Under Open Skies Hidden Kingdoms

Our planet is home to millions of different animals.

The big and the powerful capture our attention...

but there is another story to tell.

Beneath our feet are hidden almost magical worlds...

..teeming with extraordinary little creatures.

The world looks very different to them.

A falling acorn becomes a meteor...

..a tiny trickle, a tsunami...

..and every enemy is a giant.

Now, using the latest technology,

we can recreate the world from their perspective.

These are tales of life from the African plains...

and America's Sonoran Desert...

..in the Hidden Kingdoms.

MOUSE HOWLS

East Africa...

and the largest animals that walk the Earth.

But look closely beneath their feet

and you will see a network of tiny trails...

..and the tiny creature that constructed them.

She's an elephant shrew,

known by her African name "sengi".

Trails like this are the secret to a sengi's survival.

They're race tracks that allow them

to sprint through this miniature jungle.

To escape their enemies and chase down food,

all they really need...

is speed.

For their size, a sengi is twice as fast as a cheetah.

Just off trail is her youngster.

Sengi babies spend their first few days in hiding,

waiting for their mother's fleeting visits.

The mother's high-speed lifestyle

requires even more fuel now that there are two mouths to feed.

She's forced to forage in the far corners of her territory.

Generations of termites built this mountain fortress...

but now it's the home of a hunter.

ROARING

A monitor lizard can taste a scent trail.

But the forked tongue does more.

Its shape means it tastes in stereo...

..so it not only knows that prey passed by,

but in which direction it was headed.

SHE SQUEAKS

A mother's instinct is to lure away the danger.

Sengi know their trails so well,

they can normally outrun an enemy.

But the world above is beyond their control.

With the trail suddenly blocked,

there's no escaping the predator.

SHE SQUEAKS

With her mother gone,

how will the youngster learn the secrets of sengi life?

Nearly 10,000 miles away,

on the other side of the world,

a different hidden kingdom...

..in America's Sonoran Desert.

Long before the first human settlers,

there were already families

struggling to make this wilderness home...

..and they're still here.

A family of grasshopper mice.

The father has long gone.

This mother is raising four hungry mouths alone.

20 days after they arrived

kicking and squeaking into the world,

they're furred and feisty.

They're not quite ready to make it on their own,

except for one.

An hour older and bolder than his brothers,

he already has the urge to explore the world beyond his birthplace.

DISTANT HOWLING

Every night, his mother goes out to find food.

And she sees things out there that could scare a young mouse to death.

There are more venomous creatures here than anywhere in the USA.

THUNDERCLAP

No place for the timid.

But she's not your average mouse.

Her kind has never known a time without this ancient adversary.

It's why old-timers would call her by an earlier name...

..scorpion mouse.

The sting of a scorpion can cause death in humans.

But a grasshopper mouse has almost superpowers.

Their reactions are faster than a scorpion strike...

..their bodies immune to the venom.

They specialise in killing deadly prey.

MOUSE HOWLS

To defend their territory, they stake a claim

with a warning howl.

HIGHPITCHED HOWLING

If we were shrunk to mouse size, it would sound more like a wolf.

The young grasshopper mouse knows nothing

of the dangers outside his door.

But barely three weeks old,

growing curiosity means he's about to face them.

The desert will soon have him running for his life.

In Africa, the orphaned sengi must learn to fend for herself.

Without a mother to guide her,

she has no sense of who is friend or foe.

Curiosity gives way to hunger.

For the first time, she's driven onto the trails her mother left.

A young sengi must eat every few hours.

Catching enough food is a challenge.

It's no good trying to fight through thick grass.

Obstacles just slow you down.

The penny drops.

The trail is the key to finding food fast.

So, to maximise speed, a spot of spring-cleaning is in order.

The smaller the mammal, the higher its metabolism.

So, in the hidden kingdom,

there's a constant race to fuel your lifestyle.

It's why sengis are a little...fussy.

They can spend half their waking hours tidying their home.

The sengi needs to clear away everything that gets between it...

and its food.

