Follows the great land migration in Africa, one of the seven wonders of the natural world. Wildebeests, numbering in the millions, run for their lives on a-mile trek to find food and water, battling predators along the way.

Save The Panda

Impalas move with the great migration on the Serengeti plains of Africa. A new fawn is on his way, but so is danger for the herds.

From Aadvark To Zebra

On an African river in the Serengeti, a mother crocodile defends her babies against predators in the sky and on the ground. Discover the secret way that crocodiles have survived for millions of years.

Programmed For Flight

The animal kingdom in the Serengeti is in constant competition for resources. The essence of competition is for the hunt and those who can't cut it are left behind.

Jungle

Two mother cheetahs, able to reach top speeds of nearly 70 miles per hour, are in a race to protect and feed their new cubs. Predators close in on the families, who must work to prevail on the Serengeti Plains of Africa.

Secret Weapons

Known to be aggressive and dangerous, hippos are also fiercely protective of their young. Watch as mother hippos in Africa risk everything to keep their newly born calves away from predators, both in and out of the water.

Birds of Paradox

A newborn wildebeest befriends a fierce lioness, and a rare meeting between two river monsters, a hippopotamus and a Nile crocodile.

Jet Set Wildlife

The wildlife of the Danube delta in the Black Sea, especially the white pelicans.

Pelican Delta

There are only two seasons in the Serengeti, dry and wet. As the long dry season ends, the clouds begin to darken as the rain signals new life on the Serengeti Plains.

Winter Days

The wildebeest path on their endless migration is impeded several times by rivers. The waterways have certain dangers that can can result in death for the wildebeest, mainly the Nile crocodile.

God's Acre

The programme is about bumble bees in the forests of New England. We follow a queen bumble bee as she emerges from hibernation to find a suitable nest site and establish a colony from the eggs she has carried over the winter. She duels with a rival queen. Honey bees, bee mites and wax moths also feature in her life story.

Plight of the Bumble-Bee

Documentary which tells the story of some of the discoveries made by Indian ornitholigist Salim Ali

Salim Ali's India

In their hunt for the dugong, the Kiwai people of Papua New Guinea still use magic to bewitch it and to charm their boats, whether they are powered by sail or outboard motor. The dugong, or sea cow, is the gentle creature that gave rise to the legend of the mermaid. To the Kiwai it is an important food and a central feature of their livelihood and culture. Now it is being hunted to the extent that it is a rare and endangered species.

The Kiwai - Dugong Hunters of Daru

Greenpeace fights in the front line of the conservation battle, where the whales or the seals are being killed, the toxic waste is being dumped, the bombs are being exploded. Their policy is non-violent direct action. They break the law and make the headlines, and in a few years they've grown from a handful of west-coast idealists into a fashionable international movement. This is the story of how it happened, told through some of their most impudent and most daring campaigns.

Commandos of Conservation

Once a shooting reserve, now a rich wildlife preserve, Long Point on the north shore of Lake Erie is a testimony to the resilience of nature and to the benefits of the sport of wild fowling. In protecting their shooting, past wildfowlers also conserved the wildlife of Long Point. It is now a permanent home to rails, raccoons, toads and turtles and visited by migrating wildfowl.

Long Point

This film looks at marine life off the Devon coast, as viewed by filmmakers Jeff Goodman & Laurie Emberson, who like to get close to and interact with these creatures. Sparkling jewel anemones, exotic cup corals, massed spider crabs and rare red band fish are just a few of the unusual animals that make their homes beneath the waves of our coastal waters.

Beneath The Keel

Pearls once brought wealth to the Arabian Gulf. Today it comes from oil that gushes from beneath the sea. The gulf's bounty of wildlife is a part of its natural riches too. Migrating birds flock to its shores and its waters conceal a stunning array of creatures: sea snakes, batfish, corals, huge shoals of jacks and blooms of jellyfish that stretch to the horizon. But for how long can these priceless treasures survive the onslaught of modern development or, worse still, the war which now threatens its shores?

Treasures of the Gulf

Islands which time passed by, the Seychelles appeared out of the mists of legend only 300 years ago. These tiny granite islands are fragments of a long-lost continent, and even today they retain an air of mystery and fable, for they are home to birds, trees and flowers that are found nowhere else on earth. On a palm-fringed isle giant tortoises amble in the company of rare magpie robins.... and on another, black parrots, tiger chameleons and blue pigeons live in a forest so primeval that General Gordon of Khartoum believed he had found a lost Eden.

