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1. Beautiful People (1974)

With a million species at risk of extinction, David Attenborough explores how this crisis of biodiversity has consequences for us all, including putting us at greater risk of pandemic diseases.

With a million species at risk of extinction, Sir David Attenborough explores how this crisis of biodiversity has consequences for us all, threatening food and water security, undermining our ability to control our climate and even putting us at greater risk of pandemic diseases.

Extinction is now happening up to 100 times faster than the natural evolutionary rate, but the issue is about more than the loss of individual species. Everything in the natural world is connected in networks that support the whole of life on earth, including us, and we are losing many of the benefits that nature provides to us. The loss of insects is threatening the pollination of crops, while the loss of biodiversity in the soil also threatens plants growth. Plants underpin many of the things that we need, and yet one in four is now threatened with extinction.

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Last year, a UN report identified the key drivers of biodiversity loss, including overfishing, climate change and pollution. But the single biggest driver of biodiversity loss is the destruction of natural habitats. Seventy-five per cent of Earth's land surface (where not covered by ice) has been changed by humans, much of it for agriculture, and as consumers we may unwittingly be contributing towards the loss of species through what we buy in the supermarket.

Our destructive relationship with the natural world isn’t just putting the ecosystems that we rely on at risk. Human activities like the trade in animals and the destruction of habitats drive the emergence of diseases. Disease ecologists believe that if we continue on this pathway, this year’s pandemic will not be a one-off event.

If you're fascinated by the wonders of our natural world, you'll love updates from the . We'll tell you about new programmes, go behind the scenes and bring you incredible wildlife clips and articles.In a body of work spanning seven decades and more than 100 series, Sir David Attenborough, who turns 91 today, has come face to face with thousands of extraordinary species, creating some of the most unforgettable moments in television.  Here are ten of the best:

Beautiful People (1974)

In a nutshell: In this half-hour retrospective, Sir David revists his early work as a fresh-faced presenter for the BBC .  There are some hidden treasures here, such as a report on the music of Sierra Leone, but the real highlights are his encounters with animals – including the first-ever footage of an indri lemur, and his poignant meeting with an elderly Elsa the Lioness (very much the Cecil the Lion of her day).

While you're on iPlayer, don't miss out on the real treat for nature lovers: the BBC's free online collection of 31 original Attenborough documentaries - including his original 1961 film about Elsa.

In a nutshell: Camels! Meercats! Wildebeest! Africa has seldom looked better than it does in this glossy, high-definition five-parter. One scene, however, proved controversial: Attenborough’s camera-crew stood by and watched as a young elephant died of dehydration.

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“The worst thing in this series, as far as I’m concerned, was that poor little baby elephant dying of thirst, ” he conceded at the time, but reminded critics that his duty was always “to be the observer – a non-participant.” It’s that combination of empathy and objectivity which gives this show its emotional heft.

In a nutshell:  Ten years on from The Blue Planet, Attenborough may have been covering familiar ground here, but was also more confident in his craft than ever before. As The ’s  Tom Chivers put it in a five-star review, Frozen Planet “is nothing new. What it is, however, is brilliant.”

One caveat: Netflix does not have the seventh part, On Thin Ice. This final instalment, showing the effects of climate change, was considered controversial on its first broadcast: fearing a backlash, 10 American TV stations refused to air the episode.

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In a nutshell: Shot entirely in high-definition, this epic ten-part series was perhaps the most ambitious undertaking on this list: covering all life on the planet, and using the latest high-speed cameras (at 8, 000 frames per second) to capture moments never previously seen on film. It’s filled with breathtaking moments,   from watching  a Jesus Christ Lizard skirt across the surface of a pool, to the rarely-seen courtship dance of the marvellous spatuletail hummingbird.

In a nutshell: It’s amazing what you can find lying around in your basement. A tiny Faberge jewel of a documentary, this one-off special sees Sir David trace the history of a giant, fossilised egg he had been keeping in his cellar for 50 years, after picking it up while filming in Madagascar. The foot-long egg came from the long-extinct Madagascan elephant bird, a popular source of food for the islanders a thousand years ago; one egg could feed an entire family.

In a nutshell: This groundbreaking series took three years to make, and was at the time the most expensive nature programme the BBC had ever made. It was worth it. Shot in glorious high-definition, it charts the range and variety of Earth’s landscapes, from Ethiopian volcanoes to the world’s deepest caves, from Mongolia’s Gobi Desert to the rainforests of New Guinea. Fun fact: in the US, this series was narrated by Sigourney Weaver. Similarly, the voice-over for the American broadcast of Life (2009) was provided by Oprah Winfrey.

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In a nutshell: This is, of course, the series in which Sir David says “boo” to a sloth.  Even after dedicating five episodes of Life on Earth (1979) to mammals, there was still enough left to cover to merit a new 10-part series. Let’s face it: mammals are the best. When Attenborough looks into the face of a Bornean orang-utan, we see a tiny part of ourselves looking back. Attenborough documentary is a familiar beast. He’s been doing them for 57 years: understandably, he feels he’s got the hang of them by now.

In a nutshell: Nature has never looked stranger than it does in The Blue Planet. It’s filled with weird, undulating creatures from the deep. There’s plenty to admire here, from the comical walking handfish to the unearthly beauty of Australian squid, which change colour during their mating “ballet” – but the real stars are the emperor penguins.

In a nutshell: Amongst the varied fauna of these documentaries, it’s easy to forget that flora can be just as exciting. 21 years on, The Private Life of Plants still ranks alongside Attenborough’s finest work. With its revolutionary time-lapse photography, filmed as if from the perspective of the plants themselves, the series showed vines crawling like  living creatures (which, of course, they are). It’s eerily beautiful, even unsettling. Back in the Nineties it gave this young reviewer plant-based nightmares for weeks, after watching nondescript shrubs move like vicious, lumbering  triffids. You’ll never look at a Venus flytrap the same way again.

Wild Isles (tv Mini Series 2023)

In a nutshell: A first-rate nature documentary isn’t all about the visuals. For The Life of Birds, sound came first: the crew were determined not to dub in a single sound – every bird-call you hear was recorded at the exact moment you see the bird creating it. The dawn chorus of Britain’s birds in episode five is unparalleled, a perfect, beautiful synthesis of image and sound.