Original air date: 23 October 2014
Above is a timeline of how the programme progresses
Selected sequences
The goslings of the barnacle goose dropping off the cliff
The images show the sheer drop (top images) and the goslings having a go
The top two images show the sheer cliff, from the front and straight down. The lower ones show goslings on their way down. The one on the left shows a ‘controlled drop’ but the one on the right shows two goslings (black arrows because they might otherwise be hard to spot. The one closer to the cliffs slipped but seemed to have survived. In the end 3 out of 5 were accounted for.
The humpback whale mother and calf migrating
The calf seems to be close to exhaustion and the mother, nowhere to be seen, was presumed to have deserted him in order to save her own life. Sharks were closing in on an easy kill, then ..
Mother (the big figure on the right of the image) re-emerges with help (a male that is just emerging at that point). The calf is so tiny it is pointed out with a white arrow. Image on the right, the male is blowing bubbles around the calf.
Mother re-emerges from the deep and she has brought help who (on the right) tries the easy solution, blowing protective bubbles around the calf. That seemed to ease the sharks down for a while only. Then they kept on the attack.
The sharks get a full-force attack using the tail (top) or the whole body
Since the easy solution didn’t work the male resorts to the same aggression he normally uses to other males during breeding season. Such protective behaviour towards a calf that presumably is not his own has never been witnessed before !
Just maybe there is some possibility that he is preparing for mating next season.