The Wonderful Wildlife of Sardinia | Free Documentary Nature

[Music] sardinia has many faces wild forests and rugged snow-covered mountains it's an island where colorful blossoms explode and devastating wildfires rage [Music] with the dark netherworld a fantastic grottoes and with numerous winged creatures in the air and underwater native Sardinians possess a special charm and character so this popular Mediterranean island has always been attractive to the most diverse creatures large ocean mammals meet here it's home to a wondrous cosmos of bizarre characters [Music] some delicate others quite strange and colorful all together as unique as the island itself [Music] when God created the earth he had some rocks left over at the end legend has it that he threw them into the ocean and an island was created which still is rich in rocks and cliffs nature's forces have shaped a bizarre granite landscape at the capo testa in northern Sardinia over millions of years wind and water salt and heat molded massive boulders as if they were made of clay polished and partially ground down by the constant force of the waves the Strait of Bonnie Fat Joe is infamous among seafarers because of its tricky currents Corsica is on the other side dozens of different whales species skirmish in the Strait amongst them striped dolphins [Music] the wheel sanctuary is located north of Sardinia a Nature Reserve established especially for the large marine mammals pilot whales also live here pods of them at times twenty to a hundred animals females grow to about 18 feet and males 24 feet pilot whales are a social bunch and communicate with a large repertoire of whistles and other sounds at night the pod dives up to 1,800 feet deep in search of squids the Strait of Bonifacio also attracts many large porpoises the nutrient-rich ocean is teeming with fish and therefore attracts many predators for protection many bait fishes form what's known as a bait ball so individual fishes disappear in the rotating mass but bait balls also attract other larger fish and seabirds [Music] the mob ulis or manta rays are not interested mobile arrays have hitchhikers with them remoras that attach themselves with suction plates to the Rays head or stomach in return for the transportation the remoras remove parasites from the rains mobula rays will grow up to 15 feet including the tail their wings are adapted pectoral fins with its mouth wide open the large harmless ray filters only minut plankton from the seawater clouds of plankton float through the waters around Sardinia enough for an entire armada of underwater flying carpets and their passengers [Music] the Costas Marauder or emerald coast is located in the northeastern part of the island as is the Madalena archipelago with this turquoise ocean and secluded Bay's with pink sand the extremely clear water is ideal for scuba divers a colorful magic world lives off the coast here tunicates such as sea squirts red anthias and a variety of anthozoa sea fans for example these black corals have become rare because they've been used to make jewelry like all corals these cnidarians have formed a colony the white polyps have built up a dark skeleton which grows very slowly a branch with a diameter of less than half an inch is about 15 years old the Madalena archipelago is densely populated due to the nutritious current between the small islands the small polyps of the anthozoa x' fish tiny plankton out of the current with the help of their nida capsule [Music] tube worms like the feather-duster worm stretched their crowns of feeding tentacles into the current [Music] sea squirts swirl the water into their insides where they highly effectively filter the nutritious particles out of the water they're regarded as the purification plants of the oceans the archipelago is home to numerous quirky and colorful life-forms with unusual behaviors what looks like a spikey sausage is a male sea cucumber a cloud of sperm gushes into the ocean like smoke from a chimney the sperm has to come upon egg cells somewhere in the open ocean in order for little sea cucumbers to develop the city of groupers is located near the island of Lavezzi here the Predators often over 3 foot long are easy to see as they lay in wait for prey near the coast in other places groupers are hunted because their meat is highly sought after however in the Madalena archipelago they're protected and therefore rather trusting this wondrous world only exists because there's water here that sounds rather obvious but Sardinia wasn't always surrounded by the ocean the island has a very eventful history of creation the western coastline is crisscross with collapsed caves and caverns accumulations of slaggy ashes are left over from the islands volcanic past the western coastline of Sardinia it consists of a very dark underwater lava landscape bright yellow stone corals live in near darkness at a depth of 1,800 feet feeding off plankton that's drifting by in places where the Earth's crust opens up to colonies of beard worms live near the hot springs these deep-sea inhabitants feed off sulfur bacteria [Music] further down at six thousand feet a deadly zone begins here a shimmering white and blue brine dillos the seabed around Sardinia harbors highly concentrated salt lakes much more salty than the ocean water above these deep sea salt lakes are left over of dramatic events in the Earth's history that began almost six million years ago back then Sardinia was located in the Mediterranean like today but Africa moved northwards and closed the Strait of Gibraltar cut off from the Atlantic the