Attenborough at 90

APPLAUSE

Hello and welcome to what promises to be a very special evening.

Tonight, on the occasion of his 90th birthday,

we are privileged to be celebrating the life and career

of a man whose passion and knowledge of the natural world

has fundamentally changed how we see the world.

His unique ability to help us understand our planet

is little short of remarkable.

He is frequently referred to

as THE greatest broadcaster of all time.

He's even beaten David Beckham

in a poll of the coolest men on the planet.

I am, of course, talking about the one and only Sir David Attenborough.

Tonight, we've got rather a different programme for you.

# Don't stop me now

# Don't stop me

# Cos I'm having a good time Having a good time

# I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky like a tiger

# Defying the laws of gravity... #

And top of the menu right now is...salmon.

# ..Go, go, go There's no stopping me

# I'm burning through the sky, yeah

# 200 degrees

# That's why they call me Mr Fahrenheit... #

And for that, he must fight!

# ..I want to make a supersonic man out of you... #

Boo!

# Don't stop me now

# I'm having such a good time

# I'm having a ball

# Don't stop me now

# If you want to have a good time just give me a call

# Don't stop me Yes, I'm having a good time

# I don't want to stop at all... #

Thanks for that. Great talking to you.

# Don't stop me, don't stop me Don't stop me

# Don't stop me, don't stop me Ooh-ooh-ooh... #

-You should see the outtakes.

-I would LOVE to see the outtakes!

Maybe we can arrange a viewing.

-Yes, any time.

-OK.

-LAUGHTER

# ..Don't stop me Yes, I'm having a good time

# I don't want to stop at all... #

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me the greatest of pleasure

to welcome Sir David Attenborough.

CHEERING

Welcome, welcome, welcome

to your little television party.

Well...I think they are pleased to see you.

-First things first, happy birthday.

-Thank you very much.

In your 90th year, building up to the birthday,

it strikes me you've been as happy as ever.

I've been talking to people behind the scenes,

they say Argentina to Australia and everywhere in between.

Remind us of what you've been filming in the last 12 months.

Well, I filmed that big dinosaur,

the biggest one yet found, in Argentina.

I've filmed luminous earthworms in France, believe it or not.

I've been on the Barrier Reef.

So I've had a good time.

Your fascination with the natural world is obvious

to all of us and it's interesting that

the beginnings of your career in television

were really the beginnings of television.

I mean, that's when it really got off the ground,

in those very early 1950s.

How did you get into television?

Oh, by accident and certainly not by design,

because I had never seen television in 1952.

And the number of people who could see it were tiny,

they were just in London, a few thousand people.

And then I was working in publishing in an extremely boring job,

putting commas into manuscripts

or occasionally taking them out if I was feeling bad-tempered.

LAUGHTER

And it was... it was indescribably boring.

And I saw an advertisement in the paper that said

the BBC wanted a radio producer, a talks producer,

and I thought, "Well, I can talk, I must know how to talk,"

and so I applied and I got a polite refusal,

-I didn't get an interview or anything.

-Right.

It just said, "No, thank you very much,"

which was understandable, I'm sure they got thousands.

And then about a fortnight after that,

I got another letter from someone else in the BBC,

saying, "We are starting this new thing called television,

"which a lot of people are rude about,

"and we think that there could be something in it

"and we've seen your... we've seen your application

"and you're the sort of person we're looking for.

"Would you like to apply?"

And you ranged across, as a young producer, all subjects, then?

-What would you have been covering as a young producer?

-Nonfiction.

And so I did...

I mean, I started off by doing an archaeological quiz

called Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?

But I did political talks, I did political discussions,

I did gardening.

What else did I do? Erm...

-Knitting!

-LAUGHTER

They had a programme on knitting, yeah!

By 1954, you had honed your skills enough

to be allowed to work on something...

I mean, it was called Zoo Quest

and actually it would go on to be a very, very popular series,

but you were working as a producer, or you were working as a presenter?

I was working... Oh, no, not at all, I was entirely a producer,

I had no intention of being a presenter

and the only reason I did was because the man from the zoo,

-Jack Lester, became very ill.

-Yes.

And it was a live show, so I was told by the head of television,

"The only other person who can do this is you."

So I appeared by accident, really.

So, you travelled around the world for Zoo Quest with...

Your companion at the time

was a cameraman called Charles Lagus.

He's a slip of a lad, David, he's just 88.

And we went to hear some of his memories

of those early days working with you.

I met this young man called Attenborough.

We seemed to hit it off straightaway.

And David's knowledge just staggered me.

When we first got off this aeroplane and started walking,

there would be the odd bush animal that would walk past, you know.

He instantly knew what it was, what genus it was.

Look at trees, he knew what tree it was.

His zoological knowledge in a country he'd never been to -

he'd never been out of England -

was absolutely brilliant, I mean, it was just so reliable.

We slept in hammocks,

we spent a lot of time eating boiled rice.

And yet, we just got on and did it, it just seemed natural.

But it was quite good coming back and having a proper meal!

When... When you look at that film, what are your memories?

Are you suddenly back there, are you taken back to the moment?

Er, yes, yes, I truly am.

They were marvellous trips, of course,

and you couldn't do anything like it now

because there were no mobile phones, there were...

You know, when you left, you left.

