
pride, which occupies a territory on the short-grass plain
s of the Serengeti
. Their lives are dictated by the annual migration of one million wildebeest
and zebra
around the Serengeti. As the herds move north following the rains, the Ndutu pride's four lionesses and seven cubs are left behind to face the dry season without their main prey. The grass dies off leaving the lions without cover, making hunting what few animals remain even more difficult. The pride must keep moving to find food, but gradually the starving cubs weaken. A female cub and her brother, both in very poor condition, cannot keep up with the adults, and their fate seems sealed. However, when the pride is relocated the following month, the two cubs have somehow survived and been reunited with the adults. The lions face a further challenge as the active volcano
Ol Doinyo Lengai
erupts for the first time since 1967, raining ash down on the plains. These cyclical eruptions play a crucial role in the Serengeti ecosystem. The ash fertilises the earth, and with the arrival of the first storms, the plains become green and lush. The wildebeest herds return and give birth to their young, and the Ndutu pride can enjoy the good times again. In "Pride and Peril", the diary segment, cameraman Owen Newman's long and lonely vigil watching the Ndutu pride is rewarded with a story of hardship, loss and fortitude.
Along South Africa
's east coast, the right combination of winter weather and ocean current
s trigger the sardine run
, one of the most impressive events in the world's oceans. In recent years, the sardine run has become less predictable, for reasons which are still unclear, bringing into jeopardy an entire food chain
which it supports. The fourth programme follows the largest gathering of predators on the planet as they hunt down billions of sardine
s pinned to the cold water along the coast. They include Cape gannet
s, which time their breeding to coincide with the arrival of the huge sardine shoals. They are filmed at their breeding colony on Bird Island and in super slow motion
breaking the surface on their plunge dives. In the water, a super-pod of 5,000 common dolphin
s also hunts down the sardines. A 15-mile long shoal is located by the predators, and the ensuing feeding frenzy
is filmed from the air, the surface and underwater. Dolphins herd the sardines into the shallows, where they come within reach of the diving gannets. Thousands of shark
s arrive to join the attack, but the largest predator of all is the lunging Bryde's whale
. "Life on the Run" follows the fortunes of the film crew as they track the hunters. In 2007, the sardine run didn't happen at all, but their patience was rewarded the following year.
The fifth instalment is set in Botswana
, where the arid plains of the Kalahari are transformed into a lush wetland
by the annual flooding of the Okavango Delta
. The Okavango River
is charged by rain falling in the Angola
n highlands, but it is months before the water arrives at the delta. Meanwhile, thousands of animals follow ancient migration routes across the desert
, braving dehydration and punishing heat. New elephant behaviour is filmed as they skim their trunks delicately across the surface of a stagnant pool, siphoning clean water from the upper layers. The transformation of the desert into a green oasis is filmed using time-lapse
photography, whilst sequences shot with macro lenses show the changes in much finer detail. For the first time, vast clouds of dragonflies
are observed emerging to mate and lay their eggs. Larger animals make the most of the sudden riches the new landscape offers. Male hippo
s plough through the newly-formed waterways and battle for dominance, red lechwe
bound through the shallows and huge flocks of wading birds arrive to breed. Elephants and buffalo
face one final challenge before they reach the delta; a pride of hungry lions. The lions attack in broad daylight, bringing down an elephant calf. The making-of featurette, "Mission Impassable", follows the crew as they struggle to cross ever-deepening waters to reach and film the front line of the advancing flood.
The final episode features the summer plankton
bloom along the coast of British Columbia
and Alaska
. In winter, the coastal fjord
s and inlets are relatively lifeless, and the resident Steller sea lions must dive deeper and further from the coast to catch the widely-dispersed herring
. Humpback whale
s overwinter in the warm Pacific waters off Hawaii
, where new mothers suckle their calves. They begin their 3,000 mile journey north in early spring, when the sea lions also give birth to their young. Spring storms are a hazard for the sea lion colonies and some pups are inevitably lost, but these same storms disturb nutrients in the water which, together with the strengthening power of the sun, act as the catalysts for the plankton bloom. Huge shoals of herring arrive to spawn, turning the shallows milky white. The herring sift plankton from the water. In their wake come larger predators, including Pacific white-sided dolphin
s and killer whales. The latter are filmed attacking a male sea lion. Common murres dive under the herring shoals and pick off the fish from below, pinning them to the surface. Their defence is to form a bait ball
, but gull
s gathering on the surface attack them from above. The finale to the programme features unique underwater footage of humpbacks engulfing whole bait balls, and reveals their co-operative hunting behaviour called bubble-netting. The diary segment, "Swallowed by a Whale", looks at the challenges of filming the humpbacks and sea lions underwater.
