All language subtitles for Great.Migrations.S01E02.Need.to.Breed.720p.BluRay.x264-Pahe.in

They are driven...to move.

To move...and to multiply.

Possessed by the insatiable
need to breed...

they will journey
to brutal African battlefields...

and brawl on South Atlantic shores.

For the sake of their young,
they will blacken the skies...

and terrorize rainforest floors.

Right now,
the world's wild parents

are on the march...

on the wing...

on the run.

And these are the tales
of their sacrifice...

the most moving stories on Earth...

the stories of the great migrations.

Winter in the South Atlantic.

One of the worst places
in the world...

to be left behind.

But that is Johnny rook's lot in life.

Here on a desolate archipelago
off South America,

this bird of prey clings to life...

waiting for the migrants to return.

Now, the flare of a September dawn
announces spring's feeble arrival.

And for Johnny rook,
the wait is over...

because some of the world's
greatest wanderers

are heading his way.

They've been traveling the globe
for months, even years.

Only one thing can bring
their wanderings to a halt--

none of them can give birth at sea.

From around the southern pole,
nomads are now converging

on these shards of rock
known as the Falklands.

They will give up
the lives they know best--

on wind or waves--
for the sake of their young.

After months of migrating
through frigid southern waters,

up to 25 miles a day,

rockhopper penguins
torpedo in for a hard landing.

These sleek, hardy birds must
abandon the sea to reproduce.

Then there are
the true behemoths.

Back from 10 months of hunting
off the Antarctic ice sheet,

the massive southern elephant seal
humps ashore.

He has to make a stand here
where the females are returning--

or lose his chance to breed.

He is four tons
of raw sexual aggression.

For migratory credentials,
little can beat the black-browed albatross.

From tip to tip,
its wings span eight feet.

This superb glider can soar
almost effortlessly 20 hours a day.

[albatrosses chattering]

Waiting in this bustling metropolis
of hundreds of thousands of birds,

her mate shores up the nest
from last year's breeding.

And after seven lonely months,

and tens of thousands of miles
riding the southern sea winds,

they share an ecstatic
restating of vows.

Their bond may last 30 years.

[squawking and chattering]

Up and down the shores,
nests are being tended to,

bonds renewed...

and eggs laid.

For the next two months,
the couple has only one goal:

to keep the egg alive.

But someone else has
his eye on the eggs, too.

Johnny rook, otherwise known
as the striated caracara,

has waited through a brutal winter
for this bounty.

An egg tumbled from a nest
is fair game for Johnny rook.

He'll soon have his own
clamoring brood to look after.

[albatrosses squawking]

On another stretch of beach,

the shoreline quakes
with desperate battles to dominate.

The stakes are unimaginably high.

Only a privileged few
elephant seal bulls

will become beachmasters--

controlling harems
of dozens of females--

and reproducing abundantly.

[low rumbling]

This is no place for a young male
to stick his nose in.

[rumbling]

Usually trumpeted warnings
make challengers back off...

but not all.

Blood runs freely
from slashed noses and necks.

They even fight dirty,
going for the eyes.

The loser's breeding chances,
for now, are ground into the sand.

[rumbling]

But this beachmaster's triumph
is just the beginning of his troubles.

Ahead lie dozens of fights--
and perhaps a hundred matings--

all for the sake of his bloodline.

The need to pass on
one's genetic legacy

is a great motivator of migrations.

Nothing else could drive
the nomads of the Falklands

to tolerate life on land.

Nothing else could make
migrating mothers

stand up to great predators...

or to drive potential fathers

to travel great distances
to deadly battlefields.

Parenting on the move
is all about sacrifice.

And in the forests
of northeastern Australia

another great journey spurred
by parental dedication is about to begin.

On translucent tawny wings,
a little red flying fox

flaps homeward after
a night of intense foraging.

And she is one of millions.

[bats squeaking]

Somehow, she finds her pup
in the din of the camp.

She wraps him
in her nursing embrace.

He needs calcium from her milk
to build his flimsy bones--

and he's leaching it away from
her own fragile flying machinery

at an alarming rate.

The bats have eaten through the calcium
and energy-rich eucalyptus blossoms

for miles around.

The situation is getting desperate--
the need to move intense.

But they can't migrate
to greener pastures

until the last of the youngsters
has been weaned.

So mother has become
stingy and edgy.

Readying for the migration ahead,

she tongues oily secretions over
every bit of her flight equipment.

A bat's wings are essentially
enormous webbed hands,

elongated finger bones
providing the struts

to unfold and manipulate
the flight membranes.

As dusk settles,
the migration begins.

The little reds, wings spreading
three feet tip to tip,

blacken the skies
with their departure.

