While we are on the subject of documentaries, there is one that I'll just have to share with you. It is about urban wildlife in London and I'd say, not only London but rather any town and city across Britain. We live in the far East of England, beyond our house there is little else but the North Sea and still, we have parakeets nesting and living here all year round, foxes, badgers and all creatures great and small visit out backgarden, roam the streets at dusk and dawn and it is simply wonderful.
Since the subject matter is very British at heart, it is unfortunately highly unlikely to be shown anywhere else in the world, which is a shame, it would give people a new perspective on Britain and on how wildlife deals with our modern world.
Whereas in most countries people view wildlife disappearing from its formerly natural habitat as something regretable and terrible, Britains tend to adopt a different viewpoint. They tend to see the opportunities that our changing world affords animals to spread into new habitats and maybe that is a good thing.
We have foxes, badgers, bats and even Indian parakeets living and nesting in our backgarden (the parakeets are actually two doors down from us) and this really makes for interesting evenings on the patio.
Just 50 yards down the road is the estuary, with all its wildlife, literally millions of seabirds and two seal colonies, what more can you ask for.
But this programme that I recorded last night really does take the biscuit. Ever seen or heard of pidgeons travelling from one feeding place to the next on a train? No, not on the roof, but inside the carriages. Fallow deer in the streets of London? Not an unusual sight. Peregrin falcons hunting between the towers of high finance in the city? All that and a whole lot more, all filmed within the limits of London, no trickery.
Yes, wildlife is adapting to Britain in a big way, something that an ever increasing number of people are beginning to notice. It puts people back in touch with nature and nature back in touch with mankind and that can't be a bad thing now, can it.
So for anybody interested in watching this programme I have uploaded it to rapidshare in very small 25 MB chunks, so that people without a premium account can still download it at full speed, anything larger then 25MB will cause Rapidshare to apply the breaks bigtime for non-premium users.
Right, here it goes:
Natural World (2011-2012)
13. Unnatural History of London
Synopsis:
Seals, parakeets and even pelicans that eat pigeons have all made London their home. That's as well as badgers, foxes, scorpions, and pigeons that ride the tube. But even more wonderful are the people who love the exotic wildlife of our capital, from Billingsgate fish porters to Indian Chefs to 'Crayfish Bob', who scours London's canals for Turkish invaders. This is a warm-hearted portrait of the world's greenest capital city and the Londoners who love its secret wildlife.
Format: WMV (almost any media player will play this)
Runtime: 60 mins
The actual links are contained inside the attached text file.
Here are some screenshots:
Fallow Deer at Bethnal Green
Scorpions outside a nightclub in Soho
Foxes, well, they are just about everywhere
Great Crested Grebe on a London pond
Pidgeons on Londons Underground
Indian Ringnecked Parakeet nesting
You won't regret watching this, believe me.