Attenborough at 100: Chris Packham and more of TV's best wildlife experts mark David Attenborough's birthday

In a week's time, Sir David Attenborough will celebrate his 100th birthday – an occasion the whole nation will be happy to mark.

The broadcaster, who is being honoured with special programming on the BBC, has influenced many wildlife experts who have gone on to front important documentaries of their own.

To acknowledge this, Radio Times has gathered a number of birthday well wishes for Sir David from some of those famous faces.

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

Chris Packham, naturalist and broadcaster

One hundred years ago there was a new life on earth. If you were strolling through Isleworth in west London, you might have heard the faint crying of a newborn baby, nothing really of note, just another human on the planet about to embark on the trials of life. But as it’s turned out, that precious infant has grown into the most influential advocate for life our little blue planet has ever had – David Frederick Attenborough.

I can trot out a long and miserable list of individual humans who have changed, indeed are changing, the world for the worse. Horror and suffering tattoo their infamy onto our history. But how about those who have made the world a better place, and not just for us but for every other species that creeps, crawls, slithers and slimes? Only one truly holds that accolade. A man whose passion and enthusiasm for life, and an infectious desire to communicate that to us all, has grown to command a global audience and enrapture young and old alike.

In 100 years a lot changes, humans leave our living planet and journey into space, we discover distant galaxies, develop antibiotics and organ transplants, compose symphonies and paint great art, invent television and artificial intelligence. Along the way we fight and kill each other, but despite this our population quadruples to 8 billion. And this comes at a terrible cost for the rest of life, which has declined or been destroyed. We have even broken our climate. So amid the celebrations, consider the sadness this causes the man who has travelled to every corner of the earth and tried to protect it all and us.

But without the world’s greatest ambassador for life, where we would be? Worse off, for sure. Somewhere in a jungle is a fly that still buzzes, due only to the energy and efforts of our wonderful birthday boy. Happy Birthday Dave, the world loves you!

Steve Backshall, wildlife presenter

David Attenborough has been like a favourite uncle, always there providing sumptuous stories and an endless insight into the natural world. While renowned as a great naturalist, his finest ability is as a storyteller – he can hold us spellbound.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet and even work with David on several occasions, and have always been impressed with his humility, enthusiasm and childlike wonder. He still has that childlike quality about the natural world around him. That’s probably what sets him apart from naturalists Wallace, Humboldt and of course Darwin, through to the most overexcited natural history buffs of today!

And throughout it all there is always his hushed voice, the relaxed nature of his stories, the sense that there is always time to save a word, a phrase or a wild moment. We are deeply blessed that he chose our field as his area of expertise.

Martin Dohrn, wildlife filmmaker

David Attenborough would seem to be a very lucky person. But often people confuse luck with hard work. I remember going to Costa Rica to film for the BBC series, Life in the Undergrowth, about invertebrates. It had been raining constantly when we arrived and didn’t stop for us. David was due in a few days and we needed to prepare a piece to camera involving a special tree with a little pool in the trunk, where a year previously a beautiful giant damselfly had been filmed laying eggs.

Going to look at the tree trunk, everything looked dreadful in the dripping gloom and there were no damselflies. The rain stayed until just before David arrived and then, suddenly, it stopped and the sun came out. The following morning, we went to film at the damselfly tree pool.

It was a beautiful scene, but there were still no damselflies. We decided to film anyway while the sun was out. Halfway through, incredibly, a damselfly appeared, landed right by the camera lens so that she and David were perfectly framed together – the holy grail of many wildlife shows where an actual person is presenter, and particularly so for one about insects.

The damselfly tested the water then left – as if she had read the script. David laughed at the ludicrousness of her perfectly timed arrival, then continued without missing a beat, as if this was how we’d rehearsed it.

Of course we were all lucky, but in the end David’s skill (which may have been with him since he was born, or which he may have honed over decades) made the moment. The rain returned pretty much as David left for his next assignment.

Megan McCubbin, wildlife TV presenter and conservationist

The iguana v racer snakes – you know the story! An iguana hatchling makes a break for its life across volcanic rocks with speedy snakes on its tail. The world held its breath watching this story unfold, with David Attenborough’s quiet yet powerful voice guiding us through it.

This sequence – from Planet Earth II – is one of my favourites, but was filmed decades into a career that began in a very different world. Big bulky cameras, never-before-explored habitats and a young producer that would shape natural history television for ever. Sir David doesn’t simply document the natural world, he makes connection and curiosity accessible to millions.

He’s had an enormous influence on my life through an accumulation of spellbinding moments. He teaches us to sit with the complexities of our planet, to notice its beautiful details and to feel the weight of our impact, by showing us how to love and conserve it.

At 100, his career isn’t just about the facts or footage, it’s always been about perspective: the world is extraordinary, if you’re willing to really look.

Happy birthday, Sir David! The world is a lot brighter and infinitely more beautiful because you taught me how to look and listen with real intention.

Jack Baddams, Springwatch ornithologist

It’s hard to overstate the impact The Life of Birds had on my life. I was five years old when it was broadcast [1998] but already burgeoning with an innate affinity for the feathered.

This was long before a quick search on your phone could bring up a thousand images of animals from far-flung reaches of the globe. Attenborough was showing me the world’s birds for the very first time.

Many scenes – such as the kiwi, snuffling for sandhoppers along a beach, as Attenborough lay only a metre behind this flightless, nocturnal oddity – live in my mind to this day.

Some 26 years later, it inspired me to seek out my own meeting with this bird in a dark New Zealand forest. As the kiwi bumbled through the leaf litter, I became acutely aware that I was living my very own re-creation of that scene, fulfilling the dreams of a wide-eyed child, set in motion by Sir David more than two decades earlier.

The brilliance of The Life of Birds continues to shine through with new generations. A clip of Sir David being floored by an aggressive, testosterone-fuelled male capercaillie (the world’s biggest species of grouse) in the Scottish Highlands still does the rounds on social media. Despite the battering he’s taking from this turkey-sized bird, Attenborough is a consummate professional and dutifully tries to complete his piece to camera while being chased and falling over the heather.

But it’s a visit to the forests of south-eastern Australia – where the superb lyrebird is famed for its ability to mimic almost any sound and weave them into one of the most complex songs heard on planet Earth – that has found online immortality, with more than 40 million views on YouTube.

I’m sure many of us have memorable sequences from Attenborough’s long career. Mine poured petrol onto a passion that has shaped my life. For the impact that Sir David had on me, and for every other kid who stared wondrously at the world’s wildlife that he brought to our screens, I will for ever be thankful.

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