Grasslands Planet Earth II

One quarter of all the land on Earth is covered by a single,

remarkable type of plant.

Almost indestructible, it can grow two feet in a day...

..and be tall enough to hide a giant.

LOW RUMBLING

That plant is grass, and the world it creates is truly unique.

The grass in northern India is the tallest on the planet,

home to some of the most impressive creatures to tread the Earth.

GRUNTING

These are the good times, but in just a few months,

all this fresh growth will be gone

and the animals will be forced to move on.

That is the way things are on grasslands across the planet.

BIRDS TWEET

A cycle of abundance, destruction and rebirth

that affects every creature that lives here.

LOW RUMBLING

The largest grassland on Earth, the vast Eurasian Steppe,

stretches one third of the way around our planet.

Spring rain has brought fresh grass and, with it, new life.

A relic from the ice age,

a baby saiga antelope,

just three hours old.

His only company, his twin.

Until they can stand, their mother has left them hidden in the grass.

They should be safe, as long as they remain quiet.

HE BLEATS

For these calves, the clock is already ticking.

Their herd will soon be moving on, seeking the freshest, new grass.

BLEATING

HE BLEATS

HE BLEATS

Their lanky legs are a sure sign that they're built for a life

on the move.

HE BLEATS

BLEATING

Saiga always give birth to twins,

so their numbers grow rapidly

just when grass is plentiful.

Their bizarrely shaped nose can detect fresh growth

from hundreds of miles away.

BLEATING

The young twins will now begin the nomadic life they share with

most animals on the world's open plains.

Grasslands occur where rain is too

sporadic for forests to exist.

THUNDER RUMBLES

WIND WHOOSHES

The rain that a grassland needs to survive for a year

might arrive all at once.

CRASHING AND RUMBLING

Storms like these can release

12 inches of rain in 24 hours.

Not much fun if you're out in it.

Eventually, the Earth can't soak up any more...

RUMBLING

..and the grassland undergoes a radical change.

Many plants would drown here, but grasses thrive.

They grow so fast,

their leaves quickly rise above the water and into the sunlight.

BIRDS TWEET

Here in southern Africa,

water transforms one of the most remarkable grasslands on Earth.

The Okavango.

Every year, 5,000 square miles of grassland are flooded.

For one pride of lions, this poses a major problem.

There may be plenty of prey around, but lions struggle

to run it down in water.

The pride has three-month-old cubs.

They've never seen water before.

CUBS MEOW

If their mothers don't make a kill soon,

the cubs might not survive the week.

But fuelled by the flood,

the eruption of grass attracts new possible prey.

Buffalo arrive in herds 2,000 strong.

Powerful, aggressive and united,

they're the most dangerous animal a lion can face.

HE GRUNTS

The biggest bulls don't run.

They're simply too huge to be scared of lions.

At 900 kilos, he weighs more than all five lionesses combined.

The pride do have numbers on their side...

..but one sweep of his horns could be deadly.

One distracts the bull up front,

while her sisters attack from behind.

The cats must somehow topple the buffalo, but with swamp underfoot,

they can't get any traction.

LIONS ROAR

The bull is weakening...

..but the lions are tiring too.

It's now a battle of will as much as strength.

To live, the bull must somehow shake off the lioness.

The bull is wounded, but thanks to his two-inch-thick hide,

he will recover.

For the pride, these are hungry times.

CUB SQUEAKS

But ultimately, once the water recedes,

there will be new life and new food to benefit all.

In the right conditions,

grasses have the extraordinary ability to grow from

first shoots to flower in a matter of only days.

Grasses become the miniature equivalents of fruiting trees.

And, for creatures living within the grass,

this is a landscape as vast and towering as any rainforest.

An excellent place to build a tiny treehouse...

..for a harvest mouse.

During summer, European meadowlands are full of food...

..but only for those that can reach it.

Climbing grass is harder than climbing trees,

not least because their stems just won't stay still.

A prehensile tail acts like a fifth limb,

so she's as agile as a monkey clambering around in a tree.

STEM 'CREAKS'

And just as well, for the best food in this tiny forest

is at the very top of its canopy.

Feeding up here, she's exposed.

A barn owl.

Not her finest move...

..but it did the trick.

Harvest mice seldom go all the way down to the ground.

It's a tangled and dangerous world down here.

But she can read the pattern of the stems overhead like a map,

and so find her way home.

And not a minute too soon.

There are mouths to feed.

Her babies must fatten up quickly.