And so the animals that you would bring back then,

one of the most notable is the python.

Well, that was one we caught in Indonesia, in Java.

Did you catch it?

Well, yes, I did, because, you see, poor old Jack,

he had left, and I, in order to carry on

this...charade that I was an animal collector, you know,

-I had to actually...

-LAUGHTER

I actually did do the business.

How do you catch a python?

With great difficulty!

And considerable alarm, I don't mind telling you!

OK, well, let's just take a little look

at the Zoo Quest episode with the python.

Helping me control this python is Mr Lanwarn

from the Reptile House in the London Zoo,

who, in fact, has it in his care now. How is he?

Well, he's doing very fine, actually.

He's...!

That's a very good example of how he constricts his food!

Shall I just show you, or will you lose your hand?

No, I don't think so, I'll be able to get out eventually.

While I leave Mr Lanwarn to untie himself from this snake,

er...we must say goodnight.

So, from us both, goodnight.

David, I think that must have been the last time you used Brylcreem.

You did look very smart there!

Let's talk, then, about making a name for yourself on screen.

You did that with Zoo Quest, it became hugely popular,

and then something rather unusual happened.

As we know, again, it was the fledgling days of television,

it was 1965, and they said to you,

who was becoming this televisual presence,

"Would you like to come and run BBC Two,

"to be the Controller of BBC Two?"

What was your plan?

Well, it was...

just about the best job you could possibly have

in broadcasting, really, if you were interested in programming.

And the brief was, "Whatever you do, make it different from BBC One."

They'd go a bit further, they said, "Provide an ALTERNATIVE to BBC One."

Now, actually, you can't define what an alternative...

What is the alternative to football?

It's certainly not Beethoven's string quartets.

I mean, people who play quartets

like football just as much as anybody else does.

So in the end, we decided,

as long as we got a new kind of programme, it would do.

So, we developed new things in every genre, really.

We had new kinds of drama,

we had classic serials from the great authors,

we had new sports, we had floodlit rugby league, which we started...

And we started snooker, I don't mind telling you!

So, then, you'd been Controller of BBC Two,

you'd made such a good job of that

that you were then promoted to Director of Programmes

and you were very diverse and innovative.

Interestingly, the big landmark series

was something that you became known for.

There was Civilisation, there was The Ascent Of Man.

There were lots of comedies too, David,

there was The Likely Lads, there was Monty Python's Flying Circus.

-Yes.

-And the Pythons even did a sketch about you, supposedly,

tracking down the elusive walking tree of Dahomey.

Well, we're still keeping up with it, but it's setting a furious pace.

Early this morning, we thought we'd spotted it,

but it turned out to be an Angolan sauntering tree,

Amazellus robinrayi,

out walking with a Gambian sidling bush.

So on we go. It's going to be difficult.

The walking tree can achieve speeds of up to 50mph,

especially when it's in a hurry.

Super!

Well, Rupert has spotted something.

This could be it, a walking tree on the move.

APPLAUSE

Well, joining us now to explain himself,

please welcome the wonderful Michael Palin.

APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH

David! Good to see you!

Oh, dear...

So, Michael, was that an homage,

or was it just a straight mickey-take?

"Dam-age", I think, wasn't it, really?

Of course it was homage, yes, he's a great man.

Unfortunately, something went terribly wrong with the sketch,

which you can't actually see, but the idea was

that anybody who was a presenter in the jungle

got very hot and very sweaty,

so we decided that we would have sort of a plumbed outfit,

which would pour water down

through your shirt and jacket as you were talking.

Unfortunately, in the first take, it went wrong

and the plumbing got blocked at the top and went down the trousers.

So, actually, you know, David was eternally incontinent,

it just poured, poured down.

"Turn it off, turn it off!"

David, do you think, did he capture something of the spirit of you,

do you think, in the impersonation?

I thought it was absolutely indistinguishable from me!

Well, I got to be your doppelganger.

It would be a great job.

I mean, Monty Python at the time...

Of course, cult status for many decades now,

but at the time, it split audiences.

A lot of people didn't like it, didn't get it,

and certainly, among a lot of the sort of management of the BBC,

-it was not popular.

-I must say, you were very good, you were the one...

A lot of other BBC executives avoided us completely

and you came up and said, "Well,

"you know, the fact you are not on every night in the provinces,

"the fact you get taken off when Horse Of The Year Show overruns,

-"means you're going to become a cult show."

-Yes!

"And cult shows are never forgotten."

I thought, "What a load of old rubbish!" But he was right!

LAUGHTER

And the nice thing about Python was that we were...

The BBC let us just get on with it, nobody...supervised the programme,

or watched what we were doing,

we were able to hone it over sort of 13 shows.

There was a lot of very bad stuff that we did

and a lot of very good stuff, but it was amazing the BBC let us

just carry on experimenting in our little basement.

And, David, you mentioned the sports programming

that you were responsible for as Director of Programmes,

there was Match Of The Day,

you introduced one-day cricket.

And you mentioned the snooker and, of course,

you decided to put snooker on at a time,

much like a lot of the technology that you've used subsequently,

because it was only then that people could see the different colours.

-Yes.

-And did people think snooker would be good TV?

-No.

-LAUGHTER

There was a classic line.