Tonight, they have to
travel many miles

with their newly weaned young--

and inexperience on the wing
will prove deadly.

Parenting is risky business.

Migrants around the world
will risk everything

for the next generation.

But before you can breed,
you must earn the right.

And in Africa, one species
readies for battle.

ln the war-wracked country of Sudan
lies Boma National Park,

the largest intact savannah
in East Africa.

Mile upon mile of what looks
like pristine wilderness unfolds--

but much of this
is an empty paradise.

During the Sudan's decades
of ruinous civil war,

the park supported rebel armies
and untold refugees.

The wildlife was decimated...

and it was long feared

that one of the most spectacular
migrations on Earth--

not seen by outsiders in 20 years--

had been wiped out.

Then in 2007, aerial surveys
began spotting them...

handfuls...

then hundreds of them.

Eventually, estimates reached
in the hundreds of thousands.

Miraculously, the white-eared kob
had survived.

A magnificent antelope that lives
nowhere else on Earth.

The kob have been migrating

in numbers perhaps equal
to those in the Serengeti--

covering hundreds of miles

from their wet season
feeding grounds in the south

to their breeding battlegrounds
in the north.

And it saved them.

Life on the move kept them
a step ahead of the guns

and human hunger.

By November,
the blinding equatorial sun

has turned their southern water holes
into sucking mud--

a trap for unwary youngsters.

And so they must move north
toward permanent water.

Their pace quickens
with the males' need

to reach their ancient
battlegrounds.

After months on the move,

they arrive at the northern edge
of their migration--

a network of swamps and rivers--

where they can unleash
their unique breeding spectacle.

This is where the antelopes'
leks will form--

vast fighting arenas,
where gladiators duel,

sometimes to the death,
for the right to mate.

Their breeding season brief,
their hormonal rage intense,

they are about to dispense
with ritual--

and get straight
to the bloodletting.

Head-butting males
are conspicuous icons

of the need to breed.

But in the hidden world
of the Costa Rican rainforest,

it is a seething sisterhood
of hunger

that assures the success
of the next generation.

And unleashes one of the most feared
migrations on Earth.

The army ants are on the move.

The engine of
this merciless hunger--

a brood of 200,000 larvae
and their caretakers,

demanding 30,000 corpses a day.

The nursery lies at the heart of
a twitching, throbbing structure

built almost entirely
of the ants themselves.

Long legs stuck together
with tarsal claws,

they are the scaffolding,
bricks and mortar of the nest.

But they've been in one place
for three weeks,

ravaging the forest floor
for miles in all directions.

lt's time to migrate.

ln the darkness,
they pour out of the nest,

porters carrying
the precious larvae.

They are virtually all sisters,
daughters of one queen.

They will migrate
about 330 feet each night--

the equivalent in human terms
of a marathon.

Deaf and virtually blind--

they nonetheless
communicate brilliantly

through touch and complicated
chemical signals.

And now the message
goes out to bivouac.

Almost magically, they form
a temporary nest of their own bodies.

The larvae and food are taken
into the nursery at its center.

Tomorrow they will do
the whole thing again--

marching for two to three weeks
to reach fresh hunting grounds,

where they can set up
another raiding base--

and reach new heights
of slaughter.

[birds calling]

On migration central--
the Falkland lslands--

the multitudes are busy multiplying.

Female elephant seals
barely escape the males' attentions

long enough to give birth
to pups conceived here last year.

ln the brief three weeks
the pup has with his mother,

his body weight will triple...

as hers shrinks by a third.

The bull moves in
soon after the birth

to impregnate her again.

Each beachmaster
on these shores

may have dozens of females
in his harem--

and 100 matings to complete--
in less than a month.

All the while having to fight off
more and more challengers.

Unable to leave his harem
to feed at sea,

he's losing 50 pounds
of blubber a day.

[rumbling]

[albatrosses chattering]

Already the albatross chicks
are hatching in staggering numbers,

downy and demanding.

With unending patience,
the new mother waits

for her mate to return
from his foraging--

until near starvation,
if she must.

He, meanwhile, may be covering
thousands of miles on the wing,

simply to find food for his brood.

He returns, heavy with seafood.

After a brief greeting, they transfer
parental responsibilities.

He fills the chick's belly...

and the family is content.

But Johnny rook is hungry too.

[chick chirping]

Sometimes a parent
never returns from the sea.

And the raptor executes
his cruel mercy.

ln the roiling surf, rockhoppers
porpoise home with their gullets full.

They take turns
shuttling to the sea daily,

nabbing tidbits of krill
to feed their growing chicks.

Once ashore, the rockhoppers
trade their long, graceful sea migrations

for a daunting and
dangerous vertical one.