They need to harvest the summer grasses

while they're still rich with food.

On the African savanna, too, seasonal grasses

are filled with life,

but it won't last long.

Carmine bee-eaters are superb aerial hunters...

..experts at catching insects in mid-air.

But they have no way of flushing their prey out of the grass.

INSECTS HUM AND CLICK

Once alarmed, most insects stay put.

The bee-eaters need someone to stir things up a bit.

A kori bustard.

It's the world's heaviest flying bird,

so it should be bulky enough to kick up some insects.

BUZZING

Bingo!

Until someone else comes along...

..and cramps your style.

Never mind.

Perhaps there are bigger opportunities ahead.

What about an ostrich?

The heaviest bird of all.

This time, there's more than enough transport to go around.

Soon, almost every ostrich has its own passenger.

But free riders are only tolerated for so long.

What the bee-eaters really need is a creature so big,

it won't even notice them.

SNORTING

LOW RUMBLING

Nothing cuts a swathe through grass like an African bull elephant.

ELEPHANT GROWLS

The trick is to fly as close to the front of the giant as possible.

They only have a split second to grab the prize.

As more insects are stirred up, the competition intensifies.

BIRDS CHIRP

With summer drawing to a close, the race to stock up is on.

Soon the grass will wither, and this opportunity will have gone.

As the dry season takes hold,

food becomes increasingly thin on the ground.

Now, only the most specialised predators on the plains

can make a living.

She may be spotted like a cheetah, but this cat is no sprinter.

Instead, she has extra long legs, which give her a high vantage point.

But a serval cat's main weapon

are enormous radar ears.

RUSTLING

They help her pinpoint prey hiding in the grass.

But the prey she seeks are canny.

Southern vlei rats.

They know that any sustained movement can give them away.

So they move in short bursts.

But even the slightest rustle will give her a clue.

Warm.

RUSTLING

Warmer.

Missed.

RUSTLING

RUSTLING

RUSTLING

BIRD TWEETS

RUSTLING

SQUEAKING

In better times, she could catch ten a day.

But now, with so few rodents around, she will have to go hungry.

As drought intensifies,

life gets tougher for all.

Predators with permanent territories must tough it out,

while most of their prey disappear over the horizon.

GRUNTING AND MOOING

To avoid starvation, many grassland animals follow

a nomadic way of life.

Over two million wildebeest wander the East African savannas,

chasing the rains.

And they are not alone.

Arriving on the wing, Jackson's widowbirds also seek fresh grass.

Although, it's not just food that they're after.

This male wants a mate.

He's grown elaborate breeding plumage for this moment.

But he needs a stage on which to show it off.

By carefully selecting grass blades, each trimmed to the correct length,

he's creating something very special.

He needs an even surface...

..and a centrepiece.

The stage is set.

His bachelor pad is sufficiently neat and tidy to attract a female.

The problem is, can she see it?

BIRDS TWEET

He has competition.

TWEETING

TWEETING

TWEETING

It might take more than a little gardening to impress the ladies.

Jumping is the right idea...

..but he's misjudged the height of the grass.

TWEETING

His rival makes it look easy.

TWEETING

TWEETING

TWEETING

TWEETING

Time to raise his game.

TWEETING

It's not only who jumps the highest,

but who can keep doing so the longest.

Unable to go the distance, his rivals drop out one by one.

Stamina has won him admirers.

Now he can show off his courtship arena.

And engage in a little romantic hide-and-seek.

Finally, he's done enough.

The East African savannas support millions of grazers.

Each year, they devour millions of tonnes of grass.

And yet, there's one creature here whose impact is far greater

than all these animals combined.

They're found wherever grass grows on the planet.

Yet their labours go almost entirely unnoticed.

One of the most remarkable is found here,

on the grasslands of South America.

These blades are so tough

that virtually no large grass eaters can stomach them.

Yet, they are harvested on an industrial scale...

..by tiny grass-cutter ants.

But they themselves can't digest one bit of it.

So, why bother?

The answer is underground.

And it's very ingenious.

Each blade is cut to length and placed into a garden of fungus.

The rotting grass feeds the fungus

and, in turn, the fungus feeds the ants.

But feeding five million workers requires intensive agriculture.

Luckily, they are an industrious lot.

This colony alone will collect over half a tonne of grass every year.

With billions of ant colonies across the world's grasslands

all doing exactly the same thing,

that's a mind-boggling amount of grass.

It's estimated that over one-third of the grass that grows on Earth

will be harvested by an insect.

