What to Watch – Sir David Attenborough returns to narrate Parenthood – a groundbreaking wildlife series on nature’s ultimate challenge: parenting. The series is now available to stream on BBC iPlayer and can be watched weekly on Sunday evenings on BBC One.
From the world-class natural history storytelling company Silverback Films comes Parenthood, a breathtaking new series that explores the universal struggle of raising the next generation. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough and with lyrics co-written and performed by Sam Ryder, this five-part series captures the extraordinary lengths animals go to ensure the survival of their young.
Filmed over three years across six continents and 23 countries, Parenthood showcases astonishing, never-before-seen animal behaviours in stunning 6K ultra high definition. From the remote jungles of Bhutan to the grasslands of Botswana, each episode reveals the unique—and often surprisingly familiar—challenges faced by animal parents worldwide. The stakes couldn’t be higher – success for all parents ensures the future of life on our planet.
Packed with never-before-seen behaviours filmed in 6k ultra high definition with music scored by Tom Howe (Ted Lasso, Mulan), Parenthood is the definitive wildlife series on life’s greatest challenge.
Episode Guide
Episode One – The Greatest Adventure
Parenthood is a journey like no other – full of risk and reward. Every habitat has a unique set of challenges, and every parent has a unique strategy to overcome them. The stakes, however, couldn’t be higher. Success, for all parents, ensures the future of life on our planet.
Finding a suitable home is the first challenge. In the Kalahari, lion mothers survive by raising one another’s cubs in times of need – only these mothers have the added risk of having to teach their cubs to also become giant hunters. Elsewhere, in Texas, a pair of burrowing owls provides an underground nest for their chicks, giving them protection while they work around the clock to supply food.
Food is vital to all parents’ success – but a mother hippo in Tanzania has to leave the safety of her pool every night to find grass for her and her calf, running a gauntlet of hungry lions hidden in the dark with her newborn calf.
Some parents take providing to extremes. In a sequence never seen in a documentary before, an African social spider regurgitates a “milk” made from dissolved body parts to feed her young. Once her spiderlings need something more substantial, however, she offers herself – and her spiderlings eat her alive. It is the ultimate parental sacrifice.
Animal parents are having to adapt to a rapidly changing world, and the recovery of the Iberian Lynx in southern Spain is a remarkable success story, showing how humans can help animal parents thrive in the face of enormous challenges.
Parenthood Episode Two: BBC/Silverback Films/Richard Shucksmith
Episode Two – Oceans
Parenting in the oceans is extremely rare. Most marine animals avoid it altogether, leaving their young to fend for themselves. However, those animals that do take on the challenge have some of the most remarkable parenting strategies on Earth.
In coral reefs, where space is limited, creatures must be creative to find homes for their young. In Indonesia, a dedicated banggai cardinalfish father overcomes this problem by raising his young inside his mouth, while remarkable dolphin mothers in the Red Sea use the reef to teach their calves games, and then, as they grow, to use the reef to self-medicate.
In colder oceans, seaweed serves as the perfect nursery. The masterful camouflage of the weedy sea dragon in Australia helps a father keep his eggs safe, while the extraordinary skeleton shrimp has to piggyback her young amongst the currents whilst searching for food. A resourceful otter mother in Scotland must find enough fish amongst the seaweed to keep her three kits safe, but to do so, she leaves them alone for hours at a time, with near-disastrous consequences.
Some marine parents use intelligence to adapt. Killer whale mothers in Australia teach their pod to hunt blue whales, a cultural lesson passed down through the generations and key to their future success. Nearby, an octopus mother transforms a discarded plastic pipe into a home for her eggs, which she guards relentlessly until they are independent.
In South Africa, Cape gannet parents fly hundreds of miles to find food for their growing chick. Yet despite this remarkable parental dedication, their fledglings face great challenges. Their first flight involves dodging hungry fur seals, which now prey on gannet chicks due to depleted fish stocks. Across our planet, humans must play a vital role if ocean parents are to continue to thrive.
Episode Three – Grasslands
In the open grasslands of our planet, parents must constantly balance risk and reward when raising the next generation. While abundant grass promises plentiful food and places for a family to call home, the exposed landscape brings competition and predators.
