About this season
Natural World is a nature documentary television series broadcast annually on BBC Two and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history brand. It is currently the longest-running series in its genre on British television, with more than 400 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, but individual programmes can be in-house productions, collaborative productions with other broadcasters or films made and distributed by independent production companies and purchased by the BBC. Natural World programmes are often broadcast as PBS Nature episodes in the USA. Since 2008, most Natural World programmes have been shot and broadcast in high definition.
Episodes (20)
1. Land of the Tiger
Aired 15 September 1985
Land of the Tiger looks at the protected species of the Kanha and Ranthambore National Parks, celebrating these elusive and endangered big cats and exploring the delicately balanced ecosystem they inhabit. Interweaving footage of monkeys, deer and the tiger’s main competitor, crocodiles, the couple’s impressive cinematography brings the private world of tigers to life, as these magnificent creatures swim, play, mate, suckle their young and stalk their prey.
2. Namaqualand - Diary of a Desert Garden
Aired 22 September 1985 • 50 min
In all Africa there is no stranger riddle than the flowering of the land of the Nama. Those bushmen were the first to see their desert land burgeon into a blaze of color. But this paradise was always short-lived; a spectacular bloom that quickly withered away, not to be seen again for many years. RODNEY BORLAND filmed the most recent of these stupendous and mystifying displays. To a landscape already weird with huge halfmens plants, elephant ears and baboons' fingers, suddenly came vast arrays of nodding daisies and wave upon wave of mesembryanthemums, wild geraniums, gladioli and amaryllis. The landscape was bathed in brilliant hues, a natural garden whose glory may not shine again before the end of this century.
3. Horns of Dilemma
Aired 29 September 1985
Documentary on the illicit trade in Rhino horns, which is threatening the five kinds of rhinoceros with extinction.
4. On the Verge of Life
Aired 6 October 1985
Documentary about wildlife which lives around Britain's motorways.
5. The Man Who Loves Frogs
Aired 13 October 1985
6. Emas - The High Plains of Brazil
Aired 20 October 1985
7. The Flight of the Whooping Crane
Aired 27 October 1985
8. White Rock, Black Water
Aired 3 November 1985
9. Never Stay In One Place
Aired 10 November 1985
10. City of Coral
Aired 17 November 1985
11. Kingdom of the Ice Bear: The Frozen Ocean
Aired 24 November 1985
First in a three part series examining Arctic ecology, The Frozen Ocean focuses on the spring to summer months, providing an intimate portrayal of life in a land of relentless ice and intense cold.
12. Kingdom of the Ice Bear: The Land of Beyond
Aired 1 December 1985
Hywel Bennett narrates the second of an award-winning trilogy of films about the Arctic. The winter is long and harsh, but for eight weeks of the year the midnight sun warms the frozen earth, nurturing lush vegetation and a rich variety of flowers, and transforming the barren wastelands into fecund breeding grounds so the life of the Arctic can renew itself.
13. Kingdom of the Ice Bear: The Final Challenge
Aired 8 December 1985
Documentary series about the Arctic and its inhabitants.
14. Aspen - A Dance of Leaves
Aired 22 December 1985
The wild life of the prairies of Canada during the winter months.
15. The Plant Hunters
Aired 29 December 1985
16. Short Grass Country
Aired 5 January 1986
17. The Forgotten Garden
Aired 12 January 1986
18. Inside Stories
Aired 19 January 1986
19. Masked Monkeys
Aired 26 January 1986
Documentary on Guenons, a species of African forest monkey, and their place in the evolutionary hierarchy.
20. Sky Hunters
Aired 2 February 1986