I heart David Attenborough
(Katie Law)
The second half of David Attenborough's delicious natural history programme Planet Earth is currently airing on BBC1 on Sunday nights and my oh my is it wonderful. The first set of episodes were on subjects like caves and mountains and rivers, and so far in this batch we've had ice and plains. The ice episode featured breathtaking aerial shots of swimming polar bears and speeded up footage of emperor penguins huddling together to keep their eggs warm. The plains episode featured all manner of grazing beasts, and a selection of land based birds and mammals.
The series has taken a long time to make, but it was worth the wait as the footage is just stunningly beautiful. But it's not just a love song to nature, it also offers food for thought. The take-home messages are not particularly controversial or surprising, but they're titbits we'd do well to remember about our animal neighbours. I find it so easy to anthropomorphise and forget that it really is a dog eat dog world out there. We might cheer for the walrus that beats off the marauding polar bear, but when that same bear literally lies down and dies of starvation on film the tables are turned. It's easy to despise the Arctic fox who runs away from the snow goose's nest with a mouthful of adorable fluffy goslings, but when she feeds those goslings to her adorable fluffy fox cubs I immediately felt guilty for feeling so sorry for the goslings...
Aside from the deep and meaningful messages, the plains episode also had some (unintentionally, no doubt) amusing dialogue. One part referred to the Tibetan Fox, pictured above (photo by Milo Burcham). He really does look a bit odd, but I still didn't expect to hear Sir David say, "Here we have the Tibetan Fox. His thick fur protects him from the wintry surroundings, but you have to ask, why the square head?"
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