In England, an ingenious potter wasp takes full advantage of the grassland’s bounty; expertly building a clay cradle and stuffing it full of caterpillars for offspring she will never meet. In Kenya’s Masai Mara, a cheetah mother uses the open stage to show her cubs the hunting skills they will need as adults. Essential when she needs help tackling a wildebeest calf.
However, for others, achieving this balance is more challenging. In the open plains of the Lower Zambezi, a thirty-strong wild dog pack has all the odds in their favour. But the parents must instil discipline in their inexperienced pups or risk them ruining the hunt. In India, langur mothers must first learn to be good babysitters before taking on the parental role—and for some, it doesn’t come easily.
A changing planet continually shifts the balance between risk and reward, forcing parents across the grasslands to make new and difficult choices. In the Kalahari, sociable weaver birds make the largest nests in the world, shielding their colony from the sun’s heat. However, an unbearable heatwave causes social order to break down as disgruntled neighbours begin to evict their neighbours’ chicks. In Patagonia, a guanaco mother must join thousands of others in trying to reach winter feeding grounds, only to be faced by mile upon mile of fencing.
The challenges for animal parents are becoming more intense, but simple solutions from humans can ultimately determine the future and stability of life on our grasslands.
Parenthood Episode Three: BBC/Matthew Polvorosa Kline/Silverback Films
Episode Four – Freshwater
All life needs water to live. Yet water itself is not constantly available, and animal parents must relentlessly adapt to this challenge. Dedication, perseverance and sheer bravery are key to success in the Freshwater world.
In the Brazilian Amazon, thousands of turtle parents must predict the timings of the seasonal rains before laying their eggs. If they get it wrong, their hatchlings will drown underground, but if they get it right, it is the beginning of one of Earth’s greatest spectacles as thousands of baby turtles follow their mothers’ calls into the water. In Namibia, waterholes provide a reliable resource for a desert-dwelling Namaqua sandgrouse father. But he must pick his moment wisely when collecting water for his chicks. One second out, and he will end up in the claws of a raptor.
Some animal parents try to use the power of water to their advantage. In a Caribbean river, a tri tri goby harnesses the currents to oxygenate his eggs. But before they can even be laid, a once-in-a-lifetime storm sweeps him and everything he’s built downstream. He must climb one thousand feet of waterfalls to get another chance at parenthood. In the swamplands of Florida, a clever swamp canary parent uses the power of snacks to entice its young hatchlings from the jaws of danger, with only moments to spare.
For some, the search for water can feel never-ending. In drought-ridden Kenya, an elephant matriarch and her family must share the remaining water with humans until finally the rains come. When they do, the power of water threatens to turn deadly.
As the climate shifts, freshwater is becoming harder to predict. Humans and wildlife are adapting to changing freshwater patterns, but we can choose to give the next generation a future with more reliable freshwater.
Episode Five – Jungles
Raising young in the complex world of jungles takes ingenuity. Parents must become masters of their environment, learning to exploit all opportunities if they are to secure the future of the next generation.
In remote Bhutan, a pair of rufous-necked hornbills has a lifelong partnership built on trust and dedication – the mother is imprisoned for a hundred days inside a tree, relying on her mate to support her family. Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, a plucky, pug-nosed frog shares its home with a huge, venomous tarantula. This unlikely duo makes a great team – the tarantula acts as a live-in bodyguard, and the diminutive frog stays home to keep their shared home clean. In Jamaica, an ingenious crab mother works tirelessly to raise her brood of minuscule crablets. With scientific precision, she utilises the resources available in the forest to create the ideal conditions for her nursery pool.
Elsewhere, some jungle parents need space to roam – and some are forced to adapt when their habitat changes around them. “Crinkle”, a cassowary father in Australia, navigates his chicks through new dangers in the oldest rainforest in the world. In the Amazon, forest fires force a tapir mother to seek a new territory where she can find vital, life-giving minerals, and in China, white-headed langurs cling to the edge of existence. Their limestone pinnacles are surrounded by farmland, and they need to fight for what’s left to ensure a safe place for their young.
Remarkably, in all of our jungles, new science shows ancient ‘mother trees’ providing not only for their own offspring, but also for countless other rainforest families, from the tops of the canopy right down into the leaf litter. Their influence may be the key to all of our survival.
Parenthood is now available to stream on BBC iPlayer and can be watched weekly on Sunday evenings on BBC One.
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