Re: US airs Attenborough's Life of Birds

[luisrey <luisrey@ndirect.co.uk>]

>In a message dated 6/24/99 1:28:53 PM EST, gbabcock@best.com writes:
>
><< "'To Fly or Not to Fly' travels backward 150 million years to revisit a
>time when
> some birds abandoned flight and began to walk Earth on foot."
>
> Either the above statement garbles the content of the program, or it's going
>to
> be more controversial than I expected! >>
>
>This I gotta see.

NO, don't expect big things. Feduccia would be happy with this one. They
have this semi bipedal little lizard that runs and turns  behind a tree and
then becomes Archaeopteryx as if by magic... not even through a
distantly-looking dinosaurian stage.. and no, there are no protobirds,
archies or any other ancient bird returning to the ground (at least until
dyatrimids or phorusrhacids come). The series is not too bad, but the
prehistoric approach is confusing and outdated.
No mention of Caudipteryx, Avimimus, Mononykus or anything similar. As
usual (and as most popular series produced around here), they try to avoid
any kind of conflicting or controversial idea that would generate debate.

As a parade for bird-watchers it is nice though...watch out for the Lyre
Bird programme... that was something else.


Luis Rey

Visit my website on http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey