Original subtitles

A thousand peaks crowning a continent.

The Alps.

Between sea and summits, a trove of natural treasures.

Alpine grasslands, Arctic tundra,

Mediterranean gardens,

gigantic glaciers...

(birds screech)

Gaping canyons echoing the sound of thundering waters... (water rushing)

Dark woodlands full of mystery...

(bird clicks)

Barren crags...

(echoing crash) .. and slopes of vivid green.

A raw expanse to overwhelm the eye of all but one...

the one who soars above it all.

(music quietens, slowed-down flapping)

(wings flap, snow crunches)

(eagle screeches)

It takes an eagle's eye to appreciate the Alps.

(wings flap) Their majesty and their dimensions.

(slowed-down flapping)

This is the realm of the golden eagle.

In Alpine law, the realm of winter.

Arching across 1,000 kilometres,

this crumple zone between converging plates

rises steadily from Eastern lowlands

to Europe's highest pinnacle.

Major rivers rising on the roof of Europe,

often separated by narrow watersheds,

reach three different seas.

Eight nations share the Alps,

three of them their highest mountain.

Monumental towers guard the king of the Alps,

dwarfing Europe's ancient fortresses,

this martial architecture bears witness to an age-old battle:

the elements against a rising mass of rock.

These ramparts are granite,

the rock that sets this mountain apart

from the rest of the Alps.

Looking east from its top,

a skyline of majestic, yet lesser peaks.

To the west,

nothing but big skies.

(majestic orchestral music)

Mont Blanc, the ancient patriarch of the Alps,

the highest point.

Other parts of the Alps were thrust together from far and wide,

stacked, folded and jumbled in the vice of colliding continents.

But these granites rose straight from the deep...

and they are still rising.

It may seem strange,

but glaciers accelerate their rise.

(ice crunching)

In high valleys, the snowfall of millennia accumulates.

Snow turns into solid ice,

but solid is not rigid.

Ice under pressure begins to flow downhill.

(ice cracking and rumbling)

As the valley widens and the ice flows over edges,

it's stretched and torn.

(ice cracking)

(water trickling) At the height of summer,

once the blanket of snow is gone,

the sun can reach deep down.

For decades summers have been getting hotter,

with a new record nearly every year.

(water flowing) Today, glaciers are melting.

But for aeons, the scraping, scouring, plucking

and polishing action of massive ice floes,

many times mightier than those we see today,

have worn down the Alps.

Thousands of metres of rock have been removed,

an enormous weight loss, enabling the Alps to rise.

(water flowing)

Below the glaciers,

and above the tree line,

sprawling grasslands are the summer resort

of red deer.

(stag bellows) But the summer is gone,

and the rut is all but over.

(stag bellows)

(stags bellow in the distance) The stags are totally exhausted,

worn out and bruised like warriors returning from combat.

And combat it truly was.

Many hinds have gathered on this rutting ground...

(stag bellows) ..and attracted many stags.

(antlers clatter)

(stag bellows)

Where strong stags compete for females,

there are battles. (antlers clatter)

(exciting music)

(antlers clatter)

For dominant stags defending a harem,

that means relentless stress.

(exciting music, stag huffs)

(antlers clatter)

(galloping, stag bellowing)

After two weeks of total exertion,

the stags stay on for a few more quiet weeks

to heal their wounds and regain strength to face the winter.

(calm music, distant bellowing)

Clear frosty nights and frigid morning mists

mark the change of the season.

In the skies, the tide has turned.

(wind whistles)

From now on, the northerlies prevail.

(squeak)

(birdsong)

Returning from a reconnaissance flight,

the eagle has seen all he needs to know.

A marmot den is something an eagle will remember,

even until next spring.

(wind howls, birdsong)

Marmots are twice as fat now as in the spring.

Unlike stags, who just lost one fifth of their body mass.

(scratching, birdsong)

For half a year, these Alpine rodents have stuffed themselves.

(wind blowing, birdsong)

Now it's time to make the den cosy

for a long winter underground.

To hold out six months underground,

you want a comfy home.

(rustling)

In this den, the male prepares the bedding.

His mate supplies the hay.

Out there, it's risky.

But as long as the choughs are watching,

one can relax.

(rustling, birds tweeting)

A safe, well-furnished den

is a marmot's dream.

(rustling footsteps)

But it's not quite there yet.

More padding is wanted.

(rustling, squeaking)

Even when the bed's perfect,

with a restless bedfellow, a good rest is hard to get.

(calm music, rustling)

Marmots have to stay put all winter.

(tweeting) While the choughs can escape to a milder sphere.

(wings flap)

Way below, at the foot of the mountain,

autumn still has a few short but sunny days in store

before winter arrives.

(calm orchestral music, birdsong)

Magically, overnight,

maples and larches have turned to gold.

Rooted in the sediments of an ancient ocean,

vertical forests now shine in the brightest hues.

But soon, the scenery will be monochrome.

In hidden valleys of the southern Alps,

a revenant has been secretly about

for a few decades now.

The Slovenian, Italian and Austrian Alps

have seen the cautious gradual return

of an old native who had been missing

from almost the entire mountain range

for a century.

(crunching)

A brown bear mother and her nearly grown-up cubs,

feeding on beech nuts.

They're getting ready to hibernate in a well-hidden cave,

maybe together for one last winter.

(snuffling, rustling)

When ravens appear, it may be taken for a sign.

(snuffling, rustling)

Alerted, one of the youngsters tests the wind.

(snuffling, rustling, birdsong)

The mother lets him take the lead...

a teaching moment.

(wings flapping)

That's what the ravens meant.

A stag, gored in the rut.

Something the cubs have never seen before.

Warily, they explore.

(bear growls softly)

(growling grows louder)

But then they really go at it.

Every extra pound on their ribs

will help to get over the winter.

(bear grunts)

This might be the family's last shared meal

before they go their separate ways.

(distant growling)

(munching sounds, growling)

(ravens caw)

Ravens, early birds at any carcass,

but they need big predators to carve it up.

It's best to wait a while.

These wise birds know, "first come first served"

is not a natural right.

(growling)

(sombre orchestral music, rustling)

The wind is getting colder,

sharper.

(snuffling)

A thousand mountain streams have fallen silent.

(water laps gently)

Warm hues of autumn belie the coming cold.

Glowing in the sunset,

the cold rocks of these famous peaks

conjure up memories of a distant, much warmer past.

(majestic orchestral music) A young eagle

in search of a territory of his own

explores the southern limestone Alps,

stretching across Slovenia, Austria and Italy.

The limestone of Italy's Dolomites

has nothing in common with the granites of Mont Blanc.

The Dolomites are only half as high,

yet their breathtaking panoramas

can vie with any icon of the Alps.

Erosion grinds its sculptures down to what they once were,

sand and silt in a warm, shallow sea.

(majestic orchestral music)

Layer by layer, over more than 200 million years,

skeletons of marine organisms

accumulated enormous bodies of sediment on the ocean floor.

Africa's collision with Europe pressed them up into the sky.

Thus a tropical sea floor became the habitat

of an ice-age remnant.

Arctic or mountain hares

once inhabited the cold plains of ice-age Europe.

When the climate turned warm,

they retreated northward to the Arctic,

and up to the higher regions of the Alps.

Scandinavian and Alpine populations

are now 2,000 kilometres apart.

(licking)

Adapting their camouflage,

mountain hares change their fur twice a year.

A few more weeks, and their winter coats will be as white as snow.

(bird caws)

(tense music)

(flapping)

Meanwhile, it's best to stay alert

and near hiding places.

With marmots already underground,

the eagle has set his sights on hares.

An eagle's eye works like a powerful zoom lens.

He can spot his prey long before it can spot him.

(exciting music)

(rustling)

(tense music, birdsong)

(rustling)

(music intensifies)

(music stops, wind blows) A bungled stealth attack.

This eagle is still a rookie.

(brooding music)

A majestic rookie by any means.

(flapping)

(birdsong)

The low sun dazzles the eyes.