I had to explain, you see, although people with colour sets

could see it in colour,

the majority of the people couldn't see it in colour,

so the commentator had to help them understand.

And I impressed this

on the commentator who was doing the first show

and he sort of, after he'd got into the show

and the game was progressing, and he was doing the hushed tones,

you know, he eventually said,

"And now he's going for the blue,

"and for those of you with black-and-white sets,

"the blue is next to the green."

LAUGHTER

David, you are very well known for quizzing visitors to your home

on some of the... Well, they are very exotic,

very rare objects that you have collected over the years.

Indeed, Michael, you were put to the test back in 2002, I think it was.

-I was, I was. I was quaking in my boots!

-Oh, come along now!

Let's take a look at this documentary, Life On Air.

-Yes, well...

-Object number three is?

-Oh, wow!

Well, it's extremely heavy.

I would've thought it was an egg of some kind

-but I can't imagine any animal...

-Yes, yes.

-It is an egg?

-Yes.

-This has come from inside some...

-It's an egg.

-..creature?

-It's an egg.

-Erm...

-Oh. Dinosaur egg?

-Full marks.

-Really?

Ten out of ten.

There are two things you can always say under these circumstances,

-either it's a ritual object...

-Mm.

-..or else money.

There's always two, you can always say one of the two,

-one or the other.

-OK.

-And that is...

-Is a ritual object.

-..money.

-Oh!

THEY LAUGH

There we are.

We're rather a good comic team, I think, David, actually.

-So it is your turn, then, Michael, we're giving you the turn.

-Yes!

You're going to turn the tables.

I have something. It probably won't be that difficult

but I've got something which I procured on my travels

and I wonder if you know what it might be, where it's from,

-what it's for and...

-Money or ritual object?

-..whether you'd like to use it?

-MICHAEL LAUGHS

Use it?

First of all, David, it's the wrong way up.

-I was going to say a flower arrangement. No?

-No.

-Turn it the right way up and then... Ah.

-Ah.

-Yes.

Well...

Well, it's either a neck rest or a bottom rest and I reckon

-that's a bottom rest...

-Yeah.

-..and I reckon it must be an African one.

-Yeah, people would carry them around, actually, like...

-Exactly.

-He got that annoyingly quickly, didn't he?

-Took him a while!

LAUGHTER

-That is from the Karamojong people...

-Oh, really?

-Isn't it brilliant?

-It is.

These very, very big guys, they're enormous people and they just

take these round and, whenever they want to sit, just sit on these.

I mean, it's really... It looks easy. But actually...

Oh...

LAUGHTER

Oh, actually, that's not bad, really. There you are.

-Beautiful, economic, clever...

-Oh, it's a wonderful thing.

-Perfect.

But it's the only thing they have apart from their spears,

as far as I remember, is that right?

One of them had a Rolex watch, actually. No, seriously.

Quite seriously.

-Michael Palin, thank you very much indeed.

-It's a pleasure.

APPLAUSE

David, I think it would be fair to say that you have probably

travelled to more places than anybody else who has ever lived,

but there is one place you still haven't been to.

Good evening, Sir David.

And good evening, everyone, and welcome on board

the International Space Station,

where we're orbiting 400km above the Earth's surface.

Sir David, your adventures and your words have inspired us enormously

and changed the way that we look at our Earth.

Britain has a long history of scientific endeavour,

and just like the naturalists and explorers of our history,

it's important that we tell the story of the scientists,

conservationists and explorers of today to the next generation

to change our future for the better.

So from here in space above the equator,

I would like to wish you, Sir David, a very happy 90th birthday.

APPLAUSE

You had, then, as is clear,

spent a very successful time as a backroom boy.

You're running BBC Two, being Director of Programmes,

you had risen pretty high and you decided, extraordinarily,

and this seems to be a sort of pivotal point in your life,

it was 1972 and you resigned those big jobs.

You said, "I don't fancy this any more."

What was your thinking?

And it must have been personally a pretty momentous decision.

Erm, well, I don't know.

I mean, you know, I'd paid off the mortgage, and the children,

the children had left school and had been educated

and what was I going to do?

And what I thought I was...

What I know I enjoyed most was making programmes,

so why not go back to making programmes?

1979, Life On Earth makes it onto our screens,

it is a ground-breaking series, it's a 13-part series,

it was hugely popular, it made you a household name.

What was the inspiration for that series?

Why did you passionately want to make it?

Well, when I was running BBC Two, we started a new kind of

documentary which was 13-part one-hour programmes

which set out to more or less say, my implication to viewers,

"Look, if you want to know about this that you've often heard about,

"stay with us for 13 hours, week by week, and at the end of it,

"we'll have given you a reasonably responsible outline

"of what it's about."

But I knew, you see, that the, THE subject

that you could really make a mind-blowing series about

would be the history of life on Earth,

from the very simplest to the primates like ourselves.

And that could easily fall into 13 parts, and I thought,

"By golly, that's a thing I'd like to do."

My worry was that while I was Director of Programmes,

that some other perisher was going to go to the BBC

and say, "What about this wonderful idea of doing the history of life?"

And I couldn't in all conscience then say no.

But fortunately nobody did and so as soon as I resigned,

I suggested to the BBC that maybe this would be something

they might consider.

