Original subtitles

(water burbling)

(gentle music)

(birds chirping)

- [Narrator] Streams, rivers, the sea.

Melting snow, fog, the raindrops of a shower.

Water is what shaped this land.

(gentle music continues)

It flows from mountains thousands of kilometers away

and from springs closer to home.

(bird squawking)

(birds chirping)

It makes its way through countless streams,

rivers, canals, and ditches,

ultimately to flow out into the sea.

(waves crashing)

It is soft and soothing, gentle, and invigorating,

yet powerful and merciless, too.

It flows through the veins of all living creatures.

(birds squawking)

The wetlands of the Dutch delta

are a Valhalla for countless animals,

a perfect home for the beaver and the stickleback.

They have lived here for millions of years.

(triumphant music)

(gentle music)

(moves into lively music)

On a clear spring day,

a shoal of sticklebacks navigates a course

through the gently rolling sea.

Springtime sends them from their home in the North Sea

to the Zeeland coast.

They have to go inland,

to fresh water, to a pool, a ditch, a small stream.

They will meet any challenge,

for their purpose is to breed.

(tense music)

It is a long, exhausting journey,

fraught with many dangers.

Not everyone has a taste for sticklebacks,

but there are enough to make the journey a knockout race

that can only be won with luck.

(tense music continues)

Just off the coast live seahorses and nudibranch,

the jewels of the sea.

The strong current tests their fitness,

but nothing can prevent the sticklebacks

from making their journey,

for they are bound by instinct.

They know that they're getting close,

but they can't find their way.

It's as if the river has been blocked.

Wherever they go, they find impenetrable obstacles.

(dramatic music)

Fresh water flows through a small gap

between the barrier gates,

and the sticklebacks smell it in an instant.

The current here is strong, and demands the utmost effort.

(dramatic music continues)

This one hasn't made it, and he's not the only one.

For millions of years,

sticklebacks found their way effortlessly

to their birthplace.

They've learned to live with their natural enemies.

But the barriers erected by man are often impregnable.

They are the answer to the disastrous floods

that strike when moon, tide, wind, and water conspire.

(birds calling)

The wind causes the water to surge.

It pounds the dikes relentlessly,

not losing strength for a moment

until the flood defenses are breached.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Announcer] A state of emergency was declared

in western parts of the country

following extremely high tides.

The city of Dordrecht was inundated.

(speaking in foreign language)

(plane engines roaring) (speaking in foreign language)

At Capelle and Brabant,

the army faced an impossible task.

According to the latest reports,

the situation is desperate,

with people taking refuge on the roofs of their houses.

- [Narrator] But the people refused to be defeated.

They were furious,

and declared the water to be their eternal enemy.

They decided once and for all

to impose their will on the water.

Understandable as that may be,

we could have learned lessons from the beavers

that have lived here so long.

The dams beavers build are strong,

yet they leave room for water to flow.

(birds chirping)

Beavers are faithful.

The male and female stay together for life.

They're a bit awkward on land,

so they spend most of their time in the water.

(industrious music)

To protect and groom their fur, they use a kind of wax,

which is secreted from a gland between their hind legs

and applied with great care, hair by hair.

(industrious music continues)

The result is stunning.

Beavers are survivors.

They've lived here for thousands of generations.

In that time,

the beaver has seen the delta change completely.

(birds chirping) (insects buzzing)

A million years ago,

the Dutch delta was a subtropical paradise.

Hippo and forest elephant lived alongside beaver and eagle.

The rhythm of the climate is slow and gentle.

Bitter cold and tropical heat dominate in turn.

During the 13th ice age,

land ice pushed up rocks and sand

to form what are now called the Utrecht Hill Ridge

and the Grebbeberg.

When the ice melted,

life flourished once more along the new banks.

(somber music) (birds chirping)

(wind whistling)

Once more, an ice age forced the water back.

The delta was a cold, dry, plain ruled by the mammoth.