Fragments of Eden

As a child Jane Goodall dreamt of going to Africa and living with the animals. In 1960 her dream became reality: she began a study of chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe National Park. Today, more than two decades later, her work still continues, and it has given us a remarkable portrait of the animal most like man. Spanning three generations of chimps, it shows them in all their moods.... playful infants, turbulent adolescents and adults whose behavior ranges from tender motherhood to hunting and even murder.

Among The Wild Chimpanzees

Documentary programme on Keith Brockle who spent twelve months painting and drawing the bird life on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth.

One Man's Island

Truk Lagoon in the western Pacific is a peaceful tropical atoll. In 1944 its tranquillity was shattered when the US Navy surprised and sank a fleet of 60 Japanese ships. Within 40 years a dazzling array of corals and colorful fish have transformed this sunken arsenal into the world's largest artificial reef.

Invaders Of The Truk Lagoon

The largest known moth in the world has wings the size of a dove, the smallest lives inside a leaf. Although they are creatures of darkness, the bizarre designs and garish colors of moths rival those of butterflies in the hide-and-seek game of life. Among the stories of their double lives are tales of heroes that rescued Queensland from the prickly pear, blizzards of bogongs that were a summer feast for the first Australians, and the story of that irresistible desire that draws the moth to the flame and sudden death.

The Desire Of The Moth

Five hundred miles above the parched African landscape a satellite seeks clues to the problem of space on the ground. In Kenya, fueled by a rapidly rising population, the competition for land is threatening one of the wildlife wonders of the world. But the tools to tackle the problem are at hand - ranging from low-tech charcoal-burning stoves to the latest in high-tech space technology. Can solutions be found before the land race gets out of control? Or will the elephant, rhino and zebra lose out in this earthbound battle for space?

A Question Of Space

What's the purpose of sex? To protect us from disease! Brian Leith unravels the intricate puzzle of sex and finds that: Males seem to be a waste of time and energy - many of the successful plants and animals (like the weeds in your garden) do without them altogether! Big animals - from polar bears to human beings - always have males as well as females - for a very good reason! The vital clue to the mystery lies in parasitism and infection.

Out of the puzzle emerges a sparkling new theory of sex that looks set to keep biologists buzzing for years.

Peacocks, Parasites And The Puzzle Of Sex

The first explorers to penetrate beyond the headwaters of the Missouri brought back tales of a strange land. They spoke of valleys that seemed to smoke and burn perpetually, and of a river that never froze, even in the hardest winter. That land is Yellowstone, America's oldest national park. Two-and-a-half million visitors flock there each summer, but in winter the park takes on another face that most people never see. Bison huddle in the warmth of the hot springs and the steam vents and geysers attain a new beauty in the frozen air.

Land Of Ice And Fire

On a remote Pacific island a mysterious lake lies hidden by dense jungle. Below the surface a gigantic shimmering phantom swims, tracking the sun. This weird life form is composed of jellyfish - millions of them - a boiling mass of medusae. Like the other bizarre inhabitants of the lake, imprisonment in this peculiar marine underworld has changed their behavior. But there are other surprises too in this first filmed exploration of the labyrinthine limestone islands of Palau - rain forests sprout from razor-sharp coral rubble; whip scorpions, giant crickets and bats haunt vast caves; and a deep lake pulsates with a strange presence.

The Lost World Of Medusa

The highest peak in south-east Asia, Kinabalu, was once a mountain of legend and fable. To Chinese adventurers it was the abode of a dragon, rumored to guard a pearl by a lake at the very summit. Today's visitors have yet to find a pearl.... or see a dragon ... but there are riches of another kind. A cool island rearing precipitously from the hot and humid lowlands, Kinabalu is a treasure-house of plant and animal life. Bizarre carnivorous pitcher plants, big enough to drown a rat, share its slopes with huge begonias and stately tree-ferns. Flamboyant rhododendrons shelter the elusive ferret badger as it hunts for giant worms, and there are nearly 1,500 kinds of orchid, many found nowhere else in the world.

Kinabalu - Summit Of Borneo

Time, climate and the needs of the Irish have fashioned a magical island. Cast free when the ancient bridge from Britain sank, it still holds within its saucer of ice-scoured rocks the animals and plants that followed the retreat of the glaciers. There are Irish deer, Irish stoats and Irish mountain hares, but no snake ever came to trouble the people who cut the forests, fished and farmed. They invented a land of fairy tales, but there are real mysteries too: a strange meeting of the Arctic and the Mediterranean in a moonscape of white rock called the Burren; the unbroken ebb and flow of wildfowl from this mild winter haven; and the daunting sprawl of the bogs - unbeautiful to some, yet valuable to all, fragile wildernesses in a land wild with change.

