Nature Archives - Page 18 of 38

Africa’s Wild Heart – Water

Nature / 4 minutes of reading / December 27, 2022 / By HDclump

Africa’s Wild Heart – Water: The Great Rift Valley channels a huge diversity of waterways – rivers, lakes, waterfalls, caustic springs and coral seas – from Egypt to Mozambique. Some lake and ocean deeps harbour previously unseen life-forms, while caustic waters challenge life to the extreme. But where volcanic minerals enrich the Great Rift’s waterways, they provide the most spectacular concentrations of birds, mammals and fish. Visible from space, Africa’s Great Rift Valley runs three thousand miles from the Red Sea to the mouth of the Zambezi. It’s a diverse terrain of erupting volcanoes, forest-clad mountains, spectacular […]

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Africa’s Wild Heart – Fire

Nature / 4 minutes of reading / December 26, 2022 / By HDclump

Africa’s Wild Heart – Fire: The valley, a vast crack spanning the length of East Africa, is the product of deep-seated geological forces which have spewed out a line of cloud-wreathed volcanoes stretching from Ethiopia to Tanzania. Their peaks provide a refuge for East Africa’s most extraordinary wildlife, including newly discovered and previously unfilmed species which have evolved surprising survival strategies. Visible from space, Africa’s Great Rift Valley runs three thousand miles from the Red Sea to the mouth of the Zambezi. It’s a diverse terrain of erupting volcanoes, forest-clad mountains, spectacular valleys, rolling grasslands, huge lakes and mighty rivers,

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Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Nature / 4 minutes of reading / December 20, 2022 / By HDclump

Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers over 500,000 acres of breath-taking beauty – lush highland meadows, glorious waterfalls, pristine mountain streams and the highest mountain tops in the Appalachians, and to crown it all, it encompasses one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world. Great Smoky Mountain National Park rests in the geographic province known as the Blue Ridge Mountains, named for their distinctive blue appearance when seen from a distance. Ridge upon ridge of forest straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. World renowned for its diversity

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Autumnwatch 2022 episode 4

Nature / 4 minutes of reading / October 29, 2022 / By HDclump

Autumnwatch 2022 episode 4: Chris and Michaela bring the final instalment of the wildlife dramas that have been unfolding all week at Wild Ken Hill. Gillian and Iolo will be catching up on the latest action from one of the biggest bat roosts in Wales. There’s a look at how the falling leaves of autumn lead to extraordinary wildlife dramas in our rivers, plus the woman releasing injured bats after they’ve successfully completed flight tests in her bat-friendly garage. Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, sometimes known collectively as The Watches, are annual BBC television series which chart the

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Autumnwatch 2022 episode 3

Nature / 4 minutes of reading / October 28, 2022 / By HDclump

Autumnwatch 2022 episode 3: Chris and Michaela showcase the insects who live at Wild Ken Hill, with the macro studio set up to showcase bugs and creepy crawlies in incredible detail. And will the beavers make an appearance live in the show? Iolo Williams and Gillian Burke showcase the sights and sounds of Wales. Do dolphins have Welsh accents? And Autumnwatch has once again teamed up with Children in Need, meeting nature-loving siblings Sophia and Leo, who are dealing with a disease that affects so many families, cancer. Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, sometimes known collectively as The

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Autumnwatch 2022 episode 2

Nature / 3 minutes of reading / October 27, 2022 / By HDclump

Autumnwatch 2022 episode 2: A deep dive into the changing nature of autumn, looking at the winners and losers as environmental patterns shift. In Norfolk, Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan showcase the surprising things that viewers have been seeing this autumn from around the country. Iolo Williams and Gillian Burke wow in Wales with marine marvels and mammals, including live bats departing en masse from their roost sites at dusk. Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, sometimes known collectively as The Watches, are annual BBC television series which chart the fortunes of British wildlife during the changing of the

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Autumnwatch 2022 episode 1

Nature / 4 minutes of reading / October 26, 2022 / By HDclump

Autumnwatch 2022 episode 1: Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan settle into the live cameras at Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk, where beavers are frequenting a floating raft and thermal cameras are poised to capture the natural events that happen after dark. Iolo Williams and Gillian Burke are at Teifi Marshes in Wales, where Iolo is on the lookout for the locking antlers of the deer rut and Gillian is exploring the natural wonders of Cardigan Bay. They also have live cameras on one of the biggest bat roosts in Wales to witness the comings and goings as

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Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life

Nature, Science / 3 minutes of reading / October 23, 2022 / By HDclump

Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life: Ever since Darwin, major scientific discoveries have helped to underpin and strengthen Darwin’s revolutionary idea so that today, the pieces of the puzzle fit together so neatly that there can be little doubt that Darwin was right. As David says: ‘Now we can trace the ancestry of all animals in the tree of life and demonstrate the truth of Darwin’s basic proposition. All life is related.’ David asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right?

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Our Frozen Planet

Nature / 4 minutes of reading / October 16, 2022 / By HDclump

Our Frozen Planet: Our frozen planet is changing. In this final episode, we meet the scientists and people dedicating their lives to understanding what these changes mean, not just for the animals and people who live there, but for the world as a whole. Our journey begins in the Arctic, where every summer huge quantities of ice calve from the edges of Greenland’s melting glaciers. On top of the ice cap itself, glaciologist Alun Hubbard descends into a moulin to try to understand the mechanisms that are driving this historic loss of ice. Elsewhere in the Arctic,

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Frozen Lands

Nature / 3 minutes of reading / October 9, 2022 / By HDclump

Frozen Lands: In the far north of our planet lies the largest land habitat on earth, home to snow-covered forests and the icy open tundra. These are lands of extremes that push animals to their limits: in winter they are so cold that much of the ground has remained frozen since the last ice age. To stand any chance of survival, animals must adapt in extreme ways: here a super pack of wolves, 25 strong, has come together to take on the only large prey available to them in winter, American bison. On the featureless tundra, an

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Frozen South

Nature / 3 minutes of reading / October 2, 2022 / By HDclump

Frozen South: Antarctica is the most hostile of all earth’s frozen worlds. Yet even here, amongst some of the most challenging conditions on the planet, life finds a way not just to survive, but thrive. Our journey begins at the far edge of the continent, on its far-flung sub-Antarctic islands. Here we meet king penguins that, to feed at sea, must face the danger of ferocious leopard seals lurking in the shallows. On another island, we witness for the first time male Antipodean wandering albatross partnering up with each other as the females in their population are disappearing due to

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Frozen Peaks

Nature / 3 minutes of reading / September 25, 2022 / By HDclump

Frozen Peaks: Mountains create frozen habitats on every continent on Earth, and each of these high-altitude worlds holds unique challenges for its surprising and remarkable life. We begin our journey close to the equator – the furthest point from the poles – in East Africa. Here on the high slopes of Mount Kenya, during the day the tropical sun keeps the cold at bay, but at night the frost descends. During this cycle of freeze and thaw, a pregnant high-casqued chameleon must choose the right time to give birth if her newborns are to escape the deadly night freeze.

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