Wildlife Specials

Sir David Attenborough's new documentary traces his lifelong passion for birds of paradise. For five centuries "birds from paradise" have captivated explorers, naturalists, artists, film-makers and even royalty. They are also one of David Attenborough's lifelong passions. He was the first to film many of their beautiful and often bizarre displays and has spent a lifetime tracking them all over the jungles of New Guinea. Here, David reflects on his first attempt to film the birds of paradise, their bizarre and exotic courtship rituals, his experience at a state-of-the-art breeding facility in Qatar, and how there are always wonderful things to discover.

The award-winning team behind Penguins - Spy in the Huddle use hidden cameras to go into the heart of the dolphins' world, offering the chance to encounter dolphins up-close. The camera eyes of thirteen different 'Spy Creatures', including Spy Dolphin, Spy Nautilus and Spy Turtle, allow behaviour to be captured that has never been filmed before, including a vast superpod of spinner dolphins hunting huge shoals of lanternfish while dodging the gaping mouths of giant rays. In Mozambique, a newborn bottlenose dolphin learns from his mother as they follow a mysterious gathering of stingrays and then hunt huge kingfish. He practices his sonar, plays with bubbles and also discovers ways to dislodge pesky suckerfish. Nearby, the males live a playboy lifestyle as they play chicken with supertankers, visit a coral health spa and surf the waves. When they try to woo the females their direct approach threatens the baby, but eventually bouquets of seaweed have the desired effect. Other astonishing sights include dolphins using rings of mud to catch fish and the spectacular highspeed leaps and corkscrews of spinner dolphins. There is humour too, when Spy Turtle encounters real amorous turtles and Spy Squid has a near miss with a hungry potato bass.

"First Steps" - Newborn penguins are caught taking their first unsteady steps.

Part 2 of this fantastic documentary. Spycams sneak within a paw’s swipe of the world’s largest land predators – Polar bears. Polar Bear Spy on the Ice gets closer than ever before to these charismatic bears and reveals their astonishing intelligence and curiosity.

The cubs are now a year-and-a-half old and learning to hunt for themselves.

Elephants carrying Trunkcam, Tuskcam and other spy cameras tell the story of four cubs growing up in the Indian jungle. In the first programme, the elephants come upon the four 10-day-old tiger cubs. This is their mother's first litter and she has her paws full.

"The Journey" - A wildebeest calf makes spectacular year-long journey, an arduous 3,000km round trip across Tanzania's Serengeti and Kenya's Masai Mara. Filmed using Dungcam, Bouldercam, Croccam, Skullcam, Tortoisecam and other spycams. (Part one of a two-part documentary.

Attempts at charting shark behaviour using a 6ft, lifelike animatronic robot, complete with on-board camera and pre-programmed swimming patterns. In the waters around Bikini Atoll the creation is able to mingle safely with man-eating reef sharks, while in the Philippines it spies on deep-sea threshers and joins great whites as they hunt seals. Narrated by David Attenborough.

Over a century ago, the first explorers in the Congo forests sent back terrifying accounts of an aggressive ape, "half man, half beast," which inspired the myth of King Kong. Ever since then, we have had little contact with these lowland gorillas — they have remained a mystery to us. We have come to know the mountain gorillas of Rwanda intimately, but what are King Kong's wild lowland cousins really like? GORILLAS: ON THE TRAIL OF KING KONG follows Sir David Attenborough and intrepid cameraman Gavin Thurston on the trail deep into the heart of three gorilla sanctuaries in northern Congo: Ndoki, Odzala and Lossi, in search of the true nature of the lowland gorilla.

Edited from more than 3000 hours of footage, this documentary uses a remote camera disguised as a rock to observe cubs growing up into adult lions. It features their futile attempts to climb trees, the mayhem caused when they surround a hippo, and various encounters with other animals such as cobras, buffalos and elephants.

The definitive story of this much-maligned animal - filmed in habitats ranging from the high Arctic to the hill farms of Europe and monsoon-sodden India.

Few birds have captured the human imagination as deeply as the eagle and in this remarkable film, aerial photography captures the dramatic life of eagles as never seen before.

Only now, by exploring their complete world, above and below water, by day and night, can we fully appreciate how sophisticated crocodiles are.

The first title from the exciting series made up from the BBC's natural history output. Just the sight of a shark's fin breaking the surface spells terror, but is this Hollywood-delivered image fair? Underwater filming of these awesome, two ton, 19 foot fish in their natural unbaited environments exposes the Great White as a paradox: a shy and cautious creature existing within a highly structured social order, but also a terrific killing machine striking with total surprise and devatating speed from the murky depths.