Africa (2013 TV series)

Africa
Series title card from UK broadcast
Genre	Nature documentary
Presented by	David Attenborough (BBC version)
Narrated by	Forest Whitaker (Discovery version)
Composers	Sarah Class, Will Slater
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of episodes	6 (BBC), 7 (Discovery)
Production
Executive producer	Mike Gunton
Producer	James Honeyborne
Running time	60 minutes
Production company	BBC Natural History Unit
Original release
Network	BBC One BBC One HD
Release	3 January (2013-01-03) – 6 February 2013 (2013-02-06)
Related
The Blue Planet Frozen Planet

Africa is a 2013 television series co-produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and the Discovery Channel. It focuses on wildlife and wild habitats in Africa, and has been four years in the making.

Broadcast details

British television

The six episodes are each an hour in length, comprising the main programme and a 10-minute featurette called Eye to Eye which details the filming of a particular event.

US television

Africa will be broadcast as a seven-part series on the Discovery Channel from 8 January 2013. The first five episodes are narrated by Forest Whitaker, the sixth ("Africa: The Future") is hosted by David Attenborough and the seventh is a compilation of the Eye to Eye making-of featurettes.

Episodes

Episode	Title	Original air date	UK viewers (in millions)
1	"Kalahari"	2 January 2013	8.52
The series opens in Africa's south west corner and features the wildlife and landscapes of the Kalahari and Namib deserts. Starlight cameras reveal previously unfilmed nocturnal behaviour of black rhinos as they socialise at a Kalahari waterhole, and super slow motion footage captures a fierce battle between two male giraffes. Other sequences show how a fork-tailed drongo's talent for mimicry allows it to steal a meal from a meerkat clan, and how red-billed queleas defend their nests from marauding armoured bush crickets. For the first time, cameras enter the world's largest underground lake in Dragon's Breath Cave and film the critically endangered golden cave catfish. Eye to Eye looks behind the scenes of the rhino and giraffe filming.
2	"Savannah"	9 January 2013	7.52
East Africa is the subject of the second programme, from the glaciated peaks of the Rwenzori Mountains to the savannahs and caustic soda lakes of the Great Rift Valley. The filmmakers focus on the life and death decisions animals must make in this ever-changing region. On the savannah, agama lizards play a game of dare as they approach a sleeping pride of lions to catch flying insects. A shoebill chick is filmed attacking its weaker sibling, forcing the parents to abandon it. On the plains of Amboseli, the worst drought for 50 years claims the life of an elephant calf, one of hundreds which perish from starvation. Their resilience and adaptability is highlighted by the returning rains, which bring together large herds to socialize. In Eye to Eye cameraman Mark Deeble discusses the ethics of filming the dying elephant calf.
3	"Congo"	16 January 2013	7.97
The third episode visits the Congo basin and features some of the creatures which inhabit its two million square miles of jungle. In the canopy, a chimpanzee is filmed extracting honey from a bee's nest using a variety of branches as tools, whilst underground, a female African rock python incubates her eggs by coiling her warm body around them. Rare footage shows the nesting behaviour of Picathartes and a gathering of forest elephants at Dzanga bai. Other sequences show African skimmers, leaf-folding frogs and luminous fungi. Loango in Gabon is one of the few remaining places where the jungle meets the ocean. African forest buffalo, hippo, elephants and red river hogs emerge from the forest to sunbathe and swim. Eye to Eye shows the difficulties of filming in the Congo.
4	"Cape"	23 January 2013	7.58
The fourth instalment shows how Southern Africa is influenced by two very different ocean currents. The warm Agulhas Current generates rainfall in Mozambique's interior, where butterflies gather on the summit of Mount Mabu to court and breed. The cold Benguela Current influences the Western Cape, where little rain falls. The intense heat makes incubating eggs a difficult prospect for African penguins. In spring, as Namaqualand is transformed into a desert garden, the drama of a monkey beetle's love life plays out in a single flower. Great white sharks and a 15m Bryde's whale are filmed in the rich feeding grounds of the Atlantic. Eye to Eye reveals how the opening sequence, documenting the first few minutes of a green turtle hatchling's life, was constructed.
5	"Sahara"	30 January 2013	6.52
The penultimate episode opens in the cedar forests of the Atlas Mountains, where Barbary macaques have become isolated from other primates by the expanding Sahara. Aerial photography shows the Sahara is a landscape dominated by rock. Animals featured include Grévy's zebra, addax and naked mole rats, each found on the desert's fringes. Two million barn swallows are forced to cross the Sahara on their migrations, congregating at a poisoned oasis to feed on flies. The last remaining freshwater pools are home to stranded desert crocodiles, filmed hunting tilapia fish. Macro photography reveals the struggles of dung beetles and silver ants, the latter able to survive exposure to the brutal midday sun thanks to their reflective body coating. Eye to Eye shows how an 18-month time lapse sequence of Libya's sand dunes was filmed.
6	"The Future"	6 February 2013	6.58
The theme of the final programme is environmental issues affecting Africa's wildlife, including poaching, habitat loss, climate change and human population growth. Attenborough profiles the work of conservationists and scientists across the continent, drawing attention to projects which are helping to protect threatened species such as the black rhino, mountain gorilla and gelada. He visits a Maasai tribe to feature a project which is helping to reduce human-lion conflict, an underpass used by elephants to move between feeding grounds and a sea turtle rehabilitation centre. A civil war ravaged Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, but concerted efforts are now being made to restore the whole ecosystem. Eye to Eye follows Attenborough on his Africa shoot, culminating in an encounter with a blind baby rhino.

Merchandise

File:Africa Michael Bright cover art.jpg

Africa book cover

The series will be released in the UK as a three-disc DVD (BBCDVD3741) and Blu-ray (BBCBD0227) box set on 18 February 2013. Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray box sets of the Discovery series will be released on 26 February 2013.

An accompanying hardcover book called Africa: Eye to Eye with the Unknown (ISBN 9781780879147) was published by Quercus on 6 December 2012. It was written by Michael Bright, a former BBC Natural History Unit producer, with a foreword by David Attenborough. The book is divided into chapters which correspond to the six programmes in the TV series. A separate chapter explains how the series was made.

External links

• Official website
• Africa at IMDb