In northern Australia,

termites memorialise their industry in sculpture.

These astonishing mounds are ten feet tall.

They're always built on a north-south axis

which is why their builders are called compass termites.

These castles of clay protect their builders from extremes of heat

and seasonal floods experienced on many grasslands.

Termites manage to do what most grass eaters can't -

break down dead grass and extract the nutrients.

But they themselves can be food for those that can reach them.

A two-foot-long tongue...

..covered in microscopic hooks...

..followed by claws longer than those of a velociraptor.

A giant anteater on the plains of South America.

It can devour 20,000 insects a day.

Powerful forelegs enable it to rip apart a termite hill with ease.

And, as the sun bakes the grass, the termites face new danger.

In minutes, fire turns grassland to ash.

But the grasses are not dead.

Their underground stems are unharmed.

Weeks, months may pass

but, eventually, the rains will return

and the grass will sprout again.

Some grasslands must endure not only fire, but ice.

As winter approaches, the prairies of North America begin to freeze.

BISON GROWLS

In summer, bison roamed freely,

almost continuously cropping the abundant green grass.

Now that grass is not only withered and frozen, it's about to be buried.

GRUNTING

60 million tonnes of snow now blanket this herd's territory.

Pushing through deep snow is exhausting work

and the bison are now slowly starving.

Just keeping warm saps huge amounts of energy.

GROWLING

Their thick coats can insulate them down to minus 20 Fahrenheit.

It's now minus 40.

The only thing that will keep them alive

is buried beneath three feet of snow.

And that's a problem shared with a surprising neighbour.

The food the fox seeks is also deep beneath the snow.

GROWLING

The survival of both creatures

depends on getting through to the ground.

For the bison, it will be a matter of brute strength.

Massive neck muscles enable them to shovel five tonnes of snow a day.

Their lightweight neighbour needs more precision.

BISON GROWLS

The bison have reached their goal.

A mouthful of withered grass.

And where the bison have dug, the fox now spots an opportunity.

Every footstep counts.

But he mustn't break through...

yet.

He listens carefully to pinpoint his target.

It's moving.

A vole.

Small, but 100 times more nutritious

than a mouthful of dried grass.

To get through the winter on these prairies,

sometimes brain beats brawn.

Ultimately, life on all grasslands depends on the turn of the seasons.

500 miles further north than any tree can survive,

grass returns to life.

Caribou females have journeyed to the far north to calve.

Over 70,000 caribou babies will be born in the next few days.

As the calves appear, so too do the leaves of the newly-sprouting grass.

And the calves must strengthen quickly.

Within days, they will have to keep up with their parents

on a never-ending march.

At one-day-old, they are already faster than an Olympic sprinter.

They are testing the legs that will carry them thousands of miles.

Better to learn their limitations now.

CALF HONKS

It may look playful, but there's no harder life on the grasslands

than that facing these infants.

The caribou mothers now join together,

each with an infant exactly the same age.

They're setting off on the greatest overland trek made by any animal.

But wherever grass eaters travel, predators lie in wait.

Here they are.

Arctic wolves.

They must seize their chance

while the caribou pass through their territory.

CARIBOU GRUNTS

The wolf runs at the herd, trying to flush out the weak or the slow.

A calf is separated.

At full tilt, 40-miles-an-hour, the wolf is just faster.

But the calf has stamina.

Only a few weeks old

and this calf's will to survive is remarkable.

And it needs to be,

for these young caribou have now started a journey

that will last a lifetime...

..forever chasing the seasonal growth of the grass

on which they depend.

Like all grassland creatures,

they are at the mercy of these unpredictable,

but ultimately bountiful lands.

Grass can survive some of the harshest conditions on Earth -

flood, fire, and frost - and still flourish.

So it is, the grasslands provide a stage

for the greatest gatherings of wildlife on planet Earth.

For the grasslands team, no location would prove as challenging

as that dominated by elephant grass in north-east India.

The aim, to capture intimate images

of some of the world's most elusive creatures

using the latest technology.

But they will need to be careful.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

More people are killed by wildlife here in Kaziranga...

ELEPHANT ROARS

..than in any other national park on the planet.

Every time we go into these tunnels,

we have to take an armed guard

because there are so many animals in here that are dangerous.

Tigers are probably the least of our worries.

But rhinos and buffalo, elephants,

sloth bear - all of them can injure you

and we've got to keep up with our armed guard!

The team have bumped into their first obstacle.

There's a rhino right there.

