40 quotes
Even though hunters have a formidable armoury and great skill, most of their hunting trips... end in failure.
The Life of Birds (1998)
So here you can glimpse what the world would have been like if the birds had won that battle with the early mammals and now ruled the Earth, for here they once did.
The Life of Birds (1998)
People who accuse us of putting in too much violence, [should see] what we leave on the cutting-room floor. My conscience troubles me more about reducing the pain and savagery that there is in the natural world than the reverse.
This is now our planet, run by humankind for humankind. There is little left for the rest of the living world.
David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020)
Without thermals, [raptors] can't travel far. But the snow geese fly on... They navigate by the stars.
The Life of Birds (1998)
We are going to have to live more economically than we do. And we can do that and, I believe we will do it more happily, not less happily. And that the excesses the capitalist system has brought us, have got to be curbed somehow.
To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as far as I can see.
Reptiles and amphibians are sometimes thought of as primitive, dull and dimwitted. In fact, of course, they can be lethally fast, spectacularly beautiful, surprisingly affectionate and very sophisticated.
Life in Cold Blood (2008)
[The Kiwi.] It's the bird equivalent of a badger.
The Life of Birds (1998)
To many of us, however, this is the most delectable of natural sounds. It's an hour before dawn, it's spring, this is an English woodland. All around, the dawn chorus. It's so familiar that perhaps we take it for granted.
The Life of Birds (1998)
Warm-bloodedness is one of the key factors that have enabled mammals to conquer the Earth, and to develop the most complex bodies in the animal kingdom. In this series, we will travel the world to discover just how varied and how astonishing mammals are.
The Life of Mammals (2002)
The coral's stinging armoury isn't used only for collecting food; they also use it to fight. As has been discovered only comparatively recently, corals, like many animals that live on land, are extremely territorial. But in order to see the battles, you have to speed up time.
Great Barrier Reef (2015)
Human beings are good at many things, but thinking about our species as a whole is not one of our strong points. m4s45-m4s53
How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (2009)
Our imprint is now truly global. Our impact now truly profound. Our blind assault on the planet has finally come to alter the very fundamentals of the living world.
David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020)
The savage, rocky shores of Christmas Island, 200 miles south of Java, in the Indian Ocean. It's November, the moon is in its third quarter, and the sun is just setting. And in a few hours from now, on this very shore, a thousand million lives will be launched.
I don’t like rats but there’s not much else I don’t like.
Its heart that in flight contracted a thousand times a minute, slows until its beat is virtually undetectable. Its body temperature falls dramatically, and its breathing seems to cease altogether. [...] It's hibernating; but for a hummingbird, winter comes 365 times a year.
The Life of Birds (1998)
It used to be said, that in places like this, nature eventually failed to support man, the truth is exactly the reverse, here man failed to support nature. Ten thousand years ago man regarded the natural world as divine, but as he domesticated animals and plants so nature lost some of its mystery and appeared to be little more than a larder that could be raided with impunity.
The First Eden (1987)
As the last thermals of summer start to rise, the birds [hawks and vultures] circle up to great heights, 10,000 feet or more, to give themselves a good start for the long journey ahead. As they glide southwards, slowly losing height, they will look for another thermal and make for its base so that, once again, they will be lifted high enough to reach the next.
The Life of Birds (1998)
And yet, today the harbour is silted up, most of the city lies buried beneath sand dunes and the land has become a desert. As the population had grown and more people wanted more fields, so more of the forest that once stood around the city was cut down, until eventually it was all gone. With no roots to hold the soil, and no attempt to conserve it, it was carried away by the wind and the rain.
The First Eden (1987)