Short fragments from Life On Air and an unexpected insight from David Attenborough
Documentary maker David Attenborough turned hundred on 8 May 2026 and can look back on a century of adventures during which he captured countless animals on film, often for the very first time. He shares his experiences in his book Life On Air, which is brimming with behind-the-scenes stories and traces the evolution of filmmaking through amusing and memorable anecdotes. But David Attenborough did more than just capture animals on film. Thanks to his profound wisdom he is uniquely placed to share his insights on one of humanity's great unresolved questions.
By Kathelijne Bonne. Support GondwanaTalks with a one-off or recurring donation.
David Attenborough has revolutionised the world of documentary with his disarming way of telling stories about the strangest animals living in the most inaccessible places. He brought some animals, such as the flying snake, to the living rooms of millions of people in ways never before filmed.
Not as a distant expert, but as a friendly and wonder-struck fellow earthling he shows us with awe just how 'unforgettably beautiful' nature is, and how urgent the message is that we must protect it in order to protect ourselves and everything and everyone we love. We owe the current state of climate awareness greatly to David Attenborough.
Not only his documentaries, but also his books bear witness to a unique individual who has led a unique life that spans a century.
How David Attenborough made us care
Just as Jane Goodall defied convention by giving chimpanzees names instead of numbers, David Attenborough speaks of animals in a way that makes us empathise with them in their struggle for survival.
Our hearts sink as the orca hurls an exhausted seal into the air like a toy. We breathe a sigh of relief when a zebra baby narrowly escapes crocodile jaws in the Mara River, or when the newly hatched turtle scurries across the beach, braving seagulls and crabs to reach the waves.
David Attenborough helps us care about animals we didn't associate emotions with, such as fish, reptiles, insects and amphibians. Perhaps that is his greatest contribution: filling us with (com)passion and admiration for all animals and for nature. What you love, you protect, Cousteau also said.
But David Attenborough also has a lesser-known side, and harbours some unexpected ideas about prevailing theories of evolution.
David Attenborough, human evolution and the Waterside Ape
Amongst David Attenborough's first and lesser known passions were fossils and ancient life. This led him to study natural sciences in university (biology and geology). He visited more places and saw more animals than any other natural scientist in the world.
Thanks to his knowledge of both fossil and modern life, and the immense breadth of life he has seen, his opinion carries weight on some major unresolved questions of science, namely on how we became human. That mystery is far from solved. Instead of following the prevailing savannah theory, David Attenborough has defended the Waterside hypothesis of human evolution also known as the aquatic ape hypothesis.
He was brave enough to articulate and defend The Waterside Ape in documentaries and podcasts. Brave, because those who support this hypothesis face fierce criticism, which he also received from some anthropology gurus. Fortunately, he was already so beloved that his reputation suffered hardly at all, although others, like Phillip Tobias (upcoming article), were declared senile for showing similar bravoure.
Zoo Quest with cameraman Charles Lagus, as told in Life on Air
Long before that, David Attenborough travelled to Papua New Guinea as a young guy to film birds of paradise for the programme Zoo Quest. Cameraman Charles Lagus joined him. At that time, films were still shot in black and white, and sound was recorded separately. David and Charles were waiting anxiously before sunrise, at a location where a Count Raggi's Bird of paradise was known to display.
Here is an excerpt from Life On Air.
The bird of paradise is dancing, but what sound does it make?
"The sun bulged above the horizon and two unplumed birds arrived. Then, as sunlight began to spread across the valley, the male suddenly ducked his head and threw up his red plumes over his back. It shone on his golden head and glinted on his shimmering emerald throat."
"Charles' camera whirred. It seemed to make an alarmingly loud noise, but the dancing bird, obsessed with his own performance, took no notice of it. Up and down, he scuttled, shrieking passionately. Charles put up a new magazine in the camera and continued filming. As the sky brightened, he was able to change his relatively wide-angled lens for a more powerful longer focused one that would give him a closer shot. But I was getting anxious. The camera was so loud that I could not get any worthwhile recording of the bird's calls as long as he was running. I whispered urgently to him, asking him to pause for just a few seconds, but he was understandably so thrilled, at last, the shots that had been our target for so long, that he was reluctant to do so. Finally, when he had run out of film and had to reload a magazine anyway, the grinding noise of his camera stopped. I switched on my recorder. The bird called twice – and then opened his wings and glided down the valley."
The snake whisperer
David Attenborough captured various 'gliders' from Borneo on film, including flying foxes, flying squirrels, lizards and other aeronauts. It was also believed there was a flying snake, but no one had ever seen one, let alone filmed it. David would find answers, together with film producer Richard Brock and cameraman Maurice Fisher.
Here is one more excerpt from Life On Air:
"Richard's view was that even if the snake were able to fly it would probably prefer to do so from – so to speak – a running take off. He had to devise a way to enable it to get that. He found a coil of transparent plastic tubing in the station's stores. Maybe that would help. We took a yard and a half of this up the tower and replaced the branch with it. Holding the snake by its tail, I dangled it above the opening of one end and eventually managed to persuade it to put its head in the tube. It wriggled down inside with some enthousiasm and since the tubing was transparent I could see just how it was getting on. As the snake wiggled towards the other end, I called down to Maurice telling him to start filming. The snake arrived at the far end, stuck its head out for a couple of inches – and hesitated. I put my lips to my end of the tube and blew what I fancy was a low E flat. The snake shot out, fell steeply downwards for about fifteen feet and then started to glide forwards, skimming through the air like a frisbee."
"Watching Maurice's film later, we were able to see exactly to see how it did so. It pulled its ribs forwards and outwards so that its circular body became a flat ribbon, with a slightly cupped underside."
The stories of the bird of paradise and the gliding snake are only two of many amusing, often dangerous and above all enlightening accounts on filming.
In later decades, David started to shift his focus from animal stories towards stories of Earth and how and why we should protect the planet. In his more recent book A life on our planet, he shares in his authenthic style how he has seen a staggering decline of biodiversity, and how he hopes young generations will witness a remarkable recovery. David has done his job. He opened the curtains and showed the theatre of life on Earth and what's at stake. It is up to us now.
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Read about other enchanters, like Richard Fortey and his fossils, Jane Goodall and animal ethics, Mary Anning, amateur astronomists, and Helena Cruz de Carvahlo, who brings marine algae to life in an unprecendented way.
Source
David Attenborough, Life on Air, 2002, BBC Books, David Attenborough Productions.
Pictures
Bird of Paradise in title: Pexels.
Book Life On Air in grass: by K.B.
David Attenborough at the Great Barrier Reef: By Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website – www.dfat.gov.au, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66256741
Page from the book "A Life on our Planet". David Attenborough speaking in 2016 at Living Planet Report. A Life on Our Planet, 2022, Penguin Books, 288 p.
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