In the seas around australia, cataclysmic
forces have formed thousands of islands -
of all shapes and sizes,
from tiny tropical ones to giants
with huge snow capped peaks.
They stretch from
australia in a great arc,
from new guinea in the north,
right out into the pacific
and down to new zealand.
If australia itself seems strange,
its island relatives and their
unique creatures are stranger still.
No other continent has given birth
to such an explosion of fabulous island
landscapes and their weird wildlife.
So how did the dry, old giant, australia,
end up surrounded by such a glittering
necklace of wild ocean jewels?
Just a few thousand years ago,
the tip of northern australia
oozed out into a vast swampy plain that
stretched all the way to new guinea.
Today, in australia's top end,
you can still get an idea
of that great swamp
in a watery landscape called kakadu.
It's an oasis for water birds,
including huge flocks of magpie geese.
Kakadu's swamps are created
every year by monsoon floods.
They transform the parched
landscape into a rich,
living broth and millions of
water birds find it irresistible.
And something else finds
them irresistible too...
...the salt-water crocodile.
Muddy water provides the perfect
camouflage for these huge,
six metre long reptiles.
A magpie goose makes
a nice bite-sized snack.
It will probably last him a week.
Kakadu may be full of life,
but it can give us only a tiny glimpse of
what those enormous swamps of thousands
of years ago must have been like.
In those days, sea levels were much lower.
But about 10,000 years ago,
world sea levels rose
and the swamp was drowned by the ocean,
completely cutting off
new guinea from australia.
The tops of a few hills
survived the flooding,
and today, like stepping stones,
they lead a path from australia to
the giant new island of new guinea.
It was connected to the mainland
for millions of years -
but now, it couldn't look more different.
While much of australia is dusty and dry,
most of new guinea is covered
in lush tropical rainforest.
The landscape may look very different,
but the wildlife still has
that eccentric australian blend of
the improbable and the ingenious...
this is the long beaked echidna.
It's about twice the size
of its australian cousin.
It's also called the giant spiny anteater,
but it doesn't eat ants.
Instead, it uses its long nose
to probe for worms,
sniffing for them as it
wanders through the forest.
When it catches the merest whiff of
a worm, it uses its nose like a dibber,
poking it in and out of the ground
until it finds a snack.
To haul the worm in, it spears
it on a special barbed tongue...
...then up it goes,
like a piece of spaghetti.
Because new guinea was connected
to australia for so long,
it has a lot of familiar
australian animals,
like kangaroos.
But these are not your typical roos -
they live up in the forest canopy.
Although they spend
most of their time in trees,
they don't look very sure-footed.
But it's worth the effort.
There are no monkeys or squirrels
to compete with here,
so if the kangaroos can reach it,
the entire canopy of leaves
is there for the taking.
This baby will learn from its mother
about which leaves to eat...
...and which fruit or lichen
to round off the meal.
It's not an easy world for joeys
to learn to move about in
and they'll stick by their mothers
for up to two years
before they're ready to live on their own.
New guinea is covered in dramatic
mountains and it has australia,
one of the flattest continents
on earth, to thank.
Over millions of years,
australia has been drifting northwards
and new guinea has buckled up
under the pressure.
Some of these rise as high as 5000 metres,
into peaks of ice and snow.
These huge mountains have divided
the island into hundreds
of ridges and valleys.
Within these, an endless variety of
different landscapes have been created,
many with isolated pockets of
extraordinary and unique wildlife.
And you don't get much more extraordinary
than the birds of paradise.
Like animated neon signs,
these fabulously adorned
males advertise to females
in an explosion of colour and sound.
And in case this isn't eye catching
enough, they dance as well.
38 of the world's 42 species of bird
of paradise live only here.
Of all of these, the raggiana
must be amongst the most dazzling.
Males dance together on
a specially prepared stage,
which they've completely
cleared of leaves.
And this is who they're
desperate to please.
When these drab females arrive,
the males give it everything they've got.
Females are hard to satisfy
and they'll only mate with the male
who impresses them the most.
When a female flies in for a closer look,
it sends the males into a frenzy.
And when she finally makes her choice -
he's unstoppable.
He's laying it on a bit thick here...
...but she seems to like it.
These beautiful feathers
also make fabulous costumes
for the people of new guinea.
Each year, tribes from all over
the highlands gather in displays
that almost outdo the showmanship
of the birds themselves.
Hundreds of isolated
cultures have evolved here,
with as many different languages -
more than any other place on earth.
The dry landscape of australia couldn't
support great numbers of aborigines,
but the fertile mountains of new guinea
allowed the development
of settled agriculture
and a huge explosion
of peoples and cultures.
