Animal Winter Wonderland | BBC Earth

the Arctic millions of square kilometers of empty ice polar bears are normally solitary you might think that just finding a partner in this desolate landscape would be the challenge but they have an excellent sense of smell and can detect another bear from Over the Horizon foreign weeks tracking the scent of a female who's ready to mate they sniff closely to size each other up foreign she'll raise her Cubs alone devoting herself to them for two even three years it's a huge commitment of time and effort so it's vital to pick a male who will provide strong and healthy genes for her offspring it looks as though she's going to put this potential suit her through his paces she needs him up and down the slopes it's as if she's testing his Fitness they start to play [Music] courtship is one of the few times that adult animals play together [Music] thank you this slope is rather steep for the heavier male [Music] foreign he can't quite manage it [Music] but she seems to have decided that he might be the one [Music] whilst he seems to have lost interest [Music] it's her turn to do the chasing and she's got a few tricks up her sleeve [Music] that was enough to entice him up as the weeks go by Spring turns to Summer the sea ice melts and the ocean gets closer [Music] foreign [Music] it means feeding the chicks is easy so they are growing up fast [Music] they hang out together in small comforting huddles [Music] but snow chick isn't ready to cut the ties despite being too big for his father's pouch it's starting to get embarrassing it's long overdue but his father finally persuades him to find his place in the Gang but there's an art to joining a huddle and he hasn't mastered it but practice makes perfect and the first thing to work out is which way to face you know you've got it right when someone snuggles in behind you accepted at last this is a huge milestone in his development it means that for the first time both parents can go fishing the chick is not so sure he's ready to be left on his own [Music] but the colony has invisible walls and he instinctively knows they mustn't be crossed [Music] the adults Left Behind don't have the caring ways of his parents until they return he must find one of the colonies child minders a penguin who hasn't read takes on the role as practice for the future she'll take him under her Wing but only if he does as he's told [Music] she's a firm believer in discipline [Music] with so many chicks in her care stragglers won't be tolerated he will just have to toughen up but there's a reason for the new strict regime with the warmer days the Open Sea is closer now and new and unwelcome visitors can reach the colony easily [Music] thank you a giant petrol they always pick on the smallest he's caught that just by his baby fluff [Music] the child minder is welcome now [Music] it's now a deadly game of Hide and Seek [Music] luckily the petrol spots an easier meal of scraps and the chick has learned a valuable lesson at the colony two weeks have passed the chicks are testing their independence and spending time away from their mothers all that is except one as the last to hatch he's way behind in development while the older chicks are boisterous and confident he still feels most comfortable in his mother's pouch but penguins are sociable birds and to survive he must learn to play his part in The Colony it's a daunting Prospect but the little chick find some courage foreign [Music] [Music] time for a bit of tough love with every step he gains more confidence [Music] it's just as well he has so many friends to make thank you [Music] but when you're the smallest it's tough to join the Gang [Music] for now there's always mom out in the open ocean the fathers are reveling in being back in the water foreign they haven't eaten for four whole months and have lost half their body weight to stock up on fish and Squid they hold their breath for up to 20 minutes and dive to nearly 600 meters deeper than any other bird [Music] [Applause] [Music] at the colony three weeks have passed and the chick is confidently following his mother Wherever She Goes he's still learning how things should be done [Applause] and how they shouldn't he soon thinks there's nothing left to learn [Music] so nervous toddler turns cocky Explorer but at this age she mustn't let him out of her sight [Music] foreign [Music] and this Bobcat may be in luck for this particular Valley is blessed a river here never freezes it's fed by a volcanic hot spring that heats these Waters to 50 degrees warmer than the surrounding air hungry animals of all kinds come here to feed [Music] throughout the winter the river is full of food for those who know how to catch it here even the coyotes have become fishermen but hunting is hard for a cat that's not used to getting its feet wet so he must choose his Target with care [Music] golden eye ducks but can he get close enough to pounce haha perhaps you'll have more luck on the other side here Steam from the river warms the surrounding trees so up in the branches there could be prey if only he could get to it it's six meters up at last a squirrel not much but enough to keep him going to survive a winter in these mountains takes tenacity and bobcats have that in abundance [Music] foreign tons of snow now blanket this herd's territory pushing through deep snow is exhausting work and the bison are now slowly starving just keeping warm saps huge amounts of energy their thick coats can insulate them down to minus 20 Fahrenheit it's now minus 40. the only thing that will keep them alive is buried beneath three feet of snow and that's a problem shared with a surprising neighbor foreign [Music] six is also deep beneath the snow [Music] the survival of both creatures depends on getting through to the ground thank you for the person it will be a matter of brute strength [Applause] massive neck muscles enable them to shovel five tons of snow a day their lightweight neighbor needs more precision [Music] thank you the Bison have