Let's go back, because it's too risky

going through this heavy grass.

Let's get in the open.

Another rhino.

-Now we have two rhinos.

-Let's get in here.

GUARD SHOUTS

OK.

The guard throws a ball of mud to one side of the rhinos,

moving the animals on without harming them.

GUARD SHOUTS

-OK, it's gone.

-OK.

What about the other one?

Let's go, quick.

With the rhinos now a safe distance away,

the crew focus on the best spots

to position their camera traps.

I love that tunnel. The effect.

Over 100 scaffold poles provide the anchor points

for these secret cameras.

When an animal triggers an infrared beam,

the cameras will switch on automatically and start recording.

If it works,

the remote-control cameras should capture close-up footage

without disturbing the animals or putting the crew at risk.

Basically, that's about as much like grass as we can make it look.

As night falls, the crew head back to base for safety.

It's time for the new technology to prove its worth.

At dawn, the crew have a whodunnit mystery on their hands.

Oh, wow!

That's carnage.

This looks like elephant, we think.

This is scaffold pole, huh.

They have bent... Look at that!

It's a sad day. You win some, you lose some

and, this time, the animals have outsmarted us.

And, in fact, check this out!

Woohoo!

So, this is our little army of guards, protecting our trigger box.

Do they bite? These ones?

Do they bite? Sting?

Argh! Argh. Ow! Oh.

These little... BLEEP!

While Chadden irons out the bugs,

Sandesh has met some grumpy locals.

Wild Asian water buffalo have extraordinary senses.

Mothers will charge if they feel threatened.

The guard carries a gun in case a warning shot is needed,

and with good reason.

More people are killed by buffalo

than by any other animal in Kaziranga.

GUARD SHOUTS A WARNING

That will wake you up in the morning!

Many of the park staff have cautionary tales about buffalo.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS LANGUAGE

The buffalo caught him here.

Through his throat, and the horn came out through his mouth

and flung him, before running away.

It's a miracle that he's still alive.

If the wildlife is unfriendly to humans...

..it's proving downright hostile to camera traps.

Completely ripped-out the scaffold poles.

They've torn the triggers.

While Chadden is convinced it's elephants,

the rest of the crew are not so sure.

That's huge! It's almost like a human footprint.

You can see the front paw, the rear paw.

We are now two weeks in and it's very frustrating.

I've never actually been anywhere where the animals

go after your equipment and destroy it, more than here.

It's time for the team to do some detective work.

Here is our little security camera.

If any animals are coming through and vandalising our main cameras,

we hope that they're being caught on these little things.

Good.

As the crew up their spying efforts,

the guards take them to a promising lead.

Nothing attracts tigers like a rhino carcass.

It's very fresh.

It's like from the morning. And it looks like there's a tiger cub.

So there should be a tigress with cubs

coming to feed on this rhino carcass. That's pretty cool.

Chadden decides to give the camera traps one last chance.

If there are tigers around,

they might scare away the mystery vandals.

Elsewhere in the park,

the security cameras are turning up some unexpected results.

The night-time... Yeah. Survived another... Ooh!

It's a bear!

Well, that's a very rare sighting.

-I've never seen a bear in Kaziranga.

-Haven't you?

-In all my years, never.

-Oh, his fingernails...

-Look at those, look at his claws.

Right on the lens.

So, I thought this was elephant damage.

I never thought we'd see a sloth bear doing that.

That's amazing.

A return to the rhino carcass

and the plot thickens.

Our transmitter's gone.

That's what tigers think of camera traps.

There's a bit over there, pieces.

The security cameras have caught a new culprit.

-Oh, my goodness! There they are.

-Oh!

There's the tigress, see that?

It's a tigress. Oh, it snarled at the camera trap. Look at that!

Sure don't like camera traps.

OK.

With the technology struggling,

Sandesh decides to put himself on the front line.

And now we're ready.

Time to get the tiger.

He'll have no protection apart from a thin wall of grass

and must hope he's as well hidden as the local wildlife.

Over the next five days,

Sandesh plays the role of human camera trap.

Eventually, the more hands-on approach pays off.

Traditional filming methods and a little bit of patience

have helped reveal the hidden creatures of Kaziranga.

But it's good to know there are still wild places

where animals like to keep their secrets.

EQUIPMENT CREAKS AND THUDS

I knew it was elephants!

Next time,

we venture to the newest habitat on Earth -

our cities -

to reveal the extraordinary ways

that animals survive in this man-made world.