It was a huge hit with viewers, it was full of extraordinary moments.

But, of course, the most celebrated moment from Life On Earth is...

I don't even have to say what it is.

It's this magical sequence here. Let's watch it.

There is more...

meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging

a glance with a gorilla...

..than any other animal I know.

And this is how they spend most of their time,

lounging on the ground, grooming one another.

Sometimes they even allow others to join in.

APPLAUSE

Extraordinary. Well, joining us now to tell us more about that moment

is someone who was just a fresh- faced research assistant in Rwanda

at the time. He is now chairman of the Gorilla Organization,

please welcome Ian Redmond.

APPLAUSE

Happy memories, I can tell, watching that clip.

David, what was the original purpose of filming this sequence

among the gorillas?

Well, I wanted... One of the key things in the history of humanity

and the evolution of humanity was the moment

when our ancient primate cousins developed the ability

to put thumb and forefinger together so they could hold,

initially, of course, branches so they can swing around.

But if you can do that, you can hold a tool.

And if you can hold a tool, you can make weapons,

you can make all kinds of objects that you wanted to.

So it's the opposable thumb, as it's called, is the crucial thing.

And I wanted to illustrate that with apes.

And, Ian, were you surprised when you saw the behaviour

of these gorillas around David?

Well, at the time the gorillas were used to one observer.

-So it was very unusual to have a group of people coming in.

-Right.

But gorillas seem to have this concept of a friend of a friend

and if they know someone

and there's somebody else they don't know with them,

because they're with that someone, it... "Mm, OK."

And before you visit gorillas,

you're given a sort of briefing in gorilla etiquette

and David absorbed it almost like second nature.

I was preparing myself to talk about the opposable thumb

when I felt a hand on my head

and I turned around and there was this huge gorilla.

And she actually started by putting her big forefinger

in my mouth. Like that.

And I thought,

"This is not the moment to talk about the opposable thumb."

And it went rather out of my mind, really,

and I was just sort of lying there in...

I suppose it was... Really, it was a kind of paradise, really,

because you were being accepted by an animal

which was immensely powerful and which was clearly friendly

and accepting you on your own terms, as it were,

and there are very few animals that you can do that with.

You can't do that with lions, you can't do that with...

-It's a mutual trust.

-It's a mutual trust.

You're trusting them and they're trusting you.

And, David, what is so extraordinary,

that this has become a sort of emblematic moment in your career,

it almost was not filmed at all.

Well, John Sparks, who was the director,

was worried about this because it might appear to the audience

that we were, as it were, part of Blue Peter or something

and that these were tame gorillas,

and so he didn't want them to appear tame.

But Martin Saunders, who was the cameraman, said to him after a bit,

he said, "We really ought to be filming this, you know,"

and so he pressed the button and got that footage.

And so, Ian, this was sort of 38 years ago, I think,

that this was filmed.

The situation then was perilous for these gorillas. What about today?

Well, then the gorillas were at their lowest ebb.

We thought there were about 250 mountain gorillas in the Virungas.

A few years before that footage, a poll among schoolchildren

had gorillas in there with spiders and sharks as the scariest animals.

And so having a well-known TV presenter being accepted

in a trusted way by a family of gorillas

transformed people's attitudes.

The result of that was a coalition of organisations got together

and things changed. And decades later,

we can say that there is a census going on right now,

we're expecting there to be nearly 1,000, so from 250 to 1,000,

not all in the Virungas but in the two populations,

so it's been...it's one of those rare things -

a conservation success story,

-which this man played a significant role in.

-Fantastic.

APPLAUSE

Just before you go, do tell me, the little baby gorillas,

did they thrive, were they fine?

Pablo grew up to be a splendid silverback,

became one of the most successful silverbacks of the study.

And Poppy, who was a little younger than Pablo, is still with us

and still producing babies

and she's one of the elders in the gorilla population.

But, yes, we follow their lives, it's like a never-ending soap opera

and every year we learn new things about gorilla society.

Ian Redmond, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Fascinating.

APPLAUSE

So in the interests of BBC non-bias,

we thought it entirely necessary that we should hear

the gorillas' side of the encounter.

So our friends at Aardman Animation have lent a little hand.

He was talking very quietly.

And he's very tall. Yeah, I noticed he's very tall,

because when he's sitting down, he's really sprawly.

Erm... But, yeah, I mean, he, you know, he could get close

if he came into my space.

I mean, I wouldn't let him walk all over me.

But I think David Attenborough's probably got an empathy with nature

and not just animals, you know, but any living things, you know.

It's like you're sitting down with a mate

and he's telling you all these stories.

What is he?

He's not an archaeologist, is he? What, what's his...?

He's not a naturist, he doesn't go around naked, does he?

-Does he?

-APPLAUSE

You're not a naturist, are you?

Why'd you ask?

Well, they mentioned it.

Now, David, obviously you are someone who is watched,

who's admired all over the world

but I would say nowhere more than here in Britain.

Sir David, on behalf of the whole country,

I want to wish you a very happy 90th birthday.

Like so many, I grew up watching you and learning from you

as your enthusiasm opened my eyes to the natural world around me.

Your lifelong service has created the most extraordinary

educational legacy.

And even today, you're pioneering the latest technologies.

