Planet Earth: Great Plains

Somehow it escaped my notice that I missed an installment of Planet Earth, namely the seventh episode, entitled “Great Plains.” David Attenborough authoritatively informs the audience that the great irony about the earth’s open plains is that, while they seem at first to be eerily empty and quiet, they support the greatest gatherings of wild life on the planet. The reason for this is grass, which covers a quarter of the world’s land. The Central Asian steppe alone extends one-third of the globe. Bear in mind, though, that the inhabitants of the open plains are exposed to the elements – thunder and rain, wildfires, dust swirls and scorching heat or the arctic conditions of the tundra. The Great Plains, moreover, witness some of the largest migration on the planet. For instance, in Outer Mongolia, two million gazelle gather so that the females can birth their young together out in the open. A similar number of wilder beast herd on the East African savanna. Annually, five million snow geese return from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian tundra. Nesting on the ground, they are an easy prey for the Arctic fox, who steals eggs and buries some for later. Further south, wolves prowl the tundra hunting for caribou in the vast emptiness.

But the most numerous migration on land must be the swarm of one and a half billion Red-billed Quelea birds that flock over Africa’s savanna. On the North American prairie, bison have returned in large numbers, after human hunting had nearly driven the wild animal to extinction. Among colorful summer flowers on the grasslands of South Africa live ostriches and antelopes, while the long grass plains of India is home to elephants and rhinoceros, as well as pygmy hogs. The highest open plains is the Tibetan Plateau, home of the wild yak and wild ass, the pika (a relative of the rabbit, though it looks more like a chinchilla or hamster) and the Tibetan fox. The final sequence shows us African bush elephants marching through the parched savanna in search of a watering hole, which they must share with a pride of hungry lions. But, after a season of drought, rain will flood the plains and grass returns. Perhaps I have been spoiled by all the other marvelous nature documentaries I have recently seen, but I was not immensely impressed by this particular episode.

Planet Earth: Ocean Deep

BBC’s Blue Planet and Planet Earth are, as far as I know, unsurpassed nature documentary series. I’d reiterate this ad nauseam if I had to, but please watch this show if you at all can. There’s nothing like it, if you enjoy the genre. Really magnificent. So it’s with some sadness that I have to tell you that we’re already at the series end with one more episode ... and what a grand finale this one is! For this last installment, we’re visiting the deep waters of the open ocean and get to see dazzling shots of several schools of hundreds of divine dolphins trapping tons of mackerels into bait balls attacked by sheer water birds from the surface; two-ton manta rays (devilfish) gliding through the night while feasting on baby sailfish; shoals of bait fish swarming around a whale shark as a shield against the predatory yellowfin tuna; and a great many other varieties of shark (such as the whitetip).

The true wonders of the deep, however, are the weirdly alien creatures that dwell deep in the ocean’s strange and dark waters ... sea spider shrimp, saw tooth eel, dumbo octopus, vampire squid, sea urchins, monk fish, spider crabs, isopods, albino squat lobsters, giant tube worms, nautiluses, ocean sunfish, sea turtle, sailfish... I’m always impressed by images of the towering chimneys of hydrothermal vents at the earth’s molten core blasting black clouds of sulfide smoke. Other than that, of course, we get to see colorful coral reefs, the most majestically, gargantuan blue whales, and countless schools of variegated fish. So, please, do yourself a favor and check out this spectacular series. Preferably the U.K. version with David Attenborough’s narration, and not the Sigourney Weaver voice over. Fortunately, there’s a follow up series, called “Life”! So, you’ll be hearing more about that very soon. Be prepared!

Planet Earth: Seasonal Forests

Picture going south from the arctic circle ... and the first living organism you will see is likely to be a tree, then two, three, and more, and suddenly ... a forest! Soon the conifers of the taiga dominate the landscape. If you guessed I’m talking about another Planet Earth episode, you guessed right! Naturally we’re shown marvelous scenes this time around of snow-covered boreal forests, giant redwood trees covered in mist, incredible time-lapse images from space of North America turning red in fall, and the wondrous, nocturnal bloom of the primordial baobab tree.

