David Attenborough

Living in the depths of the New Guinean Rainforest are birds of unimaginable color and beauty. When Europeans first saw the plumes of these fabulous creatures in the sixteenth century, they believed they must be from heaven and called them Birds of Paradise. The people of New Guinea make even greater claims. They say the birds possess supernatural powers and magic. But to find these birds in New Guinea is one of the toughest assignments, and to witness their extraordinary mating displays is even tougher. David Attenborough introduces a young team of New Guinean scientists on a grueling expedition to find and film these Birds of Paradise; the holy grail of wildlife filmmakers.

2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Born Free – a book and then a film that changed forever the way we think about wildlife. Elsa, an orphaned lion cub raised by George and Joy Adamson then released back into the wild, captivated audiences around the world, and became a symbol for all animals’ right to live free. But behind the film and book lies the real story of the Adamsons’ life with Elsa. Their diaries, home movies and detailed records reveal an intimate look into their pioneering work and unique relationship with lions. Recollections of the actress who portrayed Joy in the film, and memories of people who knew and worked with the Adamsons leave us with a new appreciation for the world of animals we never knew until Elsa and Born Free opened our eyes.

At age 78, E.O. Wilson is still going through his "little savage" phase of boyhood exploration of the natural world. NOVA profiles this soft-spoken Southerner and Professor Emeritus at Harvard.

From steamy jungles to dry deserts, amphibians have taken their first footsteps onto land using their bizarre life histories to break their ties with the water and invade the earth. David Attenborough delves into the lives of these soft skinned amphibians and finds marsupial frogs where the father carries his young in pouches and then gives birth, giant salamanders over a meter long that wrestle for territory and newts that display just like underwater birds of paradise.

Follow the descent of rivers from their mountain sources to the sea. Watch spectacular waterfalls, fly inside the Grand Canyon and explore the wildlife in the world's deepest lake. Planet Earth captures unique and dramatic moments of animal behaviour: a showdown between smooth-coated otters and mugger crocodiles; deep-diving long tailed macaques; massive flocks of snow geese on the wing and a piranha frenzy in the perilous waters of the world's largest wetland.

At age 78, E.O. Wilson is still going through his "little savage" phase of boyhood exploration of the natural world. NOVA profiles this soft-spoken Southerner and Professor Emeritus at Harvard.

Rodents are the most numerous mammals on the planet, comprising an incredibly diverse variety of species. They range from the naked mole rat, which spends its entire life below ground, to the world's largest rodent, the capybara, which grazes in herds across the vast grasslands of South America. In the fourth of his ten-part epic series David Attenborough shares his fascination with these animals, which stop only at his pet hate - rats.

Heavily armoured, indigestible and even poisonous, plants pose problems for some of our biggest predators. David Attenborough learns why eating plants is one of the greatest challenges for the planet's mammals.

The ocean's influence dominates the world's weather systems and supports an enormous range of life. This first episode demonstrates the sheer scale, power and complexity of the "Blue Planet".