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BEAR Grylls’ cameraman spent three weeks on a crumbling mountain ledge battered by wind, ice and giant mosquitos to film this heart-breaking footage of day-old chicks plummeting down a 400-feet drop in search of food.
National Geographic’s gripping new series Hostile Planet, sees barnacle geese arrive in Jameson Land, Greenland, exhausted after an early spring forces them to rush their migration.
To increase their chances of survival they build their nests on the vertiginous snowy clifftops to stop raiding predators from devouring their chicks.
When the goslings hatch 25 days later, the female has lost 30 per cent of her bodyweight.
But, as narrator Bear says in the show, “the greatest challenge is still to come,” as the chicks will starve to death in the hostile environment if they don’t eat a meal within 36 hours.
Devastatingly, the grass they feed on is one-mile away, and first they must navigate the 400-foot drop.
The chicks might have tiny fluffy wings, but they won’t be able to fly for another month.
On the show, three chicks face the death leap and the odds are not good – just 50 per cent of the chicks born on the cliff tops survive the first month of life.
Cinematographer Mateo Willis, who filmed the footage using a camera mounted on a crane, revealed he risked his life to capture the heart-stopping moment.
He said: “The problem with those cliff sides is they’re incredibly broken.
''Over many years the ice has fractured the rocks and it’s like standing on top of a pile of bricks.
''If you were about to remove one of those pieces of rock the whole pile would come tumbling down.
''It’s like very bad Jenga. I was perched on this unstable platform not much bigger than a bath tub and on this unstable ground I had probably about 200 kilos of cranes, weights and a very expensive camera.
''I watched that nest sitting on a little ledge for three weeks.”
While Mateo was precariously balanced at the top of the mountain waiting for the baby Barnacle geese to hatch and jump, two more camera men were at the bottom, poised to capture the falling birds on camera.
On top of the mountain, Mateo experienced both snow storms and brilliant sunshine.
He said: “The weather went from everything to below zero with 50mph winds with ice forming on the tents, and snowdrifts building up to being dead still, 15 degrees with swarms of huge giant mosquitos the size of horses descending on you.
''Sometimes you’d long for the wind to come back and then it would come back and you would long for it to stop again.”
Away from friends and family, Mateo doesn’t mind admitting the crew couldn’t help becoming emotionally invested in the barnacle geese family, all the while knowing heartbreak was ahead.
Mateo said: “Apart from a satellite phone link for a conversation once a week these chicks become your entire world, your whole focal point.
''You have nothing else to focus on and you want every one of those chicks to make it and when they don’t it is heart rendering.
''You really feel for the effort they’ve gone to.
''You sit there with the parents for so long and then they lose one chick, then lose a second chick and you’re thinking, ‘Come on guys, you can do this!’
“Even if one chick gets through, that feels like a bitter sweet victory.
''Okay you’ve lost two but one chick making it through is not bad odds and as a survival strategy it works.
''It works just enough that they are continuing as a species.”
Episode one of Hostile Planet reveals the extraordinary lengths animals including snow leopards, golden eagles, mountain goats and gelada monkeys go to in order to survive the hostilities of life in Earth’s highest mountains.
Only the toughest can endure the extreme weather, scarce food supplies and limited oxygen on these peaks.
The cinematic series goes on to explore oceans, grasslands, jungles, deserts, and finally, the north and south poles.
Hostile Planet premiers on Sunday, April 28, at 9pm on National Geographic
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