Original subtitles

A male waved albatross will have the same partner for his lifetime of over 20 years.

After feeding alone over the Pacific Ocean, this male has returned here to the

Galapagos, as he does every year, to wait for his mate to come back to him.

Others are already reaffirming their bond.

As the years go by and they get older, there is almost

a possibility that one of them will not make it back.

But his bond with his partner is so strong, he will simply sit and wait for her.

In nature, it's rare to form such a lifelong commitment.

For most animals, the mating game is both brief and fiercely competitive.

A female green turtle must survive the dangers of the open

ocean for 30 years before she's mature enough to mate.

She's come here to the shallow waters of Malaysia to breed.

El,

he's been waiting weeks for this opportunity.

Courtship begins with the gentlest of circling,

before she accepts his advances.

Their first breath together is the beginning of several hours of mating.

He will hold on as tight as he can to keep her all to himself.

Unfortunately, they have company.

He will do anything he can to separate the pair and mate with the female himself.

He targets the soft, vulnerable parts.

He knocks the air out of his rival.

The female is struggling now with the extra weight on her

back and soon she will need the surface to take a breath.

Another male.

More competition.

And here's another.

Now the female has two males locked on her back and

it's twice as hard for her to get to the surface.

After an hour of battling, the pair are being harassed by seven males.

But the males are so excited.

They start attacking each other.

In the commotion, the couple break away for the surface.

The pair manage to make their escape.

Leaving the rival males milling around in confusion.

Finally, they can mate in peace.

In the mating game, it's usually the males who take the risks.

And make the most effort.

A flame bowerbird doesn't fight to win a mate.

His strategy is to put on a show.

First, he builds a stage.

In the breeding season, he spends a week creating this

construction called a bower in the forests of Papua New Guinea.

He's a stickler for detail.

The stage is set.

Time to paint it with mud.

That makes a darker background which will set off his magnificent colours.

Next, there are difficult decisions about the set dressing.

Perhaps a bit dull.

There's still room for improvement.

Perfect.

Time to call in the audience.

If anyone's interested.

This could take some time.

Attracting attention is an essential part of winning a mate.

The world's oceans are filled with brilliant colours,

all designed to make their wearers conspicuous.

Unfortunately, this small Japanese pufferfish

is dull, almost to the point of invisibility.

But to compensate, he is probably nature's greatest artist.

To grab a female's attention, he creates something that almost defies belief.

His only tools are his fins.

In his head, a plan of mathematical perfection.

He ploughs the sand, breaking it up into the finest of particles.

These shells aren't just rubbish to be removed.

He uses them to decorate the bridges of his construction.

He can't rest for more than a moment, but must work 24 hours

a day for a week, or the current will destroy his creation.

A final tidy up, and his masterpiece is complete.

Nowhere else in nature does an animal construct

something as complex and perfect as this.

If this doesn't get him noticed, nothing will.

Now

it's ready for inspection.

A female, swollen with eggs.

To make sure she gets the best view, he encourages her into the centre.

Inspection over, she withdraws to await the final stage of the process.

By the next morning, all the softest sand is now in the middle.

The centre of the arena has been flattened.

Right on cue, here she is.

This is what she wanted.

It's a perfect bed for her eggs.

The male now grasps her cheek, and then fertilises her minuscule eggs.

And with a quick flick of his fins, he buries them.

They carry on like this until she's finished laying.

An hour of his rough affection leaves a love bite on her cheek.

Finally, she leaves.

He stays to fan the eggs until they hatch, while

his extraordinary work of art fades away around him.

South Georgia in the Antarctic.

A male fur seal.

He's about ten years old and in his prime.

He's coming ashore to face the fight of his life.

He may even die on this beach.

For the first time, he is strong enough to try to win

a territory that could attract a harem of females.

He's now in the middle of the sea.

But there are plenty of rivals here with the same idea.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

He's a great hunter.

A little pause.

..

and we are back.

Just a week later, females have filled the beach, choosing

the best territories in which to give birth to their pups.

This male now has a harem of a dozen females, and he's going to have to defend them.

His jealous neighbours will be ready to exploit any sign of weakness.

It's only once the females have given birth that males can mate with them.

It's only once the females have given birth that males can mate with them.

Now this male must ensure that he alone fathers next year's offspring.

But this is the rival's chance, too.

He must act fast.

He won't find them all as easy as this to intimidate.

He won't find them all as easy as this to intimidate.

New males, pound up from the sea, intent on testing the territory holds.

With many more waiting, he's going to have to find a way to get behind them.

The biggest battles are yet to come.

Usually in the making game, it's not the males, but the females who call the shots.

And this male long-tailed mannequin is trying to

win over one of the world's choosiest females.

He's been practising his moves here in Costa Rica for as long as a decade.

There's another male here, too.

Only the newcomer is not a rival.

He is a junior partner.

They know each other so well, they can finish each other's calls.

But that's not all that they have synchronised.

They are master and apprentice.

The apprentice has also been practising for many years.

He's been practising for many years.

But now he must copy the master's every move.

In fact, the master needs his wingman, as a

female won't even look at a solo performer.

And what's more, she will expect perfect harmony.

So they practise together every day.

At last, they're ready.

Here she is.

WHISTLE BLOWS WHISTLE BLOWS Rehearsal over.

Their performance is the result of more than 10 years' hard work.

She won't tolerate a single slip-up.

WHISTLE BLOWS WHISTLE BLOWS

WHISTLE BLOWS WHISTLE BLOWS WHISTLE BLOWS WHISTLE BLOWS WHISTLE BLOWS WHISTLE BLOWS

Suddenly, the master calls time on the dance and the apprentice is banished.

Only the master gets to mate.

For the apprentice, there will be no reward

until his master dies and he can take his place.

The mating game can sometimes be a long game.

A male peacock jumping spider from Australia on a quest for a mate.

And when you're the size of a grain of rice, almost anything here could be dangerous.

He's searching for any sign that a female spider came this way.

And he's found something.

Spider silk with the scent of a female.

He just needs to follow it.

Wherever.

It leads him.

Other males have gone on the same quest and have come to a grisly end.

Here's a female and she doesn't look very amorous.

In fact, she kills every male who doesn't match up to her expectations.

What can he do to win her over?

Dance.

Dance.

Dance for his life.

He will need a show-stopping trick to avoid becoming lunch.

With his fan unfurled, he begins an ever-more-complicated

series of dance moves to try and seduce her.

Dance.

Dance.

At last, she succumbs to his advances, and allows him to mate with her.

He matched her expectations.

But she kills him anyway.

After all, his body will make the perfect meal with which to nourish their eggs.

Bucky!

In Papua New Guinea, the male flame bowerbird

is still doing his best to attract a female.

And at last, he gets a response.

Unfortunately, it's a young male.

And worse, he's brought a friend.

They're taking liberties, practising on his bower.

He doesn't seem to know what to do about it.

But enough is enough.

The commotion attracts the attention of another adult male.

A neighbour and rival.

Having destroyed the bower, he even steals the decorations.

The owner arrives back to find a scene of destruction.

No female's going to look twice at this mess.

He'll just have to start all over again.

In life, there will always be rivals in the mating game.

Autumn in the forests of Japan.

The mating season for Japanese macaques.

This dominant male is over 20 years old.

Age has clouded one eye.

He has had a harem of females for many years.

And he can mate with them unopposed.

But time catches up with everyone.

Young rival males are hanging out on the perimeter eyeing up his females.

For years, old blue eye has asserted his authority from this tree.

But his authority is waning.

And the moment his back is turned, his females are lured away by younger males.

Throughout the forest, his females are conducting secret affairs.

Blue eye tries to guard his females by patrolling the edge of the troop.

Caught in the act.

He attacks his unfaithful female.

He has reasserted his authority.

Or so he thinks.

The moment the old male shuts his eyes, his females are off again.

Most of next year's babies will be fathered by his rivals.

And he will never know.

In Papua New Guinea, the bowerbird has lovingly rebuilt and redecorated his bower.

Another visitor.

This time, it's a female.

This is just where he wants her.

Time to begin the show.

First, he expands his pupils alternately.

It's an oddly mesmerizing display.

A spot of limbering up, accompanied by a

weird, and wheezy call from deep in his throat.

Now it's time for his grand performance.

He waves his wing like a matador's cape.

She appears to be transfixed.

This is certainly eye-catching, but it seems he needs to do more.

Generously, she drops him a hint.

It's the bird equivalent of a bouquet of flowers.

It's all going so well, it's time to get physical, with a few headbutts to her chest.

One final flourish to cap weeks of effort.

But something's wrong.

His rival is back, and at the worst possible moment.

What should he do?

For the female, the moment has gone.

Sometimes, whatever you do, things just don't work out.

On the first seal beat in South Georgia, the

fighting has been relentless for two weeks.

Blooded and scarred, this bull has held onto

his ground and his harem against all comers.

But it's not over yet.

The rivals keep coming.

This new one looks particularly powerful.

When two bulls are as evenly matched as this they can trade blows for 20 minutes.

The resident bull is tiring.

The weeks of fighting have taken too great a toll.

Suddenly, his neighbors join in the attack.