Mediterranean evaporated Sardinia and other islands became the mainland lakes of a highly concentrated salt solution were left in some places on what had been the seabed these are the salt lakes of today deep down in the ocean off the coast of Sardinia for about half a million years the entire basin of the Mediterranean was a great white and hot salt desert then the Strait of Gibraltar broke open again why we don't know and created the largest waterfall in the Earth's history at first the basin filled up slowly but the water stream yanked more and more rocks with it and drew ever stronger more than 500 times the amount of water per second that flows into the Amazon estuary at times the water level rose by up to 30 feet per day within a few decades Sardinia became an island again back to today canals connect the brackish water lagoons of Capra's with the ocean flamingos find their food in the salty parts of these stainless tiny brine shrimps the flamingos used to stay on the island only in the colder months today the red folk as the Sardinians call them stay here all year round [Music] shelducks on the other hand only visit in the winter months the shallow brackish water lagoons provide food for over a hundred and fifty bird species throughout the year amongst them little egrets and several seagull species while the flamingos catch shrimps in the salty parts of the stand knows the little bit nee hunts in the surrounding Reed belt even though the fledglings are almost grown they're still fed by their parents while hiding in the protection of the thick reed stalks [Music] the freshwater sections of the stand nose are teeming with fishes but many attempts to catch one fail it's easier for the flamingos they stick their heads in the water and sift through the sediment of the lagoon with their curved beaks to catch shrimps they stamp their feet into the soft mud to swirl up additional friends for a long time Sardinia was just a popular rest stop for the flamingos during their migration across the Mediterranean as for many other migratory birds today but then in the 1990s they began to breathe in the largely undisturbed marshland hers every once in a while the different species squabble and bicker with one another the compact and snappy Grey Goose is not an easy opponent for the long-legged flamingo [Applause] [Music] grey herons always have some sort of disagreement with their neighbors during the breeding season while this couple is mating their neighbor is trying to steal their nesting material but the owner of the nest is watching out chases the intruder away [Music] and then turns his attention to his mate again [Music] the forted thief still keeps an eye on the nest after all mating takes a lot of concentration for this couple of grey herons [Music] and it's quite an undertaking while standing on such long and wobbly legs [Music] nighttime off the coast of Sardinia and the butterflies of the oceans become active [Music] these disheveled creatures are among the most colorful animals in the world they themselves can only discern between light and dark their colors and patterns are for deterring predators while their relatives on land carry around a snail shell for protection these nudie Bronx are poisonous they don't produce their own poison though they have to steal it from their prey with their rajala they scrape polyps off anthozoa x' and swallow them during the digestion process the poisonous nematocysts wander through their alimentary tract to be stored in the attachments on their backs fishes that try to take a bite out of them will then be stung and will let go of the nudibranch some species can therefore flutter through the ocean like butterflies thanks to their stolen poison at night the streaked gurnard hunts for crustaceans that he finds on the ocean floor so he doesn't have to be an elegant swimmer at times the gurnard trips through the reef on his Finland's and at other times he fans out his pectoral fins and floats along nudibranch SAR almost blind so they find their mate with their excellent sense of smell they're hermaphroditic each animal can produce sperm or egg cells nevertheless they still need a partner to reproduce while mating they have to align their reproductive openings and exchange reproductive cells the nudie pranks are not affected by each other's poisonous appendages during their mating dance thousands of fertilized eggs then stick to corals or algae in colorful spirals like paper streamers [Music] and on some nights the poisonous nudibranch s-- get together off the coast of Sardinia to mass mate the interior of the island is much more green than most imagine western winds bring fog and moisture into the highlands rugged mountains and deep valleys create different climate zones in the spring clouds get caught in the mountains and the rain fills isolated Springs creating torrential mountain streams with crystal-clear water the heart of Sardinia is still wild and very idyllic [Music] in the mountains of the supramonte a a dipper hunts for food an older fledgling waits on the shore of the stream it has already left the nest but the fledgling is not yet able to dive into the current himself to catch insects crabs or small fishes the bird practices swimming in karma areas of the stream while the parent refers diving to flying in order to feed the ever hungry fledgling with another word lichens don't have roots but draw their moisture from the air many branches of the Sardinian magic forests are decorated with such beards in which the Eurasian Jay searches for insects and he also searches for seeds