Frozen Planet II – episode 2 – review

 

Harp seal mother and pup, featuring in episode 2 of Frozen Planet II. (Image source : bbc.co.uk)

With the grand opening theme as provided by Hans Zimmer, we begin episode two of Frozen Planet II – Frozen Ocean. This episode casts an eye over the Arctic, its landscape and wildlife, through the seasons.

From here on out, a spoiler alert is in effect. Though if anybody has waited as long as I have to watch this series, I would be surprised!

As you might expect from any nature documentary series to which Attenborough is attached, there are beautiful shots of epically wonderful locations and wildlife. Both awe inspiring and dramatically vivid. Shots of polar bears are beautiful, and striking. Scenes of them hunting seals, with vibrant red blood splashed across pristine ice and white fur, are particularly impressive – capturing the beauty and violence of nature all at once.

But also there are purely touching moments. When a female bear meets a male of the species, conflict and violence is anticipated. However, instead, they play. And we watch the animals skating across the ice together, as Attenborough narrates, "apparently, just for the joy of it." 

A moment that reveals a depth to the animals most might never see.

A theme of this episode is the temperamental nature of the Arctic environment, of how the landscape changes with seasons, or even from one minute to the next. An aspect of the Arctic that dominates the lives of the animals that live there.

In spring, as temperatures creep above freezing, ice melts and great change inches across the landscape. To emphasise how this changing landscape influences the lives of animals here, we are introduced to beluga whales which, because of ice cover shifting because of spring melt, are at risk of losing open water where they can surface to breathe.

A risk that these animals must face every year.

Later, we meet a one week old harp seal pup and its mother. Its fur is thick and pristine white, matching the icy scenery. Beautiful shots of the pup feeding from the mother as a light snow falls are gorgeous. Indeed, so rich are the images that the viewer risks getting lost in them, missing Attenborough's excellent narration of the events on screen, supplemented with scientific findings and statistics.

The underwater shots of the pup, as it takes its first dip into Arctic waters, are worth watching the episode alone. It is shots like these that make this documentary series a wonder to watch!

Time passes – weeks pass in minutes . . .

The scenes of this pup end sadly in a storm, with the narration informing the viewer that, because of rising temperatures at the Arctic, storms are becoming more frequent, and seal pups are being forced into the sea before they are ready be in the water for any significant period. The story of this seal pup ends ominously with scenes of the youngster on an ice floe being battered by stormy seas.

Two-centimetre skeleton shrimp might not be the highlight of the episode, or even sound particularly interesting to many, but one of the things that these nature documentaries do, through excellent camera operation, is to reveal the beauty and intriguing nature of even the smallest life. 

And, from some of the smallest lives in the sea to some of the largest, and longest lived – bowhead whales, which might be a couple of centuries old!

Killer whales, as viewers of previous series might know, tend to promise dramatic scenes. And, when they appear in this episode, Attenborough tells the viewer that the pod we see on screen specialises in hunting bowhead whales.

And so followsscenes of battle and blood in the water. Never pleasant, but as I mentioned in the review of the first episode, a documentary which documents events selectively is close to being no documentary at all. 

The killers hunting bowheads is natural. However, we learn that more and more bowheads are being lost to killers for one reason – rising temperatures. With less ice, which the bowheads use as cover and protection when targeted by killers, the bowheads are more easily predated by the orca.

There is more. Walruses rolling from beaches into the sea to try and escape rising heat, and polar bears, bloody-faced and aggressive, coming into conflict with each other over stretched resources. All for one reason – rising temperatures.

One fears that, by now, there will be some rolling their eyes and turning away.

Nature documentaries now must navigate the problem of how to approach the subject of climate change when there are sections of the audience that will never hear it. When scientists are now predicting that the Arctic will be ice free in summer by 2035, there is urgency to documenting and studying rising temperatures and the causes. But, a quick glance at Twitter will tell you there are those who will dismiss the topic out of hand.

The series is revealing in more ways than one; the scenes upon the screen, and the hashtags and opinions screamed into the void across social media following each airing.

In the previous review, I did not mention the segment following the main programme during which we get an insight into the work behind the scenes. It is worth watching and rightfully shines a light on the excellent work of those on location, documenting the nature and wildlife.

In this segment, we follow the team behind the shots of the harp seal mother and pup mentioned earlier. And, in these segments too there is drama. We follow the camera operators in the icy waters striving to get shots of the pup underwater. And then there is the drama of boats trapped between shifting ice floes.

The segment ends with the team forced to abandon the seal pup because of stormy weather. We see the pup left to its fate from behind the scenes this time, and it is as tough a watch from this point of view as it was earlier in the documentary.

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Frozen Planet 2 – Episode 1 – review

 

Polar bear mother after an unsuccessful hunt. (Image source: bbc.co.uk)

Settling in, with a generous portion of pasta, the stand fan stood useless in a corner now, I am anticipating wonder. Because, once comfortable, I press play on episode one of Frozen Planet II, narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

And, from here on out, a spoiler alert is in effect . . .

The episode opens with Sir Attenborough looking over a large virtual representation of Planet Earth, specifically its most frozen places. He reminds us that in the first series, Frozen Planet, which first aired eleven years ago, we explored the Arctic and Antarctica. In this follow up series, we are promised a look at all frozen places across the globe, the entire cryosphere.

We are also reminded that these places on our planet are some of the most vulnerable, and they are rapidly being lost.

In this series, Sir David tells us, we will see the precious wildlife in these places, wildlife that is seriously under threat, whilst there is "still time to save them."

It is impossible to ignore the adversities facing wildlife and the natural world. And Sir David, with a love for, and first hand experience of, the natural world that spans almost the entirety of his ninety-six years, lends his voice to acknowledge those adversities. 

You'd struggle to find a voice worth listening to more on the subject, in my humble opinion.

"This is Frozen Planet 2 . . . "

After the programme's opening theme music fades, the episode begins proper with a breeding colony of Emperor penguins in Antarctica. A scene that viewers of the original series might be familiar with. But, this time, rather than following the trials of the parent birds as they strive for the survival of newly born chicks, we meet the colony as the parents leave the chicks, done with the job of raising the new generation.

In the opening sequence, we follow the juvenile Emperor penguins, already nearly a metre tall, as they make the journey from the place of their birth to the sea. Traversing the ice as spring sun warms the landscape, they must navigate cracks that are beginning to appear beneath their feet.

There is a moment of slight drama when the birds do fall through a crack, and struggle to get back on the ice. But this is a rather calm and cute opening – you must have a heart colder than the Antarctic itself if you don't feel some warmth at the sight of the young penguin chicks! – and there is greater drama to come yet.

A scene of Killer whales hunting seal anticipates a tougher watch. Again, anyone that has watched Attenborough documentaries before will remember what efficient and intelligent hunters these animals are. And, indeed, as Attenborough tells us that the orca have a ninety per cent hunt success rate, we watch the family of Killer whales topple a Weddell seal from an ice floe and feed on the unfortunate animal.

As promised at the top of the episode, this series will explore all icy places across the planet, unlike the previous series which only took in the Arctic and Antarctica.

Temperatures drop and ice forms in places of great altitude, we are reminded. And so, the next sequence takes us to the tops of the Andes mountain range, and wondrously beautiful views play across the screen. Truly awesome views.

The awesome beauty though is fragile.

When we are introduced to a Siberian tiger, a powerful and stunning image, we are reminded that it is an animal forced to the brink of extinction, with fewer than five-hundred thought to be left in the wild.

The sequence follows the big cat in a search for food and, using footage obviously gathered over months and months, plays out the story wonderfully. With moments from the past fading into the present, as the tiger follows the scent of possible prey that had passed through the landscape weeks and months before. As footage of animals recorded months before blends seamlessly with the tigers presence in the scene, it is a revelation of just how beautifully the team behind the documentary are able to use the technology available to them to tell the stories of the wildlife they have documented.

This sequence is followed by beautifully shot views of the Aurora borealis. In the first half hour of the programme, we have already followed penguin chicks on their first significant journey, watched as orca hunt seal, and followed a Siberian tiger in search of food. The Aurora marks the halfway point in the episode well. A moment of pure beauty.

Soon after, we are immersed into a scene of a more brutal nature. The sight of a Grizzly bear killing new born Musk oxen, as many as it can take, and the confused and inexperienced young oxen not knowing to run from, rather than toward, the predator, is a tough watch. But a nature documentary that does not document the adversities and the brutalities of nature is no documentary at all. It is a Victorian idea of nature being all harmony and elegance, edited to tell a fairytale version of the natural world and wildlife.

And these animals, the hunters must do what they must do to survive, as they have done for the entirety of their time on this planet. They are not villains. They just are.

Besides, there is still much here to warm the heart and raise a smile, and perhaps those moments are all the more wonderful because they happen side by side with the violence that can happen in nature.

There is though sadness, and bittersweet beauty here too. Time lapse footage of ice melting faster and faster, Greenland glaciers rolling with the sound of thunder, ice breaking and water crashing . . . A mother polar bear striving to feed her young in a landscape changing faster than these animals can adapt to that change . . .

But. This documentary reveals to viewers, though there is a fight to be fought, there is still something sublime worth fighting for.

Must watch television, Frozen Planet II is available on BBC iPlayer.

Before you go, can I ask, if you found this piece entertaining and/or informative, that you please consider purchasing the author of this post a coffee here.

I would rather not allow adverts in this space, preferring to inspire conversation, rather than clicks and sales.

Thank you for reading.

Reasons to be cheerful? Looking to the future . . .

 Or, one nature lover's journey between hope and despair, and back again . . .

Your friendly nature/wildlife blogger gazing wistfully into the future for reasons to be optimistic. Or, maybe it was just a pose for a selfie. I don't recall. (Photo from personal collection.)

When I go out traipsing paths, when I am not taking a rare selfie (see above), I might be gazing skyward and admiring graceful Red kites (Milvus milvus). They are an almost guaranteed sight in the skies where I live.

Once upon a time, Red kites were a common sight in skies throughout these British isles. But, like other raptors, they suffered persecution, and throughout the 18th and 19th centuries they were driven to near-extinction. From being a bird that was a common sight in our skies, they became confined to mid-Wales only.

After around one-hundred years of careful efforts, they are proving to be a conservation success story. Pockets of populations throughout the country are growing, perhaps promising to become familiar in British skies once again.

Stories like these, are they a sign of other successes for the future?

This might be the point where I sigh, rub my eyes, and shake a weary head. As might other nature lovers, conservationists, or activists. To love the natural world is to know both how a heart can leap up, but also how it can ache . . .

For every success that advocates, activists, conservationists, and lovers of nature and wildlife can recount, there are a slew of statistics that hint at a much grimmer future.

For every effort made to plant new trees, there are ancient trees felled. Ancient trees which better capture and sequester carbon than newly planted trees will be able to do until they have reached maturity themselves.

Yes, when one reads that GCSE studies in natural history will be offered to students, it offers promise for the future. But, when the UK Conservation Red List reads with more than double the number of bird species – more species than ever before too – than it listed when the list was first compiled in 1996, should we stop and wonder, 'What sort of world will these naturalists of the future be left with?'

I am optimistic, and I try to do my bit. I wouldn't be here, writing out a blog about these things if I had given up. (Even if I am fairly sure only a handful of people will read it.) I give time to citizen science projects. I donate a little money when I can. I do the little that I do – nothing compared to the real activists – hoping that adversities can be overcome. That there is still time.

Maybe it's enough to just resist. To be the voices that call out the nonsensical and the downright harmful.

And when a Prime Minister can stand up at a conference and name nature/wildlife/conservation activists amongst those to whom she is opposed, it is damn well time to be one of those voices. To add your voice to the rebel yells.

Because, you know what, fuck them!

I know, it can be an uncomfortable dilemma, trying to do the right thing for this world and the life upon it, when you're trying to put food on the table and keep the lights on. But when we have pillaged and plundered this world of everything it has, any Plan B is not going to be as good as what we have. What we still, just about, have.

I find myself thinking of Easter Island and a civilisation that rose and fell. A civilisation that felled all of the trees and used up all resources. And, I wonder, is this planet just an Easter Island? A civilisation that will rise, worship itself through the ideologies it has created, and ultimately kill itself off as it uses those ideologies to justify destruction?

Human civilisation. 

Human civilisation ?

And so, I sigh, and I rub my eyes, and I feel sad. But then I get angry. Which gives way to hope. Until I read some other statistic that pulls me down into sadness again. Then anger, triggered by some demonstration of ignorance. And hope, then despair . . . And on and on, ad nauseam. 

Even some of the success stories are burdened with ignorance and outright myths.

As I look skyward, when I traipse muddy autumn countryside footpaths, gazing at graceful Red kites, feeling cold bite in places where summer heat drew sweat only weeks before, I recall ill-informed comments I have heard. "They can take your dogs! You have to be careful!"

Your average adult chihuahua (on average, 1.5kg – 3kg) is heavier than a Red kite (average weight of 1.1kg), and so, even if, for some desperate reason, a kite swooped down at a small dog, it would fail spectacularly in taking a dog.

These sorts of fears are usually fed by two things. The first are the salacious stories in newspapers, probably reported by some spooked but uneducated member of the public who had a close encounter with something clawed, fanged, or taloned. The other is hinted at in the first – the lack of education that allows myth and shocking newspaper headlines to fill in the gaps.

You see, it's a double sided thing, this awareness of nature, wildlife, and conservation efforts. The good and the bad, the light and the dark, the hope and the despair can be apparent all in the same scene.

A bird's flight can be a reminder of life restored, and the sheer hills and mountains still waiting to be climbed. 

At the end of this piece, being a struggling, but hopeful writer, I am going to post a link to a site where those wishing to support struggling, but hopeful writers can buy me a coffee. But, you know, I recommend first that you consider supporting these worthy causes first, if not financially then perhaps with a little of your time:

RSPB

The Woodland Trust

Greenpeace

Extinction Rebellion

Butterfly Conservation

This is just a handful that I suggest. If you disagree with specific goals or methods of any or all of these, there are alternatives. But read what they have to say, and see for yourself their methods before you dismiss them.

Yes, activists and protesters will use disruptive methods to relay their messages, but a non-disruptive protest is an almost pointless protest.

We can strive for change, or we can continue to sacrifice the natural world at the altars of economics and politics. But, do that, and sooner or later, all we have left is a corpse good for nothing but those that feed on death.

I recommend change, personally. 

So, I hold onto hope.

As I said, I am going to ask for your support now – you can buy me a coffee here. But, maybe you don't think this rambling, rant of a piece deserves monetary reward. Fair enough.

In that case, is it good enough to share with your social media friends? Has it intrigued you enough that you might consider subscribing for other published postings? And, what about just liking the post – that takes a second and really helps me out!?

Wherever you go from here, if you made it this far, I thank you for coming this far with me. 

Thank you. Sincerely.