Frozen Planet II: Frozen Worlds Soundscape
An immersive audio experience from Frozen Planet II. Tune into the sounds of Antarctica and the wilderness of Central Asia
An immersive audio experience from Frozen Planet II. Tune into the sounds of planet earth...
In this episode we begin our journey in Antarctica - a continent almost twice the size of Australia. Here the temperatures fall to minus 80 degrees centigrade. There is only one animal hardy enough to raise its family here in winter - the emperor penguin.
Chicks huddle together to create a tight crèche, but one spring day, when the chicks have grown to nearly three feet tall, the parents simply walk away. Their parental duties are complete, and they will never return to their chicks. The chicks are ready to fend for themselves. Their only chance of finding a meal is out at sea. They set off at a steady pace sliding on their bellies. Finally, the end is in sight… the Southern Ocean - now they can reap the benefits of the long summer ahead, and feed in the richest waters on earth.
Just off the shores of the Antarctic peninsula, the ice cover breaks up into millions of tiny ice floes. It is an excellent place for a Weddell seal to rest up after a night’s feed. The bay is sheltered - and the water calm. But there are killer whales here. The seal goes unnoticed and can haul out onto the ice.
We then move onto the Great Steppe, an area stretching for five thousand miles across Central Asia. This vast land is home to few residents, but the Pallas’s cat hunts out voles and gerbils.
To the north is another frozen wilderness - the Boreal Forest. This is the largest forest on earth, encircling the top of the world – from Europe to Russia, and across to North America. Woodpeckers and deer barks echo through these seemingly empty forests. In autumn the bears here escape the coming winter by hibernating inside caves.
Further north, we reach a frozen land within the Arctic Circle. This is the Arctic Tundra, where winter temperatures can fall to minus 50 degrees centigrade. Winds whip up in minutes and few animals can survive here - but musk ox do. Relics from the last Ice Age, they have two layers of fur, eight times warmer than sheep’s wool, to protect them from the bitter cold.
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- Mon 26 Sep 2022 01:3091Èȱ¬ Radio 1 Relax