A mountain gorilla mother with her baby on a mossy tree in Bwindi

Animal Babies:
First Year on Earth

BBC Natural History Unit · BBC Two & PBS

Role: Series Producer
Format: 3 × 60′
For: BBC Natural History Unit for BBC Two & PBS
From: 2017

The series

The first and most hazardous year in the lives of six baby animals: a mountain gorilla, a spotted hyena, a savanna elephant, a toque macaque, a southern sea otter and an Arctic fox. We filmed in Uganda, Kenya, the USA, Sri Lanka and Iceland, with the camera crew and scientists on screen, interpreting what we were seeing.

For me, it meant time with mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, and filming Arctic foxes in Hornstrandir, in Iceland, which looked like Middle Earth.

One baby, one year

What made this series unusual, though many people assume it's the norm in wildlife filmmaking, is that we followed one real animal through a whole year. We couldn't substitute another, as is commonplace in telling these stories. If one of our babies had died, we would have had to start filming again, and we had backup plans in case.

Our baby mountain gorilla, Nyakabara, had a white bracelet of fur on her wrist. So we always knew, and the viewer always knew, that this was the same baby we were following, filmed over three shoots across her first year of life.

Nyakabara, a baby mountain gorilla, clinging to her mother, with a white bracelet of fur on her wrist — Nyakabara, with her white bracelet of fur

Clips

A baby toque macaque beneath the Animal Babies title

Title sequence Episode 1 · BBC Two

A young mountain gorilla chewing leaves — Mountain gorilla, Bwindi

Mountain gorillas resting together in the undergrowth — The family at rest

Two mountain gorillas looking out through leaves — Looking back

A camera drone above the forested hills of Bwindi — A drone over Bwindi

Volcanoes on the horizon above dark forest — Volcanoes on the horizon

Dominic Weston in a sun hat and sunglasses above the forest — Me in Bwindi

Dominic Weston in black and white in Hornstrandir, Iceland — Me in Hornstrandir, Iceland

The six baby animals of Animal Babies: First Year on Earth — The six babies

An elephant and hyenas at dawn on the savanna — Savanna elephant and spotted hyenas

Behind the scenes in Bwindi

The film team from the BBC and the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation standing together outside — The team from the BBC and the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation at Bwindi

Vianet Djenguet in a hat and face mask in the forest, beside a camera — DOP and presenter Vianet Djenguet

Drew and Mark in masks steadying a camera slider on a forested slope — Drew and Mark stabilising the slider on a forested mountain slope

Martha Robbins and Dominic Weston smiling outdoors — Pioneering mountain gorilla researcher Martha Robbins and me

All films Next · Growing Up Animal

Animal Babies:First Year on Earth

Animal Babies:
First Year on Earth