Pandemic forces BBC into new approach for David Attenborough’s The Mating Game

BBC One natural history series relied on local film-makers to be in the right place at the right time

African bullfrogs converging on pools in South Africa and fighting like bar room brawlers; a school of ghostly-looking manta rays assembling off the Australian coast; vivid images of amphibious snot otters working co-operatively in a cold north American river.

These are all scenes from the new BBC One David Attenborough blockbuster series The Mating Game, filmed during the Covid crisis using a markedly different approach to the 50-year-old tried-and-tested way of doing things.