David Attenborough may be 88 years old, but you will not find him eating green Jell-O on a Barcalounger. Recently, the octogenarian was braving minus-40-degree weather in Antarctica one day and piloting a glider alongside a digitally rendered pterosaur on another. 鈥淩ather more fun than sitting in the corner slobbering, isn鈥檛 it?鈥 he teased last June at , near Cambridge, where I found him filming scenes for Conquest of the Skies, a three-part series in 3D about the evolution of flight.
For more than 60 years鈥攊n black and white, color, HD, and, recently, 3D鈥攖he legendary broadcaster has introduced millions of people to , , and countless other amazing wonders of the natural world. In Britain, where he lives, Attenborough was recently voted the most trusted figure, in a public poll, and is widely considered the 鈥済reatest living national treasure.鈥 (He鈥檚 also an extinct treasure: A Mesozoic reptile, Attenborosaurus, bears his name.)
Wicken Fen鈥檚 meadows and sedge beds make up one of the most species-rich habitats in Britain, and offered an ideal setting for filming dragonflies. Attenborough lay on the grassy bank of a canal beside a foot-long fossil cast of a griffinfly, a giant dragonfly-like predator that conquered the skies during the Carboniferous Period. The sky above was cloudless and warm, and Attenborough wore his signature blue, short-sleeve collared shirt and khaki slacks, in the fashion of a gentleman naturalist.
As the crew from Atlantic Productions aligned the 3D cameras, Attenborough ran a comb through his thick silver hair. By his nature鈥攁nd that of his work鈥擜ttenborough is not one to rely on hair and makeup people. A couple of months earlier, in Borneo, he had gamely offered to hang from a rope 250 feet high inside the Gomantong Caves as a million bats flew past him on a feeding exodus. In Scotland he took part in a high-speed boat chase down a loch with a flock of swans.
鈥淚 joke that Daniel Craig always does his own stunts for Bond, and, well, David does his own, too,鈥 said Anthony Geffen, the series producer. 鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 want someone else to.鈥
When David Attenborough speaks, it is in a soothing, melodic voice that can take the form of an enthusiastic whisper. 鈥淟et me tell you, when you鈥檙e sitting next to a gorilla, you don鈥檛 shout,鈥 he told me.
This day at Wicken Fen, murmuring to himself, Attenborough rehearsed the lines he鈥檇 prepared for his 鈥減iece to camera,鈥 the classic field bit he is sometimes known to utter while short of breath. Attenborough carefully scripts each program himself, leaning on scientific papers and various specialists, but will often tweak the wording of a line right up until the shot. 鈥淗e鈥檚 careful not to exaggerate things, because then you quickly run out of platitudes鈥攈e lets the stories be told by the creatures around him,鈥 Geffen said. 鈥淏ut often he will highlight an extraordinary thing, or he鈥檒l just suddenly think, 鈥榃ell, isn鈥檛 that just a better way into the story.鈥 鈥
The director, David Lee, called for quiet. 鈥淎re we ready? And . . . action!鈥
Attenborough began slowly in his distinctive cadence, as if lecturing to a class of undergraduates. 鈥淭his is a cast of the oldest fossilized wing yet discovered,鈥 he said to the camera, which was affixed to a 10-foot crane. 鈥淎s you can see, it looks very like that of a dragonfly. Except that it is . . . gigantic.鈥
Take two. James Manister, a scientist working with the production company, pointed out that the fossil was in fact the oldest 鈥渃omplete鈥 wing fragment. Attenborough started in again. 鈥淚t was found in rocks dating from 290 million years ago, in North America. And its owner must have had a wingspan of around 60 centimeters.鈥
With dramatic flair, he scrunched his face: 鈥淚t was a monster.鈥
Even Americans who might reach for the name David Attenborough鈥斺淚s that the Planet Earth guy?鈥濃攚ould easily recognize his voice, which has pretty much become synonymous with natural history television. (It has also lent itself to self-parody; Attenborough fans will enjoy he did last year, for BBC Radio 1, of a Great Britain-U.S. women鈥檚 Olympic curling event: 鈥淥ff she goes, gently but flamboyantly launching the oversized walnut down the frozen river . . .鈥)
Across his astonishing career, Attenborough has written, narrated, or appeared in more than 100 programs. Taken together, they amount to an unabridged survey of life on earth鈥攆rom the planet鈥檚 origins to its polar habitats to insects to birds to evolution. But Attenborough鈥檚 earliest interest was fossils.
As a child he kept a museum of stones and fossils in his family鈥檚 home in Leicester. At 13, purportedly without his parents鈥 knowledge, he bicycled alone for three weeks to the Lake District and back, on a collecting trip. In grammar school he read about the journeys of the 19th century British naturalists; at 14, he once said, he thought 鈥渢hat the only thing any decent, red-blooded male could want to do in life is climb Everest.鈥 (He has trekked around the north and south poles, and many places in between, but alas, never to the world鈥檚 highest peak.) Attenborough went on to study natural sciences at Cambridge but realized he was not cut out to be a scientist. At 26, after a two-year stint in the Royal Navy followed by a spell editing children鈥檚 science textbooks, he landed his first job as a BBC producer.