Britain is incredibly proud

to have THE greatest naturalist on the planet.

For just as you treasure the world, so the world rightly treasures you.

Thank you for all that you've given to us

and all that you're continuing to do.

And I wish you a very special evening.

APPLAUSE

David, it is surely true what the Prime Minister says there, you know,

technology has done so much to bring the natural world

into people's living rooms and into their consciousness.

When you started, I mean,

it's brilliant looking at that, isn't it?

I mean, the technology was so much more difficult, I'm guessing,

to work with because it was so simplistic?

Yes, but now we have absolutely everything.

In fact, I truly think there is almost no circumstance

that we can't film.

The new thing that we're doing, of course,

about bioluminescence is the latest step forward.

Martin Dawn, who is the cameraman,

is passionate about experimenting electronically with new cameras

and new ways of doing things

in order to get these shots of very, very bioluminescent animals.

And as you were saying, five years ago,

-that would have been impossible, to film that.

-Impossible.

Let's just remind ourselves of the fascinating sequences that

have been captured using some of the world's most incredible technology.

We really know very little of what goes on in the heart

of a bivouac like this.

But this optical probe may help us find out.

Here is the nursery, full of young, developing grubs.

The lions are now so at ease,

our spy in the den can often approach to within a whisker.

Once they're thoroughly warmed up,

marine iguanas can maintain their body temperature

just about as constantly as I can and, what's more,

at about the same level or indeed slightly higher.

With a 360-degree view, and an extremely powerful lens,

the camera can zoom in from a kilometre away.

Another revelatory film technique

involves slowing down the action

simply by increasing the number of images taken per second.

As the sophistication of time-lapse photography has increased,

so we've been able to show that plants can be as competitive

and as aggressive as many an animal.

Wow!

APPLAUSE

So of course that was time-lapse that we saw there,

which I think you are a great fan of.

It reveals so much that the naked eye can't see,

and one of the cameramen responsible for many of those

really magical films is called Tim Shepherd.

You've described him as a genius, no less.

We've actually... We've got a new sequence here which Tim has made

especially for you this evening.

-For me?

-For you.

Beautiful.

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much, Tim. Yeah.

Whilst we're on the subject of technology, talking,

doing pieces to camera underwater

is surely one of the trickiest things to pull off.

Maybe the bubble helmet was going to be the answer?

Yes, it's a hideous memory to me. I'm sorry to see it again. It's...

LAUGHTER

It's a long time ago now.

Having been talking to camera on land for a long time,

there was a new series about...underwater

which was being produced by a friend of mine

called Alastair Fothergill, who was the director.

And he explained that if I was going to be a narrator,

it was going to be quite difficult.

I could do it sitting on a ship, of course, on a boat,

but how was I going to talk about coral or sharks

or whatever underwater?

And Alastair said, "I've got a great idea.

"We've got a new technological thing.

"It's called the bubble helmet. See? And what we do is you put that

"on your shoulders and screw it down and then you'll be able to talk,

"because there's a microphone in there."

And I said, "It doesn't seem a very good idea to me at all."

And I said, "What's all this business with screwing it down?"

He said, "Well, you've got to screw it down

"because otherwise it will leak."

So I said, "That's all very well but how are we going to get it off?"

"Oh, we'll be able to get it off in, you know, five minutes or so."

I said, "Five minutes is a very long time.

"Suppose it goes wrong?" He said, "It won't go wrong.

"But I'll tell you what, if you're nervous about it, we'll test it."

This was in... We were going to film electric eels in the Amazon

and I was going to talk about them.

"We'll do it in the hotel swimming pool," he said.

So he put this on my shoulders.

Well, getting your head inside that is not easy, actually.

-See?

-Ooh.

-Your nose gets caught.

-Yes, yes.

And when you screw that down on there, you really do feel trapped.

So I waded into the pool and then very gingerly sort of

submerged myself and water started coming in,

you see, and I thought, "It takes about five minutes to get this off."

So I came out in a hurry and Alastair said, "What's the matter?"

LAUGHTER

-You know how directors are.

-Oh, yes.

-Yeah.

"What's your problem?" I said...

-AS IF UNDERWATER:

-"It's filling up with water!"

So he said, "Well, you must be doing something wrong."

I said, "I'm not...!

"I just walked into the pool and it's filled with water."

He said, "I'll show you."

So he took it, so he put it on.

I had some pleasure in screwing it down...

I said, "Go on in there."

He went in there, he came out quicker than me!

He took it off and said, "There must be a fault!"

I said, "Well, thank you very much."

So we then quietly decided that actually we wouldn't use it.

Of course, when you're filming in the great outdoors,

even with sometimes the most hi-tech equipment, as we've just heard,

things don't always go to plan.

Because this snow is not white...

HE LAUGHS

Red and black venom lack.

Red and yellow... And I get out of the way.

The volcanoes of today are mere feeble flickers...

HE LAUGHS

The influence of this continent is global.

What happens here matters.

This is the first time I've ever known you do that.

LAUGHTER

They reunite once they come back here onto their own patch...

patch of shingle.

It's so effective that even a rich woodland like this

can seem totally devoid of birds.

AEROPLANE FLIES OVERHEAD

But that, that's a completely different sound.

That's an aeroplane.