But the moment it's hidden, the cold breath of the mountains

makes the body shiver.

Those who remain up high and out in the open

must be well prepared for harsh days ahead.

Down in the valleys below the fog,

it's now often colder than on the high slopes.

Soon the bears will have disappeared into their winter dens.

Deer descend to their winter quarters in the forest.

(calm music)

(rustling)

Long before the first snowfall,

winter sends its harbingers.

(wind howls)

(crackling)

Each night now, the temperature plummets below freezing.

(calm music, water rushing)

The mirrors of a thousand mountain lakes will soon go blind.

(crackling)

Up among the crags,

the snow is here to stay, setting the stage

for a breathtaking spectacle.

(birdsong)

Chamois don't fear the cold.

Quite the opposite.

After languishing in humid summer heat,

they are now in their element.

On high slopes and crests,

wind will sweep away the snow,

so that the chamois can find grazing even in winter.

(bird cawing)

One who has prudently prepared for a long winter

is the spotted nutcracker.

Having stashed thousands of pine seeds in hundreds of deposits

in the ground along the timber-line...

the challenge is to find these larders under the snow.

This takes nearly magic memory.

His bird brain has stored a precise topographical map...

a 3D map of a vast and complex terrain,

which looks very different now than it did in autumn.

Sometimes the ground has frozen so hard

that the nutcracker cannot get all the seeds he has buried.

These seeds will sprout in spring,

thus the flying forester rejuvenates the stock of pines

from which his own species will profit

for centuries to come.

(calm music, hooves on snow)

(flapping)

Among the chamois, the mood is tense.

(chamois gurgles)

Bucks and females are now coming together.

(hooves galloping on snow)

(chamois gurgles) It's all about the future of their population.

Bucks spray their coats with sperm and urine,

a personal perfume any female will remember.

A secretion from glands at the base of a buck's horns

marks his claim near the females' stamping ground.

(chamois gurgles)

Rivalling bucks tax each other. (chamois gurgles)

Each buck needs to decide -

attack or retreat?

(exciting music)

Counter-attack, or exhaust the opponent.

Anything but surrender.

(exciting music)

(music stops)

(hooves on snow, chamois gurgles)

A performance and a stage to take one's breath away.

(calm orchestral music)

This is the sovereign air space

of a pair of golden eagles.

(snow crunches)

(majestic orchestral music slowed-down flapping)

Over the years they've built a number of nests around here.

They do not breed each year, but soon their will be two eggs

in one of the nests.

Across the Alps, well over 1,000 breeding pairs

are occupying all the suitable territories.

Breeding success greatly depends on

how well a pair gets through the winter.

(majestic orchestral music)

Golden eagles stay together for life,

for three decades and more.

(wind howls)

Being born up here

means being born to climb...

and to flourish in Arctic conditions.

(wind howls)

Each morning, the females scramble up to the ridges

where the wind has cleared away the snow,

and they can feed.

The bucks follow.

It's not an easy climb.

(wind blowing, hooves on snow)

A film of frozen fog

covers these limestone rocks in the southern Alps.

This is dangerous terrain.

(wind howling, snow falling)

(rocks crumbling) In early winter,

bucks become obtrusive stalkers.

Every move she makes, every step she takes,

a buck will be watching.

(wind howls)

There's no liquid water up here,

yet ibex stay up high all winter.

(hooves on snow)

A gang of young bucks

has closed in on a female leading a kid.

With their tongues and a special organ on their gums,

they taste the scent she emits

which signals her readiness to mate.

(quiet, tense music)

She's the focus of attention,

but indifferent to these youngsters.

(foreboding music)

(music stops, rocks crumble)

To be taken seriously as a suitor,

a buck must be at least six years old.

But it's rare that bucks under nine or ten years get to mate.

Two mature, strong bucks have been standing back and watching.

One of these she might choose. (horns clatter)

(horns clatter)

(horns clatter)

(horns clatter)

(horns clatter)

But the choice is often made by fate.

(horns clatter)

(horns clatter)

(horns clatter)

(horns clatter)

(soft orchestral music)

He's out of the race... for good.