and acorns that he has stored for bad times [Music] at times though these smart birds seem to forget where they hid their seeds and look rather perplexed [Music] the thick carpets of moss grow in the mountain forests the tiny plant store water for the drought we almost overlook these tiny little guys in the moss they are young alpine newts [Music] trees bent by the Western winds are also covered with moss when the moon rises above the limestone mountains of the supramonte a mysterious noises ring out into the forest the wise bird of antiquity is awake the little owl calls for a mate a ritual that has rarely been filmed gentle nudges are part of their long overture [Music] the climax the actual mating act only takes 30 seconds but the Owls repeat their mating ritual several more times throughout the night Sardinia is shaped by unique landscapes a realm of mountains and rocks and of rugged coastlines but no matter whether on land or under water there's often a hidden cosmos underneath an underworld of mysterious caves that only divers can explore this one was only discovered in 1994 the explorers discovered ghosts covered with sheets all over the limestone therefore they named this beautiful cave trata de fantast me the ghost cave at first it leads the divers through a tight labyrinth the passageways are often narrow but they lead to a grotto covered in fantastic drip stones [Music] the ghost cave used to be far above sea level so it bears witness to the ever-changing history of Sardinia just like the gratata Chaffey the nearby deer cave here the remains of a prehistoric deer have been covered with the lime of the dripstones more than 75,000 years ago when the sea level was much lower than today the deer ended up in the cave and died the animal belonged to a species that has disappeared the first settlers on Sardinia probably wiped them out nevertheless deer still live on the island today they came here 6,000 years ago it's believed that early seafarers brought the Sardinian Red Deer across the Mediterranean it's smaller than the ones that live in Central Europe owing to illegal hunting only 200 of them remain on Sardinia [Music] the Sardinian mountains are also home to another souvenir of early settlers the mouflon is probably a descendant of what was originally a domestic sheep it came to the island seven thousand years ago and became feral [Music] just like the Red Deer the mouflon is also threatened by illegal hunters but thanks to the strict protection of the species about 2,000 wild sheep now roam around the Sardinian mountains again whereas the site of the n2 zooms has become rare [Music] until soon that's how the natives call the large Griffon vulture which likes to breed in colonies they often build their nests on overhanging rock ledges nowadays the last of the until zoos breed on the western coast of Sardinia near the town of bozer in the past the large birds with a wingspan of more than seven feet were widely spread throughout the island they're true scavengers and they have problems finding carcasses on the island although they can spot a perished animal from very high up game has become rare and the farmers don't let their livestock roam around free anymore so food has become quite sparse for the vultures and their offspring [Music] environmentalists have created feeding stations in order to preserve the last of the intrusions more than 7,000 nuraghes were erected in the mountains of sardinia many of these rock towers are more than 3,500 years old their builders are long gone but the nuraghes still stand red-backed strikes hunt for insects here to feed their offspring Willow sparrows mate on top of the prehistoric stone walls between the walls Cyrenian wall lizards romp around the inside of the Nawrocki is also occupied in a hollow in the floor and completely without a nest surrounding them little owls still blind hatched after a month only the mother cares for the young owls the male has dropped off mice and other small animals in front of the cave food for the young in the interior of the island small villages seem to cling to the mountain science Sardinia is also an ancient cultivated landscape early in the year the almond bloom clothes entire valleys in a delicate pink color almond trees have been cultivated on Sardinia since the early Middle Ages their blooms are the forerunners of a flood of flowers and fruit that constantly changed the colours of the landscape throughout the entire year fields of artichokes are aglow in a sea of red their blossoms are used as a vegetable or to make bitters the almonds ripened during the course of the summer they won't be harvested until the autumn and then made into Armen confections biscuits and almond paste [Music] until then Sardinia flaunts its beauty and rich colors milk words open their butterfly blooms the shaft of stamen and ovaries grows out of the hibiscus bloom like a pillar while the widow flower is made up of 50 individual blooms Sardinia is also famous for its lemons the fruit and the leaves fill the air with their citrus scent [Music] in the olive groves typical for the Mediterranean the blooms lure longhorn beetles to them for pollination and while the oleander is still in bloom the seed capsules of the Moline are already ripening the nocturnal little owl now also has to provide food for its young during the day unfazed by the heat of the Blazing Sun in the mountains of Sardinia powerful heat thunderstorms develop especially at the height of the summer only one lightning strike is enough to ignite a raging fire in the dry scrub of the Makia driven by the