10,000 years later,

half of the delta disappeared below sea level.

Then, the sea and three rivers deposited sand and clay,

creating the first peat bogs and marshes.

For the first time,

it resembled the land which we now know as Holland.

(birds chirping) (insects buzzing)

Each year for all those millions of years,

the rhythm of the seasons invoked a cycle, again and again.

(peaceful music) (birds chirping)

Wherever you look in the delta,

love is practiced with abandon.

It's as if the pikes dance before they mate.

(peaceful music continues)

(dog barks)

Only the sticklebacks still have a long way to go

before they can think about breeding.

(peaceful music continues)

Nobody is welcome in the zander's nest,

and that's true of little sticklebacks too.

It's perfectly understandable that the zander is unfriendly

because his nest is filled with millions of eggs.

The female has already gone,

and he is left behind to protect them.

He fans his fins to supply the eggs

with fresh oxygen-rich water.

(peaceful music continues)

(moves into lively music)

The sticklebacks have found the turning

that leads to their pool.

Along the way, they encounter the brook lamprey

working hard on his spawning spot.

He's been doing that so much longer than the sticklebacks

because the brook lamprey is the oldest fish on Earth.

(lively music continues)

The stream is becoming ever narrower, and shallower.

The stickleback sense that it can't be much further,

and that gives them renewed energy.

The only thing left to do now for the brook lamprey is mate,

for mating means death.

The act is their last.

(moves into peaceful music)

(insects buzzing) (birds chirping)

(woman humming)

(woman singing wordlessly) (birds chirping)

(moves into lively music with wordless singing)

Finally, the flow of the stream slows,

and the sticklebacks arrive in a pool

that has been diligently created by a beaver family.

(moves into peaceful music)

They have finally made it.

(birds chirping)

The journey of more than 100 kilometers was tough,

but the sticklebacks' mission isn't complete.

They have to find a mate.

The males have never been this handsome.

(peaceful music continues)

There's no time to rest,

because in order to attract a female,

they have to offer her the best possible spot,

and they don't shirk a fight to succeed.

He's finally found a good spot,

and immediately starts digging.

(peaceful music continues)

(birds chirping)

The bright sunlight awakens

the occupant of this burrow from hibernation.

(birds chirping)

The grass snake smells the world

using the tips of its tongue.

They also lead him to the source of those wonderful scents,

a female grass snake

(birds chirping)

Unfortunately, there's a rather large surplus of males.

When he finally finds the female,

it becomes apparent that quite a few others

have beaten him to her.

(birds chirping)

The plump female enjoys the attention

she gets from her suitors.

In the end, she herself will decide

who will be allowed to mate with her.

(birds chirping)

(insects buzzing) (water lapping)

(bird calling)

(birds chirping)

Today, the beavers take the day off,

(industrious music)

to celebrate love.

(birds chirping)

Beavers stay together for life,

but before they breed, their bond needs to be reasserted.

They love the ritual,

and leisurely take their time about it.

(birds chirping)

Beavers are true aquatic animals,

and so they make love not on shore, but in the water.

(industrious music continues)

(birds chirping)

(wind whistling) (birds chirping)

(jarring horn music)

High up on the Grebbeberg,

a grass snake slithers out of its egg.

He's no bigger than a large earthworm.

(sneaky music)

(birds chirping)

His tongue leads him to the water dozens of meters below.

(birds chirping)

Baby grass snakes like to eat tadpoles,

(birds chirping)

and frogs like to eat baby grass snakes.

(birds chirping)

The frog is distracted by something,

an opportunity for the grass snake to feast on tadpoles.

(birds chirping)

The grass snake's tongue smells, tastes, and leads the way.

(birds chirping)

He can stretch his jaws

so that he can swallow large prey whole.

(birds chirping)

(somber music) (birds chirping)

(peaceful music) (birds chirping)

The coot is busy with her newborn.

She spots a tufted duck approaching her territory,

and is not amused.