They've made their nests
high on the sheer cliffs

far from the freezing sea spray.

And each day,
pudgy with baby food,

they must scale these
unforgiving rock walls.

Centuries of penguin passage
have left their mark--

everywhere the cliffs
are scarred by penguin claws.

They are irrepressible--

and undaunted by missteps
and stumbles.

At the top, red-eyed, yellow-browed
and full of spunk,

they celebrate their ascent
and reunion...

[braying]

and are quickly assaulted
by their ravenous chicks,

now nearly as big as the adults.

[chick shrieking]

"More food" is the chorus
ringing out

up and down the shores and cliffs
of the Falklands.

Migrants who spend their lives

gracefully plying hundreds of miles
of sea and air,

feeding at their leisure,

are now bound to these frozen shards
of rock and sand--

battered by the calls
of their young:

More food.

[pup barking]

lt's nightfall in Australia.

Rush hour is in full swing.

The little red flying foxes
are migrating--

and parched with thirst.

But a drink on the wing
is a dangerous undertaking...

especially for
the inexperienced young.

Some freshwater crocs
try to snap them out of the air.

Others wait for fatal mistakes.

But many more make it through...

and after many hours on the wing,
they find their new paradise.

Fresh, succulent eucalyptus
at the height of its bloom.

At dawn, they select
a camp nearby--

their new base
for feeding excursions.

lt's time to get down
to the business

of creating the next generation
of flying nomads.

Males spar for territory.

They may have harems
of up to five females,

although the little reds
are so little studied,

no one knows for sure.

Courtship involves a great deal
of nuzzling and stroking.

The act itself is brief.

But the couple sometimes
clings to each other for hours.

After a long day,

they wrap themselves
in their elegant capes,

trying to catch a nap.

Tonight, the newly weaned young
will join the feeding frenzy.

They are now fully fledged
members of the colony,

ready to investigate
the bounty of this land--

and darken the dusk with
breathtaking numbers once again.

Morning in Costa Rica, and the army
is on the move again.

Each day, about a third of the nest
spills out in a deluge of ants.

And for most of their prey,
resistance is futile.

Even fearsome wasps
high in treetops

are no match
for the implacable ants.

They watch helplessly
as their own larvae

are stripped from
their honeycomb cribs.

Now the porters
take up their burdens

and carry the moveable feast
back to the unquenchable young.

Generations of ants
will come and go.

But the restless hunger
of their sisterhood will be immortal.

On the savannahs
of the Sudan,

the clash of males
is reaching a fever pitch.

A male kob's life
boils down to this:

here and now, kob on kob,
pound for pound.

The bodies of the fallen
litter the battlefield.

The females approach
the victorious males warily...

and with a discerning eye.

They gravitate
to the eye of the storm,

knowing that only
the fittest gladiators

can make a stand at the middle
of the deadly arena.

And a chemically choreographed
dance of mutual seduction begins.

The kob's love letters--
hormone-laden urine.

He soaks the soil with his brew.

The smell may be packed
with complex information

about his genetic
and physical fitness.

Suitably pleased, she answers
with her own stream of urine.

His clownish expression
is known as flehmen:

he's filtering the scent

through a complex set of receptors
in the roof of his mouth.

There's no mistaking it:
she's ready to mate.

Finally, the lovers unite...
albeit, briefly.

After two months,
the breeding season is over.

lt's time for the long trek back
to their southern feeding grounds,

with the females carrying
the next generation of nomads--

and fighters.

ln the Falklands, too,
the mammoth gladiators

are turning away
from their battlefields...

and a spectacular exodus
must now begin.

For the young on these
bleak southern shores,

it is the season
of abandonment.

With barely a backwards glance,
the starving elephant seal females

desert their giant three-week-old babies
on the shore.

The males, utterly spent, have
nothing to do with their young.

With this abrupt weaning,

the pups make their first forays
into the shallows.

They, too, will return to these shores
after thousand-mile journeys.

The rockhopper parents
also take leave of their young--

heading back into the water

with the joy of a creature
returning to its element.

After months on awkward shores,
they're going home.

The young albatross fledglings,
left behind days ago,

rev their engines on their nests,

testing the four-foot wings
and howling winds

that will power them
around the world.

lt's time--

to fly...or die.

For Johnny rook, the casualties
are merely a last chance to feast.

[Johnny rook squawking]

Soon there will be
little left but scraps

to sustain him
through a brutal winter.

The last fledglings now
make a leap of faith.

Once on the wing, they may not
come to shore for a decade...

and then, only to breed.

From now on, they are migrants,

circling the southern world...

wedded to brilliant skies...

and slipping the surly bonds
of Earth.