.
The series received almost universal praise in the British press. Writing in The Guardian
of the scene in which a humpback whale swallows a shoal of herring, Lucy Mangan commented: "You can cradle your jaw safely in your lap for the rest of the evening, as you replay that moment in your mind's eye and reel at the slower but no less staggering evocation by the entire programme, the entire series, of the incredible force and fragility of it all." The sequence was also singled out by Tim Teeman in The Times
, who wrote "now that was a money shot. Nature's Great Events: "The Great Feast" was no mis-sale". He went on to describe it as "the most surprising bit of television this week" and "the most mind-blowing, horrific and beautiful sequence of film". The series also gained a very favourable review in The Scotsman
. Its critic Paul Whitelaw described it as "quite simply wonderful television. Visually stunning, immersive and mesmerising, it examined some of the most dramatic wildlife spectacles on Earth with characteristic verve and insight." He singled out praise for David Attenborough, noting that "even when he is merely narrating, [he] is quite brilliant at what he does, and I defy anyone to refute that."
Matt Warman of The Daily Telegraph
was complimentary about the "wealth of surprising, beautiful images", but criticised the series for its superficial treatment of environmental issues. Writing about the plight of polar bears highlighted in "The Great Melt", he commented "it was tempting to ask whether the rise of one species, man, and the decline of another could not be considered a sad part of evolution by natural selection... Nature's Great Events, however, chose not to engage with the debate."
Nature documentary
A natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat...
series made for BBC television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
, first shown in the UK on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
and BBC HD
BBC HD
BBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007...
in February 2009. The series looks at how seasonal changes powered by the sun cause shifting weather patterns and ocean currents, which in turn create the conditions for some of the planet’s most spectacular wildlife events. Each episode focuses on the challenges and opportunities these changes present to a few key species.
Nature's Great Events was produced by the BBC Natural History Unit
BBC Natural History Unit
The BBC Natural History Unit is a department of the BBC dedicated to making television and radio programmes with a natural history or wildlife theme, especially nature documentaries...
in association with the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
and Wanda Films. The British version of the series was narrated by David Attenborough
David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA is a British broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for more than 50 years...
. In the USA, the series was shown under the alternative title Nature's Most Amazing Events beginning on 29 May 2009 and was narrated by Hasani Issa. In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, this program began airing on ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
each Sunday at 7:30pm from 14 June until 19 July, 2009.
The title Nature's Great Events was previously used by Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
for a unrelated VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
series released in 1996.
Production team
The series was first unveiled as a co-production deal with independent Wanda Films, under the working title of Earth's Great Events. The title was subsequently revised and the Discovery Channel revealed as additional co-producers. The Natural History Unit’s production team includes series producer Karen Bass and executive producer Brian Leith. The score was composed by Barnaby Taylor and Ben Salisbury, orchestrated and conducted by William GoodchildWilliam Goodchild
William Goodchild is a composer, orchestrator and conductor who produces music for film, television and the concert hall.-Biography:...
and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra
BBC Concert Orchestra
The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five which is not a full-scale symphony orchestra....
. Views of the earth from space, that illustrate the climatic events around the world, were created by design company Burrell Durrant Hifle incorporating NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
photography.
Filming
Filming took place over a 25-month period, an unusually tight timescale for a natural history production of this scale. In some cases, the events were not guaranteed to occur every year, so working to such a rapid schedule meant that the film crews ran the risk of having nothing to film. Producer Karen Bass described the series as "a minor miracle, given the constraints of luck and timing - we were totally dependent on events happening when they were supposed to." One of the most challenging sequences to film was the climax of the "The Great Tide" episode, featuring aerial and underwater footage of dolphins, sharks and gannets attacking a sardine shoal. In 2007, the sardine run didn't take place, and after weeks of fruitless searching, the crew had to give up. The following year, there was a second and final opportunity. Just in case they were unsuccessful again, the producers devised an alternative sixth episode which would have explored the science behind seasonal changes, looking at how the "Great Events" are triggered and how environmental changeEnvironmental change
Environmental change is defined as a change or disturbance of the environment by natural ecological processes, and is described in the following articles:*Climate change*Environment...
may be affecting them. As luck would have it, the sardine run returned for the first time in three years and the team captured the shots they needed.