Wild Ireland

Shooting rapids without a kayak, playing with some hefty manatees and feeding piranhas by hand! These are the extraordinary activities of an ordinary German businessman Walter Sigl , whose modest manner hides a spirit of daring and determination. His objectives: to film in the relatively unfilmed world of fresh water. This he has done with camera equipment which may seem ordinary too, but the results he achieves are a glorious pictorial celebration of the Orinoco river in Venezuela, strange lakes in Germany and crystal-clear springs in Florida.

Water - A Fresh Look

Leaves are nature's pacifists -or so it seems. Leaves hang there green and uncomplaining, while animals chew them to death, birds tear them from their stems for nest building, and dusky maidens (it's rumored) roll them on their thighs to provide grandad with a fragrant cigar. But foliage fights back.

Leaves struggle for survival in ice and in desert. They battle to the death for life-giving sunlight. Above all, they wage a relentless war against the animals who live on them. Above our heads, beneath our feet, the battle continues....

Battle Of The Leaves

Rats - should we like them? Some people hate and despise these rodents. As the Chinese Year of the Rat draws to a close, down on the farm the rats' year goes on. Resourceful and adaptable, these successful invaders have enjoyed our unwitting hospitality for over two centuries.

But this Jekyll and Hyde of animals challenges our prejudices. Is it not also an attractive pet, and a clever animal; and don't we all owe our lives to the rat as a tool of research into good health? This animal opportunist should be watched - even from behind your chair....

The Year Of The Rat

Is your dog color blind? How do cats and owls see so much at night and high-flying kestrels spot tiny mice scuttling in the grass below? Do insects tune in to colors invisible to us? Is a scarlet anorak like a red rag to a bull and can a rattlesnake really see its prey in total darkness? With the help of video techniques and specially-developed cameras, this program sets out to answer these questions and many more and to visualize what the world looks like through the eyes of a wide range of different animals. The results are often surprising.

Through Animal Eyes

A Cotswold dry-stone wall, built 400 years ago, is a haven for wildlife. The cracks, crevices and man-made crags of a Cotswold dry-stone wall form one of the harshest places for wildlife to live. There are plants that survive deluge and drought, 'wall-fish' that swim in a bed of slime, and royal households that each year rise to power, decline and die. There are creatures that emerge from the ghostly skins of their former selves, woody stems that keep demons from the door, and lichens, with a calendar spanning the four centuries etched into their patterns, that turn the stone wall into an enchanted wilderness; in all, a remarkable place and probably the most overlooked nature reserve in the world.

Within A Garden Wall

Land of the Tiger looks at the protected species of the Kanha and Ranthambore National Parks, celebrating these elusive and endangered big cats and exploring the delicately balanced ecosystem they inhabit. Interweaving footage of monkeys, deer and the tiger’s main competitor, crocodiles, the couple’s impressive cinematography brings the private world of tigers to life, as these magnificent creatures swim, play, mate, suckle their young and stalk their prey.

Land of the Tiger

In all Africa there is no stranger riddle than the flowering of the land of the Nama. Those bushmen were the first to see their desert land burgeon into a blaze of color. But this paradise was always short-lived; a spectacular bloom that quickly withered away, not to be seen again for many years. RODNEY BORLAND filmed the most recent of these stupendous and mystifying displays. To a landscape already weird with huge halfmens plants, elephant ears and baboons' fingers, suddenly came vast arrays of nodding daisies and wave upon wave of mesembryanthemums, wild geraniums, gladioli and amaryllis. The landscape was bathed in brilliant hues, a natural garden whose glory may not shine again before the end of this century.

Namaqualand - Diary of a Desert Garden

Documentary on the illicit trade in Rhino horns, which is threatening the five kinds of rhinoceros with extinction.

Horns of Dilemma

Documentary about wildlife which lives around Britain's motorways.

On the Verge of Life

The Man Who Loves Frogs

Emas - The High Plains of Brazil

The Flight of the Whooping Crane

White Rock, Black Water

Never Stay In One Place

City of Coral

First in a three part series examining Arctic ecology, The Frozen Ocean focuses on the spring to summer months, providing an intimate portrayal of life in a land of relentless ice and intense cold.

Kingdom of the Ice Bear: The Frozen Ocean

Hywel Bennett narrates the second of an award-winning trilogy of films about the Arctic. The winter is long and harsh, but for eight weeks of the year the midnight sun warms the frozen earth, nurturing lush vegetation and a rich variety of flowers, and transforming the barren wastelands into fecund breeding grounds so the life of the Arctic can renew itself.

Kingdom of the Ice Bear: The Land of Beyond

Documentary series about the Arctic and its inhabitants.

Kingdom of the Ice Bear: The Final Challenge

The wild life of the prairies of Canada during the winter months.

