10 things you didn’t know about Sir David Attenborough

Like most people, I’m a huge fan of Sir David Attenborough, and his ability to inspire millions of individuals, old and young, from across the globe to take an interest in our natural world. It’s hard to understand exactly the level of influence that the veteran broadcaster has had, but the stories from his incredible career pay testament to how he’s dedicated his entire life to understanding more about our planet and its wild creatures.

But with a career so very much in the public’s eye, there must be very little that we don’t know already know about the BBC great. Or is there?

I’ve tried to compile a list of ‘10 facts you didn’t know about Sir David Attenborough’ – do let me know your favourite, or if you have a fun fact that didn’t make the list, please leave a comment in the box below. Here it goes…

 

1) Sir David Attenborough’s favourite animal…

is identified, re-evaluated, and changed on a regular basis. “Today it’s a weedy seadragon,” he explained when I had the incredible honour of speaking to him in Kingston, London  – it’s an animal he researched and filmed off the coast of southern Australia. “They’ve evolved to look like weeds and spend the entire day dancing,” he confirmed.

2) If he could belong to any other species for a whole day…

it would be a bird of paradise. A few years back I witnessed the then 89-year-old answer this question during an audience Q&A. He smiled and replied “a bird of paradise of course, so I could dance all day looking beautiful, and see how many ‘birds’ I can attract”.

3) His love of animals comes from…

a book he read in early childhood. Sir David credits Ernest Thompson Seton’s book ‘Wild Animals I Have Known’ as igniting his passion for animals and the natural world. At the beginning of the BBC film ‘Lobo The Wolf That Changed America’ — which tells Thompson Seton’s tale of hunting the notorious wolf, Lobo. Hunting the wolf gives him a new respect for animals and their personalities that ultimately makes him turn his back on wolf hunting  Sir David expressed that his love for animals and recognising them as having individual personalities comes directly from having this book in his library as a child.

4) He once fought off a pickpocket…

while travelling in Jakarta. Sir David describes this in his book ‘The Zoo Quest Expeditions’; “I suddenly remembered that in the breast pocket of my shirt, I was carrying all my money, my fountain pen, my passport and ticket. I clapped my hand over the pocket. It landed not on cloth, but one someone else’s hand. I gripped it as hard as I was able, slowly bent it back and removed my wallet from its fingers. Its owner, a sweating half-naked man with a dirty cloth tied round his forehead, glared at me savagely… I decided that in the circumstances it would be better to be gently reproving than to attempt an impersonation of an avenging fury, but the only word I could think of was ‘Tidak. No’.”

5) He agrees with cloning animals…

to save a species. “I actually agree with cloning a species if you’re down to the very last one,” he said when I had the pleasure of meeting him. Though it seems he only agrees with cloning two animals of species, adding; “but you would have to clone a male and female though, unless you plan to go on cloning over and over again to keep the species going.”

6) The rarest animal he’s ever seen…

was the last ever Pinta Island Tortoise – which he described during a lecture he gave for Environment Trust for Richmond upon Thames in 2015. He visited the male giant tortoise, known as ‘Lonesome George’, in the Galapagos Islands before this solitary creature passed away on 24^th June 2012. The Pinta Galapagos tortoise was already thought extinct for about 100 years, until scientists discovered ‘Lonesome George’. “There was only one in the whole wide world, and I saw it. So that is undoubtedly the very rarest of a species you can have; the very last.”

7) The creature that most obsesses him most…

and grips his affection more than any other, is a human baby, he told the Radio Times in a 2014 interview. “An 18-month-old child is simply riveting, because evolution has evolved that response in us to make sure we protect them,” he added.

8) He names the blackbirds who visit his garden…

albeit in his words ‘unimaginatively’. As he states in the book ‘New Life Stories‘, based on his interviews on Radio 4 in 2011; “I have a blackbird in my garden — a male — who has a white feather in his left wing. I call him, rather unimaginatively, ‘Whitey’ and his arrival, a year ago, transformed my understanding of the dramas and battles that go on in my shrubs and on the bird table. Suddenly I was aware how frequently — or infrequently — one individual bird visited my garden; how often he fed; whether he was likely to win an encounter with another male; whether he was courting; and what his relationships were with others of his own kind.”

9) He’s decorated his home with images of nature…

or at least one room. A sneak peak of his home in the film ‘Great Wildlife Moments‘ shows peacocks on the fire place, leaves and plants on the wall paper and a penny jar plugged with feathers. It’s EXACTLY what I’d hoped for from our biggest wildlife hero!

10) He visited Elsa the lioness of Born Free fame…

and Joy and George Adamson, out in their home in Kora National Park in Kenya. He even had to endure Elsa’s cub Jespah playfully swiping at his legs.

He writes of the encounter in the 1960s; “They were certainly playful, but equally, they didn’t seem to know their own strength. Jespah in particular enjoyed playing games. His favourite trick was to hide behind a bush and then charge out as you were passing and take a swipe at your legs”. Ouch.

What one more fact? Discover what Sir David Attenborough has chosen as his most exciting moment in filmmaking.

Learn more about Sir David Attenborough…

• See what happened when I got to chat to Sir David
• Sir David Attenborough’s 90th birthday – meeting the gorillas on Life on Earth
• Gordon Buchanan and Sir David Attenborough team up for Richmond Trust’s annual lecture
• Discover why I took a stand against Sir David Attenborough’s Radio Times cover
• See Sir David’s response to my Radio Times criticism
• Inside Sir David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef VR 

Want to know more about BBC Natural History documentaries?

• Go behind the scenes of Gordon Buchanan’s ‘Gorilla Family & Me’
• Discover Jumbo the elephant
• Read my interview with Big Cat Diary’s Jonathan Scott
• Listen to my recent chat with wildlife filmmaker Tania Esteban
• See the launch of BBC Earth magazine
• Reflections on BBC’s Africa series