But no matter how hard you work,

some problems are just too big to deal with...

..even for the most house-proud sengi.

RUMBLING

SHREW SQUEAKS

ELEPHANT RUMBLES

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

Things seemed to be going so well.

Luckily, in the hidden kingdom, help is at hand.

Dung beetles can sniff the whiff of dung half a mile away.

Within minutes, thousands helicopter in.

Without these miniature marvels,

the savanna would be drowning in dung.

Serrations on their head saw it up...

..and legs like spades shape the dung into perfect balls.

Most just take enough to eat.

Others are out to attract female company.

And for that, the bigger the balls, the better.

She climbs on board for the ride.

Later, she'll lay her eggs inside...

..as soon as the male finds them

a secluded spot where they can start a family.

Pound for pound, a dung beetle is stronger than an elephant.

Sadly, this is no consolation when their worlds collide.

Still, it's not all bad.

At least the trail is clear.

Alas, bigger problems are brewing on the horizon.

THUNDERCLAP

In the Sonoran Desert, the remaining youngsters

wait patiently in the burrow for their mother.

HIGH-PITCHED HOWLING

They're getting a taste of the world outside.

So far, their mother has protected them from its dangers.

But there's nothing she can do for her eldest.

He faces his first night in the desert alone.

The heat absorbed by this desert road lures insects at night.

It's the perfect place for a hungry mouse to find food,

and for others to set up an ambush.

There are more rattlesnakes here than anywhere else on Earth.

A grasshopper mouse tiptoes through a living minefield.

Grasshopper mice face deadly locals every night.

Usually a dry riverbed would be a place of safety.

But tonight a powerful force threatens...

..one so rare, a mouse could go its whole life without seeing it.

This refuge will soon become a trap.

There are places in this desert

that don't see a drop of rain for 1,000 days.

Yet when it does arrive, a year's worth can fall in a single night.

For one so small, wet fur can lead to a fatal chill.

A mouse shakes up to 30 times a second, generating forces of 70G.

It may have rained,

but months of blazing sun has baked Arizona's earth as hard as stone.

The water can't soak away.

Instead, it gathers momentum

as it races downhill.

To us, it's a tiny stream.

To a mouse, it's a 12-inch high tsunami.

MOUSE SQUEAKS

Back in Africa, the grassland is tinder-dry.

For now, life in the Hidden Kingdom appears tranquil.

When it comes to perseverance, a young sengi could learn a lot

from Africa's hard-working waste disposal expert.

Dung beetles can push the equivalent of a three-tonne truck.

It provides all the food this male's family will ever need.

The trouble with keeping your head down, though,

is that you can't always see where you're going.

Dung beetles don't give up.

Even when they've lost the ball, they get right back on,

heading off in the same direction, no matter what is in their way.

The secret to super strength is diminutive size.

Small animals weigh less,

so waste less muscle power moving their bodies.

Relative to body weight, the smaller the animal, the stronger it becomes.

They are unstoppable.

Almost.

Wildebeest stampede for a reason.

Down here, you're the last to see trouble ahead.

A sengi's trails are its greatest strength

and its Achilles heel.

They're so dependent on them, they're effectively a prisoner.

Every year, lightning sets the bone-dry savanna alight.

Few small creatures can escape the inferno.

When fire threatens, she can outrun the flames...

..but it's into the unknown,

leaving the very trails that kept her alive.

High noon in the Wild West.

So hot, the last drop of water is long gone.

The highest temperatures are down at mouse level,

where it can reach a blistering 60 degrees centigrade.

It's a side of the sun-scorched desert

a nocturnal mouse should never see.

Except for those washed up, exhausted,

and swept very far from home.

In daytime, the desert is a real-life Jurassic Park,

where heat brings the lizards to life.

This realm of reptiles is ruled from the air.

BIRDS CRY

Harris hawks.

"Eyes like a hawk" is no empty phrase.

Their vision is thought to be eight times as good as ours.

It's hard to outwit this intelligent team.

They're the world's only pack-hunting raptors.

While one attempts to flush the prey,

others prepare an ambush.

Hawks tend to eat animals alive,

so have giant talons to hold down struggling prey.

Long, feather-free legs are ideal for extracting mice

from those hard-to-reach places.

When one victim is out of reach,

it pays to be open to other opportunities.

A zebra-tailed lizard is the fastest in the West.

But a collared lizard will chase anything that moves.

Both accelerate so fast they can't help but "pull a wheelie".

At times, like tiny T-rex, they're on two legs.

When danger threatens, only one has this trick up its sleeve.

With a shimmy beneath the sand, the zebra-tail is saved.

A collared's colours make it an easier target.

BIRD CRIES

The daytime is not safe for a grasshopper mouse.

BIRD CRIES

For now, best to wait till darkness falls.

Africa.

It's hard to see a fire as anything but disaster.

But for the savanna, it's as natural as the rising sun.

As the smoke clears, it's already recovering.

For the survivors, it brings fresh hope for the future.

The dry grass burns so swiftly

that a sengi trail can survive almost unscathed.

It's nothing that an enthusiastic spring-clean can't solve.

Around the trail, the grassland doesn't so much recover

as burst back into life.

The flames have swept away the old,

allowing fertile ash to fuel the growth of fresh young grass.

In a few short days, the savanna is transformed.

And the sengis' world is once again restored.

She's home.

And as long as she looks after the trails, they will keep her alive.

Sundown in the Sonoran.

This is the time when grasshopper mice were born to venture out.

Their territories can be over 300 metres wide...

..and marked with a distinctive scent.

When close enough, a lost mouse can follow its nose, all the way home.

It's true to say that the things we want in life

are not always the things we need.

So it is that there comes a time

when every youngster faces a difficult choice.

An easy life...

..or independence.

The world is full of danger.

But what would life be without a challenge?

Life will be hard.

But not even a two-headed monster will slow it down.

The false head of a venomous, giant centipede confuses predators

and packs a powerful punch.

It's the real head that inflicts the venom.

But this is a scorpion mouse.

And as they say,

what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

MOUSE WAILS

MOUSE WAILS

Their mothers give them the start they need.

But it's their own experience that finally makes a man of the mouse.

At less than four weeks old, he's finally ready to leave his home...

..to wander the desert alone.

These two tiny lives may be separated by continents,

but for all youngsters, the challenges are the same.

They'll face hardship.

There will be twists and turns along the way.

With luck, they'll avoid the dangers

and live their extraordinary lives running free.

Little guys don't always finish last.

And heroes come in all sizes,

especially in the Hidden Kingdom.

In this series, the team's mission was to show viewers

the natural world from a completely new perspective.

To achieve their goal,

they had to combine their experience as wildlife film-makers

with techniques learned from the world of feature films,

using special effects, storyboards,

but most crucially of all, a great cast of characters.

Cameraman Jip and producer Simon

set off into the wilds of Kenya to find them.

The animals in the series were small,

but the kit required was greater than ever,

weighing almost half a tonne.

The theory is, the smaller the things you film, the more kit you need.

After dark, Simon discussed his ambition with the team.

If there was one thing I'd really love to get, it's just trying

to give the audience an impression of what it might feel like

to be running down there,

just a couple of inches high off the ground at the same speed as a sengi.

-So, basically like a car chase?

-Yeah, a sengi car chase.

To learn as much as possible about the sengi,

next morning they met with trackers from the local village.

Trackers are more used to finding lions or big game,

but these had been using their skills to piece together

the sengis' movements.

Yeah, this is the poo of the sengi.

And with their help, they soon spot one of the distinctive race tracks.

-Here's a trail.

-Really, where?

-There.

-You're kidding.

-No, it goes over there.

But it is true when you come down here, you definitely can see a path.

That's a great sign.

It wasn't long before the team got their first glimpse.

-There it goes.

-Wow, that was right in the distance.

Did you see that?

-It just went "vooom!"

-That is amazing.

-Did you even get it in shot?

-I don't even know.

I mean, I think I wasn't framed where it was.

This was going to be harder than they thought.

The ground they're covering in that time is ridiculous.

Jip, keep your eyes open.

Jip moved into position. The sengi continued to run rings around them.

Oh, there he goes, he went straight past you.

It would be tricky but the team put their plan into action.

Work began on building the perfect stage for the Hidden Kingdom stars.

First, for a dung beetle.

By building stages in the savanna,

the team could film the animals from low angles

to show the audience the true scale of this Hidden Kingdom.

To recreate the world from a small creature's perspective

would require some special effects.

Another technique, the use of blue screen.

We can then cut out the blue background

and replace it with something else.

And all these elements come together

to create this kind of Hidden Kingdoms look.

The stage is set.

Tomorrow they would go in search of the one thing

that would attract the beetles.

Time enough to implement their plan for the sengi.

They would need to win its trust...

and began to build a special filming territory, complete with trail.

If a sengi would adopt their track, they had a chance,

and Jip knew how he could keep up.

The camera's going to whizz down here...

at sengi speed, which is...

well, lightning speed, really.

To get down on the sengis' level we have to dig a trench,

dig a blooming great hole to put the camera in, and the cameraman in,

so that we're eyeball to eyeball with this incredible animal.

After a lot of work with a pick and shovel,

the track was ready for a test run.

This should give you something to look at.

Every Hollywood star needs its own stand-in.

And, three, two, one.

If they could earn the sengis' confidence and work with them,

they might have a chance of bringing this animal's incredible abilities

to the screen.

But obviously at ten times the speed.

-You know, this might just work.

-Yeah.

The following morning, the team got up well before dawn

to collect the vital ingredient

that would attract the beetles to the stage.

At the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage,

young elephants are cared for by their keepers

until they're ready to head back into the wild.

Our chances of obtaining elephant dung have drastically increased.

The crew would join them on their daily walk

to seize any opportunity that presented itself.

Morning.

You on that? Nice close up.

It's a two-trowel technique now.

That one was nice, solid, good form.

ELEPHANT BREAKS WIND

THEY LAUGH

Elephant flatulence.

It's a good sign, it's a good sign.

It really smells bad.

With the secret ingredient to hand, they could return to the stage,

watch the skies, and wait for the dung castle to work its magic.

-Here he is.

-Look, look, look, look, look.

There's our star.

The first sighting.

-They are coming in from all directions.

-What do you want to do?

Look, straight for it, look.

At last, the beetles can take the stage.

Welcome to the Hidden Kingdom.

The great thing about these beetles in the wild

is they just pick a direction and they keep going and keep going

and keep going - they're the perfect actors.

But despite this success, as the days wore on, one worry remained.

Would a sengi ever adopt the trail they'd built

and trust the team enough to race alongside it?

-OK, try one as fast as you can.

-Ready?

-Yeah, I got it.

What would happen?

-THEY LAUGH

-Did you get that?

Well, it went through frame, for sure.

The trails are so important to the lives of these tiny creatures

that they were even willing to forgive the questionable

trail-building skills of the team.

I just need to be slightly ahead of him...

All they had to do now was keep up.

I was behind that then.

You've got a tail disappearing.

The sengi weren't slowing down but eventually Jip managed to keep up.

That felt more on it.

It was close. I lost him towards the end.

Oh, the moment of truth.

He's through. Look, he's running, he's running.

-There was certainly a moment.

-That was more than a moment.

It's going to work, it's going to work.

This was one of the many filming territories required to capture

the story of the sengis' Hidden Kingdom.

After a brief spell as TV stars,

it was as if we had never visited their world.

Come on, up over the top. Brilliant. You superstar.

Camera speed. On the move in three, two...

Here we go, this is it. Fantastic, guys. Well done.

The crew's adventure in the miniature world was over,

but they returned home with a new-found admiration

for the little things in life,

those extraordinary tiny heroes.

Next week, we enter the Hidden Kingdom of the forest,

a secret woodland and a steaming jungle.

Two tiny heroes must fight for survival,

escape their enemies...

..and above all, learn to use the incredible powers

they were born with.