reached their goal a mouthful of withered grass and where the Bison have dug the fox now spots an opportunity every footstep counts but he mustn't break through yet he listens carefully to pinpoint his Target it's moving foreign small but a hundred times more nutritious than a mouthful of dried grass foreign to get through the winter on these prayer is sometimes brain beats broadeness is the tundra even trees struggle to take root in the icy soil but life is possible even here an Arctic ground squirrel he spends his entire winter asleep out like a light for eight months straight the longest deepest hibernation of any animal on Earth this extreme lifestyle can only be seen using a special filming Borough he's pretty much stopped breathing his heart is barely beating the sun is getting higher every day foreign the squirrel's body clock drags him out of bed there's no time to waste last time he saw it back in the Autumn this was his territory no he's got to fight for it all over again for the next two weeks he barely have time even to eat [Music] it's a constant battle to keep rival males off his turf [Music] foreign [Music] there's a sense of anticipation in the air females emerge a few days later he won't want to miss his first date and there she is foreign [Music] but what's he doing [Music] she'll only be fertile for 12 hours in the entire year there's no time for hesitation [Music] foreign ly makes his move she might be in a hurry but she can still be choosy [Music] [Music] he knows that while there are other males around she could easily go off with someone else so he won't leave aside for 24 hours [Music] an Alaskan spring moves fast and if you don't seize the moment it will pass you by Asami family has agreed to teach me everything they know about the Northern Lights reindeer and surviving in the Arctic Wilderness hello hello oh hello the other man I've come this far north to me hello welcome I'm Gordon nice to meet you Petri so I read it's very it's rude to ask someone how many reindeer they have is that correct yeah because I don't ask you how much money the bank you have I have no money in the bank at the moment I can see the sort of 40 at least here so these are yeah I don't want to know I don't want if it's rude I don't want to know I can count them Petri Martis started looking after reindeer when he was just two years old he comes from a long line of Sammy reindeer herders and still follows the traditional ways so your shoes is that reindeer fur yes yeah much much better what you have now and it's really best one when there's minus 30 minus 40. and I called us with the HP in its uh 1999 January just one week and there's minus 55. whoa really so when it's down as low as minus 50 you don't see reindeer shaking and shivering no if they get enough wood in the forest no problem with that cold weather oh reindeer evolved during the Ice Age there are reports of them living in temperature as low as -70. Petri leaves me in charge of feeding time so I can take a closer look at these incredible animals hey you over here there we go it is amazing to be eyeball to eyeball nose to nose with a reindeer the first thing I'm struck by is their winter coat which is up to seven centimeters thick far covers almost every part of their body it's almost impossible to sink my hand into this dense fur it is unbelievably thick you can't part the hairs and see the skin beneath not only is the hair super thick but each one of these hair fibers is is Hollow so the animal is insulated in each individual here is insulated with that air void in the middle everything about them from their feet to the tops of their antlers from the tip of the nose to end of the tail they adapted to survive in one of the harshest environments on Earth all reindeer here eat the claydonia group of lichen a nutritious mix of algae and fungi it grows all over these Northern forests to finding food for the reindeer on my journey won't be an issue today Sunset is around quarter past two in the afternoon the ideal time to try out a specialist camera I've brought to film The Northern Lights and now I've got the perfect subjects to test it on hey boys watch I'm coming through my own version of antlers right here come on this is one of the most light sensitive cameras in the world I have to say that these images look beautiful in this in this light a short time ago if you wanted to film these light levels you'd have to film in in infrared and then everything is seen in black and white but this camera picks up color and that's what I really want is not just to see the the northern lights and the shape that they make in the sky to see that there are lights in the sky but to actually see the richness of color hopefully even see colors that I can't even see with my my own eyes and filming the reindeer is a good way to actually just get a sense at this time of night of what this camera can do and my favorite friendlier reindeer isn't camera shy your parents was out my legs this is really exciting I'm really looking forward to the next stage of this adventure heading off into the wild with with my reindeer foreign [Music] [Music] today he wants to show me how to drive a reindeer sleigh I know which reindeer I'd like to use but I need to see what Petri thinks hello boys see I quite like I quite like this one it seems friendlier is this is a good one for people nicely oh this good one but we take this it's a better one yeah why is that it's not so old like this one really because I was going for which one which one I liked the most the friendliest one it does make sense to take the bigger stronger reindeer but he just puts me a bit on edge there's one thing I I don't quite like about the reindeer I should speak a bit more quietly because I don't want to hear me is that it's got um it's got quite an aggressive looking part of his antler that comes straight out and every time I'm close to I think it's gonna gauge my eye out but I suppose I suppose selecting the best reindeer for the job the job is to build a sleigh to