He is...

so charged up,

this being the breeding season,

that he will display to almost anything, including me!

HE LAUGHS

Now, now.

This surely...

BIRD SQUAWKS

This surely is what...

BIRDS CAW

..when he came to allocate a scientific name to this bird,

called it...

BIRD CAWS

"Woo-hoo!" Ha-ha.

Paradisaea apoda.

APPLAUSE

David, let's take a little look now at a really...

a very touching moment.

It was filmed just a few years ago for the series Africa.

-You met this little baby rhino called Nicky...

-Baby rhino.

..you'll remember, of course.

And what was remarkable about this little rhino

is that he was blind.

But just as we think we are finishing,

someone won't let us go.

Hello, little fellow.

He starts to squeak and we are able to have a little chat.

-RHINO SQUEAKS

-Oh!

HE IMITATES THE RHINO

Thinking about it, he has got a black world, hasn't he?

And he's got smell and he's got sound,

so he's more likely to be responding to sound

if he hasn't got the vision.

And he's just inquisitive, I suppose.

Are you coming back?

THEY SQUEAK

APPLAUSE

Just remarkable. Well, joining us in the studio now

from the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya,

where those moments were filmed, is Sarah Watson.

Sarah, welcome.

APPLAUSE

Tell us a little bit about

this remarkable little creature's background, about Nicky.

Well, he is blind and we realised that he was...

Black rhino, quite early on, when they are about one or two weeks old,

are meant to follow their mothers out and about in the bush

but he wasn't doing that.

So it was at that point we thought, actually, we've got to bring him in.

So the guys brought him in, and I've got a big boma at the back

of my house where these rhino live and he became part of the family.

We got him when he was three-and-a-half months old

and, yeah, he's still with us. He is now three-and-a-half.

David, so much of the programming that you make is so meticulously

planned - it has to be by virtue of the scale and the complexity of it.

And yet it is so often those moments,

the moments that just seem to unfold and that you are so capable

of taking us on this little journey through this moment of magic.

Watching that, the whole thing feels remarkably emotional to me

and I'm just watching it on TV.

When you were there doing it, are your emotions involved

when you're filming something like that?

Oh, well, that is such an endearing little creature

and the fact that he couldn't see brought out a sympathy in one,

and then he suddenly started talking to me.

He had a long chat, yeah.

I'm not absolutely sure of what I said or what he said in reply.

But you actually took the words out of my mouth,

because can you speak rhino?

So, you were just chatting.

-Yes, I was just responding to his noise.

-Shooting the breeze.

But a charming creature, really lovely.

I wonder what you think is the most important factor in protecting

endangered species like Nicky the rhino,

and actually, endangered species more generally.

What should our approach be?

Well, the rhinos, as you say, is a special problem

because of poaching, and poaching is a huge problem worldwide.

So we have to develop a sympathy for the natural world everywhere.

And actually, I think that's one of the things that television can do,

that natural-history programmes can do.

I mean, it's a bizarre thing, isn't it?

There are more people living on Earth today than

there have ever been in the history of the universe.

I mean, there are three times more many people on this planet now

than when I started making those programmes back in the '50s.

And they all need places to live and so on, of course they do,

but if we go on increasing at that sort of rate,

there won't be any wilderness left.

And there are other creatures on the Earth

that also call this planet home,

and we have the responsibility for them.

So what we have to do is to give them the space, to give them

the natural reserves where they can flourish, which is their right.

Sarah, you work hard at giving them the space and you were saying now

that Nicky is a big, relatively healthy boy now.

-How is he getting on?

-No, he's thriving.

-He's an extraordinary animal.

-There he is.

I mean, I know I am biased, but a lot of it is because

he is blind, but his other senses are very heightened.

I mean, he knows my smell and he knows my voice and so he sees me.

He basically rolls over a bit like a Labrador -

he knows he's going to get de-ticked. He thinks it's heaven.

But he represents one 5,000th of the remaining population

of black rhino in the world, so his job is going to be an ambassador.

And through people like David who, you know...

The fact that everyone I know has seen that clip and I'm like,

"Yeah, that's my rhino!"

But if we can just get a little bit of the message out, it's a start.

Sarah, thank you very much indeed

-for joining us this evening.

-Pleasure.

Just before we move on, let's hear from another rather special

conservationist who has been inspired by your work.

David has been the single most important

impact on my conservation thinking, and I used to love,

and I still do, but when I was a young boy I used to love turning on

the television and watching David's programmes

and really feeling like I was either back out in Africa or I was

learning about something magical and almost out of this planet.

And there's something very calming

and sort of warm about his programmes.

There's something very reassuring about seeing

David Attenborough on BBC One doing his documentaries.

It is part of the national psyche now and he is a national treasure.

And it's very fitting that he is having his 90th birthday

only a few weeks after the Queen.

I think they are two incredible national treasures who have

done so much over the years.

APPLAUSE

So, His Royal Highness there talking so genuinely about turning on

the telly when he was a little boy and seeing you there,

and that is something that is familiar to all of us

here in this audience.

I'm interested, though, for you, when you were a little boy,

what turned you on to natural history?

Where did it begin for you?

By and large there were two things.

First of all, there was the Leicestershire countryside,

which is where I grew up.

And apart from that, there were wonderful books.

One of the ones which I don't think anybody, or very few people,

know about now, a man called Ernest Thompson Seton, who wrote...

He was a ranger in the Canadian prairie and he wrote

about the animals that he knew -

the wolves and the buffalo and so on.

And he drew - he was a good artist as well -

he drew the little footprints down the margins, the side margins.

I adored those books. Wept over them, too.

And what about...?

There you are, look at you in your little Fair Isle socks.

What about the influence...? You're not still wearing them!

What about the influence of your parents?

Were they interested in the natural world?

My father was a scholar, an academic,

-and an expert on Anglo-Saxons.

-Right.

But he was also... He understood about education and

he said to each of his three sons, you know,

"What is it you want to do?", and when I said that I wanted to do

something to do with animals, he didn't say... Or fossils.

He didn't say, "Well, the name of that is this, that or the other."

In any case, he didn't know.

But what he did say was,

"Look, there's ways of finding out about that.

"You can go to the museum, they will tell you about that.

"And there's some good books and you can read about that."

And so he encouraged us to find out for ourselves.

1945, you won a place at Clare College, Cambridge

to read geology and zoology.

-Now, you got it on a scholarship.

-Yes.

That's a blinking big deal, when you get a scholarship.

What do you remember of the moment of finding out?

My father said, "Look, if you want to go to Cambridge,

-"you have to get a scholarship, because I can't afford it."

-Right.

And so I worked pretty hard to try

and get a scholarship which the colleges gave.

And I remember...

It was during the war and my father was a...

I was digging an allotment, my father came running down

from the house where we lived waving a telegram and saying,

"You've got it, my son! You've got it!"

-Remarkable.

-Then I was off to Cambridge.

When you were working on the natural-history programmes,

it also became, did it not, something of a routine for you

to bring your work home, not to put too fine a point on it?

The house was full of animals, wasn't it?

We had a whole host of different things,

all of which wouldn't be allowed by law now.

But I had lemurs, lungfish,

parrots, hummingbirds - all sorts of things.

One of my favourites was a little pair of bushbabies.

-You know bushbabies?

-Yes.

They're like tiny little monkeys about that big, primitive monkeys.

And what the male does in order to establish his home

and make him feel good

and think that we might produce some kids

would be to pee on his hands.

He would pee on his hands like that, you see,

rub them together and then go all over the furniture

and all up the walls as well as his hollow log and everything else...

-Nice.

-..which gave a nice, homely atmosphere.

LAUGHTER

But then friends would come to dinner and I'd open the door

and I'd see the wife of the friend's dilate her nostrils

and, you know...

"That is not mulligatawny soup."

You know? And so a bit of a problem there.

But in fact, I had, I think, about 14 births of these little babies.

-Did you?

-Oh, we did.

And I'll tell you, a baby bushbaby...

Oh!

It's time now to welcome another guest.

Joining us to share with us his own treasures of the natural world

is a fellow passionate naturalist, conservationist

and collector extraordinaire, it has to be said, David.

Please welcome Chris Packham.

Welcome, thanks for coming. Nice to see you.

Chris, I said you were a collector extraordinaire.

You've brought some treasures.

-Show us one of the pieces.

-Look at this.

There is always a romance in these sorts of things.

This is a fossil shark tooth, a megalodon tooth, which belonged

to an extinct species now, many times the size of a great white.

But when I handle that, I can't help but try and transport myself

back in time to imagine the world that this animal was living in.

And at the same time, look at... It's just perfect, isn't it?

You run a finger along that serrated edge.

-You've got to have that in your drawer, haven't you?

-You have.

-I was going to say, are you impressed?

-You call that a...

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

-I want it back.

-OK.

We won't mix them up - yours is cream, mine is black.

-What a beauty, what a beautiful thing that is.

-Amazing.

But there is this competitive thing about collecting,

-which we won't go into.

-No. We don't need to!

But I have got the biggest.

I was going to say, boys will be boys.

-Do you know what this is?

-Let's have a look.

Yeah, yeah, I do. I do know what it is, yeah.

It has been inside a dinosaur.

-It is a gastrolith, isn't it?

-It is.

So this is a stone which it swallowed.

-I presume we don't know which species, but...

-I do.

-You do?

It came from the carcass, did it?

Don't know which species?!

LAUGHTER

How very dare you, Chris Packham!

Well, yes, but we can't tell from the stone which species.

-That's better.

-But you'll know if you found it

-in association with the rest of the fossil.

-I did, I did.

Go on, then. Don't tell me it's a T-rex gastrolith!

-It's a Seismosaurus.

-A Seismosaurus.

A Seismosaurus, which at the time was the biggest known dinosaur.

It isn't any more, of course, but at the time it was,

and I went to the excavation.

And you have this near-complete skeleton

with the backbone and the ribs, and there between the ribs

in the position of the stomach was like half a sackload of pebbles.

But if you look at it, you can see

that it's got an extremely high polish, hasn't it?

It's beautifully polished and this was polished inside

the gut of a giant dinosaur.

I mean, there isn't anything better than that, is there?

-There really isn't anything...

-Hey, hey!

LAUGHTER

David, do tell me about this splendid thing here.

Yes, I mean, I've got the biggest tooth there.

HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

And you haven't got a bigger bird's egg than that, have you?