On this one island,
there are as many different ways of life
as there are valleys and mountainsides.
Many of these tribes were so isolated,
they weren't discovered by europeans
until the middle of the 20th century.
While australia was a harsh,
unpredictable place to survive in,
these mountain slopes
could not be more hospitable.
Over 9,000 years ago,
people started gardens here.
From plots like this, of sweet potato,
they've now manicured entire hillsides
into a patchwork of allotments.
Even so, large parts of the island
are too steep to cultivate.
Rugged cliffs and a lot of rain
keep these areas thick with forest.
Where there are gaps, waterfalls
plummet down to join streams below.
With so much rainfall, these streams
very quickly swell into rivers.
It's such a wet place; the rivers are
huge, twisting across vast floodplains.
The largest of them
has more water in it than all the rivers
in australia put together.
Eventually, they flow through extensive
deltas until they meet the ocean.
In these seas around new guinea,
hundreds of smaller island stretch out -
to the west, towards indonesia,
and eastwards, into the pacific.
Almost all of them are highly volcanic.
Violent eruptions literally blasted
new islands out of the sea.
These are some of the most
volcanically active islands on earth -
vanuatu, the solomons,
new ireland and new britain.
The volcanoes are on a sort
of geological conveyor belt -
new ones are continually being born,
and then worn away -
creating thousands of miles
of coastline for coral to grow on.
And as these islands begin to die
and sink back beneath the waves,
the tips of extinct volcanoes
form more coral reefs.
In just a single bay
on any of these reefs,
you could find as many coral species
and different kinds of fish
as there are on the whole
of the great barrier reef.
It's a kaleidoscope of life and colour,
with layer upon layer of species,
like an intricately
constructed russian doll.
Barrel sponges live on the corals...
...feather stars live on
the barrel sponges...
...and tiny fish live on
the feather stars.
Anemones here have anemone fish
and tiny little transparent shrimps.
And on some parts of the reef,
creatures move about in costume.
This little prawn masquerades
as a sea whip.
This tadpole sized pygmy sea horse
is disguised as a piece of coral.
From a distance, it's virtually invisible.
Some animals take
this deception even further.
These razor fish already wear beautiful
striped costumes to look like sea whips,
but they add to the disguise
by swimming vertically,
like a weird piece of performance art.
They only swim horizontally to dash
from one group of whips, to another.
It's safer to move about in disguise,
because this busy neighbourhood
attracts plenty of predators -
like these jacks.
They work the reef in gangs,
trying to flush out smaller fry.
But as they muscle in on a patch,
the neighbourhood dives for cover.
One bully heads underneath,
scaring all the fish out through the top,
while the other members of the gang
wait above... mouths open.
The gang does well with these tactics,
but they're just a bunch
of small time thugs -
not even in the same league
as some of the predators here...
huge saltwater crocodiles roam these seas.
They are capable of swimming great
distances to find new territories -
large ones have been seen several
hundred kilometres out to sea.
With this sort of range,
it's been easy for them to colonise many
of the volcanic islands of the pacific.
But while these islands have attracted
all sorts of marine life,
including crocodiles,
land creatures like mammals
have found it harder to get here.
Unless they can raft across or swim,
they're too far out.
But there has been one exception...
an invasion by air.
Squadrons of bats,
especially the larger fruit bats.
In fact, new guinea and the islands
that surround it are probably
the fruit bat capital of the world.
There are more species here
than anywhere else on earth.
These large fruit bats
are strong travellers -
they can fly fifty kilometres in
an evening in search of food.
Island hopping across the pacific
is all in a night's work.
It's well worth the journey
because the island forests
are full of all sorts of fruit.
With such a wide selection, there's room
for lots of different fruit specialists -
this tube nosed bat is
a professional fig eater.
As these bats move about
from island to island,
they can also act as seed couriers.
They make unorthodox postmen though,
opening their parcels with strong teeth
and either dropping their contents
where they eat, or swallowing
and depositing them,
perhaps on another island.
Beyond this chain of islands,
the explosive activity begins to die away.
And further out in the pacific,
there's a graveyard of extinct volcanoes.
One of these is lord howe island.
It retired from life as an active volcano
about 6 million years ago.
A small speck in a vast expanse of ocean,
it's become a valuable service station
for thousands of sea birds.
Each spring,
it transforms into seabird city.
Fourteen different species
stop here to nest and breed,
like this booby...
...and noddy terns too.
Above them, the skies are filled
with acrobatic tumblers,
tropic birds in full display.
