Secret Forests Hidden Kingdoms

Our planet is home to millions of different species.

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.

BELLOWING

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 -

to experience it as they do.

These are tales of life from the tropical jungle,

and the northern forest

in the Hidden Kingdoms.

The ancient woods of North America.

Hundred-year-old oaks cast their shadows over a hidden world.

It's autumn.

Time for the yearly fall of acorns.

It's what every chipmunk in the forest has been waiting for.

This youngster is only six weeks old,

but will soon face the most important challenge of his life.

For the smallest animals it's time to take cover.

For chipmunks, it's time to get hoarding.

Winter is on its way.

A quick quality check, and the first nut goes in the bag.

A chipmunk's tunnel may run for more than ten metres

to keep its nuts safe.

And they need a hoard of more than a hundred acorns to see them

through the long winter ahead.

For his first year, this youngster's done well.

But a hoard is no use unless it's well hidden.

He's being watched.

This is an older chipmunk and sneakier too.

Chipmunks are notorious thieves.

After all, why work when you can steal from someone else?

For the burglar it's a dash back to his burrow to stock his own hoard.

Oblivious, the youngster gathers a last few "honest" nuts.

The competition is about to get a whole lot bigger.

A moose.

It's hungry for nuts too.

BELLOWING

SQUEAKING

This holdup is one he can't afford, especially

when his store is being burgled.

The young chipmunk is still held up.

Every autumn a moose can eat enough acorns to put on 100 kilograms.

Just what it needs to survive the harsh winter ahead.

And that's the problem for small animals, they just can't

store enough fat.

It's why a larder of nuts is so important.

He's about get a nasty surprise.

His larder is now almost empty,

and things are about to get worse.

The burglar is back, and he's a seasoned fighter.

An older, stronger chipmunk can kill a youngster.

The youngster may have escaped,

but no chipmunk can survive without a store of nuts.

How will he make it through the coming winter?

On the other side of the world is a forest where winter never comes.

The steamy jungles of Borneo - a kingdom of perpetual heat.

Concealed in the undergrowth are thousands of tiny creatures,

more than anywhere else on earth.

In this hidden kingdom competition is intense.

So many different species battle for survival here.

Each one must find its own place within this crowded world.

Up in the canopy, lives one of the most curious creatures of them all.

A tree shrew,

a tiny mammal whose ancestors have lived in these jungles

for more than 10 million years.

BIRDS WHISTLE

Nearby is a giant mangosteen tree

that provides all the fruit she needs.

Dinner is served, but it's a long way down.

Luckily tree shrews are born acrobats.

Tree shrews have the largest brain for their body size

in the world and rarely make a mistake.

They also have the most demanding metabolism -

they need food every two hours.

Even if it means leaving the safety of the treetops to find it.

There's no one else around and she has the fruit all to herself.

For now.

Darkness brings a change to the forest.

Only the toughest creatures venture out,

with their very effective weapons.

Thousands of vicious quills on a porcupine's back means he'll

be left to eat in peace.

At night, the best place for a tree shrew is safe up in the nest.

Until now the forest has provided well.

But she's yet to learn how fickle the rainforest can be.

Morning, and like every tree shrew she wakes up hungry.

Someone's up before her.

And they're heading right for the great tree.

Orang-utans are 500 times her size.

They are fruit-eating machines and can strip a tree bare in no time.

They're not the only ones attracted to fruit-bearing trees.

The hungry will come from far and wide.

GRUNTING

If she's going to get her breakfast she'd better hurry.

Forest giants have got there first.

Weighing more than a man,

these bearded pigs are as aggressive as they are greedy.

Unluckily for the shrew,

pigs have the most sensitive noses in the forest.

Nothing escapes their attention.

GRUNTING AND SNORTING

SNORTING ECHOES

Breakfast is disappearing.

To eat again means finding another fruiting tree and fast.

But in the rainforest,

trees in fruit are actually few and far between.

This young tree shrew must leave her home

and search deep into the jungle.

She will need all her wits to survive.

In the hidden kingdom of the northern woods, it's leaves,

not acorns, that are falling now.

Winter is just a breath away.

Small animals are already hunkering down for winter.

A wood frog buries itself, soon to become a living block of ice.

Once the freeze sets in,

this chipmunk won't last long without a store of nuts.

Facing an empty larder this late in the season means a chipmunk

is forced to forage in enemy territory.

Spotted.

No neighbour will tolerate an intruder.

Not where nuts are concerned.

CHIPMUNKS CHITTER

THUD OF ACORN

THUDDING

That sound is irresistible.

There's a reason why chipmunks don't gather nuts from here.

This is the home of a silent killer.

A horned owl.

Owls sleep during the day, so he might just get away with it.

So far, so good, but he still needs lots more nuts.

The days are getting shorter and once it's dark,

it's a very different proposition.

CHIPMUNK SQUEAKS

OWL HOOTS

Owls have extremely sensitive hearing.

Time to go.

SQUEAKING

Speed may have saved him, but his larder is still half empty.

And even worse, the first frost of winter is upon him.

Chipmunks can't survive outside in the cold.

THUNDER RUMBLES

Back in the rainforest,

the tree-shrew's supply of fruit has run dry.

She needs an alternative source of food...

THUNDER CLAP

And there's the daily shower to contend with.

When you're this small, raindrops are like water bombs.

BIRDS TWEET

She must make up for lost time.

Down on the forest floor,

dangers lurk around every corner.

Fire ants.

They sting with acid.

Not to be disturbed, unless you're armour plated.

A pangolin has claws as strong as a bear's and eats fire ants for lunch.

She's drawn by the scent of something tasty.

Pitcher plants are carnivorous,

known for luring insects to a watery grave.

This one lures hungry tree shrews.

The inside of the lid is covered in a sweet secretion.

STOMACH RUMBLES

But the liquid is a laxative,

and a fast acting one.

The pitcher was after nutrients in the tree shrew's dung.

It means she is now running on empty.

And worse, she's not alone.

A reticulated python.

Instinct sends her up to the canopy.

No snake can climb as fast as this.

But nightfall is approaching.

Night is no time for a tree shrew to be up and about.

You never know who you might bump into.

Twice her size, flying foxes are the largest bats in the world.

They're able to fly from one fruit tree to another.

More than half the creatures of the jungle are nocturnal,

but for a daytime creature, night in the rainforest is an alien world.

Strange fungi light the way.

Why they glow is one of nature's mysteries.

Their light doesn't travel far.

It's almost pitch dark.

CHIRRUPING

These tarsiers are only ten centimetres tall.

They're hunting.

Nothing escapes their huge eyes and acute hearing.

Not even the stealthiest predator in the forest.

This python is also an expert night hunter.

It has heat-sensing pits on the side of its face and can follow

the heat trail of a warm blooded mammal, even in the dark.

In the wild woods, dawn melts away the first ground frost.

But it was a warning.

Finding his stolen nuts and getting them back

is now the youngster's only chance.

The nut thief is going out.

The youngster will have to be quick.

Caught in the act.

It's flight or fight.

He chooses fight

SQUEAKING

CHIPMUNK CHITTERS

The youngster's won.

He can reclaim his stolen nuts,

while the thief nurses his wounded pride.

The youngster had better hurry, winter is here.

Back in the jungle, the young tree shrew is weak with hunger,

and is being pursued by the most relentless predator in the forest.

She's driven higher.

Another snake.

Cornered.

There's only one way out...

But it's further than she's ever jumped before.

SNAKE HISSES

Speed, distance, and timing must be judged to perfection.

Safe.

And, at last, a fruiting tree.

For today, the adventure is over.

But soon, her search will begin again.

With each day that passes, this clever little creature will grow a

little wiser and better able to cope with the danger that comes her way.

In the Hidden Kingdom, life never slows down.

Except perhaps in the temperate forest, when the big freeze sets in.

Although for many animals this is a time of hardship,

for a chipmunk, it's a chance to take a well-deserved rest.

The start of six months of peaceful sleep.

And when he gets hungry he'll wake, briefly and his nuts will be there.

They'll last him all the way until spring,

when he'll re-emerge, ready to begin again.

Few little creatures survive their first months,

but for those that do, what they have learned should make life become

just that little bit easier, in the hidden kingdoms of the forests.

Traditional natural history is

filmed from a distance behind a telephoto lens.

Hidden Kingdom is different.

One of the biggest challenges filming Hidden Kingdom

is trying to get down to the animal's eyeline and

really portray the world that they see and the world that they live in.

To see the world through the eyes of our tiny creatures

meant getting our lenses as low to the ground as possible.

Getting a camera to sit right on the forest floor

at this sort of height is really tricky.

Oops!

HE LAUGHS

It's amazing what difference an inch makes.

We headed to Quebec in Canada to film an animal

that would hopefully allow us into its world.

At a unique animal research station,

chipmunks have been closely observed for over 20 years.

Come on. You coming?

Zoologist, Alessia Kockel, has a detailed knowledge of these animals.

My favourite chip is this one, this is Beach Boy.

Chipmunks can be nervous but Alessia is with them

every day and knows which chip might best tolerate the filming.

This a lot to ask for a chipmunk to put up with.

After all, film crews aren't known for travelling light.

OK, down.

So the trick is to be set up and ready

before the chippies get out of bed.

Luckily for us, they're late starters.

They choose to camp outside the burrow of a chipmunk called Simon.

And they begin to wait...

And wait.

The second part of our film is set in the jungles

of Borneo and involved filming a host of small animals.

Getting up close and personal here would bring

very different challenges.

The jungle's most notorious creatures

are easiest to find to find at night.

I mean, really, they will kill anything that can't get away.

Fire ants.

Yeah, they're in here and here. The line is still going this way.

They're right in here as well.

SHE YELPS

Just over a centimetre long, to do them justice, we would

either have to shrink down our film crew...

Or build some tiny lenses.

These lenses are powerful enough to take us

straight into the ants' world.

Just let it go.

All we had to do now was avoid the stings.

SHE YELPS IN PAIN

Back in Canada, Simon the chipmunk is getting used to the crew

and gaining in confidence.

Well. Hello, there he is. So this is Simon.

Oh! This is Simon and he is so beautiful.

Soon he is so focused on his nuts, he stops noticing us at all.

It's time to get ambitious.

We wanted to track along-side a running chipmunk

and that meant a bit of make-shift engineering.

Well, we've just set up this long track on quite

uneven ground and we've got this broken tree

that our chipmunks are running up and down.

So we're setting up for a tracking shot.

If they behave.

OK, running, running, we're running.

Oh!

It's all happening now.

Cut. Well done.

Just as chipmunks and crew are getting the hang of it,

the weather takes a turn for the worse.

The storm has brought down trees all around the chipmunks' burrows,

and, worryingly, there's no sign of Simon.

In Borneo, the team is getting grips with the jungle.

And cameraman Mat Thompson is about to take on

another notorious rainforest creature, but this time a giant.

Bearded pigs are dangerous,

they are huge and have sharp 15 centimetre tusks.

Unfortunately for Mat, to reveal what a pig looks like when

you're only ten centimetres tall, means getting the camera very close.

So it makes sense to start with the piglets.

You really have to start thinking like the animal that

you're filming, more so than usual.

Almost to the point where you have to start acting like the animal.

But piglets would never be a threat to a tree shrew,

for that we need a big, dribbling tusker.

We know there's one around here, he's been seen.

He's big, he's orc-ish, you know, he really, he slathers.

That's the character we're after.

Mat has found just the pig.

But the adults don't like the limelight.

Whoa.

PIG SQUEALS

That's what happens when you get too close.

OK. More than a lens cloth to clean that one, I think.

Keeping a wary eye out, Mat manages to get the shots he needs.

Go on. Look, there's more.

We got some lovely shots, big, teeth, beard, dribbly,

the perfect orc for Hidden Kingdoms.

Back in the chipmunk's forest, the crew assess the damage.

That is destruction.

Our best talent, Simon the chipmunk,

this tree has just missed his hole by, literally, a couple of feet.

Luckily, it hasn't put him off his nut-collecting.

Or his inclination to become more territorial.

You tell, you know, he's just got so much attitude, this is his manor

and anyone who comes near him, chased off, it's unbelievable.

We have another chipmunk.

We could see this was building to a big fight.

But knowing how fast chipmunks can move

we'd need a very special camera to film it.

OK, this could be it, this could be the moment.

One that records at 40 times normal speed.

-Arm me up as soon as you can.

-Yep.

It's over in a flash.

Do you want to look?

Only when they play it back can they see what really happens.

-Whoa!

-Ow, he did it.

-Oh, my God!

Whoa! That is amazing.

Witnessing the extraordinary challenges

chipmunks face to prepare for the winter could only bring

admiration for these tiny heroes.

With filming over, there was just one thing left to do.

Hey, Simon, so we're done now.

Here's a little something so see you through the winter.

See you, mate.

In the next episode, we enter the hidden kingdoms of the urban jungle.

Experience the colour and the commotion of Rio.

And the futuristic metropolis of Tokyo.

How will our little heroes survive the hazards of city life?