'Falcon' kicks off 'Nature' season

Fergus Beeley is used to being in strange, scary places while making nature films. Once, he was abandoned in a remote part of Russia.

"No one came back to pick me up for three weeks," he says.

"The BBC was beside itself with worry, but I was fine. I had all the salmon I could eat."

Still, he's never had a situation quite like "White Falcon, White Wolf," which airs Oct. 26 to open the season for PBS' "Nature" series: Beeley was working on it from a hospital bed in London.

A month before filming began, he was on a project in the Andes. He fell, fracturing his ankle. Next came a 12-hour stretcher ride down the mountain and a flight to England.

Even in the hospital there, he was part of the project. At one point, he helped search for landing points. "I was able to go to Google Earth," Beeley says.

In ways like that, the nature film business keeps changing. This is Beeley's first film shot in high-definition, which he says he's sticking with. "It gives you a pinpoint sharp image."

Still, a few things remain constant:

- "Nature" stays at the top of the field. "It is one of the last bastions of stunning standards," Beeley says.

- Filming remains chancy. In this case, his people had to be there during the brief warm months on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic.

- And sometimes, things go very wrong.

Beeley learned that in 1993, while scouting locations in Russia. That was when protesters were massing in Moscow and Russian legislators barricaded themselves.

All helicopters were diverted, including the one that was supposed to pick up Beeley. Fortunately, he's a former British soldier who didn't mind lots of salmon.

By comparison, this Arctic film was already a snap.

Guides already knew about a nest for gyrfalcons, which are stunningly visual. "The gyrfalcon female will come out of the sky in excess of 220 miles an hour," Beeley says.

The only tricky part was finding a corresponding den of white wolves. That happened quickly; now two separate film crews were at work.

Among wolves, they became interested in a 1-year-old who kept being distracted and was once left behind. "She was very sweet, very naive," Beeley says.

And among gyrfalcons? "They definitely have individual traits," Beeley says. "Some are better hunters than others."

Males are smaller, apparently for a reason. That makes them best at gathering the small food, while the chicks are tiny.

But as the chicks grow, bigger prey is needed. In this case, the male didn't even try; eventually, the female had to fly away and get food herself. Some humans know the feeling.