The males are busy trying to impress
a mate and outdo each other,
by performing a series of
extraordinary backward loops.
The sooty tern is more graceful.
They arrive in their thousands,
to breed and bring up their chicks.
But with so many crammed onto this island,
how on earth does a parent
find the right mouth to feed?
And how does this chick make sure
it doesn't miss out on a meal?
That one's getting pilchard...
and another's got a lump of squid...
this is getting difficult to watch...
he's got squid as well.
At last, the hungry chick
calls out for room service,
and he's located by one of his parents.
The response is instant, and at last
he gets a lump of his own to choke on.
Australia has island relatives
further out, even than lord howe.
This is new caledonia -
captain cook called it
that because it reminded him of scotland.
Jurassic park might be more appropriate.
New caledonia didn't erupt from
the seabed, like the other islands.
It's an ancient chunk
of eastern australia,
that broke off about
80 million years ago -
a lost world, so old and strange,
you could almost believe
that dinosaurs still live here.
In fact, at the time it broke away,
many of these plants would
have been eaten by dinosaurs.
But this island is so remote,
there are no land mammals here.
After 80 million years of isolation,
new caledonia is still ruled by reptiles.
Its modern masters are lizards,
geckos and skinks.
New caledonia has more species of lizard
for its size than probably
anywhere else on earth.
And new caledonia has its own monster -
the giant gecko.
It's as big as a rat,
the largest gecko in the world,
with a ferocious reputation to match.
This really is the land of the lizard.
Over 80 per cent of
the species here are unique.
At the same time that
new caledonia broke away,
an even larger chunk of australia
drifted off and floated right down
towards the southern ocean.
It eventually became new zealand.
It lies on the edge of
the australian continental plate,
which drops away into the really
deep water of the pacific ocean proper -
so deep that sperm whales come
to feed right on its doorstep.
And because new zealand sits at
a crossroads of cold and warm currents,
it's a magnet for
all sorts of marine life.
Dusky dolphins are one of many species of
dolphin that play in these deep waters.
They are some of the most
acrobatic of all dolphins -
if one starts to somersault
and spin out of the water,
the whole group joins in.
Although new zealand broke off from
australia about eighty million years ago,
it's still drifting across the ocean
creating huge geological forces.
It's a highly active piece
of the earth's crust.
Fire and steam seep to
the surface from volcanoes,
mud pools and explosive geysers.
This long history of violent
geology has contorted
the islands into a spectacular
variety of landscapes.
These southern alps are
4000 metres high and still rising.
It's as if this part of new zealand
never escaped the ice age.
It could not be more inhospitable here.
And yet...
...it's a mountain parrot.
The only alpine parrot in the world
to live right up in the snow.
And they seem to enjoy it.
They're called keas and to survive up
here, these birds aren't just hardy.
They need to be sharp operators
to live on these harsh mountains.
To learn all the tricks
they'll need to survive,
they have extended childhoods
and live for up to 20 years.
So there's plenty of time to play.
Monkeying around on the slopes like this,
they seem more like primates than parrots.
These alpine keas are unique
to new zealand...
in fact, after such long isolation,
most of new zealand's wildlife
and plants are unique.
This is a place that does weird wildlife
better than anywhere else...
and one of the strangest creatures of all,
hunts in the forest, at night.
It has fur-like feathers and
it sniffs out its food like a mammal.
It even keeps its body temperature
at the level of a mammal.
But it's a flightless bird.
New zealand seems to excel
in these oddball birds -
and the kiwi has to be one of the oddest
balls of fluff on the forest floor.
There are no ground living mammals here,
so when the kiwi auditioned for
the part of hedgehog or badger,
it got the job - sniffing out grubs
and worms, just like they would.
Sometimes it goes fishing for shrimp
in the forest streams.
It even has whiskers, like a cat.
And like many mammals,
the males hold territories,
and defend them by calling.
But when it comes
to looking after the eggs,
male kiwis are different
from most animals.
The males take on the job
of incubating them, all alone.
And they do this in underground burrows.
This father has a newly hatched youngster
and an egg that still needs incubating.
Kiwis lay enormous eggs -
the largest of any bird,
relative to its size -
and they take ten weeks to hatch.
It's not always easy to sit still,
with a toddler constantly
messing up the nursery.
This chick is probably
pestering for food -
and if it is, it'll be disappointed.
Male kiwis are dedicated incubators,
but meals are not included.
Eventually, this youngster will become
hungry enough to leave the nest
and look for food itself.
Some of new zealand's strangest creatures
live down here on the forest floor.
The weta - the world's largest cricket.
Just as the kiwi fills
the role of a hedgehog,
the weta is new zealand's
answer to a mouse.
