Frigatebirds display and exchange nesting material. David Attenborough: The Blue Planet VIII: Coasts
95% of the world’s sea birds nest together. ibid.
Many puffins now find it hard to get enough food for their chicks. David Attenborough, Blue Planet s2e6: Coasts, BBC 2017
Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird? David Attenborough
Birds today are the masters of the skies. But they were not the first creatures to fly. And they are certainly not the biggest. David Attenborough: Flying Monsters, Sky 2011
They were reptiles: pterosaurs; they evolved into a huge variety of species, some the size of aeroplanes. ibid.
Why did these magnificent beasts take to the air in the first place? ibid.
Around 250 million years ago: the planet then was a very different place. ibid.
Draco ... It jumps but it does more than just leap; it extends the width of its body by opening flaps of skin along its flanks, and they enable it to glide. ibid.
This is the Jurassic Coast: its rocks are full of fossils of prehistoric creatures. ibid.
Her name was Mary Anning ... She had an almost unbelievable talent for unearthing fossils .. the Princess of Palaeontology. ibid.
The big head and pointed teeth of Darwinopterus makes it clear that this was a predator so it must have been very agile in the air. ibid.
This fossil is 140 million years old: it has the enlarged head of an advanced pterosaur but its tail is different – it has become much shorter. And this short-tailed species wasn’t alone. It was clearly a very successful modification. ibid.
This ability to walk had a profound effect on pterosaur evolution. ibid.
There were several kinds of feathered reptile living about this time. ibid.
The largest creature ever to fly lived 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. It stood twenty feet high, so tall it could look a giraffe in the eye: Quetzalcoatlus. ibid.
Then suddenly they vanished. A meteor that crashed into Earth sixty-five million years ago is often blamed for the extinction of the dinosaurs and the pterosaurs, but the truth is that their fate was already sealed. ibid.
It was the birds who rose from the ashes of that meteor. ibid.
Birds today have evolved into thousands of species. ibid.
The dynasty of the pterosaurs lasted over a hundred and fifty million years. ibid.
For five hundred years these birds have been surrounded by myth and glamour ... A hugely varied family ... The most spectacular and beautiful birds on earth – the birds of paradise. Attenborough’s Paradise Birds, BBC 2015
A few species display not up in the branches but on the ground. ibid.
One of the great wonders of the natural world. ibid.
By and large this is the kingdom of the birds. The first birds flew about a hundred and fifty million years ago. They spread around the globe. David Attenborough’s Conquest of the Skies III, Sky 2015
The albatross have the longest wingspan of any bird. David Attenborough, The Hunt IV: Hunger at Sea (Oceans), BBC 2015
There is safety in numbers: flocking is a key defence strategy for birds that live out in the open. David Attenborough, The Hunt V: Nowhere to Hide (Plains)
Two animals that have mastered the problems of life in the dark: the giant squid which lives in the deepest oceans and owls. Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities s2e3: Life in the Dark, UKTV 2013
Owls: they are extremely good at seeing at low-light levels. ibid.
They can rotate their heads nearly all the way round … 270 degrees. ibid.
The call of a killer and a cheat: the cuckoo lays its egg in the nests of other birds and somehow persuades them to treat and it and its chick as if it were their own. Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities s2e4: Curious Imposters
It [cuckoo chick] now uses vocal deception to trick its foster parents into providing more food. ibid.
Spiders spin intricate webs using their own silk and birds weave nests from sticks and leaves. Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities s2e8: Spinners & Weavers
Weaver birds’ nests … Nest building is largely under genetic control … The only birds that can tie knots. ibid.
Swallows have successfully nested and raised their young in this barn for several years … In a few weeks’ time they will suddenly vanish ... Early in the 20th century the study of migration really took off. Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities s2e10: Magical Appearances
Orangutans have an extraordinary ability to use tools … Surprisingly, crows also make tools. Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities s3e2: Curious Minds
Ravens are cheeky, self aware and socially intelligent. They are part of the big crow family … Their brains are twice as large as other birds. ibid.
Two animals whose extraordinary body-shapes are determined by their diets: the blue whale grows enormous by feeding on tiny shrimp-like creatures while flamingos spend their lives eating with their heads upside down, and yet both ways are curiously similar. Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities s3e4: Curious Feeders
For a long time the flamingos are birds of myth and mystery. ibid.
Here on the coast of Peru there are so many seabirds fishing in the offshore waters that the cliffs are covered in droppings over a metre thick. David Attenborough, Seven World, One Planet III: South America, BBC 2019
Once fledged, these young [parrots] will follow their parents for up to a year learning where to find the salts. ibid.
On a clear spring morning like this the dawn chorus is at its peak. There are surely few more enchanting natural soundscapes than this. But this avian choir does not sing for us. These are songs of seduction and weapons of war. Males are defending territory and attracting mates. Attenborough’s Wonder of Song ***** BBC 2022
Song 2 United Kingdom Great Tit 1970s: We suspected that songs could be weapons of war, but it was the next recording that proved it … Female great tits do not sing. ibid.
Song 3 Germany Nightingale 2010s: A male singing for a mate … females do not sing … Up to 250 songs … Better singers are better fathers. ibid.
Song 4 Australia Superb Lyrebird 1930s: Amazes me every time I hear it … The talent a lyrebird has for mimicry … at least 20 different species … [and] incorporates other sounds he hears in the forest. ibid.
Song 5 Australia Superb Fairy-Wren 1980s: It’s extremely promiscuous … It’s not just the male that sings. ibid.
Song 7 Hawaii Kauai O O: There are few songs more haunting that this … since been declared extinct. ibid.
How many more songs have been lost on other parts of the planet? ibid.
Once they’ve fledged, Sooty Terns spend the first four years of their lives on the wing. Life on Fire: Pioneers of the Deep: Jeremy Irons narrator, PBS 2013
Oh, a wondrous bird is the pelican!
His beak holds more than his belican.
He takes in his beak
Food enough for a week.
But I’ll be darned if I know how the helican. Dixon Lanier Merritt
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Percy Bysshe Shelley, To a Skylark, 1819
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. ibid.
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. ibid.
Like a Poet hidden
In the shade of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. ibid.
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest – but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety. ibid.