wind of the Mistral the fire devastates large areas the only green rater who survived are parts of the Mediterranean dwarf palm this is the only European palm species and there lignified trunks protect them from the fires but soon new life awakens out of the ashes wild chicory and vipers Bugler's blossom in this environment as well as the pretty ash Vidal cork oaks also withstand these widespread summer fires their gnarled bark protects them from fire and dehydration like a thick shield their core is harvested every eight to ten years 80% of Italy's core production comes from Sardinia [Music] a cork oak will produce up to 440 pounds of cork within its lifetime almost as gnarled as the bark are its inhabitants the larvae are these primeval rhinoceros beetles live off the dead wood of old trees although these two are originally from Asia and were probably released here the nobley bark of the cork oaks is popular with many different beetle species the secluded Costa Verde the green coast in the southwestern part of Sardinia is known for its strong surf when the sea is calm lagger head and green turtles like to bask in the Sun on the surface goose barnacles often grow in colonies on top of driftwood in the open ocean whatever attaches itself to driftwood never knows where it will end up and has to conquer new habitats [Music] thousands of individual animals have joined forces to become live pelagic flotsam this chain of Sallee Asya can be pulled out of the water like a piece of rope [Music] driftwood also offers protection from predators such as this dolphin fish other fishes are seeking protection amongst each other often in large schools comprised of different kinds of fishes like these bizarre boar and sniper fishes [Music] the cumbersome sunfish is typically alona it can grow to more than nine feet long and weigh more than two metric tons a fully grown sunfish therefore has very few enemies loggerhead turtles also live by themselves and only come together to mate the females only reproduce every two to four years both loggerhead and green turtles live in the Mediterranean while mating the male holds on tight to his female with his front flippers at times for up to three hours before they part ways again soon the females will head towards the beaches along the coast of LD one of the largest sand dune areas in the Mediterranean a sandscape made up of shifting sand dunes up to a hundred and eighty feet high from the end of May until July the beaches bear witness to an unusual nocturnal spectacle that's when the loggerhead females come out of the water to lay more than a hundred eggs each in the sand during one season at two-week intervals the females can produce the same amount of eggs up to three times over she closes the nest with her back flippers and crawls back into the ocean more than a dozen years ago she hatched on this beach herself the turtle's sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic signals leads her back to this Beach once it's her time to lay eggs the nest of eggs will take up 270 days to develop in the warm sand of the Costa Verde heated by the Summer Sun then the baby turtles will all hatch at once they will try to get into the water as soon as possible due to dehydration the little turtles can lose 1/5 of their body weight on their way into the ocean not until there are at least 12 years old will the female turtles come back to this beach along the Costa Verde to lay eggs themselves [Music] gently rolling hills at times traversed by wild ravines [Music] the grr digest story in southern Sardinia an inaccessible plateau unspoiled and densely overgrown in this Nature Reserve ankle-deep lakes develop in the spring covered in water crowfoot plants a favorite meal of the semi-wild broncos of Sardinia the Cavallini della guerra only stand about four feet tall there are good 15 inches shorter than many other horse species they're usually brown or black their Mane is scrubby and their tails are especially long in the spring when everything is green and in bloom their foals are born to continue the history of this ancient breed of horse [Music] it's still unclear where the Cavallini came from [Music] one theory states that the undemanding little horses came to the island with the Phoenicians about 2,500 years ago about 500 of the semi wild horses still roam around the highlands of Java the easel or a Cynara is located off the northwestern coast line of sardinia the island housed a maximum-security prison for more than a hundred years nowadays it's a national park the attraction of the island are the blue-eyed white donkeys the Sardinians call them a Sinaloan which means little donkey they're often only three feet tall legend has it that they are survivors of a shipwreck was supposed to carry white donkeys from Egypt to France thistles have since become part of their meager diet on a Cynara [Music] about 300 of the gentle white hacen ellos live on the island not far away further west we find the most Spanish city on sadena alghero was conquered by the Aragon ease in 1353 and governed by the Catalans for four centuries many of its inhabitants still speak Spanish today with a Catalan dialect alghero is mostly known for its red gold coral divers used to harvest large amounts of precious red coral and the surrounding waters but the corals are now strictly protected nowadays these are fishing boats the region is still called riviera del coral or the Coral Coast the capo caccia with its imposing chalk cliffs is located not far from alghero coral divers used to dive deep into the ocean below these steep cliffs