I recently ordered the Nova episode The Incredible Journey of Butterflies on Blu-ray. I own some of the astronomy episodes of this series, but this is the first one that I bought about animals. The Nature series I have watched more often, and I own more episodes of that series. But I like Nova enough to own some of my favorite episodes, which are mostly about astronomy. I always liked the names of both of the series, and I wonder if the appealing titles have helped to keep people interested in watching them for so many years. Nature began broadcasting in 1982 and Nova in 1974, and neither of them have been off from public television since they were first broadcast. 🙂

I love The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies. It tells about the journey of the monarch butterfly from Canada to Mexico. The Blu-ray was well worth buying especially if you have an interest in creatures that can migrate across long distances. I thought the photography was amazing.  🙂

I have been rewatching Planet Earth III on DVD. It is easily as good as the previous two series.  I like all three of the series about equally.  I’m not sure if this was the last series that David Attenborough will make, but if he does make any more of these great programs I hope I will be able to watch them.  The companion book looks very good too, although now it is rather pricey.  I think these are some of the best documentaries I have ever seen.

I found a BBC set of old documentaries from 2001, The BBC Atlas of the Natural World: Africa and Europe.  The first one in the DVD set I had seen before (it is called Wild Africa).   It has some really unusual footage such as films of monkeys in the snow covered mountains of Northern Africa.  There are only a few places in the world where monkeys live in snowy areas (Japan is one of them). There are also famous mountains shown such a Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya. And there are a lot of great scenes of elephants and lions, which you would expect in a fine documentary about Africa. The set was a real bargain at under ten dollars. 🙂

I bought the Planet Earth III hardcover book even though it was expensive. It is a very beautiful companion book with many pictures. I recommend buying companion books to documentary series since you can easily reflect on the content without actually watching over again. I will also recommend watching the series again if you really like it. I bought it on DVD as well, which is fine since my TV screen is only 40 inches measured diagonally. Some people have said that the climate change is mentioned too often, but I think David Attenborough is rightfully concerned about it. Unfortunately, the combustion engine has the disadvantage of causing pollution, but today most people have cars with that kind of engine and have to use it.  I don’t see any reason to criticize the series for its concern about the damage that people are doing to the planet.

I watched The Apollo Experience: Apollo 17, which was about the last Apollo manned space flight to the moon. The DVD was very enjoyable, and at the end of it you feel kind of sad that the astronauts didn’t go back.   The flight was made in 1972 and the astronauts achieved much scientifically during the time they were there. It was a very successful mission to end the Apollo era.  🙂

Tonight I rewatched the PBS Nature episode Snow Monkeys. It is about some monkeys that are able to survive the harsh winters of the Japanese Alps Mountains in Japan.  The narrator of the episode is Liam Neeson, who was the voice of Aslan in the Walden Narnia films. I recognized his voice right away!   Here is a clip from the episode: