Mike Birkhead Associates

In the jungles of north west India, there lives a remarkable wild tiger family. Now, using 50 years of footage, the story of their matriarchal clan is pieced together.

David Attenborough has a passion for birds' eggs. These remarkable structures nurture new life, protecting it from the outside world at the same time as allowing it to breathe. They are strong enough to withstand the full weight of an incubating parent and weak enough to allow a chick to break free. But how is an egg made? Why are they the shape they are? And perhaps most importantly, why lay an egg at all? Piece by piece, from creation to hatching, David reveals the wonder behind these miracles of nature.

Sir David Attenborough chooses his favourite recordings from the natural world that have revolutionised our understanding of song. Each one - from the song of the largest lemur to the song of the humpback whale to the song of the lyrebird - was recorded in his lifetime. When Sir David was born, the science of song had already been transformed by Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual selection: singing is dangerous as it reveals the singer’s location to predators, but it also offers the male a huge reward, the chance to attract a female and pass on genes to the next generation. Hence males sing and females don't.

Gordon Buchanan heads to Ussuriland, Russia on his most testing trip to date, in search of the Russian tiger. It has the largest unbroken area of forest with the single largest population of tigers anywhere in the world. Anatoly Petrov will be his guide; he spends a lot of time in these forests and is one of the few people who have seen a wild tiger. This beautiful and remarkable film gives a unique insight into one of the most precious animals and forests left on earth.