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''The Life of Birds'' is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 21 October 1998. A study of the evolution and habits of birds, it was the third of Attenborough's specialised surveys following his major trilogy that began with ''Life on Earth''. Each of the ten 50-minute episodes discusses how the huge variety of birds in the world deal with a different aspect of their day-to-day existence. The series was produced in conjunction with BBC Worldwide Americas Inc. and PBS. The executive producer was Mike Salisbury and the music was composed by Ian Butcher and Steven Faux. It won a Peabody Award in 1999 for combining "spectacular imagery and impeccable science."〔(59th Annual Peabody Awards ), May 2000.〕 Part of Attenborough's 'Life' series of programmes, it was preceded by ''The Private Life of Plants'' (1995), and followed by ''The Life of Mammals'' (2002). Before the latter was transmitted, David Attenborough presented ''State of the Planet'' (2000) and narrated ''The Blue Planet'' (2001). == Background == In common with Attenborough's previous productions, the programmes include sequences that were filmed in many locales. The series took three years to make, involving visits to 42 countries. The subject matter had been covered before by Attenborough within ''Life on Earth'', in an episode entitled "Lords of the Air", but now he was free to expand on it. However, by his own confession, despite being especially fascinated by one family, the birds of paradise, Attenborough was not an expert in ornithology. Nevertheless, the notion of an entire series devoted to the creatures excited him, as he would be able to not only communicate his findings to the viewing audience, but further his own knowledge as well. From the outset, the production team were determined that the sound of birds calling and singing would not be dubbed on to the filmed pictures afterwards: it would be recorded simultaneously. To that end, meticulous care was taken not to include man-made 'noises off' from the likes of cars and aeroplanes. For one particular sequence, Britain's dawn chorus, it was important that the movement of the beak and the expelled warm air was synchronous with the accompanying song. A trick used to entice some of the animals near the camera was to play a recording of the same species in the hope that the target would not only answer back, but investigate its source as well. This was employed in the episode "Signals and Songs", where Attenborough encouraged a superb lyrebird — one of nature's best mimics — to perform on cue. Despite such fortuity, filming on the series was not all plain sailing: in "Finding Partners", Attenborough was chased by a capercaillie, which didn't even stop when the presenter fell over. A technique that had been previously used for ''The Living Planet'' was again called for to film greylag geese in flight. The newly hatched goslings were imprinted with a human 'mother', and, when fully grown, were able to be photographed flying alongside an open-top car. Computer animation is utilised in the first episode to illustrate extinct species, such as the terror bird and the moa. Production was suddenly halted during a trip to New Zealand in 1997 when Attenborough's wife, Jane, died: "The next filming trip for the ''Birds'' series was, of course, cancelled. But I could not simply abandon the series. Three quarters of the filming had been done. The film of some of the programmes had been edited but none of the commentaries had yet been written. There was a lot of work that I had to do — and I was grateful that this was so. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Life of Birds」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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