A broken leg up here

means death.

Within an hour,

a calm and sunny day can turn into a howling white inferno.

A humid southerly from the Mediterranean

hitting the high ridges

can bring gale-force winds,

and masses of snow. (flapping)

In an airborne life,

whims of the atmosphere are not the only challenge.

Bearded vultures, giants of the sky,

are claiming their share of space.

(sweeping orchestral music)

To avoid nasty weather from any direction,

ibex and chamois try to be in the right place

at the right time.

(wind howls)

Mountain hares let the wind work for them,

exploiting snow drifts for shelter.

In the same way, ptarmigans will calmly sit out any storm for days.

Not even an eagle can see them now.

For the golden eagle,

neither an Arctic nor a high mountain species,

these are hard times.

(wind howls)

Six feet under is the perfect place to truly rest in peace.

Marmots cosy up as families to keep warm.

The temperature inside the den decreases gradually

from 15 degrees in autumn to freezing in spring.

The animals also lower their body temperature

down to about 5 degrees plus.

They survive on their bodies' storage of fat and water.

(wind howls)

With thick layers of snow and soil on top,

the entrance to their extensive den securely blocked,

the marmot is nature's paragon of bunker mentality.

There's not the slightest draught down here,

no matter how hard the snow may blow outside.

(brooding music, howling wind)

In such weather, the zone about the tree line is a hostile place.

Roe deer and red deer are seeking shelter in the mountain forest.

But more and more often in recent years,

they are not alone here.

Wolves had almost become extinct in the Alps by the early 20th century.

About a century later,

their tracks in the snow appeared again.

(birdsong)

For thousands of years, red deer would migrate from the high Alps

down to the flood plains of big rivers.

But their migration routes are now cut off by roads and towns,

so they stay in the mountain forest.

(birdsong)

Covered in water-repellent top hair

over a fluffy layer of wool,

they can deal with the cold.

It's the deep snow that wears them down,

and the lack of forage forcing them to subsist on a meagre diet

of bark and branches.

Their bodies are now in energy conservation mode.

In this state, having to flee from a threat

will critically tax their reserves.

For fast-flowing mountain rivers to freeze over,

temperatures must drop further....

and they will.

The deer limit their movements to trampled paths

between resting and feeding areas

and nearby drinking places.

In contrast to deer,

a wolf's energy level

stays high. Blood circulation never slows.

(panting) Being much lighter than deer,

wolves do not sink into deep snow as easily.

(panting)

After generations without wolves, bears and lynx in the Alps,

deer are beginning to learn again

about big predators.

(ominous music, bird caws)

For a deer, the extra stress of a chase

lowers the chances of surviving the winter.

(water running)

Remote valleys of the Alps have been abandoned by people

in recent decades.

Fortunate for red deer, the new wilderness

offers alternative prey.

(exciting music, wolves panting)

(wind howling)

One particular species has invited back the wolf.

(foreboding music)

(wind howling)

(boar snorts)

(suspenseful music)

A burly wild boar would be too risky a quarry for a single wolf.

(exciting music) But as a team,

the pack is confident it can take on a single animal.

(exciting music)

(boar grunts)

Poor judgement.

This individual seems rather powerful.

Better to let it go.

(boar grunts)

But somewhere, there's always a ready meal.

Worn out by the rut, the trials of winter have proved too much

for an old stag.

(sombre music)

Winter is a hostile season.

Up among the peaks, it never really ends.

The monumental Matterhorn,

and the massive Mont Blanc,

are featured as the thrones of winter

in ancient Alpine law.

(sweeping orchestral music)

No matter how often the sun has risen during past millennia,

so far it's never thawed away the snow on these iconic summits,

never stripped them of their mantle of majesty.

However stunning the snow-capped Alps may appear

from distant lowlands,

to fully appreciate their glory,

their vastness and complexity,

one must ride the winds like an eagle.

(majestic orchestral music)

But the face of the Alps is changing.

A thick new layer of winter snow

veils the rapid melt of what used to be called

"the eternal ice".

Over aeons, at a glacial pace,

ice has been grinding down the rocks.