(birds chirping)

A coot doesn't tolerate intruders.

The tufted duck has got to go, and go now.

(tense music)

(bird squawking)

In the animal kingdom,

no one is more aggressive than a protective mother.

Her young have seen this squabbling before,

and are confident that no harm will come to them.

The final battle.

(birds squawking) (tense music continues)

The coot seems to have the upper hand.

She holds the tufted duck underwater,

but then the coot herself appears to be drowning.

(birds squawking)

Then, just as suddenly as the battle started, calm returns.

(birds chirping)

As the sun goes down, the ruffs squabble,

and the other waterbirds scrape a meal together.

They each have their own technique

with which to hunt their respective prey.

(birds chirping)

(elegant music)

The setting sun is the starlings' cue to flock together.

They do a little stunt flying before they go to sleep,

30,000 of them all at once.

(elegant music continues) (birds chirping)

(insects chirping)

It's growing dark in the swamp forest.

The animals head for their nests, burrows, and lairs.

At the same time, other animals wake up.

(frogs croaking)

They've decided it's best to be active at night.

(frogs croaking)

The tree frogs' mating call drowns out

all other nocturnal sounds.

(frogs croaking) (birds chirping)

The flooded forest holds an unexpected delicacy for the rat,

a mussel, but how to open it?

(birds chirping)

The European polecat also feels at home

in this wet territory.

They like to feed on the forest's other inhabitants,

just like badgers.

(birds chirping) (insects buzzing)

And all this thanks to the beaver,

the architect of the territory.

(birds chirping)

Five generations of the beaver family

have constructed a dam 85 meters long.

As a result, a couple of hectares of land

have become submerged.

They created their own paradise,

for the entire pool is their home.

(birds chirping)

Each night, the beavers carry out maintenance work

to their dam.

Nothing is left to chance.

Any weak spot is immediately reinforced.

They're incredibly tenacious.

They don't work fast, but they're very meticulous,

and their work ethic is second to none.

(industrious music)

They drag, gnaw, build, and seal for six hours nonstop.

The beavers won't rest before dawn.

The heavily pregnant female has a nice little lie-down.

The young in her belly have other plans.

(industrious music continues)

In order to keep the waterworks in pristine condition,

the beavers have decided to fell a tree.

It's three nights' work.

The beavers' teeth are rock hard.

The orange enamel contains iron,

and with each bite, its chisels are sharpened.

(industrious music)

Why is it that the tastiest bits are always highest up?

For dinner, only the best is good enough.

Cutting down a tree is no mean feat.

It is a very delicate operation,

but the beaver has special techniques.

He can hear, for instance, when the tree is about to fall.

(tree creaking)

(industrious music)

He gnaws away a little more at the back

in order to ensure that the tree falls

precisely where he wants it.

(tree cracking)

(birds squawking)

(water burbling)

Everyone benefits from the felled tree.

It provides protection and food for the other animals.

In this way, the beaver brings a whole host

of new life to its pool.

(peaceful music)

The males sticklebacks need to get to work.

The females are very fussy,

and demand an attractive nest

that will provide proper protection for their eggs.

The males collect twigs and algae.

They dig a hole with their beaks and pad it with the algae

while the female of their dreams waits,

pregnant with eggs.

(peaceful music with wordless singing)

To reinforce the nest,

he sticks the algae together with a type of glue

that he produces himself.

He pats it down, glues, and pats it down once more.

The female is getting on his nerves.

She refuses to understand

that he hasn't time for her at the moment,

so he chases her off.

(peaceful music)

When the nest is sufficiently sturdy,

he burrows a tunnel into it.

This is where the female will lay her eggs.

If everything is to her satisfaction, that is.

(peaceful music continues)

He finally invites her to inspect the nest.

He shows her the entrance by lying on his side.

As soon as she's inside, he taps on her tail,

which makes her lay her eggs.

He then fertilizes them immediately,

and chases off the female.

(peaceful music continues)

Should another female full of eggs pass by,

he'll offer her his attractive nest too.

