The Great Feast Nature's Great Events

The power of the sun drives the seasons, transforming our planet.

Vast movements of ocean and air currents bring dramatic change

throughout the year.

And in a few special places, these seasonal changes

create some of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth.

The seas along the Pacific coast of North America

can be some of the richest on the planet.

These coastal waters create the perfect conditions

for the greatest explosion of life on Earth.

It's driven by some of the tiniest creatures.

As their numbers multiply, they feed vast shoals of fish,

which in turn provide food for ever larger hunters.

Billions of lives will be shaped by this immense bloom.

And the mightiest hunter of them all

has devised a remarkable way to harvest this great feast.

It's January.

Both land and sea are locked in the depths of winter.

The seas along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia

can become the richest on Earth.

But for the moment,

they lie dormant.

The time of great feasting is many months away,

and a number of magical changes must first take place.

The most crucial change will be driven by the sun.

But now it is weak,

and offers little to those trapped here for winter.

This coastline, a maze of islands

and inlets carved by glaciers, will also shape this great event.

For now, it remains shrouded in cold.

Only the toughest can survive.

Steller sea lions huddle together to share warmth.

It's 15 degrees below zero.

They have little choice but to suffer this,

the coldest Alaskan winter on record.

The shoals of fish they depend on spend winter in the deepest water.

For now, the fishing is hard.

It's an unforgiving place to raise a family.

Conditions are so severe that mothers must suckle their young

for up to three years.

SEAL BARKS

For this pregnant sea lion, the risks are even greater.

The seas must come to life in good time for the arrival of her pup,

and at this stage, the odds don't look good.

For now, all she can do is wait for the sun to bring change.

These seas have the potential to be so rich

at the height of the great feast

that they will attract animals from across the vast Pacific.

And 3,000 miles away, in the waters of Hawaii,

another mother is about to embark on an epic journey.

This humpback whale has already given birth.

Her calf is just a few weeks old.

He stays close to his mum.

The difference between Hawaii and Alaska could hardly be greater.

These are calm,

warm waters with few predators, an ideal nursery for the youngster.

The calf is now drinking 400 litres of milk every day,

building up strength for the long voyage he'll soon have to undertake.

More than 5,000 humpbacks come to Hawaii each year.

The males, lured here in the hope of mating, compete among themselves

with great shows of strength.

But none of these whales can actually feed here.

For these tropical waters are comparatively lifeless.

The ocean's greatest riches are only to be found in colder seas.

So, all these whales must return to the North Pacific to feed.

The playful calf suckles from his mother every day.

But she hasn't had anything to eat

since she left Alaska over four months ago,

and she won't feed again until she returns.

Like the pregnant sea lion, this mother has to get her timing right.

She must arrive in Alaska

for the moment when the seas are at their richest, full of fish.

Their journey north will take three months.

Back in Alaska, the seas are starting to awaken.

It's March, and as the sun gathers strength, winter loosens its grip.

For the sea lions, things are beginning to look up.

The sun is drawing life from the depths.

With each passing day, the sun warms the water for longer,

penetrating deep into the mineral-rich waters.

Fertilising nutrients of phosphorous and nitrogen

fuel a miraculous change that is just beginning.

Empty seas start to come to life.

As we enter an enhanced view of this microscopic world,

we see the beginnings of a magical transformation.

Phytoplankton - tiny floating plants - emerge.

Each is scarcely bigger that a speck of dust.

But together, these plankton will bloom in such immense numbers

that they transform lifeless seas.

And whether that happens this year is yet to be determined.

All creatures here,

from the sea lions to the migrating whales,

ultimately depend on these miniature plants.

For one creature that relies directly on the plankton,

this is the moment to emerge.

Pacific herring have spent the winter

in the depths of the fjords,

but they now rise up and head for the shallow coast.

Stimulated by the sun and the warming water,

they gather in their hundreds of millions.

But they're not drawn here to feed.

They're following an irresistible urge to breed.

Groups of males sweep through the shallows

and release their sperm in vast milky clouds.

The females follow, covering the seabed with eggs.

Such a concentration of fish

is just what the sea lions have been waiting for.

The herring won't be here for long,

the sea lions must make the most of the fishing while it lasts.

Other predators gather, also hungry after the lean winter.

This short-lived bounty is a magnet for millions of migrating birds.

This is just the first, brief course in the great feast.

The herring spawning will be over in a matter of days,

and the shoals of fish will then scatter along the coast.

The herring have spawned on an astonishing scale.

They turn hundreds of miles of coastline white with spawn.

