Seasons & episodes

S27 · E3Earth Pilgrim - A Year on Dartmoor 2008-01-18

This exquisitely photographed film is a spiritual journey into the ethereal landscape of Dartmoor with Satish Kumar, the world-renowned ecologist, former Jain monk and pilgrim for peace. Through changing seasons, Satish walks the moor and explores ancient woods and rivers, which are home to a wealth of wildlife including red deer, emperor moths, starling roosts, kestrels and foxes. His meditations on the natural world are lyrical, uplifting and timely.

S27 · E4Tiger Kill 2008-01-25

Simon King has filmed Africa's big cats for 20 years, but he has never seen a wild tiger. With so few remaining wild tigers, documenting a tiger making a kill is becoming harder. Simon seeks the help of tiger expert Alphonse Roy, who has spent 17 years in the Indian jungle.

S27 · E5White Falcon, White Wolf 2008-02-01

On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, a pair of white gyrfalcons and a pack of arctic wolves are struggling to raise their young. As the falcons' eggs hatch, the parents must find enough arctic hares to feed them. The wolf pack are raising their cubs in a hillside den. The film records behaviour that has never been seen by scientists, let alone filmed.

S27 · E6Saved By Dolphins 2008-02-08

Since ancient times, there have been legends of dolphins rescuing humans at sea. Two recent cases where swimmers were rescued from sharks by dolphins seem to show that the legends are true. Dramatisations from the Red Sea and New Zealand's North Island help scientists analyse what makes dolphins take pity on humans.

S27 · E7Badgers - Secrets Of The Sett 2008-02-15 · 49 min

While badgers are easily recognized, remarkably few people have ever seen one alive. It's a creature blamed for destruction and disease, but surprisingly little is known about the sett society. We spy on them for over a year in a Devon valley, Big Brother style, with hidden underground cameras.

S27 · E8Spacechimp 2008-02-22

In 1961, a four-year-old chimpanzee named Ham became the first animal to return from space alive. He proved that humans could survive the extreme conditions of space. This drama, based on NASA's records and archive footage, tells the story of this remarkable chimp and Jeff, the handler who came to love him over two years of training.

S27 · E9Elephant Nomads of The Namib Desert 2008-03-26

This is the remarkable story of two baby elephants struggling to survive their critical first six months in the oldest desert on earth. The Desert Elephants of Namibia suffered a poaching holocaust in the 1980s. As the most endangered elephant population in the world recovers, every single calf is vital. Himba and Dusty are born in a boom year, but when the short-lived rivers on which they depend disappear underground, their lives depend on the memories, experience and decisions of the females who lead their tiny families.

S27 · E10Lobo: The Wolf that Changed America 2008-04-02

Ernest Thompson Seton rode into the wilds of New Mexico just before the turn of the century to kill a wolf named Lobo. The book he wrote inspired many generations of naturalists.

S27 · E11Reindeer Girls 2008-04-09

Elle and Inga, 17-year-old cousins from the north of Norway, are far from ordinary teenagers. They are reindeer herders, equally at home helping reindeer swim fjords or ice fishing as playing with the internet and mobile phones. We follow the girls and their families as they accompany the reindeer herds on the annual migration across the acrtic tundra, gaining a unique insight into the lives of the girls and the reindeer on which they depend in this bleak and beautiful world.

S27 · E12Moose In The Glen 2008-04-16

Multi-millionaire landowner Paul Lister wants to turn his 23,000 acre estate north of Inverness into Europe's first wilderness reserve. Reinstating the old Caledonian pine forests is the first of his plans. He then wants to release long lost animals, starting with moose and wild boar, and eventually predators such as brown bears, lynx and wolves. Some of the local people are far from convinced by Paul's vision. Will he even be allowed to let loose moose in the glen?

S27 · E13Naabi - A Hyena Princess 2008-04-23

The story of Naabi, a young hyena growing up in Tanzania. Here hyenas aren't just scavengers, they're also skilled hunters when they work together in the clan. But life is still a struggle, and except for the few weeks a year when the wildebeest pass through, there isn't enough food to go around. Lions are their mortal enemies - they are quick to attack hyenas and often scavenge their kills. After Naabi's mother is killed by lions, life becomes even more difficult for the young hyena and she's forced to leave the clan, braving the perils of the outside world as she travels alone in search of food.

S27 · E14Spectacled Bears - Shadows Of The Forest 2008-05-06 · 49 min

Paddington Bear celebrates his 50th birthday this year, but behind the children's story is a very real creature that still lives in Deepest Darkest Peru - the Spectacled Bear. Little is known about the habits of this elusive creature, and as narrator Stephen Fry reveals, many of our assumptions were wrong. For years they were thought to be gentle vegetarians, but the latest studies reveal a new and alarming side to this endangered bear.

S27 · E15Superfish 2008-05-14

The billfish are the biggest, fastest, and most dangerous gamefish in the sea. All have captured man's imagination like few other creatures, whether it's the graceful sailfish, the menacing swordfish or queen of them all, the marlin, immortalized by Hemingway in 'The Old Man and the Sea'. Marine biologist and film-maker Rick Rosenthal has travelled three oceans in his attempt to capture them all on film, and in doing so has become a passionate champion for these endangered yet little-known ocean giants.

S27 · E16A Turtle's Guide to the Pacific 2008-08-07

Documentary following a loggerhead turtle as she journeys across the Pacific. On the way she meets dolphins and whales, sharks and giant squids, typhoons and fishermen. She swims over deep canyons, and uses underwater mountaintops like motorway service stations. Blue whales thunder by like juggernauts, and sharks dance a beautiful midnight ballet around her. Pacific means peaceful, but it is clearly not. One minute she is under fire from marlin, the next swimming over a coral reef, with crocodiles as well as sharks.