Television firsts
The BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
claimed a number of TV firsts achieved by the production team. Many of the filming techniques first used on Planet Earth
Planet Earth (TV series)
Planet Earth is a 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition...
, such as the gyroscopically-stabilised
Gyroscope
A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. In essence, a mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation...
helicopter camera known as the Heligimbal, were adopted again, along with new technology. In "The Great Tide", some of the surface-water footage was shot from a boat-mounted stabilised camera, previously used in the Hollywood film industry. Innovations on "The Great Flood" included FrankenCam, a motion-control macro camera developed by Ammonite Films and capable of shooting extreme close-ups of tiny subjects. The team were also the first to film narwhals from the air and the first to reveal how grizzly bears use their feet to scoop up dead salmon from deep pools. The crew of "The Great Migration" had the good fortune of witnessing the first eruption of a Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
n volcano in 40 years, and managed to shoot aerial footage of the event.
Episodes
1. "The Great Melt"
US title: "Arctic Summer"- Broadcast 11 February 2009, 3.68 million viewers (14.5% audience share)
The opening episode shows how different species respond to the annual summer thaw of sea ice
Sea ice
Sea ice is largely formed from seawater that freezes. Because the oceans consist of saltwater, this occurs below the freezing point of pure water, at about -1.8 °C ....
in the Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
. The extent of the melt has been increasing in recent times, and this could be disastrous for polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
s. A mother emerges from her winter den with cubs, and leads them on to the sea ice to hunt. As the ice breaks up, the bears have difficulty walking and resort to swimming between floes. For others, it's a race to breed in the short summer season. When guillemot
Common Guillemot
The Common Murre or Common Guillemot is a large auk. It is also known as the Thin-billed Murre in North America. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North-Atlantic and North Pacific...
s arrive at their nesting cliffs, the rocks are still cloaked in ice. A few short weeks later, the young launch themselves on their maiden flights, but those that crash before they reach open water present an easy meal for an Arctic fox
Arctic fox
The arctic fox , also known as the white fox, polar fox or snow fox, is a small fox native to Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and is common throughout the Arctic tundra biome. The Greek word alopex, means a fox and Vulpes is the Latin version...
mother and her cubs. Aerial footage shows the arrival of belugas and narwhal
Narwhal
The narwhal, Monodon monoceros, is a medium-sized toothed whale that lives year-round in the Arctic. One of two living species of whale in the Monodontidae family, along with the beluga whale, the narwhal males are distinguished by a characteristic long, straight, helical tusk extending from their...
s at the edge of the sea ice. The narwhals navigate their way along leads, but can become trapped if the ice ahead is still unbroken. In the height of summer, large parts of the Arctic Ocean
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...
are virtually ice-free, leaving some polar bears stranded on the few remaining iceberg
Iceberg
An iceberg is a large piece of ice from freshwater that has broken off from a snow-formed glacier or ice shelf and is floating in open water. It may subsequently become frozen into pack ice...
s. Those that reach dry land must wait for the winter ice to return before they can start hunting again. As the bears congregate, fights break out between the males. Nature's Great Events Diaries follows the camera team's attempts to locate narwhals in "Quest for Ice Whales".
2. "The Great Salmon Run"
US title: "Grizzly Wilderness"- Broadcast 18 February 2009, 4.45 million viewers (18.7% audience share)
The subject of the second programme is the annual salmon run
Salmon run
The salmon run is the time at which salmon swim back up the rivers in which they were born to spawn. All Pacific salmon die after spawning. While most Atlantic salmon die after their first spawn, about 5-10% return to the sea to feed between spawnings. The annual run is a major event for sport...
on the west coast of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. Hundreds of millions of Pacific salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
return to the mountain streams in which they were born, where they will spawn and then die. Their passage upstream is fraught with danger, from rapids, waterfalls and hungry grizzly bear
Grizzly Bear
The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...
s. The programme begins at the arrival of spring, with a grizzly mother leading her cubs down from their winter den in the Alaskan mountains. The bears congregate in the forested valleys, where they forage for whatever food they can find. Survival is tough for all, as shown by a pack of hungry wolves attacking an adult grizzly. It is not until July that the salmon arrive in great numbers. Other predators join the feast, including Orcas, Stellar sea Lions, Salmon sharks and the Bald headed Eagle. Those that make it past the bears risk becoming trapped in shallow reaches as the water level subsides. Relief comes as a summer storm replenishes the streams, triggered by moist ocean air rising over the coastal mountains. As they reach the spawning grounds, the salmon change body shape and colour in preparation for spawning. When it is over, the fish are close to exhaustion and they die en masse, providing an easy meal for birds and lingering bears. Their deaths are not in vain, for the nutrients from their decaying bodies help to fertilise the soil, sustaining the forests of tall pines. The diary piece, "Close Encounters of a Grizzly Kind", reveals how footage of the bears fishing using their feet was obtained.
3. "The Great Migration"
US title: "Surviving the Serengeti"- Broadcast 25 February 2009, 3.73 million viewers (15.8% audience share)
The third instalment follows a year in the life of the Ndutu lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
pride, which occupies a territory on the short-grass plain
Plain
In geography, a plain is land with relatively low relief, that is flat or gently rolling. Prairies and steppes are types of plains, and the archetype for a plain is often thought of as a grassland, but plains in their natural state may also be covered in shrublands, woodland and forest, or...
s of the Serengeti
Serengeti
The Serengeti ecosystem is a geographical region in Africa. It is located in north Tanzania and extends to south-western Kenya between latitudes 1 and 3 S and longitudes 34 and 36 E. It spans some ....
. Their lives are dictated by the annual migration of one million wildebeest
Wildebeest
The wildebeest , also called the gnu is an antelope of the genus Connochaetes. It is a hooved mammal...
and zebra
Zebra
Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...
around the Serengeti. As the herds move north following the rains, the Ndutu pride's four lionesses and seven cubs are left behind to face the dry season without their main prey. The grass dies off leaving the lions without cover, making hunting what few animals remain even more difficult. The pride must keep moving to find food, but gradually the starving cubs weaken. A female cub and her brother, both in very poor condition, cannot keep up with the adults, and their fate seems sealed. However, when the pride is relocated the following month, the two cubs have somehow survived and been reunited with the adults. The lions face a further challenge as the active volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
Ol Doinyo Lengai
Ol Doinyo Lengai
Ol Doinyo Lengai is an active volcano located in the north of Tanzania and is part of the volcanic system of the Great Rift Valley in Eastern Africa. It is located in the eastern Rift Valley, south of both Lake Natron and Kenya. It is unique among active volcanoes in that it produces...
erupts for the first time since 1967, raining ash down on the plains. These cyclical eruptions play a crucial role in the Serengeti ecosystem. The ash fertilises the earth, and with the arrival of the first storms, the plains become green and lush. The wildebeest herds return and give birth to their young, and the Ndutu pride can enjoy the good times again. In "Pride and Peril", the diary segment, cameraman Owen Newman's long and lonely vigil watching the Ndutu pride is rewarded with a story of hardship, loss and fortitude.
4. "The Great Tide"
US title: "Army of Predators"- Broadcast 4 March 2009, 4.04 million viewers (17.6% audience share)
Along South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
's east coast, the right combination of winter weather and ocean current
Ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis effect, cabbeling, temperature and salinity differences and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun...
s trigger the sardine run
Sardine run
The sardine run of southern Africa occurs from May through July when billions of sardines – or more specifically the Southern African pilchard Sardinops sagax – spawn in the cool waters of the Agulhas Bank and move northward along the east coast of South Africa...
, one of the most impressive events in the world's oceans. In recent years, the sardine run has become less predictable, for reasons which are still unclear, bringing into jeopardy an entire food chain
Food chain
A food web depicts feeding connections in an ecological community. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs...
which it supports. The fourth programme follows the largest gathering of predators on the planet as they hunt down billions of sardine
Sardine
Sardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....
s pinned to the cold water along the coast. They include Cape gannet
Cape Gannet
The Cape Gannet, Morus capensis, originally Sula capensis, is a large seabird of the gannet family, Sulidae.They are easily identified by their large size, black and white plumage and distinctive yellow crown and hindneck...
