This week marks Sir David Attenborough 90th birthday. There’s a lot to celebrate in his six-decade career filming and narrating nature documentaries, which include the jaw-dropping series Life and Planet Earth.
Celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s birthday by watching him play with adorable baby gorillas
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Brian Resnick was Vox’s science and health editor and is the co-creator of Unexplainable, Vox’s podcast about unanswered questions in science.
(Or a more recent accolade: An arctic research vessel was named after him, though the British public would have preferred the ship be called Boaty McBoatface.)
But if I could direct you to one video that best highlights Attenborough’s charming, accessible, and authoritative voice on nature, it’s this 1970s clip from the BBC. In it, Attenborough approaches a group of gorillas in the mountains in Rwanda, and one of the baby gorillas grabs onto his foot. Attenborough — usually stoic — beams an incredibly wide, uncontrolled grin.
“There is more meaning and understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know,” Attenborough says after the encounter. “We’re so similar.”
He’s able to both distill the meaning of the moment and show the sheer joy of it to viewers. That’s why people love to watch him.
Attenborough would later say this moment was “one of the most exciting encounters of my life.” It shows.
If you like that one, here’s two more.
Attenborough says “boo” to a sloth.
And here, Attenborough seduces a cicada with jazzy finger snaps.
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