TV Guide: David Attenborough

Listing: Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:00:00 -0500

Thu Nov 19 09:00 PM BBC

Listing: Tidal Seas

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0500

Thu Nov 12 10:00 PM ANIMAL Examining the effect of tides on the oceans of the world and how sea-dwelling creatures have adapted to and taken advantage of them. Included: the largest tides in the world are seen at the Bay of Fundy; and a tidal bore is observed driving up the Amazon River. Also: sand-bubbler crabs scour the sand for microscopic food; snails surf waves into shore to look for food; and bottle-nosed dolphins herd mullet off the coast of Florida. Host: David Attenborough.

Listing: A Winning Design

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:00:00 -0500

Thu Nov 12 09:00 PM BBC Debut: David Attenborough hosts this examination of mammals, which includes their diversity, adaptability, social behavior and geographic distribution. First up: Mammalian physiology and how it enabled them to colonize a variety of environments and adapt to different sources of nutrition.

Video: Fully Grown Python eating a Deer - BBC wildlife

MySpace music — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Sir David Attenborough presents this epic wildlife documentary, exploring the world of cold blooded animals. Watch this phenomenal video to see a fully grown python kill and eat a deer. Brilliant high quality images from BBC natural history masterpiece, Life in Cold Blood.

Video: Gorillas... 98.6% Human

Hulu — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Witness the Explore team's thrilling interaction with some of the few remaining wild mountain gorillas of Rwanda, a species that shares 98.6% of their genetic makeup with humans.

Video: Earth Day: Who Owns the Rain? | ZapRoot 084

NextNewNetworks.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500

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Video: Great Escape, The -- (Movie Clip) Civilians

TCM — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

MacDonald and Bartlett, (Gordon Jackson and Richard Attenborough) Hendley and Blythe (James Garner and Donald Pleasence) and Ashley-Pitt (David McCallum) make like civilians in The Great Escape, 1963.

Video: ZapRoot 005 - Plug-In Prius MTV Switch Edible Echidna

Amazon Video on Demand — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode Jess focuses on Plug-In Prius testing commencing in Japan, the Endangered Monuments Watch, and a tribesman in New Guinea eating an endangered Echidna., And just for the record, we love David Attenborough.

Video: David Attenborough: Wildlife Specials

Video Detective — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

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Video: The Problems of Parenthood

Amazon Video on Demand — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Parents may have to keep their chicks warm or cool, fed and healthy for months before they fly the nest. The first thing any chick needs is food, and finches have an extraordinary array of "Feed Me" signs around their beaks - from luminous nodules to black and yellow beak markings and striped tongues. The first meal a great-crested grebe chick gets isn?t a fish but a feather. Feathers are gently offered until they line the chick?s stomach and so aid the later digestion of bony fish. Storks give their young cooling showers in the midday heat by spitting water over them, and David Attenborough gets caught in the downpour. Then the birds spread their wings over the chicks like parasols to provide welcome shade. On village ponds throughout Britain, child abuse and even infanticide is being committed as coots turn on their young. When food is short, parents may resort to pecking their chicks.

Video: The Limits of Endurance

Amazon Video on Demand — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In the Arabian desert, crab plovers endure temperatures above 40?C. An egg would normally fry if left on such a boiling hot surface, so unlike any other wading bird in the world, the crab plover digs tunnels deep in the sand and lays its eggs away from the scorching sun. Lesser flamingos tolerate crippling heat as they stand in corrosive African soda lakes. At another extreme, camerawoman Justine Evans filmed David Attenborough among a 10,000-strong nesting colony of oil birds in a pitch-black cave in Venezuela. The birds navigate in the dark using sonar and share the cave with vampire bats, rats, and crabs. Many birds have been brought to extinction by human activities, but some happily take advantage of people, living in urban areas. Carrion crows have learned to crack walnuts on concrete roads in Japan. If that doesn?t work the crows drop the nuts on a pedestrian crossing so that the cars can crush them.

Video: Meat-Eaters

Amazon Video on Demand — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

There are parrots in New Zealand called keas that fancy something a little more interesting than the usual fruit and nuts they eat meat. To hunt, birds need super-senses and great skill. Great grey owls in North America can listen in super-stereo to the movements and noises made by lemmings hidden away under a thick blanket by snow. In Europe, kestrels are a familiar sight hovering over motorway verges. Using their ultra-violet vision, kestrels position themselves over areas where voles have marked their tracks with drops of urine, which is very conspicuous in ultra-violet. In the rainforests of Trinidad, David Attenborough finds a bird with an acute sense of smell. Attenborough buries a piece of meat under some leaves and twigs and retreats to a distant vantage point.

Video: To Fly or Not to Fly

Amazon Video on Demand — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Feathers are the key to a bird s success, and 150 million years ago when they evolved from the dinosaurs, birds took to the air. But some have abandoned flight in a bid to take over the Earth as well. To survive, these flightless birds either have to be large enough to defend themselves, such as ostriches and emus, or to live on isolated islands where mammals cannot get at them. David Attenborough says that those birds living on the famous Galapagos Islands have no natural enemies there, so some birds don t bother to fly like cormorants with their stubby, useless wings. The immense island of New Zealand is paradise for flightless birds. The arrival of humans a mere 1,500 years ago was bad news for the birds, but even so, New Zealand gives us a rare glimpse of what the world would have been like if the birds had won the battle with the early mammals and now ruled the Earth.

Photo: NOVA - "Jewel of the Earth" - Sir David Attenborough

courtesy Otter Films/BBC/PBS

NOVA, Sir David Attenborough