And just like a mouse,
it forages around amongst the leaf litter.
But whatever role it fills,
it still looks like a big juicy insect
and it had better watch out.
In this strange forest,
even the bats do things differently.
These short-tailed bats are beginning
to spend less and less time in the air,
and more and more time on the ground -
doing their impression of a mole.
Just like some of the birds,
they seem to be becoming flightless
and prefer burrowing under
the leaf litter for grubs and insects.
These bats are hardly
bigger than the wetas,
but a jumbo-sized snack like
this is too good to miss.
The weta puts up quite a fight,
but eventually the bat gets its meal.
New zealand's strangeness has a lot to do
with its long isolation from
the rest of the world.
And that's also why it took so long
to be discovered by people.
It was only a thousand years ago
that the first polynesians paddled
their way from hawaii and settled here.
They began to make
changes to the landscape
but nothing like
what was to come later on...
europeans arrived here only 200 years ago,
but in that time,
they have transformed it.
Forests have been replaced by fields
and roads, towns and modern cities.
Almost every corner of new zealand
now has felt the influence
of the modern world -
even the remote southern
alps are now buzzing with skiers.
And the wildlife, once so isolated,
has had to adapt.
For the keas, at least,
this has not been difficult.
An invasion of brightly coloured human
beings is like a dream come true.
The arrival of crowds like these
just widens their scope for fun.
And always on the lookout
for something to eat
they've learnt some new tricks as well.
Younger keas roam about like
gangs of delinquent teenagers.
And of course,
as any teenager will tell you,
the place to hang out is the car park.
There are plenty of things
to dismantle here -
rubber trim is easy...
...but these ski racks are more difficult.
They're just doing what comes naturally -
making a detailed investigation
of the world around them.
But even though they enjoy the party,
new zealand is becoming
too crowded, even for keas.
For many of the rest of new zealand's
birds, man's arrival has been devastating.
Even though humans rarely visit
valleys and forests like these,
the cats, stoats and rats
they brought with them have all
but massacred the local bird population.
And another animal has invaded
forests throughout new zealand...
...the australian brush-tailed possum.
It may look cuddly -
but when 90 million of them bulldoze
their way through every forest,
eating eggs and chicks,
they cause complete havoc.
None of these animals belong here
and all of them have had a devastating
effect on the wildlife,
especially on the unique birds.
When explorers first came to new zealand,
they described the dawn
chorus as deafening -
now, these same forests are almost silent.
But new zealand has 700 smaller islands
scattered around its coastline.
Many of these are rarely
visited by people,
and on some the cats,
stoats, possums and rats
that have exterminated so much
wildlife everywhere else,
have been kept way.
These islands are now the last refuge
for some of new zealand's rarest birds.
This is the kakapo and it has
every reason to look depressed.
It's a flightless relative of the kea,
and although it's
the world's largest parrot,
it's also the world's
slowest breeding bird.
It may raise a chick successfully
only once every ten years.
Today, it survives on just
a couple of offshore islands,
and only because of a huge conservation
campaign to keep it alive.
Biologists feed the adults...
...and monitor their chicks
round the clock.
In fact, they keep the entire population
of kakapos in intensive care.
Every nest has its own 24-hour security,
complete with cctv.
Miniature cameras inside the nest
record every last move.
Each bird gets its own personal diary.
This military style campaign
is beginning to work.
By giving them this backup,
the kakapo population has increased
from just a handful of birds
to over 100 in just a few years.
These offshore islands are also vital for
many more of new zealand's unique birds.
This is a kokako...
...and this is a nectar eating tui.
And here's yet another
relative of the kea -
a kaka.
It's a forest parrot, and it lives
nowhere else but new zealand.
In these island forests there are
even penguins amongst the trees.
The new zealand that
so excited early explorers,
with its bustling variety
and deafening choruses,
seems to have found a last sanctuary
on these smaller offshore islands.
This is what much of new zealand
might have been like
before the invaders arrived.
Even ground nesting birds, like penguins,
can relax as they used to.
They can raise their chicks here
in relative peace.
Some of these islands seem
almost overloaded with birds -
here the bushes bubble with thousand
upon thousand of shearwaters.
They still live in massive colonies.
New zealand's offshore islands
are bursting with unique wildlife.
They're like a microcosm of
the whole extraordinary island
chain around australia.
Strung out across the sea, from the cold
southern ocean almost to the equator,
nowhere else in the world can you see
such a variety of
different kinds of islands.
Lost worlds, full of ancient treasures.
Every one of them a unique gem -
the island jewels of australia.
