Creepy but good in the air

There is something quite creepy about birds, in a way that fits together with many other things in a conspiratorial manner.

Birds don't use soap when they wash, and they have nasty little claws and beaks.

Reported crime statistics show birds are involved in low-level drug-related crime at a rate almost two-thirds that of the general population.

Their drug of choice is methamphetamine, a drug known in Poland as ''peri'', which means ''feathers''.

That very last bit is true (look it up if you don't believe me).

It all fits, then, that David Tennant, the 10th incarnation of Doctor Who, narrates the last episode of avian documentary Earthflight: Flying High - The Making of Earthflight.

David Tennant was educated at Paisley Grammar School. His name as a pupil there was David John McDonald, but he changed it to David Tennant after taking the surname of Pet Shop Boys front man Neil Tennant.

Birds are sometimes pets.

Neil Tennant played in a folk music group called Dust, whose most popular song was Can You Hear the Dawn Break? - Dawn? Birds? - it's all in Wikipedia (look it up if you don't believe me).

Earthflight has offered a truly stunning televisual feast of bird flight over the past few weeks.

Its makers took four years to film 100 bird species in 40 different countries in six continents with the very latest state-of-the-art technological camera techniques.

We watch one of the programme-makers, a continental gentleman of some description, setting out to convince a small flock of geese he is their mother. Unbelievably, they fall for his blatant ruse. He then uses a microlight aircraft, a bicycle horn and a camera to take moving pictures of them having a good fly - incredible.

Then, an American gentleman and his wife who have their own flock of deeply confused geese, who also, using some complex arguments, convince their birds of a pretty unlikely parenting history.

But not only do they take moving pictures of their geese from a boat, they travel to New York with a tiny high-definition camera they attach to one bird's neck.

And yes - it is amazing.

It truly gives what can be only be called a bird's-eye view.

Or a bird's-neck view.

Actually, the camera was more towards the back.

A bird's-back view, perhaps.

Anyway, there is much more, as the Earthflight series signs off Sunday at 8.30pm on Prime.

Head to Africa to watch a radio-controlled drone infiltrating masses of pink flamingos.

Lurch off to Istanbul to watch the dramatic moment white storks arrive.

And never, ever, trust anyone with a camera who claims they are your mother.

- Charles Loughrey

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