Name: Finding Food
Released: 1990-10-18

Trials of Life

S1 · E3 — Finding Food

S1:E3 · Finding Food

Episodes

12 episodes in this season

Arriving

50 min

Growing Up

50 min

Now Playing

Finding Food

50 min

Hunting and Escaping

50 min

Finding the Way

50 min

Home Making

50 min

Living Together

50 min

Fighting

50 min

Friends and Rivals

50 min

E10

Talking to Strangers

50 min

E11

Courting

50 min

E12

Continuing the Line

50 min

Trials of Life

TV Series

199050m8.4

DocumentaryFamily

Now playing

Finding Food

Season 1 · Episode 3 · Oct 18, 1990

The next installment is devoted to the ways in which animals gather their sustenance. Attenborough begins in the South American rainforest, where the proliferation of animal and plant life does not necessarily make it easy to find food. Some leaves are poisonous, and so those that eat them have to be careful. Other plants use food (or nectar) as a bribe to get their pollen transported, and several species of hummingbird have developed exclusive relationships with certain of them. Fruit is also on offer, again as a means of reproduction, and creatures such as squirrel monkeys eat little else. Meanwhile, parrots and macaws take kaolin as an antidote to their diet of toxic seeds. Attenborough witnesses a 60,000 strong flock of knot and dunlin suddenly take advantage of a low tide to feed on tiny mud-dwelling molluscs. Barracuda hunt small fish, and drive shoals of them into bays to be eaten by pelicans, which are besieged by gulls that attempt to steal their catches. One species of gecko is able to differentiate between worker termites and the more dangerous soldiers. The web of the orb spider is hailed as one of the most elegant food catching devices, and the methods of two others, nephila and its kleptoparasite visitor, argyrodes, are explored in detail. Finally, tropicbirds, their crops full with food en route back to their nests, are ambushed in mid-air by a group of frigatebirds, whose aim is to make them surrender their cargo.

6.0episode rating

More details

Trials of Life

TV Series

199050m8.4

DocumentaryFamily

Now playing

Finding Food

Season 1 · Episode 3 · Oct 18, 1990

6.0episode rating

More details