You are here:
BBC >
Science & Nature >
Animals >
Sea Life >
The Blue Planet TV Series
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
The Blue Planet - Seasonal Seas
|
|
|
Just when the weather is at its worst, 100,000 grey seals haul themselves up through the surf on to Sable Island off Nova Scotia. This is the world's largest colony of grey seals and perversely they've come to breed in winter. Within 18 days the pups are abandoned, but spring is on its way with plenty of food.
 |
|
David Attenborough explores the changing scenes of seasonal seas.
What's on in the next programme?
Preview Making Waves and find out how the amazing footage was filmed.
You can download RealPlayer for free here.
|
|
 |
An eight-tonne basking shark filters 1,000 tonnes of seawater through its gills every hour to sieve out plankton, and large numbers are attracted to plankton blooms. On the seafloor, seaweed stretches towards the sunlight, and off the coast of California, underwater forests of giant kelp grow up to 100 metres high. Massive schools of fish shelter here and sea otters snooze at the surface winding strands of kelp around themselves as anchors.
By July, the seasonal seas are warming up fast. On the coast of Nova Scotia large female lobsters are marching 150km from cold, deep waters where they spent the winter, to warm shallows where they can incubate their eggs. In August, pacific salmon return to the coast of Alaska and are hunted down by huge salmon sharks.
By early autumn, Pacific white-sided dolphin are turning up in British Columbia in great numbers. Rather than fish for herring they like to play - engaging in a dolphin's version of tag, as they pass a strand of seaweed from flipper to flipper.
As fast as winter approaches in the north, spring is coming back at the opposite end of the world. Strange handfish walk across the bottom of the sea using their fins like hands. There is also a beautiful courtship ballet performed by Australian squid that change colour as they dance. A male leafy seadragon is a devoted parent, carrying dozens of eggs on his belly and relying on his perfect leafy camouflage to hide them from other hungry fish.
| |
|
|