the Cape is perforated by dozens of spectacular dark caves aglow in the most beautiful colors yellow zoanthids and crusting anemones red algae and the red gold of the former coral divers red corals white polyps cover each red branch unfortunately red corals are long gone in many areas of the Mediterranean because of their value in the jewelry business the Cape contains a complicated labyrinth of caves many miles long only a few are accessible to divers if you go in here you better remember your way back out a brittle star stirs in the light it can shed its arms in case of danger the yellow zone tha'ts are not bothered by the lights they continue fishing for plankton that flows into the cave with the current the passageways are getting narrower but every new grotto reveals a treasure house of wonderful shapes and colors a steno paired with long antennae a tube anemone with even longer tentacles the shrimp is light on its feet and therefore doesn't stir up any sediment as it catches a small crustacean the divers with their long flippers on the other hand have to be rather careful if they want to continue to marvel at this bizarre underwater world and observe the different ways each inhabitant hunts for food in these dark caves this red scorpion fish looks on the sea floor until prey conveniently swims by its large mouth they can grow up to 20 inches long these crabs have found a dead jellyfish and are taking it apart while the tube worm feeds food particles to its mouth opening with its long tentacles the passageway leads the divers even further into the cave system where they find crustaceans that usually live in much deeper regions of the ocean novel shrimps can actually descend to depths approaching 3,000 feet in the caves of the capo caccia they often gather in large masses clouds of shrimps also attract predators this Mediterranean moray eel is 4 feet long and this two-foot Forkbeard only has to open its mouth in the lights of the dive torches some of the organs of the sea squirts glow like light bulbs other creatures shy away from the light like this 20 inch long locust Lobster the divers are thankful for their protective neoprene dive suits as they exit the cave it will be very unpleasant to come in contact with a mold stinger jelly and they usually don't come alone either one of their common names is also fire jelly because of the jellyfishes spurning sting each inch of their tentacles is covered by up to 10,000 poisonous stinging cells an encounter with human skin can lead to painful burns [Music] the adult jellies are releasing countless tiny larvae into the water within the protection of the cave entrance soon the larvae will be drifting through the ocean as miniature versions of their parents the mountains in the interior of Sardinia are also full of holes inside like Swiss cheese the cave entrances are easy to miss in the cast landscape but inside we find enchanting grottoes full of dripstones sometimes bats hang off the ends the greater horseshoe bat has a wingspan of more than 15 inches and is the largest european bat species the bats rest in the cave during the day once it gets dark they leave the cave to catch insects such as beetles and moths often these bats share their resting place with other bat species like the me Halley's horseshoe bat which is a little smaller both use ultrasound they emit clicking noises that are undetectable by the human ear with their cone-shaped ears they receive the sound waves reflected back from objects that's how they locate objects up to 900 feet away and that's also how they safely navigate their way around a dripstone cave in total darkness and catch prey in the dead of night some bats such as the maghreb mouse yet bats live in large colonies the males are typically loners but the females will gather together and create a nursery of about 2,000 animals in late summer the young will be weaned and have to build up their own fat reserves throughout the autumn for their winter hibernation it can get surprisingly cold on Sardinia tens of thousands of bats will hibernate inside the dripstone grottoes the punter Lama Mara is the highest mountain on the island with its peak at 5400 feet but it's not the only mountain that's covered in deep snow throughout the winter winter on Sardinia is harsh for any creature that doesn't hibernate mice the main food source for the Fox live hidden beneath a deep cover of snow that's why the Fox has such a great nose and ears [Music] thanks to their phenomenal senses Fox's here even the slightest rustle underneath the snow and get to the mice they're hungry for a buzzard has also found food vultures and a few crows have led the way for her [Music] environmentalists have put out meat for the rare and tools the other species also profit from the efforts to preserve the last griffon vultures this convenient vulture restaurant is open throughout the winter so that these rare birds can continue

Channel: Free Documentary - Nature

Views: 1,296,250

Rating: 4.6799564 out of 5

Keywords: Free, Documentary, Documentaries, adventure, nature, nature documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), ocean documentary, sealife, underwater world, fish documentary, Sardinia, Sardinia animals, Sardinia sealife, Pilot whales, dolphins, mobula rays, Capo Testa, biodiversity, biodiversity italy, Free Documentary Nature, Sardinia Documentary, Wildlife Sardinia, mediterranean sea, Mediterranean Documentary, sardinia italy, environment, free documentary

Id: _b7R2nkmbEE

Length: 50min 4sec (3004 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 03 2020