Sometimes he'll do so as many as four times.

The male stays by the nest for more than a week.

He continuously fans fresh water over the eggs.

He neglects himself,

and when the eggs hatch and his task is over,

he is hungry and exhausted.

(peaceful music continues)

(moves into lively music)

Young pikes eat anything that moves,

and they'll eat all day long.

They're insatiable feeding machines.

(lively music continues)

Even before this glutton has finished his roach,

he sizes up a young stickleback.

It's not called the three-spined stickleback for nothing,

but it seems that the pike doesn't know that yet.

He's a bit stupid,

because the stickleback has thorny sides too.

(lively music continues)

(moves into majestic music)

And so does this one.

Now the little pike has learned its lesson.

The stickleback is off the menu forever.

(water burbling)

The delta's refuse collector has arrived.

It's the crayfish.

He doesn't actually belong here,

but he feels quite at home nevertheless.

(birds chirping)

It seems he's tasty too.

(birds chirping)

(birds squawking)

Here come the spoonbills,

as if there has been a public announcement.

The crayfish season is now open!

(playfully dramatic music)

(birds squawking)

(sneaky music)

This landscape was created by humans.

(birds squawking) (birds chirping)

Once upon a time, the land was used for agriculture,

but its soil proved to be the ideal fuel

for a rapidly growing population.

(sneaky music continues)

For centuries, the peat here has been dredged,

dried, and burnt in stoves.

This created new lakes,

and a whole new habitat for the grass snake

and a multitude of other aquatic flora and fauna.

(birds chirping)

The baby beavers get swimming lessons.

They feel instantly at ease in the water.

(birds chirping)

With all those little nippers in the cramped lodge,

the couple's three-year-old son

decides it's time to leave home.

(beavers grunting)

(bird squawking)

(birds chirping)

(industrious music)

Early one morning, the young beaver sets off on his journey.

He doesn't know where it will take him.

A beaver that wants to start his own family

has to find his own territory.

That means traveling many kilometers.

(industrious music continues)

The young beaver swims upstream.

Everywhere along the river Maas,

he sees signs of habitation.

(engine rumbling)

After seven days, he finds a spot he likes

in a small tributary.

He starts work on his first dam that very same night.

(industrious music continues) (birds chirping)

A rat is curious to know what this odd stranger is doing,

but the water is rising, and starts to flow faster.

It's the first test for the new dam.

All night long, the water level rises.

When it subsides again, the dam still stands strong,

and the young beaver can start work on his lodge.

He has found a place for himself, and for now, he will stay.

(industrious music continues)

(birds chirping)

(water burbling)

(gentle music)

When it comes to breeding, sticklebacks think big.

There are hundreds of new family members,

each not half a centimeter long.

(tense music)

Protecting his shoal is a full-time task for the father.

All the hard work has weakened the stickleback.

He is constantly busy with his children,

and rarely has time to eat or rest.

He is exhausted.

His task is accomplished, his life concluded.

This is the moment the crayfish has been waiting for.

Hard as it may seem, in nature, nothing goes to waste.

(tense music continues)

(water burbling)

(birds chirping)

In six months' time,

the young sticklebacks will start their long journey to sea,

where they will stay

until they are compelled to return to breed.

(water burbling)

(birds chirping)

(bird squawking)

The beavers have reared their young,

and at the same time created an ideal habitat

for countless other animals and plants.

(industrious music) (birds chirping)

The sticklebacks live in the beaver pool for six months.

They are then ready for their great journey to the sea.

Together, they head off downstream.

(moves into tense music)

(birds chirping)

Finally, the sticklebacks smell the salty water.

It's not far now.

(tense music continues)

The current ushers the entire shoal out through the lock.

(birds squawking)

Here, the water from brooks and rivers

has blended with the sea for millions of years.

It is the water that has shaped the land.

It is the water that streams through all life

in the Dutch delta.

(peaceful music)