The BEST episodes directed by Phil Chapman
#1 - Top Bat
Natural World - Season 20 - Episode 15
Rebecca Hosking presents an insight into the world of vampire bats, observing them in their natural habitat. She reveals that despite their dark reputation, they possess amazing abilities, including seeing in the dark and echo-location - technology which could benefit humans with impaired vision
Watch Now:Amazon
#2 - Water
The Great Rift: Africa's Wild Heart - Season 1 - Episode 2
The Great Rift Valley channels a huge diversity of waterways - rivers, lakes, waterfalls, caustic springs and coral seas - spanning from Egypt to Mozambique. Some lake and ocean deeps harbor previously unseen life-forms, while caustic waters challenge life to the extreme. But where volcanic minerals enrich the Great Rift's waterways, they provide the most spectacular concentrations of birds, mammals and fish in all Africa.
Watch Now:Amazon
#3 - Grass
The Great Rift: Africa's Wild Heart - Season 1 - Episode 3
The Great Rift Valley provides the stage for an epic battle between trees and grass - its course influenced by volcanic eruptions, landscape and rainfall. On its outcome rests the fate of Africa's great game herds. In the Rift's savannas, grazers and their predators struggle to outwit each other, forcing one group of primates to develop a social system that paved the way for the evolution of mankind.
Watch Now:Amazon
#4 - Fire
The Great Rift: Africa's Wild Heart - Season 1 - Episode 1
The valley is the product of deep-seated geological forces which have spewed out a line of cloud-wreathed volcanoes stretching from Ethiopia to Tanzania. Their peaks provide a refuge for East Africa's most extraordinary wildlife, including newly discovered and previously unfilmed species which have evolved surprising survival strategies to cope with their challenging mountain environment.
Watch Now:Amazon
#5 - Heart of the Dragon
Wild China - Season 1 - Episode 1
The improbable egg-carton hills of Southern China seem to float in a sea of glistening rice paddies. This is a landscape full of surprises. Next to peasants ploughing with buffaloes are rivers concealing dwarf alligators and giant salamanders, trained cormorants that catch fish for their masters, bats with unusual tastes and monkeys that hide in caves. But this isn't a nature park. Almost 300 million people live here, with a tradition of eating wildlife. So what forces have shaped this remarkable landscape and how do farmers and wild creatures manage to coexist among the rocks and the rice fields?
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
#6 - Ocean Giants: Voices of the Sea
Nature - Season 30 - Episode 10
Whales and dolphins conjure a deep sense of wonder in us that’s hard to explain. From the Arctic to the Amazon, this groundbreaking three-part series goes on a global expedition with world-renowned underwater cameramen, Doug Allen (Planet Earth) and Didier Noirot (Jacques Cousteau’s cameraman), as they capture spellbinding footage of these marine mammals. Ocean Giants looks at how cetaceans hunt, mate, and communicate, and follows scientists as they strive to uncover new insights about these animals. Marine mammals’ extrasensory perceptions and communication skills are the focus of Voices of the Sea, the final hour of the series. Whales and dolphins depend on sound to function in their ocean home. They use ultrasound to see inside other creatures, clicks and whistles to speak, and echolocation to navigate and hunt in the pitch-black depths.
#7 - Capybara: Swamp Hogs
Natural World - Season 17 - Episode 2
This is the story of one Capybara group,whose territory spans a patchwork of of wildlife-rich swamp,grassland & forest in Venezuela's Orinoco flood plain -the "Llanos".
#8 - Hippo Beach
Natural World - Season 19 - Episode 13
Insight into the bizarre behavioural habits of the African hippo, a creature which spends most of its lifetime in water but cannot swim, and eats mainly grass yet thinks nothing of challenging a lion for a share of its kill. Featuring action-packed footage of fearsome hippo bulls as they defend their territories
#9 - Deadly Vipers
Natural World - Season 19 - Episode 3
Predators with the largest fangs of any snake and venom containing up to 50 deadly ingredients, vipers kill more people than any other animal. But now that medical science is beginning to discover the healing power of natural poisons, could this lethal reptile turn out to be a boon for mankind?
#10 - Hippo Beach
Nature - Season 22 - Episode 1
A chronicle of hippopotamus life along the banks of Zambia's Luangwa River includes footage of males fighting over territory; females protecting their young; the hippo's importance to river ecology; and societal rituals involving the head male of the pod. Mark Hamill narrates.