Aspen - A Dance of Leaves

The Plant Hunters

Short Grass Country

The Forgotten Garden

Inside Stories

Documentary on Guenons, a species of African forest monkey, and their place in the evolutionary hierarchy.

Masked Monkeys

Sky Hunters

Leopard - A Darkness In The Grass

Documentary, exploring the Chinese attitudes to mythological and real animals.

Where The Parrots Speak Mandarin

The Mystery Of Laguna Baja

Have Fish Had Their Chips?

Why Dogs Don't Like Chilli But Some Like It Hot

The Elephant Challenge

Report on Tunisia's Lake Ichkeul, a vital source of water for wild birds in the middle of the desert. Conservation plans are now in progress to presere this wa ter resource for both man and animals.

Ichkeul - Between The Desert And The Deep Blue Sea

Man-Eaters Of Kumaon

A Cactus Called Saguaro

First of a two part look at the wildlife of the Holy land - the Negev Desert.

A Wilderness Like Eden

Second of a two-part look at the natural history of the Holy Land - the Judaean Desert and the Dead Sea.

Sweet Water, Bitter Sea

Bats Need Friends

Cockatoos At Three Springs

The work of volcanologists, Maurice and Katia Krafft, who travel around the world examining and filming volcanoes in action.

The Volcano Watchers

The Deciding Factor

Reflections Of A River Keeper

Towers Of Wax And Paper Palaces

Spirits Of The Forest

Land Of The Kiwi

Lions Of The African Night

Forest Of Fear

Documentary on the penguins of Antarctica, as they travel 80km to their spring nesting sites.

Icebird

Ticket To The Wild

Documentary on the complex relationship between grizzly bear and man in North America.

Grizzly!

Documentary on the world's most active volcano, Kilauea in the Hawaiian Islands.

Islands Of The Fire Goddess

Documentary on American biologist, Dan Janzen, who is reconstructing a tropical, dry forest park in Costa Rica.

Paradise Reclaimed

Documentary on different species of Eagle, their population and habitat in Europ e and North America.

Battle For The Eagles

The first installment of the epic series Okavango:Jewel of the Kalahari, Search for the Jewel is an intriguing and visually stunning portrayal of wildlife in the Okavango delta, exploring the variety of life residing in and around its waterways.

Okavango, Jewel of the Kalahari: Search for the Jewel

Okavango, Jewel of the Kalahari: The Living Jewel

Okavango, Jewel of the Kalahari: A New Challenge

Documentary on the wolf packs of Arctic Canada.

Ice Pack

Documentary on European migrant birds as they winter on the flood plain of the River Niger in Mali.

Beyond Timbuktu

Nighthunters

Documentary about the Kakadu, the last remnant of aboriginal culture in Northern Australia.

Twilight Of The Dreamtime

Search For The Yeti

A Passion For Grouse

Documentary on the journey made by Anthony Smith and his friends as they travel done the 3,000 kilometres of the Rio Araguaia to the Amazon in a home-made steam powere catamaran.

Nuts In Brazil

Documentary on the culture and wildlife of the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.

Kingdom Of The Thunder Dragon

The Journey Of Gerald Through Wales

Coral Triangle

Wild Waterfalls: The Natural History of Cascades

Atlantic Realm: Island Arks

Atlantic Realm: Ocean Of Light

Atlantic Realm: Into The Abyss

An intimate and touching glimpse into the lives of these gentle, highly intelligent creatures, it follows a team of scientists and volunteers as they continue the research of the late ethologist  Dian Fossey.

Gorillas In The Midst Of Man

Report on the threat to the African elephant population from ivory poachers.

Ivory Wars

Documentary on the national park of Gran Paradiso in the Italian Alps, focusing on the imbalance in the fauna which inhabit the area.

Gran Paradiso

Natural World is a nature documentary television series broadcast annually on BBC Two and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history brand. It is currently the longest-running series in its genre on British television, with more than 400 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983.

Natural World is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, but individual programmes can be in-house productions, collaborative productions with other broadcasters or films made and distributed by independent production companies and purchased by the BBC. Natural World programmes are often broadcast as PBS Nature episodes in the USA. Since 2008, most Natural World programmes have been shot and broadcast in high definition.

All Episodes of Natural World

Browse all episodes of Natural World

Season 1

Save The Panda

Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 10/30/1983

From Aadvark To Zebra

Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 11/6/1983

Programmed For Flight

Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 11/13/1983

Jungle

Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 11/20/1983

Secret Weapons

Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 11/27/1983

Birds of Paradox

Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 12/4/1983

Jet Set Wildlife

Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 12/11/1983

Pelican Delta

Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 12/18/1983

Winter Days

Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 12/25/1983

God's Acre

Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 1/2/1984