To the Ends of the Earth

(ominous music) - [Jane] Imagine the power of still photographic images, moments frozen in time that can change the way we perceive our place in the world.

(somber music) (dramatic music) "To The Ends of the Earth" isn't a new concept.

It began when people first started looking beyond the next ridge, the next valley, to the lands beyond the mountains.

They searched for the unknown, the unexpected, the surprising.

To map, catalog, and show to others.

Each explorer searched in their own way, to push boundaries, expanding and sharing knowledge of what existed in the great beyond.

Here you will see through a photographic vision, a story for the ends of the earth, photographs by Todd Gustafson, a lifelong personal search for the dramatic and the unexpected.

Traveling the world for decades, capturing intimate, natural history moments, and dramatic wildlife action, Todd has brought to the viewer images from East Africa, Brazil, Namibia, Patagonia, Rwanda, the Galapagos Islands, India, Costa Rica, Madagascar, and the ocean realm, revealing common threads that exist between humanity and the natural world that forever bind our fates together.

Ancient mapmakers could only present what they knew.

Beyond the edge of the map was the unknown, inhabited by monsters and dragons.

Todd still pursues dragons in his personal search for the ends of the earth.

(dramatic music) Through Todd's lens, we see a vanishing natural world.

We can see a world we have the power to protect.

We have a collective voice that can change the cause of destruction to one of stability and rebirth.

"To The Ends of the Earth" is more than a magnificent collection of wildlife photos.

Todd's photographs allow us to experience vicariously the very behaviors people most wanna see.

(dramatic music) (birds tweeting) - Birds are fascinating.

They have feathers.

(calming music) They preen.

They display.

(calming music) They have beaks.

And they have bills.

They fly.

(birds squawking) They fly.

(calming music) (birds gobbling) They make nests, lay eggs, and have chicks.

And they're a challenge and a joy to photograph.

(birds tweeting) Each of these photos had a challenge of capturing the decisive moment to make it more impactful than simply a picture of a pretty bird.

East Africa has a bevy of species that use their tails as the primary way to attract females.

Displaying birds opt for a perch that can be easily seen.

Here, a red bishop displays to attract a female.

She likes what she sees, and the mating ritual continues.

Again, capturing those elusive moments is a photographer's challenge.

(calming music) A related and even more challenging subject is the red-cowled widowbird.

In mating season, males grow long black tail feathers.

They fly from perch to perch looking for females.

When they have their attention, they shake those feathers in an intricate display.

(calming music) If the females are interested, the male flies near and adds his wings to the display.

It is a feeling of joy and accomplishment to make a storytelling image from a single still photographic moment.

(birds tweeting) (calming music) Here's the fan-tailed widowbird.

I think you can see where it got its name.

The male's technique is to find the best vantage point from which to display and spread his tail feathers like a fan.

(calming music) Interested females come close and wait for the male to make his move.

(calming music) More elegant and certainly more dramatic is the pin-tailed whydah.

Males grow four tail feathers, which they meticulously groom.

(calming music) They call and wait for females to respond.

When they do, the males fly through the air, foregoing perches, and hover in front of the female with an acrobatic series of bobbing, floating, and tail displaying.

(calming music) There's a small track in Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater that I've been down countless times.

This time, I saw a quick movement out of the corner of my eye.

It happened again and again.

Jackson's widowbirds, I'd seen a drawing in a book in 1986, and I thought, if I could ever see a bird like that, well, here they are, scores of them.

There's a definite pattern to their display.

The main part is simply jumping as high as possible while floating above the ground.

Use your wings to right yourself and land in the same spot.

Do this over and over again till it's some unseen signal all the birds in the lek fly to perches, sing, and display the beautiful black tail feathers.

(birds tweeting) Then hope for a female to be attracted to the amazing jumping and singing skills, and start the whole process over again.

The king of all tail-displaying birds might be India's peacock.

The tail feathers can be as long as five feet.

Not only is the display impressive, but their haunting calls echo through the forest and can be heard from miles.

Peacock search for small groups of pea hens, call, and fan their dramatic feathers.

When serious, the male shakes those feathers, creating a penetrating rattling sound.

(peacocks squawking) They spin and use the spread feathers to herd females into a tight group.

(peacocks squawking) When the display is over, the feathers are carefully tucked away to be used again another day.

Africa's kori bustard, weighing in at 42 pounds, is the heaviest bird that can fly.

They pace the savanna searching for food.

They're fastidious about their feathers, and use their beaks to straighten the neck, breast, tail and wing feathers.

The male kori bustard boasts one of the most dramatic neck displays on earth.

In mating season, they choose a location from which to display and puff up their white feathered neck.

