David Attenborough returns with a new tour of Planet Earth
‘T HERE are islands still forming today,” says the familiar husky voiced David Attenborough in the early stages of the second instalment of the hit nature series, Planet Earth. A landscape of molten lava follows and it suggests the birth of new land which comes with its own ecosystem.
We zoom in on a sandy and rocky patch of land which houses the marine iguanas. The small ugly lizards’ fate is sealed when they are laid as eggs in shallow sand. This is mainly because the terrain they exhume themselves to is plagued with everhungry poisonous snakes that hunt the lizards down. The first thing that the lizards do when they get out is run, as instinct tell them they are in deep trouble. What a way to spend your first day, right?
For the marine iguanas that’s just the way life is.
You will also marvel at the sight of the red crabs on Christmas Island in Australia.
Before you get too attached to them, (spoiler alert) their very existence is threatened by an army of species called crazy ants.
These ants are not originally from the island, they came off the ships that would frequent the island. This means that this caused an imbalance in the food chain and since nothing is eating the ants, they are multiplying in great numbers and in turn they are hunting the red crabs into extinction.
Another bittersweet story is that of the chinstrap penguins of the South Sandwich Islands.
In their daily endeavours the penguins meet danger in the form of leopard seals. While you may be impressed by how those that make it literally walk with their heads held high, it is painful to see them stagger around with blood stains on their tuxedos. Again, that’s just another brutal truth about the law of the wild.
Then the landscape changes to scenic mountains when we have a look at the snow leopards on the Himalayas. They are very beautiful and yet dangerous animals which are not only brutal to their prey, but to each other too. They live on rough terrain without much flora or fauna, but that is the least of their problems.
The following episodes are themed Jungles and Deserts – and you will be surprised to learn what lurks out there. From the locust swarms of south-west Madagascar to the Zebra of the Makgadikgadi salt pans in Botswana, there is no limit to what Sir Attenborough and his crew are willing to show you.
You see just how beautiful our planet is. This is a world away from pollution, war and famine. Planet Earth II airs on Sundays at 4pm on BBC Earth (DStv Channel 184).