Autumnwatch

I am watching at the moment Autumnwatch, a BBC program I discovered in 2006 and felt in love with. This is pretty easy to understand, as it is about observing animals during my favourite season. Autumnwatch is a great program for many reasons. It has both educational value and atmosphere, it takes a great deal to make science accessible to outsiders, we see the complete range of British wildlife to the very small (mice, birds, insects) the the very big (red deers, whales) and the images are simply gorgeous. It even has a bit of drama in it, especially the power struggle of the red deers. By power struggle, I mean the combats the stags go into to have the privilege to mate with the females. I say drama, and it is often drama of epic kind, better than anything scripted. Tonight, we learned that Percy, the oldest stag of the bunch, killed his much bigger rival Titus in a duel. I shivered when I saw Titus's bloody body in the water. It was Eros and Thanatos at work on the Isle of Rum. There are other things to see on Autumnwatch, but the red deers's rut is probably the most fascinating part of the program.