It can be seen from great distance, but it's not only about the visual.

When they puff and release their neck pouch, the low frequency boom can attract females from miles away.

After calling, the kori bustard looks around to see if any females are interested.

We've seen the kori bustard in Tanzania, the heaviest bird that can fly, expand his neck to huge proportions, and a thumping boom as he releases the air to attract females.

You can see it, you can hear it.

And we've come halfway around the planet to the western hemisphere, Northern Colorado, for the sage-grouse.

Look at the sage all around.

They come to the lek to dance and do their neck display.

In this hemisphere, they're the king.

In the American west, during the day, sage-grouse stay out of sight and forage in the sage for food and water.

When the first light of pre-dawn hits, male sage-grouse gather in open meadows called leks, to perform their intricate booming calls.

Lek is a Swedish word, meaning dance or play.

The day begins with males strutting and displaying to other males.

When females enter the lek, the activity levels multiply tenfold.

Males display their intricate tail patterns, their massive feather-covered necks.

But the most dramatic part of the dance is when they inflate two air sacks in their necks and execute a complex three-part call and neck display.

(birds gobble) They spin as they call to make sure all the females in the area can see their marvelous display.

(birds gobble) The plains of mid- and western America are home to prairie chickens.

Each spring, they gather on leks to perform their annual mating dances.

Such an intrinsic part of the American West that many Native American tribes have versions of dance that imitate these birds.

Males display by throwing their heads forward, making a haunting call and filling out a dramatic orange throat sack.

They bend to the ground, lift their rabbit-like ears, fan their tail, and rapidly stamp their feet to gain the female's attention.

All the action takes place in the pre-dawn and first light of day.

As two males approach each other in full display, I prepare myself for a possible aerial battle.

I choose a little bit wider lens to give space as the birds leap, flap and kick at their opponents.

(calming music) Imagine trying to capture the peak of action in this situation.

When females are on the lek, multiple males show off their plumage.

(calming music) One of the earth's imperiled habitats is the pine oak barrens, a biome based on dunes and sandy soil.

The barrens support jack pine, red oak, willow, and hazel, which in turn provide an ideal habitat for the sharp-tailed grouse.

At first glance, you might think they seem like just another version of the prairie chicken.

Well, you would be wrong.

They are as different as can be.

They don't inflate and hold the purple neck pouch like the prairie chickens do.

They simply puff them out and contract.

They don't have tall ears.

Instead, they have beautiful orange gold eyebrows.

Most importantly, their calls are less plaintiff than prairie chickens, and their primary advertisement for mating is a mechanical rattling sounds that emanates from their tail feathers being shaken and rubbed together.

(birds cooing) (birds rattling and tweeting) It is easy to see how this behavior inspired Blackfeet, Chippewa, Shoshone, and other Native American tribal dancing.

Let's change latitude and journey to Central America, 8,000 feet up in the cloud forests of Costa Rica.

(birds tweeting) Here, we can observe the mating calls of the three-wattled bellbird.

During mating season, they come to this area of Costa Rica from different countries and elevations.

More often heard than seen, the male bellbirds' call echoes through the misty cloud forest.

Two females are attracted by the insistent metallic call.

Their calls are loud.

His mustache-like wattles are another important part of the male's courting behavior.

Returning to the western United States, we have Western and Clark's grebes.

Their lovely white necks and black crowns give them a jaunty feel as they glide across ponds and lakes.

These two species share one of nature's most dramatic courtship behaviors.

A single male will call as it glides into an area with other males.

(birds tweeting) He's searching for someone to challenge in a behavior called rushing.

If the males know each other, they take a slow stroll across the water.

But if the situation is right, they'll have a nervous face off where they stretch out their necks, call, and flick water left and right.

(birds tweeting) At some unknown signal, both birds rise up and begin rushing, an event where the birds use only their specialized feet to glide over the top of the water.

They don't use their wings, and their heads are perfectly still.

The feet are what make this behavior possible.

Here, we see how a western grebe carefully grooms and stretches his specialized feet.

A Clark's grebe does the same.

(calming music) Even a juvenile does it.

Part of the mating ritual is the feeding of a fresh caught fish to a mate.

The couple will then dive, come up with reeds, and perform an elegant nesting dance.

(calming music) It is beautiful when they finally touch, bumping each other's chests.

Next is mating and nest building.

Followed by new chicks.

Both parents care for the young by having them ride on their backs.

Parents catch and feed them fish.

An interesting addition to the chick's diet is called feather feeding.

The parents preen and feed the chick's feathers to coat their stomachs so they're protected from sharp fish scales and bones.

(calming music) (chicks tweeting) The saying, "birds of a feather flock together" is never more true than in the phenomenon called murmuration.

