The producers use aerial photography and wildlife footage to show how natural phenomena such as seasonal changes influence the patterns of life.

Wild Africa typifies the style of blue-chip documentary series on which the Natural History Unit has built its reputation, with its high production values, strong visuals and dedicated musical score.

[2] The experienced camera team included Peter Scoones, Gavin Thurston, Owen Newman, Martyn Colbeck and Simon King,[3] all of whom have contributed to many other BBC natural history films.

The filming team travelled from the lowest point on the continent, the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia, to the highest, the summit of Kilimanjaro.

Successes included rare footage of huge feeding groups of manta rays, and Walia ibex locking horns in the Simien Mountains.

Geladas survive in large groups on the cold grassy highlands and use facial expressions to resolve tensions without confrontation.

Walia ibex clash horns on precipitous slopes, and Ethiopian wolves stalk grass rats and giant mole-rats.

A sequence shows mountains of increasing age, from Lengai and Kilimanjaro to Mount Kenya and finally the weathered remnants of the Aberdare Range.

As the Rift Mountains have thrust upwards, they become an agent of evolutionary change as small populations of animals are isolated from their lowland relatives.

Elephants, drawn from the rainforests around three million years ago, are the greatest architects of the land and are filmed pushing over trees.

On warm nights, sea fog forms over the cold ocean and blows across the dunes, bringing vital, life-sustaining moisture.

Ancient rock art in Chad's Ennedi Plateau shows a vanished world – giraffe, elephant, rhino and other savannah creatures.

North of the Tropics, the Red Sea coast receives little rainfall due to the dry heat and intense evaporation.

In the wet season, killifish hatch, grow and breed in a puddle in an elephant's footprint and can move across land to find new water sources.

Elephants are filmed breaking open fallen omphalocarpum fruits using their trunks, behaviour only recently discovered by scientists.

The Biakas also harvest yams, climb to bees nests to collect honey and use natural toxins to stun fish in the forest streams.

At a few special places in the forests, large clearings created by elephants attract many animals to socialise, reinforce bonds and feed on the mineral-rich ground.

One such clearing is Dzanga Bai in the Central African Republic, visited by 2,800 elephants, shy bongos and western lowland gorillas.

Rain falling on the mountains of equatorial Africa eventually flows into Nile, Congo, Niger and other great rivers.

Carmine bee-eaters excavate nest chambers in exposed river banks, but African fish eagles and monitor lizards prey on the birds and their eggs.

The fish and migrating birds feast on a seasonal bonanza provided by clouds of black flies hatching on the water's surface.

[9] Wild Africa won two awards at the 2003 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in the Best Limited Series and Best Cinematography categories.