Back then, animal TV programs consisted of a London Zoo employee, under glaring studio lights, describing an animal that he鈥檇 plucked from its cage. 鈥淭hese poor creatures looked like oddities鈥擨 mean, they looked like freaks,鈥 Attenborough told an audience in 2011. 鈥淚 thought, why can鈥檛 we show the animals in the wild?鈥 Sixteen-millimeter film limited the quality of pictures taken inside a dark rainforest, but Attenborough figured that the BBC could at least film zoo people trapping the wild animals and then describe them later in a studio. Zoo Quest, which pioneered on-location wildlife filmmaking, began in Sierra Leone, where the crew, including Attenborough as the sound recorder, captured a White-necked Rockfowl. When the zoo employee fell sick, Attenborough pinch-hit in the presenter role: In Guyana, he got a close-up with some anteaters; in New Guinea, Zoo Quest was the first to capture a bird of paradise display in the wild. Recalling this a few years ago, Attenborough said: 鈥淚 thought, what a racket. Wow, if I can play my cards right, I can get away again.鈥
Today there are few corners of the planet where David Attenborough hasn鈥檛 traveled鈥攐n his programs, he鈥檚 fond of beginning a sentence on one continent and completing it on another鈥攁lthough he鈥檚 as happy at his Richmond home, on the outskirts of London, gazing at the ducks and rare plants in his garden pond. Since Jane, his wife of nearly 40 years, died in 1997 of a brain hemorrhage, Attenborough has lived there with his daughter amid displays of fossils, aboriginal art, and books on many subjects. He doesn鈥檛 think of himself as a savvy socializer (鈥淚鈥檓 not very good at cocktail parties,鈥 he鈥檚 said) or a misanthrope (鈥淚鈥檓 not obsessed by the natural world to the exclusion of human beings,鈥 he told me). However, there is one human issue that keeps him up at night: Population growth鈥攖he world鈥檚 numbers have since Attenborough started making programs. He鈥檚 affiliated with , a U.K.-based think tank, and is outspoken on the issue: 鈥淚 believe that almost every ill that afflicts the world today can be put down to increasing population size,鈥 he said.
At Wicken Fen, while the cameramen set up another shot on a footbridge by the visitors center, Attenborough sat quietly by himself in a lawn chair under a canopy. He鈥檚 still spry, but as he ambled around, slightly hunched and swaying, his body resembled an aging elephant. At his feet rested a black Samsonite briefcase stickered with 鈥淒A,鈥 which contained The Times, a handwritten address book, and an outmoded cell phone.
The next scene on the bridge (ultimately scrapped from the film) involved Attenborough describing a prehistoric dragonfly on the railing that would be rendered using computer-generated imagery. Since the mid-1960s, when he ran BBC Two and oversaw the introduction of color television, Attenborough has kept apace with technological advances as a means to tell better, current, unseen stories. For , he wondered at the outset how the producers could get cameras in the air to simulate a true bird鈥檚-eye view. Atlantic Productions then developed, from scratch, a 3-D 鈥渙ctocopter鈥 that holds two cameras side by side, which it says is the first of its kind. 鈥淗e鈥檚 not a gadget king, but I鈥檓 constantly talking to him about new technology, and he loves it,鈥 said Geffen, who has made 10 programs with Attenborough, including Micro Monsters 3D, which used fiber-optic cameras. Their next project, about the Great Barrier Reef, will employ satellite photography and cutting-edge underwater cameras. 鈥淗e鈥檚 like a kid,鈥 Geffen said. 鈥 鈥榃hat can it do, let鈥檚 have a look at it.鈥 鈥
Take one. Attenborough reached the empty spot on the railing and looked to the camera: 鈥淗ow is it that these ancient dragonflies grew to be that size, whereas no dragonfly today can?鈥 he asked. 鈥淭he answer seems to be with the air. Or, rather, the amount of oxygen that鈥檚 in the air.鈥
Attenborough鈥檚 great talent is in distilling the stuff of lengthy scientific papers into pithy, descriptive sound bites, and telling stories that manage to feel fresh despite the fact that we鈥檝e all seen countless clips of hummingbirds and coral reefs. In Britain, Attenborough programs draw on a certain national nostalgia, but it鈥檚 nevertheless remarkable that an 88-year-old in grandpa pants has managed to stay relevant鈥攁nd as popular as ever鈥攊n the age of Finding Bigfoot and Pit Bulls and Parolees (two Animal Planet hits).
The director called for another take. Excusing himself for a moment, Attenborough walked behind the camera and pulled a field guide out of his briefcase.
鈥淐lassic David,鈥 remarked Geffen. 鈥淭his is going across the world, and he wants to make damn sure it鈥檚 right.鈥