In this bay alone, they have laid 800 billion eggs.

The herrings' spawning is so timed

that when the next generation hatch in a few weeks,

they'll be able to feed on the growing plankton.

And this year, the herring appear to have timed it just right.

The minute plant plankton,

the driving force behind the seas' transformation,

are starting to bloom.

Great swathes of sea grow green with life.

The humpbacks are still out in the middle of the Pacific.

They've missed the first taste of the great feast.

At just eight weeks old,

the young calf must cross the biggest ocean in the world.

His mother will only swim as fast as her young calf,

as he tires, she supports him from beneath.

She's been living off her fat reserves for the last six months,

and has lost a third of her body weight.

She's close to starving.

It will be a further two months before mother and son

reach their feeding grounds in the North Pacific.

It's May, early summer in Alaska,

and the days are getting ever longer.

The sun continues to fuel the growth of microscopic plants

that make up the plankton bloom.

They're joined by a growing community

of tiny animals - zooplankton.

These are the first creatures to feed on the bloom.

Over the coming months they will multiply,

crowding the surface waters in their trillions.

The next stage of the great feast is underway.

All life here depends on this plankton bloom.

The herring feed on it directly.

The greater the bloom, the more abundant the shoals.

And the fish themselves become food for the larger hunters.

But the shoals of herring are now spread far and wide,

and once again for the sea lions, the fishing is tough.

They must venture further to find food.

But open water is a risky place to fish.

This male sea lion hunts alone.

He's three metres long and a ton in weight.

Few would dare tackle HIM.

The smaller females travel as a group.

Keeping a watchful eye in all directions.

They know that killers lurk in the depths.

The surface is a dangerous place to linger, especially if you're alone.

Orca - killer whales.

The sea lion is wounded, but the killers keep their distance.

His powerful jaws are still a threat to the hungry orca.

He struggles towards the safety of land.

But his injuries are slowing him down.

Blow-by-blow, they wear him down.

It's a carefully coordinated attack.

One killer distracts his attention,

while another hits his soft underside.

The richest seas on earth can be treacherous.

Orca attacks, although savage,

have little impact on the fate of most sea lions.

Their survival depends more on the tiny plankton

that sustains the great shoals of fish on which they feed.

It's now late May.

The sunlight lasts for 17 hours a day.

But the bloom will need more than just sun

if it's to reach its full extent.

Nutrients held in these waters

are continuously used up as the bloom increases.

If they're exhausted too early, the plankton will die

and the food chain will collapse.

The effects will be felt by all.

Meanwhile, on the sea lion colony,

new life is now arriving.

After a year carrying her pup,

this mother can at last give birth.

The pup is utterly dependent on his mum.

As he makes sense of his new world,

she encourages him to take his first feed of milk.

The mother has waited until early summer to have her baby.

Such a small pup would never survive the winter.

Along this coast, thousands of pups are born within a matter of weeks.

Timed to coincide with the better conditions that may lie ahead.

The migrating humpbacks are still weeks away from Alaska

and their first meal.

In these turbulent seas, mother and calf must stay close.

A huge Pacific storm is brewing

and heading straight for the coast of British Columbia.

Directly in its path lies the sea lion nursery.

The pups are now at the mercy of the elements.

The mothers must get their young to the safety of higher ground,

if they can find it.

In desperation, a mother tries to drag her pup

away from the gathering tempest.

A pup swept into the water is unlikely to be seen again.

As the seas begin to subside, many have survived.

But others have not.

There's nothing this mother could have done to save her pup.

These mighty storms, though devastating for some,

bring fresh life to the great feast.

When these storms hit the coast,

they stir up vital nutrients into the surface waters,

nutrients that feed the plankton.

Replenished seas combine with the lengthening days,

to create a plankton explosion.

And this has come just in time

for those at the end of an incredible journey.

The humpbacks have arrived.

After 3,000 miles, mother and calf

have finally made it to the coast of Alaska.

They join other whales that have also made the long voyage.

But their journey isn't over, for they have yet to feed.

They're heading for a particular stretch of coast

deep in the network of channels,

where they know they can find the great shoals of herring.

It's to these ancestral feeding grounds

that the mother now guides her new calf.

The unique geography of this coastline

holds the final secret to this great event.

Glaciers have carved a landscape

of deep fjords and islands over tens of thousands of years.

This patchwork creates a labyrinth

through which powerful ocean and tidal currents flow,

bringing up the raw ingredients needed for the bloom.

It's as if an endless supply of fertiliser

is being added to the water.

In other seas, the plankton would be subsiding by now.

But here, the seas are repeatedly invigorated,

which fuels the plankton bloom time and again throughout the summer.

And with the sun at its most powerful,

all these elements combine to create a plankton bloom of great intensity.

In July, the ocean is alive.

This floating community of plants and animals

is the basis for all life here

and a bloom of this intensity signals the start

of a truly great feast.

Where this rich soup hits the seabed,

life carpets every available surface.

The feasting begins with millions of tiny mouths.

Barnacles sift morsels of plankton brought in on the currents.

Many of these creatures started their lives as part of the plankton

before reaching adulthood and settling on the sea floor.

These animals are giants.

They filter the plankton-rich water,

growing larger here than anywhere else in the world.

Jellyfish gather, forming great swarms.

They too eat the plankton,

rising to the surface where it is at its most abundant.

By late summer,

the plankton bloom is so vast it radiates across the North Pacific.

Blooms like these provide Earth with over half of its oxygen.

This bloom eclipses even the Amazon rainforest

in sheer abundance of plant life.

And it is most intense

where the ocean streams through the maze of coastal waterways.

The shoals of herring are now at their most plentiful.

After feeding through the summer months,

the fish themselves are a good catch.

The main target for predators now gathering here.

After enduring the bitter winter,

the sea lions can enjoy the bounty they've been waiting for.

Hunting together, they drive the herring to the surface.

Then, with mesmerising grace, they pick off fish one by one.

For a few short weeks, they'll have their share of the great feast.

Others arrive to feed in the coastal waterways.

Pacific white-sided dolphins.

They dart in and snatch fish as they go.

The tidal currents now sweep herring up to the surface.

Here, they're within diving range of seabirds.

Murres are the first to find the fish.

The shoal twists and turns, trying to escape the surface dangers.

But murres are so fast, they can even out-swim the herring.

They head off the escape, making the shoal turn in on itself,

creating a bait ball.

The birds corral the herring into an ever tighter ball.

But the commotion hasn't gone unnoticed.

Gulls, ever the opportunists, are the next to turn up.

They can dive no more than a metre, so the fish are still out of reach.

The murres only attack from beneath,

trapping the fish against the surface.

But they push the herring within range of the gulls.

It's a feeding frenzy.

The table is set for the mightiest predator of them all.

The humpbacks have reached their feeding grounds.

After six months without a bite to eat,

the humpbacks can finally break their fast.

The whales have learned to target these ready-made balls of fish.

But they'll need more than just a mouthful,

and with the feast now in full swing, this is their chance.

To exploit the vast shoals of herring that are in deeper water,

they rely on teamwork.

For these whales have developed a truly remarkable way of hunting.

WHALE SONG

The inlets echo to the sound of a mysterious song.

A curtain of bubbles,

and a haunting call hold the secret to an ingenious way of fishing.

This is bubble net feeding.

A dozen whales work together to harvest the herring bonanza.

Such fishing requires an extraordinary level

of intelligence and cooperation.

The lead whale dives first, she is the bubble blower.

It's her job to find the fish.

The rest follow in formation.

Each takes exactly the same position in every lunge.

Once she's located the fish,

the leader blows a net of bubbles that completely encircles the shoal.

Another whale calls to synchronise the group.

Panicked by the eerie sound and the blinding bubbles,

the fish won't cross this fizzing curtain.

As few as 100 humpbacks have learnt how to feed as a team like this.

And this is the only place on the planet

where whales fish in this way.

At the height of the great feast,

these humpbacks fish around the clock,

each eating a ton of herring a day.

Only man has learnt to exploit the seas on a greater scale.

As the summer ends, the feast draws to a close.

The sun is weakening, and with it, the plankton bloom subsides.

The microscopic plants that brought life to empty seas begin to die.

The herring descend to spend the winter in the depths.

Life for the sea lions will be harder once again.

But they've fed well enough to face the dark days ahead.

The humpback whales will soon leave these shores.

It's astonishing to think that some of our world's mightiest creatures

ultimately rely on some of its tiniest.

Here along the North Pacific coast,

the interplay between land, sea and sun

has produced a bloom of plankton so immense,

it has created one of nature's great events.

To capture the spectacle of the great feast,

the team would face many challenges,

none greater than filming it underwater.

It was to lead to some surprising encounters.

The crew had three weeks in late summer

to try to film all the underwater drama.

They wanted to find the bait balls of herring that occur here

in the hope of discovering exactly how

the different predators round them up.

Cameramen Shane Moore and David Reichert

both have years of experience working here,

but even they were in for a big surprise.