No, I haven't. And that one...

I have seen many of these - that one is pretty good.

It was broken but it's put together very well.

In fact, let's just see the moments on film - it was captured -

when you found this and put this egg together.

The best method of starting seemed to be the same as you use

when you begin on a jigsaw puzzle -

to lay out everything face-up on the ground.

To fasten them temporarily, I used adhesive tape.

The egg began to appear even bigger than I had imagined.

At the end of an hour, I had two halves.

And to my joy, they fitted together perfectly.

APPLAUSE

All I have to do is say thank you for bringing

your wonderful treasures. Chris Packham.

APPLAUSE

Well, probably one of the highest tributes for anyone

working in the natural world is to have

a newly discovered species named after them.

In fact, David, I know you have

quite a number already named after you.

It's your birthday, so one of the world's foremost

dragonfly experts wanted to give you a little gift.

Here is Klaas-Douwe Dijkstra.

On your 90th birthday, I want to wish you not only many more years

of good health and of broadcasting, but I wish everyone more of you.

And to thank you, I've named, together with colleagues,

a dragonfly in your honour -

Acisoma attenboroughi.

Your new dragonfly is from Madagascar

and I'm happy to report that your dragonfly is actually very common.

Every farmer can find it in her paddy,

every fisherman can see it in his pond,

every schoolchild can find it in the yard.

It simply is another one of those species that is unique

but no-one noticed that it was.

But now people can go out there and say,

"Hey, look, that is Sir David's dragonfly."

Thank you and happy birthday.

-APPLAUSE

-Very nice.

And here it is.

There it is, David, a very special little birthday gift -

Acisoma attenboroughi. Rather beautiful.

-Don't you think?

-I think it's stunningly beautiful.

Dragonflies are magical insects, aren't they?

You know, they date back for 300 million years.

-Just like that, yeah.

-Extraordinary.

-What a thrill.

As we said when we began talking this evening,

you are still filming all over the world.

Indeed, you are doing Planet Earth II, which is a big new series.

Well, Planet Earth II, when the idea was put up,

people said, "You've done it all."

But the fact is that when you really start researching,

you find things that you haven't done at all

-that are going to be thrilling, new and exciting.

-Incredible.

So, so much more of that to look forward to.

We are almost out of time tonight but before we go,

here are a few more happy-birthday messages.

Sir David Attenborough, we love having you on the show,

and beyond that, I'd just like to say thank you.

Thank you for everything you have done on television over the years.

You have really changed this country and given us

such an extraordinary awareness of the world around us.

Have a very happy birthday.

Happy 90th birthday, David Attenborough.

I've grown up watching your films

and now my children have grown up watching your films

and I'm very proud to have been on this Earth at the same time as you.

Sir David, this is Sting behind this beard.

I'm somewhere in the tundra.

I've been a fan of yours since your search

for the Komodo dragon, I think, in 1956.

You have been an inspiration and a wonder to me.

Happy birthday and many happy returns.

Thank you so much for the many years of inspirational,

motivational and ground-breaking television,

for spurring me and millions of others

to want to be better custodians of the planet.

For me and the hundreds of thousands of other people who have been

inspired to go out, buy a pair of jungle boots

and some camouflage and maybe a blue shirt, thank you.

Thank you so much for all you have given us and a very,

very happy birthday.

ALL: Happy birthday, David!

From all of us here on the Springwatch team.

You must pause to reflect on this special day

on the incredible impact that you have had around the world.

You are an absolute legend and have changed the face

of conservation for the future.

I wish you a very happy birthday on this milestone day.

You are fantastic, you are such a hero.

You have been such an inspiration, not only to all of us

but more especially to me!

You'll go on for ever, and I hope you do, because you are priceless.

Happy birthday.

APPLAUSE

So, we know you keep making these extraordinary programmes

that we all love so much, and thank goodness for that.

You are not taking your foot off the gas.

But I wonder - it's hard work, filming, it's really hard work -

what is it that inspires you to get up every morning

and go and work so hard?

Making programmes is just huge fun.

I mean, not only go to exciting places, do exciting things,

you do it with pals.

You do it with people, you know, who are a joy to work with.

And making programmes is, as you know, very much a team thing

and I feel constantly embarrassed about the amount of credit

I get for the amount of work that many,

many other people are actually, in fact, doing.

So I've had a singularly, unbelievably fortunate time.

I'm afraid I might embarrass you a little more,

because I'm going to say on behalf of not just

everybody in the studio but on behalf of everybody watching at home

and the hundreds of millions of people around the world who love,

from the bottom of their hearts, what you do,

thank you for doing it and happy birthday.

Thank you very much indeed.

APPLAUSE

CHEERING

Thank you, thank you.

Well, as a final treat tonight,

taking time out from his hectic schedule touring his new album,

Take Me To The Alley,

and singing something that sums up the spirit of everything that

David has devoted his life to,

please welcome the brilliant Gregory Porter.

APPLAUSE

# I see trees of green

# And red roses too

# I'll watch them bloom

# For me and you

# And I think to myself

# What a wonderful world

# I see skies of blue

# And clouds of white

# The bright, blessed day

# The dark, sacred night

# And I think to myself

# What a wonderful world

# Oh

# And I think to myself

# What a wonderful world. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much!