Overwhelmed, he's driven from his territory and out of the colony forever.

The breeding season is almost over and the seals will soon leave.

Now an outcast, this mortally wounded bull will die here.

But he will die a winner.

He held his territory for long enough to father offspring.

Success in nature is all about creating the next generation.

Whatever it takes.

A male waved albatross waits for his mate to return from the open sea.

Could this be her?

Or this?

Is there something familiar about her?

And they can resume their long-standing relationship.

Love

as we understand it exists in nature.

Then surely this must be it.

Their lifelong bond will help them face the final chapter of life's story together.

One of the most unexpected stories found by the Life Story team

was that of a small fish who makes crop circles in the sand.

Unfortunately, it builds them right at the bottom of a bay in southern Japan.

So how do you film a tiny fish 13 metres under the sea?

Specialist underwater cameraman Hugh Miller's solution is to build a film story.

A film studio on the seabed.

This is a quad pod.

It's a bit like a tripod, but it's got four legs and

lets us get the camera very, very low to the seabed.

This metal triangle is going to be the point light rig.

So it's like a little ray of sunshine down at the bottom of the sea.

But this is the first time it's been used.

And we're going to find out if it works or not.

Hugh has also designed an underwater crane to

reveal the full complexity of the nest structure.

But however good the equipment, the team will still

have to find the 12-centimetre-long fish in a big bay.

For that, they turn to the expert.

70-year-old Yoji Okada first discovered the mysterious

crop circles and the puffer fish that makes them.

He and his dive buddy Toyo are going to search the sea across

several square miles of seabed, hoping to locate a fish.

Fish is very difficult, almost.

Camouflaged very well, like almost sandy, so just I can see shadow or just eye,

so it's very difficult.

But eventually, Toyo and Yoji have good news.

They've found what turns out to be the only male fish in the bay.

12 metres, yeah.

They've even drawn a map for Hugh to find it.

If I get lost, I'll be holding this.

Time to build the studio.

All the kit is taken to the seabed to be carefully assembled.

Last thing in place is Hugh's little ray of sunshine.

The fish won't start building a new nest for several days, so there's time to test

his reaction to the kit while he fancies eggs, on his old, disintegrating nest.

He's certainly not camera shy.

And now Hugh's had his first good look at the fish.

The biggest surprise was the fish is a little bit smaller than I first hoped.

In fact, he's only... he's really only about this big.

So to suddenly be faced with a fish that's probably half the size of what I was

hoping, I thought, well, this is going to

be a little bit harder than I first thought.

Yoji and Toyo keep watch, and it's not long before they spot the fish starting to

construct a new nest, which Yoji expects will take him seven days to complete.

He surprises everyone by finishing it in three.

Yoji warns the crew to be ready at dawn the next day for a visit from a female fish.

They spend three hours crouched over the camera to

film the action as it unfolds, just as Yoji predicted.

So what happened?

Spawning.

We got it.

The little chap was doing very well for himself.

But the male built his nest so fast that Hugh never had time to film a top-down

shot for the ultimate reveal of his hard work.

This requires the crew to become builders, too.

They build an A-frame to hold the camera perfectly steady well above the nest.

Yoji and Toyo position the frame near to the old nest.

Now the crew just have to wait for the fish to

finish tending his eggs and resume building.

But a few days later, there's bad news.

We've been watching a typhoon system far to the south of us for a number of days.

We haven't really felt its effects until now.

And today was going to be the first day of half

a fish beginning its next cycle of nest building.

And it's been completely blown.

So rather than going in with the cameras and starting the new cycle, we're actually

going in just to recover equipment, which is a real shame.

We don't know what's going to happen next, really.

It's five days before the storm blows through.

Finally, the sea calms down and the visibility returns.

But for Yoji and Toyo, it's back to square one.

They must find the fish all over again.

Day after day, they search, and Toyo, acting as interpreter, reports back.

No nest, no mail.

No nest, no mail.

It gets slightly better.

We find a fish.

Just one fish, but no nest.

We find the mail at 20-metre deep.

But not make circle.

The storm has put the fish off his construction work.

Time it up, and the team reluctantly start to dismantle the underwater studio.

But the fish has one more surprise in store.

I just couldn't come at a later point, the last dive, where we're going to pull

out the kids, and there's a male making a nest.

One final chance to get the perfect top shot from the A-frame.

A shot that truly does justice to the fish's extraordinary artistry.

Next up... It's time on Life Story... Animals raise offspring.

With great commitment...

Bad behaviour...

Lessons to be learned... And life and death choices.

Success means leaving a legacy for the future.

Subtitles by SteamTeamExtra