s, which time their breeding to coincide with the arrival of the huge sardine shoals. They are filmed at their breeding colony on Bird Island and in super slow motion
Slow motion
Slow motion is an effect in film-making whereby time appears to be slowed down. It was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger....
breaking the surface on their plunge dives. In the water, a super-pod of 5,000 common dolphin
Common dolphin
The common dolphin is the name given to two species of dolphin making up the genus Delphinus.Prior to the mid-1990s, most taxonomists only recognised one species in this genus, the common dolphin Delphinus delphis...
s also hunts down the sardines. A 15-mile long shoal is located by the predators, and the ensuing feeding frenzy
Feeding frenzy
In ecology, a feeding frenzy is a situation where oversaturation of a supply of food leads to rapid feeding by predatory animals. For example, a large school of fish can cause nearby sharks to enter a feeding frenzy. This can cause the sharks to go wild, biting anything that moves, including each...
is filmed from the air, the surface and underwater. Dolphins herd the sardines into the shallows, where they come within reach of the diving gannets. Thousands of shark
Shark
Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....
s arrive to join the attack, but the largest predator of all is the lunging Bryde's whale
Bryde's Whale
Bryde's whales are baleen whales, one of the "great whales" or rorquals. They prefer tropical and temperate waters over the polar seas that other whales in their family frequent. They are largely coastal rather than pelagic. Bryde's whales are very similar in appearance to sei whales and almost as...
. "Life on the Run" follows the fortunes of the film crew as they track the hunters. In 2007, the sardine run didn't happen at all, but their patience was rewarded the following year.
5. "The Great Flood"
US title: "Kalahari Flood"- Broadcast 11 March 2009, 3.88 million viewers (16.8% audience share)
The fifth instalment is set in Botswana
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
, where the arid plains of the Kalahari are transformed into a lush wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
by the annual flooding of the Okavango Delta
Okavango Delta
The Okavango Delta , in Botswana, is the world's largest inland delta. It is formed where the Okavango River empties onto a swamp in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert, where most of the water is lost to evaporation and transpiration instead of draining into the sea...
. The Okavango River
Okavango River
The Okavango River is a river in southwest Africa. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, running southeastward for . It begins in Angola, where it is known as the Cubango River...
is charged by rain falling in the Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
n highlands, but it is months before the water arrives at the delta. Meanwhile, thousands of animals follow ancient migration routes across the desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
, braving dehydration and punishing heat. New elephant behaviour is filmed as they skim their trunks delicately across the surface of a stagnant pool, siphoning clean water from the upper layers. The transformation of the desert into a green oasis is filmed using time-lapse
Time-lapse
Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing...
photography, whilst sequences shot with macro lenses show the changes in much finer detail. For the first time, vast clouds of dragonflies
Dragonfly
A dragonfly is a winged insect belonging to the order Odonata, the suborder Epiprocta or, in the strict sense, the infraorder Anisoptera . It is characterized by large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and an elongated body...
are observed emerging to mate and lay their eggs. Larger animals make the most of the sudden riches the new landscape offers. Male hippo
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...
s plough through the newly-formed waterways and battle for dominance, red lechwe
Lechwe
The Lechwe, or Southern Lechwe, is an antelope found in Botswana, Zambia, south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, north-eastern Namibia, and eastern Angola, especially in the Okavango Delta, Kafue Flats and Bangweulu Swamps....
bound through the shallows and huge flocks of wading birds arrive to breed. Elephants and buffalo
African Buffalo
The African buffalo, affalo, nyati, Mbogo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild Asian water buffalo, but its ancestry remains unclear...
face one final challenge before they reach the delta; a pride of hungry lions. The lions attack in broad daylight, bringing down an elephant calf. The making-of featurette, "Mission Impassable", follows the crew as they struggle to cross ever-deepening waters to reach and film the front line of the advancing flood.
6. "The Great Feast"
US title: "Pacific Feast"- Broadcast 18 March 2009, 4.02 million viewers (18.0% audience share)
The final episode features the summer plankton
Plankton
Plankton are any drifting organisms that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. That is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification...
bloom along the coast of British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
and Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. In winter, the coastal fjord
Fjord
Geologically, a fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created in a valley carved by glacial activity.-Formation:A fjord is formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. Glacial melting is accompanied by rebound of Earth's crust as the ice...
s and inlets are relatively lifeless, and the resident Steller sea lions must dive deeper and further from the coast to catch the widely-dispersed herring
Herring
Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...
. Humpback whale
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...
s overwinter in the warm Pacific waters off Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, where new mothers suckle their calves. They begin their 3,000 mile journey north in early spring, when the sea lions also give birth to their young. Spring storms are a hazard for the sea lion colonies and some pups are inevitably lost, but these same storms disturb nutrients in the water which, together with the strengthening power of the sun, act as the catalysts for the plankton bloom. Huge shoals of herring arrive to spawn, turning the shallows milky white. The herring sift plankton from the water. In their wake come larger predators, including Pacific white-sided dolphin
Pacific White-sided Dolphin
The Pacific White-sided Dolphin is a very active dolphin found in the cool to temperate waters of the North Pacific Ocean.-Taxonomy:...
s and killer whales. The latter are filmed attacking a male sea lion. Common murres dive under the herring shoals and pick off the fish from below, pinning them to the surface. Their defence is to form a bait ball
Bait ball
A bait ball, or baitball, occurs when small fish swarm in a tightly packed spherical formation about a common centre. It is a last ditch defensive measure adopted by small schooling fish when they are threatened by predators...
, but gull
Gull
Gulls are birds in the family Laridae. They are most closely related to the terns and only distantly related to auks, skimmers, and more distantly to the waders...
s gathering on the surface attack them from above. The finale to the programme features unique underwater footage of humpbacks engulfing whole bait balls, and reveals their co-operative hunting behaviour called bubble-netting. The diary segment, "Swallowed by a Whale", looks at the challenges of filming the humpbacks and sea lions underwater.
Reception
The series drew an average of 4.0 million viewers and a 16.9% audience share, down on BBC One’s average share of 24% for the same time slot in 2008. However, the Sunday evening repeats at a more family-friendly viewing time drew similar viewing figures to the first broadcast, and the episodes regularly featured in the top ten weekly chart on BBC iPlayerBBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer, commonly shortened to iPlayer, is an internet television and radio service, developed by the BBC to extend its former RealPlayer-based and other streamed video clip content to include whole TV shows....
.
The series received almost universal praise in the British press. Writing in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
of the scene in which a humpback whale swallows a shoal of herring, Lucy Mangan commented: "You can cradle your jaw safely in your lap for the rest of the evening, as you replay that moment in your mind's eye and reel at the slower but no less staggering evocation by the entire programme, the entire series, of the incredible force and fragility of it all." The sequence was also singled out by Tim Teeman in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, who wrote "now that was a money shot. Nature's Great Events: "The Great Feast" was no mis-sale". He went on to describe it as "the most surprising bit of television this week" and "the most mind-blowing, horrific and beautiful sequence of film". The series also gained a very favourable review in The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
. Its critic Paul Whitelaw described it as "quite simply wonderful television. Visually stunning, immersive and mesmerising, it examined some of the most dramatic wildlife spectacles on Earth with characteristic verve and insight." He singled out praise for David Attenborough, noting that "even when he is merely narrating, [he] is quite brilliant at what he does, and I defy anyone to refute that."
Matt Warman of The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
was complimentary about the "wealth of surprising, beautiful images", but criticised the series for its superficial treatment of environmental issues. Writing about the plight of polar bears highlighted in "The Great Melt", he commented "it was tempting to ask whether the rise of one species, man, and the decline of another could not be considered a sad part of evolution by natural selection... Nature's Great Events, however, chose not to engage with the debate."
Merchandise
- A 2-disc, Region 2DVD region codeDVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
, DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
has been released by 2 entertain2 Entertain2 Entertain is a British video and music publisher, formed by the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International in 2004....
on 16 March 2009 (BBCDVD2863), featuring all six full-length episodes. The USA DVD and Blu-Ray discBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
was released on 2 June 2009 and a Region 4DVD region codeDVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
DVD and Blu-ray was also released by ABC DVD/Village Roadshow on 1 July 2009.
- An accompanying hardback book has been published by Mitchell Beazley on 2 February 2009. Called Nature's Great Events: The Most Spectacular Natural Events on the Planet, it is authored by the BBC Natural History Unit, edited by Karen Bass and has an introduction by Brian Leith (ISBN 9781845334567)
- The companion volume for the US market, Nature's Great Events: The Most Amazing Natural Events on the Planet, was published by the University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
in May 2009. (ISBN 9780226471549) Sample pages in PDF are available.