get to grips with flea riding Petri wants me to follow him on an eight kilometer Circuit of a frozen lake okay sir you are ready yes I'm positive I'm ready okay our nearest hospital it's about 70 gallons in which direction exactly okay 70 kilometers do you know where the hospital is hopefully we won't need that foreign [Music] let's go come on come on come on come on why don't he may be the strongest reindeer it seems he's also the most stubborn everything is okay come on I really hope this isn't a sign of things to come thank you [Music] [Applause] once my reindeer does get going I can enjoy the ride [Music] there's something very very nice about being pulled along through the snow by a Reindeer you can see why Santa's done this all these years not something you could grow tired of reindeer make driving a sleigh easy [Music] a gentle tap of the Rope is all that's needed to keep them going they're splayed Hooves act like snowshoes come on boy so they can pull hundreds of kilos in weight and if the conditions are right they can cover nearly 50 kilometers in a day that's quite I suppose it's moving the kind of pace that I could walk at but the one thing it does do it gives me the opportunity to look around and enjoy the the world about me and it's beautiful it is a winter wonderland reunited the mother she's her chick for the first time ah she's Keen to start parenting but the father needs persuading to surrender the chick he's been caring for all winter he must now put his sick at risk in these temperatures it could freeze in seconds the male will have to let go [Music] eventually the transfer to the mother is safely made [Music] the chicks grow quickly on a diet of fish and Squid foreign [Music] they're Keen to explore but always with mother in tow this trick is less fortunate its mother has not returned to claim it another orphan is searching for a new family but this female already has a chick of her own some offers receive too much mothering from Penguins whose own chicks have not survived the urge to parent is so strong that they will compete with one another to adopt any Chick they find many of these squabbles end in tragedy as the poor chick is trampled to death [Applause] [Music] those chicks that do have parents quickly learn survival skills even in Spring they must huddle together for warmth just as their fathers did in the depths of winter [Music] a group of chicks has got lost in the blizzard cold and disorientated they search for The Colony [Music] it will not belong before the storm claims its first victims foreign [Music] [Music] the chicks are surprisingly well developed and now look ready to take on the world those that survived their first year have the best possible start in life thanks to the extraordinary hardships endured by their parents parents who battled with the Antarctic winter and won finally with the skies completely clear I get a glimpse of the phenomenon I've been searching for it's not what I was expecting it's just like a big smear across the sky it stretches around and it's kind of rainbow it's a single color of green all the way around to the Horizon on that side [Music] what I'm really hoping for is that classic Northern Lights big flowing river of light a big ribbon through the sky this is tantalizingly close seeing what I've come here to see [Music] quickly as they appeared the lights vanish I have no way of telling Wayne or if they'll come back foreign cover temperatures plummet to -25 I guess level of coldness actually makes you really tired you're using up a lot of energy just to stay warm without even moving moving around it's like everything's cold you feel the call coming out from the ground it's coming in from all site it's just sort of all-consuming and I'm just wondering if there is if I have a a cut off point if it's going to get so cold that it's it's not going to be possible to to stand out here [Music] my eyes begin to play tricks on me and I start to question what I'm seeing there is something happening in the sky but neither my eyes nor my camera can fully see it as the Northern Lights it's weird because at times it looks like it can look like clouds moving very fast and then as it is at the moment look at that it's just burst into life holy smokes gee whiz that is phenomenal just changes in an instant look at that my goodness that is something else [Music] starts off as a sort of almost an underwhelming cloud and suddenly it starts to shift and take form and the lights start to dance and Flicker and move and what is just a smear becomes a sort of rich texture that's moving across the sky from Horizon to Horizon [Music] every single second is is precious and you get a sense with every moment you watch this that has far back in time all those millions of years that this has been taking place it has never been like this before and then it changes again [Music] after a couple of hours the Aurora builds turned incredible crescendo these particles from the Sun have traveled nearly 150 million kilometers [Music] hard to take it all in it's just it's so Grand so spectacular it is it's mind-blowing [Music] I couldn't have filmed any of this without my reindeer's help after a bumpy start I can't imagine being here with anyone else and I want something special to remember our time together that's a boy you handsome handsome man you're a good fellow who said reindeers don't like hugs okay boy okay right I'll do a selfie you know what a selfie is don't you everyone does even reindeer you've got unless your head best smile all right boy [Music] three two one [Music] this has been an incredible journey and to top it off I think I've got my Christmas card sorted [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 349,784

Keywords: bbc documentary, bbc, bbcearth, bbc earth, animal, winter, wonderland, festive, christmas, polar, bear, penguin, artic fox, beaver, bobcat, compilation, raindeer, david, Attenborough

Id: aVrab8YWUVE

Length: 43min 51sec (2631 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 24 2022