Attenborough Finds Paradise

They are the shape-shifters of the natural world: melodic, iridescent, and extravagant. Meet the birds-of-paradise, a posse of 39 species from New Guinea, Indonesia, and eastern Australia that have captivated explorers and biologists for more than 500 years. Not even the eminent naturalist David Attenborough is immune to their charms. Attenborough’s new film, Paradise Birds, is dedicated exclusively to these members of the animal kingdom.

“For me birds-of-paradise are the most romantic and glamorous birds in the world. And this is a film I have wanted to make for 40 years,” Attenborough said when the show was announced. His decades-long effort to track the birds—he studied them for half a century, and even wrote a book about them—comes to life in the film, which the BBC recently aired in the United Kingdom. In it, the 88-year-old Attenborough recounts the myths and legends that surround these ostentatious avians, and explains how evolution factors into their otherworldly displays.

The film comes on the heels of the Birds-of-Paradise Project, a huge effort spearheaded by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Geographic to photograph, film, and record the songs of all 39 species in their native habitats. For this venture, photographer Tim Laman and biologist Edwin Scholes combed the New Guinean jungles over an eight-year period. It took them 18 expeditions to document all the bird-of-paradise species. Scholes credits Attenborough’s long-lived love of these birds for his own fascination. Attenborough returns the favor, it seems, by using some of the duo’s footage in his new film.

The epic effort gave rise to an impressive online archive that explains how sexual selection and geographic isolation resulted in physical and behavioral diversity in this group of birds that is unparalleled in the avian kingdom. Unfortunately, the adaptations that gave the birds such vibrant tail feathers—like those in the Blue Bird-of-Paradise—also make them attractive to poachers. Massive habitat destruction, caused by the logging industry in New Guinea, is the second of the birds’ downfalls. By emphasizing their vividness on screen, Attenborough makes it clear that we can't lose the birds-of-paradise to these caprices.

Here’s a preview of the new BBC film, which doesn’t yet have a U.S. air date: