Lynne Richardson

Natural World is a nature documentary television series broadcast annually on BBC Two and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history brand. It is currently the longest-running series in its genre on British television, with more than 400 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, but individual programmes can be in-house productions, collaborative productions with other broadcasters or films made and distributed by independent production companies and purchased by the BBC. Natural World programmes are often broadcast as PBS Nature episodes in the USA. Since 2008, most Natural World programmes have been shot and broadcast in high definition.

Husband and wife team Phil and Lynne Richardson live at a water hole with lions, elephants, and baboons in the African bush of northern Zimbabwe's Zambezi Valley. Video technologies like miniature infrared cameras and lenses for nighttime vision help them capture natural behavior without interfering with the wildlife

In northern Zimbabwe, Lynne and Phil Richardson's National Geographic film crew follows a pride of lions for four years. During the dry season, lions and scientists set up camp at one of the Zambezi Valley's rare waterholes. Elephants, hyenas and buffalo also come there to quench their thirst. The fight for survival begins: hunting and being hunted is the eternal law of Africa's wildlife. The lions have now become accustomed to the human observers, who are able to take spectacular pictures from close proximity. The couple films the pack at night with an infrared camera, and a cub that is only a few hours old observes them with a hidden camera. They capture images that have never been seen before.

As the desert dries out after the rain, antelope move away in search of greener pastures, but the bat-eared foxes remain. Their den, a burrow that’s borrowed from the meerkats, provides underground shelter and the foxes wait out the long, dry months, determined to survive. It is a lean time between rains and our bat-eared fox family must outsmart hungry Jackals, Cheetahs and Lions. Their super sensitive ears alert them to predators and help them find food.