Sir David Attenborough: A 100^th Birthday Tribute from Pangolin Photo Safaris

In the UK, and in a few other parts of the world, we have coined the phrase “National Treasure” as a label for those individuals who transcend normal celebrity to become part of our collective consciousness and identity. This is a relatively new phenomenon, beginning in the 1960s and culminating in the first official award in 2002, when The Queen was identified as National Treasure Number One by the Daily Express in a national survey. Dame Judi Dench came a close second.

There is a third figure, however, who has consistently placed in medal positions as a national treasure in the UK, and some would argue he is certainly in the gold place this year as he celebrates his 100th birthday. It is, of course, Sir David Attenborough who celebrates his 100th birthday on May 8th, 2026.

I don’t need to waste your time talking about his illustrious career. Over the coming weeks, terrestrial and streaming channels, as well as news services, will be flooded with tales of his extraordinary career in front of and behind the camera as a highly regarded BBC 2 Controller in the 1960s. Do you know he commissioned Monty Python’s Flying Circus!

Instead, I would like to take the opportunity to share with you the impact Sir David has had on my life and Pangolin Photo Safaris as a company.

On my third birthday in 1977, the BBC launched its flagship wildlife program, Wildlife on One, which ran for a further three decades, with over 250 episodes, all of which were presented by Sir David. At its peak, the 30-minute program would draw audiences of between 8 and 10 million viewers, representing over a third of the television-watching population of the United Kingdom. And I was one of them, transfixed on the exotic creatures that Sir David was telling me about in his unique, soothing and authoritative manner in lands I one day hoped to visit.

The most extraordinary part is that for the vast majority of the time this program aired, it really was appointment-to-view television. There was no way to record it and watch it later, so families across the country would dutifully mark their TV guides in the newspaper to avoid missing it.

I have incredibly fond memories, especially when the programme aired on Sundays, of retiring to the lounge (whose floors were strewn with sections of the Sunday papers) to settle in with my family after a hearty lunch and waiting for the next episode. In an instant, Sir David transported us from dreary London to the far-flung corners of the planet and introduced us to animals that sometimes seemed almost mythical.

It wasn’t even the “big stuff” that captivated. I can remember on my first safari seeing an impala and being absolutely blown away, as I had only ever seen these on Wildlife on One, admittedly, normally being chased by something with teeth. Nonetheless, it was a profound moment, one I thoroughly enjoy sharing with our clients on their first safaris to this day.

At this point, special mention must go to the cameramen, producers, researchers, and the whole team behind each episode, as they worked with such rudimentary equipment (compared to today’s cameras!). It really was the most extraordinary feat of filmmaking. A filmmaker friend once suggested to me that the BBC would often spend one month in the field to get as little as four to five minutes of footage, not to mention the month of research and preparation that went into it beforehand.

Since then, Sir David has been instrumental in bringing epic series such as Planet Earth and Blue Planet to our screens. You can understand, therefore, how elated I was to receive an email in 2019 from the production team of Planet Earth 3, saying that they would like to talk to us about coming to The Chobe to film a segment about Jacanas and their chicks. They had seen an early episode on our YouTube channel of Guts photographing Jacanas, which positioned us neatly as “experts” in Jacana photography.

Obviously, the first question I had for them was, “Will Sir David be there”? My marketing brain had switched to overdrive, and I imagined him standing on the bow of the Pangolin Voyager doing his opening monologue for the series. Sadly, this was not to be, as Sir David, in his early 90s, didn’t travel so much anymore. Oh well, if you don’t ask……..

Research and preparation for this shoot were on another level. We had a team of spotters out identifying Jacana nest sites – The Jacana Watch Whatsapp Group. I was shoulder-deep in the Chobe River with a GoPro on a 2m pole, testing visibility for underwater shots looking up towards the lilies and sending it to the producers in Bristol. Guts was modifying the Photo Boat to turn it into a BBC-worthy filming platform. And then COVID struck.

This added a whole new dimension to the logistical challenges of getting a film crew to Namibia, but in the British spirit of “keeping calm and carrying on”, they managed to do so in April 2021. They spent a month on the Pangolin Voyager filming the segment for the freshwater episode. I can’t tell you how they did it because we’ve all had to sign non-disclosure agreements, but what I can say is that their booking our houseboat for a month and paying in advance helped ensure that the crew of the Pangolin Voyager were paid salaries throughout the COVID hiatus.

It’s for that reason that I will forgive Sir David for calling them Lily Trotters throughout the episode rather than Jacanas!

I have very fond memories of doing a screening for the crew of the houseboat from the episode, and, as you can imagine, they swelled with pride, as they were instrumental in getting the footage, along with the camera crew.