Natural World: Current Series [BBC2]

Wertz

A Natural World BBC production that aired tonight (monday) on BBC2, followed an American biologist, Joe Hutto over the course of 18 months as he reared 13 wild turkeys from eggs to fully grown birds in the florida swamps, along the way learning some of their language and managing to communicate somewhat, teaching them (and being schooled himself) on the world around them and ultimately losing some of his flock to disease, predators and the natural progression to adulthood.

Really well shot from the POV of one of the turkeys, the camerawork is excellent, soundtrack is pretty good too. The biologist appears very humbled by the whole experience and comes to the conclusion that these birds are a lot more intelligent and capable of emotional attachment than we give them credit for...

I didn't realise until I'd looked at the bbc site that the role of the biologist is played by an actor in the scenes with the birds, since he actually avoided any direct human contact during his time as the birds' parent.

Well worth catching on the repeat or if you can use iplayer, as are any of the natural world series, this programme being the first of a coming 14 eps in this years run, probably airing on monday or tuesday nights.

Wertz

^^^

Hmm, seems since they have iPlayer now, repeats aren't as readily run as they used to be, so get it when it's on or not at all
My Life as a a Turkey did not get a repeat. Subsequent Natural World programmes will. These will all probably feature on Animal Planet later in the year

With that in mind Natural World is on again now (8pm) on BBC2, Empire of the Desert Ant.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013cj7q

Should be good. I love ants...


[edit] This repeats at 6pm on Sunday evening. Well worth a watch, it follows a honey ant queen building her nest and her empire over the course of years, waging war, surviving drought and launching the next colonies in south Arizona.
The macro camera work is fantastic, I don't know how they got some of the shots they did, considering the workers are no bigger than a rice grain.

Never mind the meek, it ants that will inherit the planet.

Wertz

Tonight's Natural World (8pm) visits the komodo dragons home island off Indonesia for an in depth look at the world's largest lizard and it's hunting habits.

a true living fossil.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013sgpk

Programme repeast Sunday evening at 6pm.

Wertz

Been neglecting this thread the past few weeks (missed one programme) but tonight's episode is featuring Sir David examining how various wildlife build their homes.

It tells the stories of the world's best animal architects. There are house-proud bower birds, who only find a mate if they decorate their homes perfectly. There are hornets, who build electric central-heating systems, and the star-nosed mole whose house is so well designed that his favourite meal of worms literally drop in for dinner. From larders to nurseries and from high-rises to subway systems, Attenborough shows that the animal architects have designed it way before we humans.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014hl48

Attenborough is starting to sound pretty damn old but is of course the ultimate narrator and voice of the winderness.
Great score to this as well.