In the fall, thousands upon thousands of black birds and starlings gather until there are millions of birds in a single flock.

(calming music) The birds fly in these tight groups and create mesmerizing patterns in the sky.

(calming music) And then at an unseen signal, return to earth and disappear in the long grass.

(calming music) In England, massive murmurations are triggered by harriers who prey on starlings.

(calming music) The other side of the coin is competition.

These openbill storks are fighting for a roosting spot for the night.

Two flamingos fight over who has the right to mate with the female.

Two secretarybirds are fighting for territory so they can attract a mate and build a nest.

(upbeat music) Once the competition is decided, a more peaceful courtship follows.

In Tanzania, two grey-breasted spurfowl have paired up.

I wonder if the attraction was the lovely singing voice.

(birds squawking) In the Serengeti, two Usambiro barbets have paired up.

Their raucous courtship resulted in a comparatively quiet yet energetic mating.

(birds squawking) Arctic terns perform an elegant mating.

From a photographic standpoint, I don't like the dark rocks in the background.

I much prefer the blue ocean behind them.

Halfway around the world in the Hawaiian Islands, the elegant Laysan albatross mate, nest, and rear chicks.

We are here on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and we're with the Laysan albatross, mighty travelers who ride the ocean trade winds for three, four, five, six months of the year, returning here to these remote volcanic bluffs every November.

Here, they have courtship behaviors.

They build nests and lay eggs.

This female, when she laid her egg, would've lost about 25% of her body weight, and those eggs can weigh as much as a can of soda.

So when she is done laying the egg, she needs to eat.

So she goes to the ocean currents, and the male then will sit on the nest.

So it's a cooperative nesting behavior that we have with the albatross.

Greetings are an important part of albatross behavior.

This male albatross has been riding the ocean winds for months before returning to Kauai.

He wanders into a cliffside forest, where his lifelong mate awaits him.

She welcomes him with a few beak clacks, high pitched whistles.

Then the greeting ceremony begins in earnest.

(birds whistling and clacking) There are more than 40 elements to the greeting, that include wing stretching, whistling, whinnying, beak clacking, head bobbing, a cat-like whine, a donkey bray, and my favorite, comical high stepping.

(birds whistling and clacking) From a photographer's perspective, I love the subtle gray eye shadings and the delicate peach-colored bills.

(birds whistling and clacking) One of the most amazing things about these Laysan albatross are their communication skills.

You can hear their insistent calling and their melodic whistling, as well as their dramatic beak clacking.

(calming music) The nesting and courtship possess a simple, peaceful elegance.

The nest is made, the egg is laid, and the parents take turns sitting till it hatches.

Adults then alternate who will fly out to fish and feed the chick.

Chicks start out as little gray puffs.

They grow into adolescence with a hair-like cowl.

(calming music) Sub-adults lose that cowl.

Here we can see the remnants of that cowl on the side of an albatross's head.

Wings grow strong, and soon the young albatross is ready to begin its life gliding over the ocean.

Each avian species has a nesting style unique to themselves.

Once the mating is sorted out, the next order of business is building a nest.

Brazil's jabiru storks construct mammoth nests that require huge vines and large sticks.

(upbeat music) In Africa, if you see what looks like a giant haystack in a tree, you are seeing the largest community nests in the world.

Sociable weavers build as many as 100 nests side by side, that can be home to up to 400 birds.

The nests become so heavy that the whole tree can come crashing to the ground from its weight.

Cliff dwelling Brandt's cormorants nest in colonies on California's seaward coast.

Females build nests from materials brought in from the ocean by the male.

He flies in with seaweed and kelp, and returns to the ocean as the female fashions the building materials into a comfortable nest.

(calming music) The electric turquoise under the beak adds interest to the photo.

Borneo's black and red broadbill constructs an amazingly messy nest made of twigs, grasses, decaying leaves, and anything else that floats down the river.

(birds tweeting) At the other extreme is the northern masked weaver, who takes pride in the quality of his workmanship.

Part of the reason may be that the female has to approve the nest, or he has to start all over again.

He is signaling to the female that the nest is ready for inspection.

The golden-backed weaver does the same.

In Central America, resplendent quetzals make a completely different style of nest.

They excavate their nest in the body of a decaying tree, much like woodpeckers do, except they dig with their claws.

The male flies to the tree and disappears into the cavity except for his long, colorful tail feathers.

The excavation is obvious when the wood chips start falling like snow.

Then the female comes to check the nest.

(jazz music) Secretarybirds build a more traditional nest of sticks and twigs, and have a gentle neck-bobbing behavior when they're courting.

(jazz music) Plovers are more minimalist in their nest building.

This blacksmith plover has simply rearranged some stones to make its nest.

(jazz music) When the quetzal nest is complete and they have chicks, the parents take turns bringing food to the nest.

This time, the male has a ripe wild avocado.

The next time, he has a lizard.

While he's in the nest feeding the chicks, the female lands with an even larger rough-scaled lizard.

(jazz music) Jabiru storks build huge nests to accommodate their massive chicks.

Parents are constantly bringing large river fish to satisfy the voracious chicks.

Temperatures can reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

I've often wondered how the chicks can survive the heat and where do they get water?

Well, the parents took the initiative and answered my question.

They bring beak fulls of water and pour it right down the chick's throats.

A thousand times smaller are the Madagascar flycatcher chicks.

Filming and photographing these three chicks as they grew over the period of five days was a joy.

The female, with her cinnamon-hued feathers, and the male with his long white tail, alternated feeding duty.

They brought in mayflies, moths, spiders, butterflies, beetles, and even a scorpion.

(birds tweeting) Over the four day period, it was intriguing to see the parents make sure that each chick was fed in its turn.

On a small rock, in a Costa Rican forest stream, a vibrantly colored sunbittern preens before going hunting.

She searches in the shallows for tiny crustaceans and tadpoles to feed her newly hatched.

She arrives at the beautifully fashioned nest with a tadpole.

(calming music) (upbeat music) The next morning, she hunts again, and brings a tiny freshwater shrimp.

(calming music) The only word I can think of here is nestling.

(calming music) (birds tweeting) Still in Costa Rica, we find a wattled jacana just as a storm blows in.

He calls for his chicks, and they run to him and dive under his wings for shelter from the rain.

The chicks are too big to fit completely, but they still feel safe and protected under the wings.

As chicks grow, they become tiny copies of their parents.

Kori bustard babies follow their mother through the grass.

And tiny crowned cranes feed with their parents.

(birds cooing) Here, a gaggle of cape teal feed close to their mother for protection.

Atlantic beaches are home to massive colonies of seabirds.

This colony of royal terns has gone through hatching, and now has hundreds of chicks.

Parents fly out to see and catch fish for the young chicks.

With all the activity in the colony, it's madness when the parents return.

The chicks see them, and start walking to make themselves known.

The parent lands, and looks for its chick, calling the whole time.

If the mom chooses the wrong chick, the young turn away and will not accept that fish.

It's fascinating to watch.

(birds squawking) When chicks start to walk, they're often surrounded and mobbed by other adults.

It seems like a miracle when a mother comes in, finds her chick, and has a successful feeding handoff.

Further south in the Caribbean, it's flamingos.

Let's consider both the natural history aspects and the photographic approach to this scene.

Photographically, when we saw the beach through an arch of trees, it was raining flamingos.

I couldn't get out of the car fast enough.

I just started filming.

Then I realized it didn't look as great as I thought it would.

All the water around the flamingos was in focus, and it wasn't anything special.

I sat right down in the sand, and it was an instant improvement.

The flamingos stood out from the soft foreground and background water.

Here's some footage from East Africa, where I was able to lie completely flat next to a flamingo lake.

The photographic difference is dramatic, but this scene in the Caribbean was sent from heaven.

All flamingos' heads were up.

There were colorful adults and cute young ones.

The watercolor was so Caribbean, and the flight school behavior was dramatic.

Now, for the natural history.

Why were they in the ocean instead of on a pond?

The adults were teaching the young ones to fly, and this shallow sand bank was perfect for takeoff and landing.

Why did the flamingos keep returning to this spot?

The open ocean gave them unobstructed flight space.

Why were they in such great position for photographs?

Well, the flamingos weren't feeding, and they all had their heads up because of the waves.

A natural history explanation of a perfect photographic situation.

Here's our chance to enjoy some of the heroes of the avian world.

(dramatic music) Some of the challenges facing wildlife include global climate change, loss of habitat, and simply a diminishing place in which to live.

- [Jane] And think how these wild creatures have so much in common with each other and with us.

Through Todd's lens, we see a vanishing natural world.

We can see a world we have the power to protect.

If we of all creatures can best understand consequences and plan far ahead, then let us do so.

- [Todd] I choose to use my photography to stand with nature, our delicate planet, and the wildlife that are shown in this documentary.

- [Jane] "To The Ends of the Earth" is sharing the earth's beauty, to illustrate exactly what is at stake.

- [Todd] Imagine a world without snow geese, pelicans, herons, and hummingbirds, and those are just the obvious birds at risk.

- [Jane] Collectively, these photographs explore different aspects of the animal's behavior.

A visual commentary on what it means to be born free into the last wild places.

(calming music) (dramatic music)