Furthermore, this episode features a hilariously grotesque moose gnawing on pine needles; a gluttonous wolverine ravaging the cadaver of a caribou; black vultures, grey owls, and mandarin ducks; the mass emergence of the (17-year cycle periodic) magicicadas; squirrels, lemurs, pine martens, adorable pudus (deer) and the cutest codcods (a wild cat); gray langur monkeys feasting on the flowers of the mahuwa tree in India’s teak forest, while chital deer warn them about stalking Bengal tigers; a nearly ethereal lynx wandering in the arctic snow; and once more the majestic Amur leopard (the rarest cat on earth) that we saw in the beginning of this magnificent series!

Planet Earth: Shallow Seas

“Shallow Seas” is the title of the next episode of BBC’s Planet Earth, about the seas surrounding the continents on the fringes of the tectonic plates, and which contain the vast majority of marine life. Naturally, I can only marvel at the superb satellite images of continental shore lines. But the true wonders are found under water: the countless shoals of colorful fish swimming through bountiful coral reefs; sea urchins, star fish, and minute pygmy seahorses butting heads to claim their territory; banded krait snakes teaming up with trevally and goat fish hunting for prey; turtles, sea lions, seals, dolphins, stingrays, and sharks; primordial sirenian sea cows herding on the sea grass meadows in Australia’s Shark Bay; most of all majestic humpback whales singing to each other on their journey from the equator to the arctic sea! Surely by now you’ve downloaded the series or got yourself the DVD set, because this really is a show you can’t afford to miss.

Planet Earth: Jungles

The eighth installment of BBC’s Planet Earth is about jungles. They cover only 3% of the land surface, but are home to about half of the world’s species. (Incidentally, a great argument from nature against any Malthusian complaints about overpopulation!) This time we’re feasted on many beautiful panoramas of the rain forest’s canopy covered in vaporous mist. Additionally, the episode features scenes of decay, moulds, fungi, larvae, ants affected by parasitic spores; a crab spider dangling from its silken threads inside a carnivorous pitcher plant to feed on ant corpses and mosquito larvae; bright green or yellow frogs with bulging eyes, some red or yellow, others blue-veined; elephants, buffalos, hogs and bongos (the antelopes, not the percussive instruments) in the Congo forest; monkeys of all shapes and sizes, swinging from tree to tree, branch to branch, playing and searching for food; the nocturnal colugo (flying lemur) gliding through the rain forest on the island of Borneo; and the magnificent mating dances of the birds of paradise in New Guinea. Perhaps the most astounding and disturbing scenes come at the end when we’re shown how the largest known tribe of chimpanzees is raiding their neighbors’ territory, brutally molesting a young female first and then celebrating their triumph by cannibalistically sharing the carcass of a young male chimp, a gruesome ritual David Attenborough refrains from explaining.

Planet Earth: Ice Worlds

After an episode about deserts, it’s only natural that Planet Earth moves towards the worlds of ice and snow. Our entry into the Antarctic continent is marked by giant cathedrals of ice. We learn that 90% of the Earth’s ice is found on the South Pole and that even at the height of summer just about 3% is not covered in ice or snow, and that is mostly exposed rock at the northern-most peninsula. We witness the splendor of the Midnight Sun and of Aurora Australis. In addition we’re shown a great many magnificent animals: humpback whales harvesting krill in their “net” of bubbles; herds of walruses; “half a ton of mad hairy cow not to be trifled with” also known as muskoxen; polar wolves, foxes, and rabbits; emperor penguins marching almost a hundred miles inland; crane birds from New Mexico raising their chicks in the tundra; petrels preyed on by skuas; and ducks feeding on mussels through permanent holes in the arctic ice. We see more of the polar bear with her two cute cubs the likes of which you’ve never seen. And we also get a glimpse of what lies ahead as more and more of the ice caps melts due to global warming: a male polar bear unable to find firm footing has to resort to swimming. In this new environment, he is remarkably adept! But however well he swims, he cannot go on indefinitely – out in the open ocean, without food, he will drown if he doesn’t find land in time. Fewer polar bears will survive as a result of the changing climate.