The key to filming the bait balls was to first find the predators.

We're looking for gulls,

because the gulls tell us where the diving birds are

that are pushing the herring up,

so usually our first clue to the good action is gulls,

distant gulls in the air.

Lot of diving birds,

the murres are all here, the auklets,

they're the ones that bring it all together, so they're all here.

So, we'll just have to watch it.

That's something... I think that's some bait right there.

Bait balls don't last long, so the crew had to get to this one quickly.

But once in the water, a very careful approach is called for.

So as not to panic the birds, David eased closer to the action.

And with this sensitive approach,

the birds stayed focused on the feeding frenzy,

giving David the chance for a rather close-up view.

But with so many predators, the fish were getting hammered,

the bait ball was gone within minutes.

It was an encouraging start,

but to get the full sequence they hoped for,

the crew would need to film more bait balls.

And, of course, they weren't the only ones looking for herring.

It's only in the last five or six or seven years

that the humpback population here in this area has increased,

which is really encouraging.

Look, you can see one way over there.

It was good to see the whales return,

but it posed an intriguing safety concern for Shane.

I think it's extremely unlikely you could get swallowed by a whale,

but if there is a place, this is the place to do it

because they're coming up,

they're very motivated to get this ball of fish,

and we're right there, and we're just a little thing to a 30 ton whale.

The good news is I've seen whales swallow birds and other things,

even big fish that they don't like, and they've stopped and spit it out,

so way, way in the back of my mind

is the outside possibility that they might swallow David.

You didn't tell me that!

Mindful that there were whales in the area,

the crew turned their attention

to filming the other stars of the great feast, Steller sea lions.

The plan was to dive amongst the kelp

and wait for the sea lions to come to them.

If we go in, find a little eddy in there,

cos the animals are just on that point there.

This coast has some of the strongest tidal currents

in the world, essential for fuelling the plankton bloom,

but not so good if you're swimming against them,

pushing a bulky camera.

The current was getting stronger

and the sea lions were nowhere to be seen.

David was forced to admit that even the best laid plans

don't always work.

That dive was a bit of a mess.

You know, the currents come up so fast around here

that as soon as we got down there and got set up,

the current was going, like, four knots

and we were just hanging onto kelp,

and just trying to get in to find some sort of eddy to work in,

but we never did, and finally we just got washed down.

The team had to wait for the tide to calm down.

And it wasn't just the currents

that made filming sea lions underwater a bit tricky.

What's really kinda driving us crazy here is all this plankton,

the water's very green,

not at all like the tropics, where it's clear and beautiful.

It's also what feeds everything here

and that's why we have the great amount of sea lions,

and all the fish and invertebrates.

On the next slack tide, it was back into the soupy water to try again.

They'd have to settle down on the seabed

and hope the sea lions' inquisitive nature would draw them in.

And this year's youngsters were definitely not camera-shy.

The sea lions were obviously comfortable

getting up close and personal with Shane.

Sometimes even a bit too personal.

Even this three-metre long male

seemed to want his share of the limelight.

After success with the sea lions, it was time for Shane and David

to turn their attention back to the bait balls.

The strengthening tides were bringing more fish to the surface,

and so, with just a few days left,

this was their best chance to get the shots they still needed.

The birds were gorging on herring,

but at least one fish had a lucky escape.

The herring, in a panic, look for a place to hide,

and they found my camera,

so they'd be up in my view finder,

and of course they get in between those tubes,

because everything is trying to eat him, the murres and the...

There he is. OK.

This might be the lucky one.

Big ball of fish!

It was the best year for bait balls that David and Shane had ever seen.

And they discovered how each of the predators feeds.

It's the murres that corral the bait ball against the surface,

only ever attacking from beneath,

while the gulls just grab what they can.

But no-one was prepared for what happened next.

And David was right there!

So, what's it like to find yourself that close to a feeding humpback?

Everything was hitting the ball,

and I could hear the seagulls, of course,

cos they were all around, then all of sudden it got quiet

and they all lifted off, and I thought, "Hmmm..."

and then sure enough, all the murres dropped out of the bottom,

and he was right there when I got real close.

I was like, "Oh!", and his mouth was...

-Scary?

-Yeah, it was scary.

To capture such astonishing images,

and for the very first time, was an unforgettable experience.

Sitting beside that bait ball,

and there's that moment of tension,

and that whale just came roaring through there,

and that's something that's gonna stay with me for ever.

Shane and David had revealed a dramatic new way

that humpback whales take advantage of the great feast.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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