BBC Earth (March 19, 2023) – Herons are known to be shy birds, but in Amsterdam they have made quite a name for themselves, taking full advantage of the waterways.
The grey heron (Ardea cinerea ) is a long-legged wading bird of the heron family, Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia and also parts of Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but some populations from the more northern parts migrate southwards in autumn. A bird of wetland areas, it can be seen around lakes, rivers, ponds, marshes and on the sea coast. It feeds mostly on aquatic creatures which it catches after standing stationary beside or in the water or stalking its prey through the shallows.
BBC Earth (January 10, 2023) – The Maldives could be underwater by 2100. Maldivians are working together to look to the very thing that defines them – the ocean – to save its future, and their island homes. Narrated by wildlife filmmaker Laura Pennafort.
BBC Earth – A unique relationship is changing in Alaska. In her film ‘Salmon Reflection’ Norwegian and Unangax̂ filmmaker Anna Hoover explores the effects of a changing world on the communities of Bristol Bay, one of the last surviving wild salmon ecosystems.
BBC Earth – Arctic Siberia’s Nomadic Nenets herders have migrated with reindeer for generations. Reindeer were among the last animals domesticated by humans.
According to the Nenets legend, the humans promised the reindeer that they would protect them on their long migration from the mainland to the seashores as long as the reindeer provide humans with all their needs, including milk, fat, meat, bones, horns, and skins. The nomadic reindeer herders reside in the taiga forests of the Russian tundra and northern Mongolia.
Take a peek behind the scenes of Frozen Planet 2 as the team battle conditions to film the hunting behaviours of leopard seals. The extreme cold and icy weather weren’t the only factors the team had to deal with, as some leopard seals got a little bit too curious for the crew’s liking…
The leopard seal, also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic. Its only natural predator is the orca. It feeds on a wide range of prey including cephalopods, other pinnipeds, krill, birds, fish and penguins. It is the only species in the genus Hydrurga.
In China, Maria joins forces with Angelababy, one of the country’s biggest megastars. She is taking a bold approach to addressing the demand for pangolin products.
Pangolins, sometimes known as scaly anteaters, are mammals of the order Pholidota. The one extant family, the Manidae, has three genera: Manis, Phataginus, and Smutsia. Manis comprises the four species found in Asia, while Phataginus and Smutsia include two species each, all found in sub-Saharan Africa.
Narrated by Kate Winslet, Snow Chick – A Penguin’s Tale tells the story of an emperor penguin chick’s first precarious months of life as it grows up in the world’s most extreme nursery.
Emperor penguins are the only animals to breed in the Antarctic winter, and after months of blizzards and temperatures of -60C, male emperor penguins are watching and waiting for their chicks to hatch. Snow Chick is the last to emerge into this harsh, frozen world.
As he takes his first steps, he tries to fit in with the baby penguin gang, but when you’re so small it’s hard to be accepted by the bigger chicks. Soon he ventures too far from his mother for comfort and gets lost in a storm. Later, he’s chased by chick-snatching penguins and escapes a scavenging petrel by the fluff of his back – all the while slipping and skating on treacherous ice. With the arrival of the comical and pugnacious adelie penguin, colony life is turned upside down. But it signals a bigger change – the parents who braved long and treacherous journeys across the sea ice to bring back food eventually return no more. With his band of penguin brothers, Snow Chick has no choice but to make his own way to the sea. A few more adventures lie ahead before he gets tossed unceremoniously into the open ocean – his new home for the next four years.
An enchanting and action-packed dramatised Christmas treat, featuring one of the cutest and toughest creatures on Earth. Filming over a whole Antarctic year, the crew endured some of the toughest conditions on earth to capture these astonishing moments of intimate behaviour.
In their search for food, these crabs must leap from rock to rock, dodging the predators that lie in wait.
Sally Lightfoot crabs are brightly-coloured coastal scavengers, found in the Galapagos Islands and across the western coast of South and Central America.
Hawk-eagles and hornbills play to their unique strengths as they pluck bats mid-flight.
The oriental pied hornbill is an Indo-Malayan pied hornbill, a large canopy-dwelling bird belonging to the family Bucerotidae. Two other common names for this species are Sunda pied hornbill and Malaysian pied hornbill. The species is considered to be among the smallest and most common of the Asian hornbills.
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