TV review

innovative camerawork.

The old footage was one thing, the story behind it quite another. The special was essentially a “making of”, not just of Zoo Quest but the modern television nature documentary as we know it today.

The first Zoo Quest expedition in 1954 took Attenborough, Lagus and London Zoo reptile curator Jack Lester to West Africa. Their mission was not only to capture rare animals on film — some for the first time — but to also capture and bring them back to the zoo.

“Nobody thought much about conservation or really considered that animals might be driven to extinction,” said Attenborough. “Of course, these days you would never dream of doing it.”

Unburdened by modern concepts such as conservation, postcolonialism or health and safety, the three men created a popular six-part television series from their travels, employing all sorts of ingenious production methods along the way.

How’s this for a pub quiz question: What was the first animal filmed in the wild for a David Attenborough series? Answer: the weaver bird, a

It was like watching The Crocodile Hunter a good 40 years before Steve Irwin ever set foot in front of a camera.

black and yellow finch native to Sierra Leone.

“They strip the leaves from their tree,” the young Attenborough narrated with trademark poetic concision, “tear them into long ribbons and weave them into beautiful, intricate nests.”

It turns out many of the characteristics that have made Attenborough’s work so enduringly popular were there right from the start — the infectious sense of wonder, the humour, the uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time.

In Zoo Quest In Colour you could easily see the blueprint for the next 60 years of the genre.

In one incredible scene filmed in Guyana, a young, athletic Attenborough, decked out in khaki, chases down a giant anteater and dives to grab on to its tail.

It was like watching The Crocodile Hunter a good 40 years before Steve Irwin ever set foot in front of a camera.

The anteater, like many of the animals encountered on Zoo Quest, eventually ended up at London Zoo.

“It did very well,” Attenborough remembered. “Lived for quite a long time.”