First Steps

David Attenborough brings us the universal story that unites each of us with every animal on the planet, the story of the greatest of all adventures - the journey through life.

For animals there is just one goal in life - to continue their bloodline in the form of offspring, the next best thing to immortality. The series shows how animals attempt to overcome the challenges that face them at each of the six crucial stages of life as they strive towards ultimate success.

In the first episode, animals overcome their first great hurdle - surviving infancy.

Flightless barnacle goose chicks face their greatest challenge at the very start of their lives. In order to find food they must leap 400 feet down a cliff, from the ledge where they hatched.

Young fur seals in New Zealand have found the perfect place to learn how to avoid predators like killer whales. Instead of swimming out to sea they have discovered a stream that leads into the forest and ends at a magical splash pool below a waterfall. Here the youngsters learn together in perfect safety.

The little-known long-eared jerboa, deep in the Gobi desert, has the largest ears relative to its body of any animal on earth. On its first night alone it learns how to use its astonishing hearing to detect insect prey in the darkness.

Albatross chicks make their first flight from the Pacific island where they were born, but huge tiger sharks are waiting for any that misjudge and land on the sea.