Oliver G. Pike

A wildlife film with a difference: it has A Message for any humans in the house. "The squirrel in the tree, the fox below, the birds, insects, all know that a time of plenty will not last forever". Austerity-stricken wartime viewers can learn from their economical feeding habits. An entertaining hybrid of public information and natural history from the makers of wildlife series Secrets of Life. Released in the BFI boxset Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front.

The peculiar trait of the cuckoo, which tricks another bird into hatching her egg for her, is shown in color photography.

The film takes us to the North of England to follow the migration of the black-headed gull down to London. There, the narrator asks viewers to "listen to their gossip", before demonstrating the bird’s flight in slow motion. We see a polecat feasting on gull eggs, and then a man collecting the eggs for human consumption, with the film telling us that they are considered a “delicacy” in London. Indeed, according to the British Trust for Ornithology, around 300,000 gull’s eggs were sold every year in Leadenhall Market in London during the 1930s, when London Visitors was made.

The birdlife of Northumberland's Farne Islands comes under the spotlight.

A Secrets of Life short about badgers.

The nightingale and its song, its habitat, nest eggs and young.

A Secrets of Life short about the swan.

History - and natural history - filmed on location in Selborne, East Hampshire. This unusual edition of the long-running series Secrets of Life tells the story of the village's famous son, Rev Gilbert White, whose 1789 book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne is a classic of natural history. The film follows in his footsteps, with camera rather than quill in hand, focusing on nature but also taking in views of the village and its human inhabitants. The ingenious close coverage of bird, reptile and other wildlife was the stock-in-trade of the filmmakers at Gaumont-British Instructional, producers of the series. Under the direction of the redoubtable Mary Field, the behind-screen talent here includes legendary 'cine-biologists' Percy Smith and Oliver Pike. A tribute by one generation of pioneering naturalists to another, it's a quietly moving film in spite of its clipped English reserve - or perhaps partly because of it.

Scenes of islanders and seabirds on the remote island of St. Kilda.

Explores the natural history of the otter, depicted through the fictitious account of a day in the life of Otto the Otter and his mother. The narrator claims that the short features "the first film ever taken of an otter swimming underwater."

No description available.

A Secrets of Life short of which the BFI described "a delightful study of a single family which leaves one with a feeling of satisfaction and a determination to watch at least one garden nest consistently when spring returns. The views from inside the nesting box are particularly interesting and one is left wondering how the lighting was managed so well. Young children would be relieved to hear that the parents continued to feed all their young ones and not only the few which kept their balance on the branch. Useful in nature study, biology and gardening classes"

A Secrets of Life short about the tawny owl.

Native British birds, from common gulls and cuckoos to the rare Richardson's Skua, are filmed in their natural habitat.

Birds of the Farne Islands.

This short ends with a warning that the birds helped "to preserve the leafy loveliness of our English countryside. We should therefore protect the warblers."

The perky Cockneys are London sparrows, who star in this natural history film.

A Secrets of Nature short film about a the cuckoo.

"Shows how the hedgerows are used by many animals and birds to conceal their homes."

A short black-and-white silent documentary film featuring the life-cycle of the Barn Owl.