In anticipation of BBC Two’s latest animal adventure, Snow Wolf Family And Me, we thought we’d take a look back at our favourite snow animal moments of the past year. But beware – there’s more cute in this blog post than you can throw a really big cute-stick at. Especially if you like penguins.
Gordon Buchanan travels to the remote Canadian Arctic to get close to a pack of wolves. After spending most of his nights alone in his camp with the rest of the film crew half a mile away, Gordon gains the wolves’ trust by adapting his behaviour. (Seriously. It is the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen.)
A pup emerges from its den in Snow Wolf Family and Me
We can’t decide which is cuter so here they both are: the clip of the three-week-old pups leaving their den or the trailer featuring the wolves snoozing.
We didn’t need a department store with a magical Christmas advert to tell us that penguins are great. Back in July, Natural World took us to Port Lockroy in Antarctica, where there is a working, British post office surrounded by a colony of 3,000 gentoo penguins.
Every day at the post office they go about their daily business of feeding, socialising and generating a lot of mess – and that’s just the humans.
For more on this fascinating place, and to find out how the unlucky employees keep the area free from penguin poo (though not of the smell) see all the Penguin Post Office clips here.
What is better than being friends with a polar bear?
Being licked on the face by a polar bear, of course.
Late last year, wildlife biologist Liz Bonnin explored the ever surprising world of animals that have formed unexpected friendships with other species - and with human beings. In this episode, we meet Mark and Agee (Mark is the big friendly thing with the white fur on the left of the photo. Agee is the polar bear.) They have been inseparable since Agee was eight weeks old.
Have a listen to what Agee ‘purring’ sounds like. Polar bears purring definitely don’t sound like cats purring. Unless it’s a 30 stone cat with an actual frog in its throat.
In this most excellent of penguin-based adventures, expert animal handlers and the team at Birmingham’s National Sea Life Centre were tasked with receiving some precious cargo that had been flown in all the way from New Zealand: penguins!
We discovered how these penguins were transported huge distances – and how they were treated to a luxury flight with their very own ‘penguin hotel’ – a £40,000 refrigerated transport crate fitted with its own seatbelts.
Read an interview with the National Sea Life Centre’s penguin keeper Naomi, who probably has the best job in the world.
Do not be deceived by this photo from David Attenborough’s Life Story. This is not actually a goat selfie, or as they’re known in the goat world, a ‘gelfie’ (we may have made that up.) This was in fact a successful attempt by a mountain goat to investigate the film crew that were following its progress down the hillside.
But seeing as 2014 was the ‘year of the selfie’, it seemed like a fitting photo to finish on!
Emma Bradshaw is a researcher for BBC iPlayer.
Snow Wolf Family And Me is on tonight at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.
Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.