Now, a warming climate bears down on the glaciers.

In their rapid demise, winter is just a minor break.

(snow crunches)

Even the harshest winter has its balmy days.

The storm is over.

But other risks persist.

(flapping)

(wind howls)

Ptarmigans and hares

are now replacing marmots on the eagles' menu.

(paws crunching on snow)

But the little animals in their winter suits are lucky.

The eagle is distracted.

(chirping)

A huge bearded vulture allows no stranger near his nest.

(flapping)

Ignoring the sky,

the youngsters are caught up in a play fight.

(paws crunching on snow)

In the eastern Alps, tracks in the fresh snow

are evidence of chamois on their way back up to the high ridges.

The forest offered shelter from the wind,

but little food.

The snow now lies deep.

It's only on windswept hilltops

where some grazing might be found.

After a blizzard, the steep lee side of a mountain

can turn into a hazard zone.

(rumbling)

(wind howling)

The wind, the architect of avalanches,

has moved enormous volumes of snow.

Along the edges, it has piled up huge drifts.

Tonnes and tonnes of wind-pressed snow

projecting from sheer cliffs

are a threat to every living thing below.

(scratching)

(tense music) Impossible to say when the spell will break.

(thud, rumble)

(wind howling)

(echoing thud)

(clattering)

(rumbling)

(clattering and rumbling)

(rock crumbling)

(whoosh)

The speed and force of the white death

is beyond comprehension. (galloping)

(deep rumbling)

Heart-stopping violence

fades into peaceful silence.

(quiet music, wind blowing)

A new sunrise -

an expression of nature's indifference.

(raven caws)

The misfortune of some

is fortunate for others.

(ravens caw softly)

(flapping)

(ravens squawk) Ravens, as always,

the first to descend on a funeral feast.

(ravens squawk)

A frozen chamois is not exactly fast food,

yet the ravens must be quick before the sovereign claims his own.

(tense music)

(slow flapping)

(eagle screeches)

(eagle screeches)

(raven caws)

Both ravens and eagles depend on avalanche victims

to make it through the winter,

and get ready for an early breeding season.

(flapping)

(playful music)

(ravens squawk)

"Cleanliness is next to godliness,"

the old saying goes.

And why not mix in a little playfulness?

(ravens squawk)

When dense fogs fill the valleys,

they give a vague impression of an ice-age panorama of the alps

some 20,000 years ago.

(majestic orchestral music)

Back then, only the highest peaks would protrude from the ice,

such as the Grossglockner,

Austria's highest mountain.

It's been the ice ages that sculpted the rising Alps

and ground them down to their present size.

Where the ice has vanished,

grassland and woodland has conquered the ground,

inviting new inhabitants.

(quiet music, birdsong)

Europe's biggest cat.

The Eurasian lynx is another revenant to the Alps,

after a century of absence.

(bird squawks)

(bird caws softly)

The lynx is an elusive, solitary hunter.

(tense music)

Roe deer, abundant in Alpine forests,

are his preferred prey.

Like most cats,

the lynx hunts by surprise,

not chase.

(hooves crunch on snow)

(suspenseful music)

Between hunter and hunted,

it's a battle of the senses.

(soft crackling)

Both animals pick up the slightest sound,

the smallest movement.

(bird caws)

Cats can move noiselessly,

like ghosts.

(tense music, birdsong)

Success depends on getting close enough

for a surprise attack.

(tense music, birdsong)

(exciting music)

(music quietens) The frustration is shared.

(bird caws)

(water rushing)

The waters are beginning to flow again.

(loud lapping)

(gentle splashing)

The ice is gone.

Warm winds set off the snow melt.

(soft music, gentle splashing)

Even under the snow,

the marmot's inner clock

is right on time.

There's nothing in these mountains

that would escape an eagle's eye.

High up on a tiny ledge,

two delicate new lives have just begun.

(sweeping orchestral music)

As spring cascades towards another Alpine summer,

thousands of parents will again

raise the next generation of wildlife

in the Alps.

(chick squawks softly)

(sweeping orchestral music)