S27 · E17Jimmy and the Wild Honey Hunters 2008-08-10

Jimmy Doherty, pig farmer and star of Jimmy's Farming Heroes, travels to Nepal to meet an ancient group of people who risk their lives to farm their local honey. A keen bee keeper with a passion for honey, Jimmy has always been blown away by the sheer variety of flavours, appreciating a good honey like others enjoy a fine wine. So when he heard about an ancient group of people in Nepal who are willing to risk their lives to taste their local honey, he knew he wanted to share the experience. As a 'honey hunter' Jimmy must scale a massive cliff to reach the home of more than two million bees and dangle 200 feet up to get their honey. If successful, the reward is not only to learn more about these amazing bees, but also to taste one of nature's finest bounties, beautiful wild honey.

S28 · E1Titus: The Gorilla King 2008-11-11

Abandoned as a baby, removed from normal gorilla family life as a youngster - so profound were the misfortunes that Titus suffered in his early years that no gorilla scientist could have predicted his eventual rise to power. His moving life story is pieced together here for the first time, based on archive film and the memories of field workers who have studied the mountain gorillas since Dian Fossey's pioneering work more than 40 years ago. At 33 years of age, Titus is not just one of the most powerful Silverbacks in Rwanda's Virunga Mountains, he is possibly the most remarkable gorilla ever known. His life story is as full of drama, intrigue and tragedy as any human soap opera. Against a stunning backdrop of misty volcanic peaks cloaked in bamboo and giant lobelia, Titus has successfully steered his family group through thick and thin. Now he is under pressure again. With his ally-turned-rival, Kuryama, jockeying for position, is the final chapter in Titus's extraordinary reign about to occur?

S28 · E2Whale Shark 2008-11-18

Beginning at the fabulous coral reef of Ningaloo in Western Australia, intrepid marine biologist Mark Meakin attempts to unravel the mysterious wanderings of the biggest fish in the sea. Whale sharks grow to over 12 metres long but are gentle, filter-feeding giants; even Mark's five-year-old son can swim alongside them. Yet no-one knows where they go once they leave Ningaloo's turquoise lagoons. Using satellite tags and photo IDs, Mark tracks them to the white coral beaches of the Seychelles and the tropical jewel of Christmas Island, where bright-red land crabs begin their annual migration. It's hard work, taking in 20 failed satellite tags and countless frustrating dives, before Mark makes a breakthrough which doesn't just add to our understanding of these huge 'dinosaur fish' but offers crucial information about how the whale sharks of Ningaloo can be protected better.

S28 · E3Clever Monkeys 2008-11-25

David Attenborough's entertaining romp through the world of monkeys has a serious side: for when we look at monkeys we can see ourselves. From memory to morality, from 'crying wolf' to politics, monkeys are our basic blueprint. Pygmy marmosets 'farm' tree sap; bearded capuchins in Brazil develop a production line for extracting palm nuts; white-faced capuchins in Costa Rica tenderly nurse the victims of battle; and in the Ethiopian highlands a deposed gelada baboon has got the blues.

S28 · E4Crocodile Blues 2008-12-02

Another stunning look at the wonders of wildlife as Natural World tonight seeks out the Gharial crocodile. This mighty reptile, which can grow up to 20ft in length and tip the scales at one ton, evolved with the dinosaurs more than 150 million years ago. However, it’s now on the brink of extinction as the largest critically endangered animal on the Indian subcontinent. Filmed over a 12-month period, reptile expert and conservationist Rom Whitaker set out on a mission to solve the mystery of why numbers have rapidly declined. Currently, fewer than 200 breeding adults live in Indian and Nepalese sanctuaries that aim to ensure the future of the species via a captive breeding programme. From the safety of your armchair, enjoy Whitaker’s fascinating footage of the Gharial.

S28 · E5Cork - Forest in a Bottle 2008-12-09

Every time we weigh up which bottle of wine to buy, we hold the fate of nightingales, rare black storks, secretive wild cats and one of the world's most remarkable trees in our hands. It has all to do with the stopper. If it is cork, it probably came from the bark of one of the ancient cork oak trees from the Montados, in the Alentejo region of Portugal.

S28 · E6Great White Shark: A Living Legend 2009-01-02

Wildlife film. South African naturalist Mike Rutzen is crazy about great white sharks. He never saw Jaws, so he doesn't share the terror that makes these sharks the world's most feared predator.

S28 · E7Cuckoo 2009-01-09

The sound of the cuckoo is to many the very essence of spring, yet behind the magical call is a bird that is a cheat, a thief and a killer. Just how does the cuckoo trick other birds into accepting its eggs and raising its young? Why don't the duped foster parents react as they watch the baby cuckoo destroy their own eggs and chicks? And why do they work so relentlessly to feed a demanding chick that looks nothing like them and will soon dwarf them?

S28 · E8The Mountains of the Monsoon 2009-01-16

This moving film reveals the differing fortunes of a mother polar bear and a mother grizzly bear, and their new-born cubs, in a rapidly-changing world. The shrinking Arctic ice may be making life much tougher for polar bears, but it is offering new opportunities for grizzly bears to the south. Where once the lives of white and brown bears could not have been more different, in summer-time they now meet along shores and islands almost all the way to the North Pole. Amazingly they have even interbred. It Is a remarkable story of how bears, ever intelligent and resourceful, are adapting to a warming world.

S28 · E9Polar Bears & Grizzlies: Bears on Top of the World 2009-01-23 · 49 min