'I'm Counting My Blessings'

Sir David Attenborough is the stuff of legend when it comes to the natural world. Aged 91, he continues to work tirelessly to educate us through beautiful programming about the world we live in. With his new series of Natural Curiosities coming back on screen this week, we were lucky enough to sit down with the man himself to find out more....

- Rachel Corcoran

Hi David! So a new series of Natural Curiosities – what do you love about the programme? 

It’s fun to do. And it’s a new kind of programming because they’re background stories that never get told – it’s to do with how animals were discovered. For example, I didn’t know about pizzly bears, which are a hybrid of grizzly bears and polar bears.

What else do you investigate? 

How other organisms tell the time and what different creatures lay eggs, why do they lay eggs and what is it about an egg that’s important? The history of tortoises and turtles, and how the shell evolved. It’s not going hacking into the middle of the African jungle – it’s going to museums and looking at small things. It’s fun and I hope that it’s interesting and new.

You’ve been to places so many of us haven’t. What does it feel like? 

I’m counting my blessings. It makes you feel like you’ve had all this luck and you haven’t taken advantage of it as you might have done. For example, I don’t take photographs any more – mainly because I’m with pals and they all take photographs. If you look at my photo archive you’ll find that I was taking photographs like mad in the 50s, 60s and 70s, but eventually, all these photographs, what are you going to do with them?

So you don’t feel like you’ve done enough?