Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5520 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-08-27
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English
• Running time: 580 minutes

From Amazon.com
Like the albatross glimpsed in the beginning of this 10-part, 5-volume series, The Life of Birds quickly takes flight. Sir David Attenborough hosts this unprecedented and extraordinary global look at the magnificent and often curious winged species with which we share our planet. Like the best wildlife shows, The Life of Birds offers a fresh and accessible view of creatures we may take for granted (didn't Alfred Hitchcock warn us about that?). The focus of this series is not on the different bird species, but on bird behavior. Remarkable and awe-inspiring footage preserves the wide range of tools and techniques with which birds fly, hunt for food, attract a mate, hatch their chicks, and defend themselves against predators.

Each volume contains two episodes. Series titles include: "To Fly or Not to Fly?," "The Mastery of Flight," "The Insatiable Appetite," "Meat Eaters," "Fishing for a Living," Signals and Songs," "Finding Partners" (the inevitable mating episode), "The Demands of the Egg," "The Problems of Parenthood," and "The Limits of Endurance." One comedic diversion while watching this series is the Pythonesque (as in Monty) way in which Attenborough pops up in the most remote, most exotic locales. At one point, night-vision cameras capture the rare sight of the nocturnal kiwi as it forages for food on a New Zealand beach. The camera pans to reveal scant paces away our guide shining a flashlight on the nonplussed bird. Attenborough is also the creator of the classic natural-science series The Trials of Life, The Living Planet, and Life on Earth, all of which are also available on video. --Donald Liebenson

Video Details
The definitive series on the most colorful, popular and perfectly adapted creatures on earth, The Life of Birds traverses the globe, covering 42 countries and examining over 300 different species. Calling upon the immense skills of many of the world's top wildlife cameramen and women, and pushing filming technology to the limits, new behavior is brought to the screen in staggering detail. Infra-red cameras find oilbirds deep in pitch black caves. Ultra slow motion film unravels the complexities of bird flight and ultraviolet cameras reveal the world from a bird's point of view.

DVD Menu

• Side #1 -- Disc 1
  • Play All
  • To Fly or Not to Fly?
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
  • The Mastery of Flight
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
  • The Insatiable Appetite
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
  • Meat-Eaters
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
• Side #2 -- Disc 2
  • Play All
  • Fishing for a Living
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
  • Signats and Songs
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
  • Finding Partners
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
• Side #3 -- Disc 3
  • Play All
  • Demands of the Egg
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
  • The Problems of Parenthood
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index
  • The Limits of Endurance
    • Play Episode
    • Chapter Index

Customer Reviews

Exactly what we expected from Attenborough!
My wife and I bought The Life of Birds from Amazon without seeing a minute of it. We had seen The Life of Mammals and Blue Planet enough times that we both felt confident that we knew what we were getting. We were right. The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five is that I can't quite say it was as good as Blue Planet, which blew me away.

Based on our previous experience with The Life of Mammals and Blue Planet, what were we expecting, you might ask? Well, first of all, we knew we'd be getting an outstanding nature documentary series featuring a dizzying variety of animals. We were also expecting informative, yet not overly intrusive narration from David Attenborough. Last, we were expecting a series that our 2-year-old would be riveted to and want to watch over and over again, which is what happened with the first two series. As I said earlier, that's what we expected and that's what we got.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed Winged Migration. But as far as documentaries go, it really is a different bird (if you will). The Life of Birds is engaging in a way that Winged Migration is not - it strives to teach, not to create art. The footage may not inspire quite so many "How did they get that shot?" moments as Winged Migration, but there are plenty of scenes that make you wonder. Add to that the fact that there are so many bird species from all manner of habitat in this series that you'll lose count after the first installment.

The 3-disc set consists of 10 episodes:

TO FLY OR NOT TO FLY: Features computer animated sequences on the origins of flight and how birds evolved from pterasaurs - very similar to that in Walking With Dinosaurs. Also great footage of birds hunting insects, including a bee eaters, kiwis, and a hornbill.

THE MASTERY OF FLIGHT: An in-depth look at the anatomy of flight featuring albatrosses, pelicans, hummingbirds, snow geese and various birds of prey. There's a great scene where an osprey nabs a trout, picks it up and turns it head first in mid-flight to reduce drag.

THE INSATIABLE APPETITE: Deals with the constant search for food, largely as a result of flying being so energy-intensive. Features woodpeckers, sap suckers, geese, lorikeets, hornbills, crows, robins and macaws.

MEAT EATERS: Deals almost exclusively with birds of prey, such as owls, eagles, kestrels, shrikes, and hawks, as well as a few that you wouldn't expect (vultures and flamingos). Amazing flight footage in this episode, and very much feels the same as those documentaries of lions eating zebras in Africa.

FISHING FOR A LIVING: Pretty self-explanatory title, featuring dippers, ducks, skimmers, kingfishers, gulls, cormorants, herons, cranes, albatrosses and assorted shore birds.

SIGNALS AND SONGS: A detailed analysis of the reasons and ways that birds communicate. Features robins, blackbirds, finches, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, bell birds, toucans and a whole bunch of birds whose names I'd be sure to misspell if I tried.

FINDING PARTNERS: You can't talk about mating birds without talking about peacocks, right? Well, they did. However, there are grebes, Jamaican streamer-tailed hummingbirds, red-headed weavers, an odd-looking pheasant, a Scottish grouse, the calf bird (which moos to attract a mate) and hedge sparrows.

THE DEMANDS OF THE EGG: Looks at the hassles birds go through to protect their eggs, including a close look at nesting. Features terns, dippers, frigate birds, warblers, weaver birds, red-breasted toucan, cuckoos, and imperial pigeons.

THE PROBLEMS OF PARENTHOOD: Deals with the non-stop effort of feeding some demanding kids that bird parents seem to go through. The young bird footage is great. Features Australian Rosella parrots, coots, cuckoos, Andean torrent ducks, red geese, Arabian babblers, and open billed storks.

THE LIMITS OF ENDURANCE: Examines birds living in hostile environments, and co-existing with people. Also handles conservation efforts, as well as a brief recap of birds that have gone extinct in the last hundred years or so. Features penguins, sand grouse, crab plovers, Arctic gulls, vultures, crows in Japan (some amazing urban footage here), purple martens, and a host of endangered birds.

Five stars for content, two stars for video transfer quality
This series is probably my favorite nature series ever made. The stunning close-up photography of so many exotic (and not so exotic) birds is fun and fascinating to watch as they go about their behaviors. Sir David's narration is, as in all his programs, charming and unintrusive. I reviewed the VHS release of this series a couple of years ago and was so happy when they annouced its release on DVD because of the usual improvements in transfer and audio quality. Whoever did the job should be ashamed of themselves because in some places the video is so grainy (check episode six) that it literally looks like some compressed MPEG or AVI file downloaded from the internet. In other areas it is less noticeable, but still no better than the VHS tapes. The audio sounds OK, but again it's not noticeably better. Other than the permanence of having it on DVD compared to VHS, I was very disappointed.

Great series, horrible transfer to DVD
While I loved the series and found Attenborough's commentary quite amusing, the transfer to DVD looks like it has been copied from my Dad's old VCR. BBC really needs to reissue this with a better transfer.