![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_541575TITLEWild-London.jpg\")
Sir David has got up close and personal with London’s wildlife for a show from home that is close to his heart(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC\/Passion Planet Ltd\/Gavin Thurston)<\/p>\nThe veteran broadcaster is getting close to the animals he loves in his home city – just a few months before he turns 100<\/p>\n
06:00, 09 Dec 2025Updated 07:19, 09 Dec 2025<\/p>\n
Sir David has got up close and personal with London’s wildlife for a show from home that is close to his heart(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC\/Passion Planet Ltd\/Gavin Thurston)<\/p>\n
Nestling in the hands of the world\u2019s greatest naturalist, a baby peregrine falcon looks up and seems very happy to be in the company of Sir David Attenborough<\/a>.<\/p>\n The charming story is just one of the many contained in Sir David\u2019s one-off BBC<\/a> special Wild London, which is all about the wildlife that thrive within England\u2019s capital city.<\/p>\n Along the way viewers will also be treated to the sight of a thrilled Sir David getting up close to many creatures, from the fluffy falcon baby – which is being ringed for its own protection – to a tiny harvest mouse and a family of foxes.<\/p>\n READ MORE: I’m A Celebrity voting figures reveal huge gulf between finalists as fans had their say<\/a>READ MORE: Katya Jones reveals she’s taking a pause over Strictly exit -‘my heart is broken’<\/a> Then there is a gull that hunts pigeons by drowning, foxes stashing chicken bones in car bonnets, herds of deer running through suburbia and pigeons travelling on the tube.<\/p>\n Sir David, who turns 100 in May, has spent his life travelling the globe but this one-hour special sees him transfixed by the wildlife that, as a Londoner for the past 75 years, lives right on his doorstep. On choosing Richmond as his home, he says: \u201cA wilder city is a healthier city. I wouldn\u2019t want to live anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Director Joe Loncraine says that they were spoilt for choice when it came to the stories – and that Sir David was keen to be involved from the moment they pitched him the idea.<\/p>\n \u201cHis memories of London <\/a>informed what we did and where we took him,\u201d Joe says. \u201cHe’s got peregrine falcons nesting near his house and he says on camera that he used to have a hedgehog in his garden and he doesn’t anymore, which he\u2019s really sad about.\u201d<\/p>\n In the film there are also shots of Sir David lying on the ground in someone\u2019s garden as he examines the great Hedgehog Highway idea – holes in fences which encourage the spiky creatures to roam freely and find a mate.<\/p>\n Joe and executive producer Gaby Bastyra have worked closely with David Mooney, chief executive of the London Wildlife Trust, to find the right stories for the film and for Sir David to participate in. \u201cYou talk to him about stuff that he’d be interested in, and you can tell straight away the ones he likes, the ones he doesn\u2019t,\u201d Joe explains.<\/p>\n The cameras follow some peregrine falcons as they nest on the Houses of Parliament<\/a> and teach their young to fly and hunt high above our heads. Gaby says Sir David loved handling the chick as it was ringed for monitoring . \u201cHe\u2019d never held or met a Peregrine chick before, and he was genuinely enthralled and loved the moment of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Mooney said it seemed the baby bird knew it was being held by the legendary BBC<\/a> broadcaster. \u201cWe do a lot of bird ringing across London and I’ve never seen, in 20 years, a bird of any kind look up like that – he knew it was David Attenborough. Of course he did!\u201d<\/p>\n Joe said that getting the shots of the falcons fledging and teaching their young to fly had been tricky. \u201cIt’s one of those things you really don’t know that it’s happening above your head in Hackney or Charing Cross Hospital or the Houses of Parliament or London Met University. Finding the right vantage point is hard. You’ve got to be there at 4.30am, sometimes earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n Another astonishing story also features birdlife – in the form of a lone gull in Hyde Park which has learned to hunt pigeons by dragging them into the Serpentine and drowning them.<\/p>\n While filming this spectacle, the team from independent production company Passion Planet, found that the local coots were also getting involved – as heroes. \u201cI don\u2019t know whether or not they were deliberately trying to save that pigeon,\u201d Joe says. \u201cBut the fact that they do that is quite amazing. That was a real shock and a bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n It is rumoured that another gull is copying this behaviour but has yet to succeed in a kill. \u201cLondon’s pigeons might need to watch out,\u201d Joe warns.<\/p>\n Pigeons also feature in another story, suggested for the programme by Sir David himself. Joe grew up in West London but had never seen a pigeon on the Hammersmith and City line. \u201cAnd then David Attenborough told me about seeing pigeons on the way to Ally Pally when he worked at the BBC,\u201d he says. \u201cSo they’d been doing that for 70 years.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_544627TITLEWild-London.jpg\")
Sir David looks thrilled to be holding the peregrine chick – and so does the bird(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC \/ Passion Planet Ltd \/ Gavin Thurston)<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_544623TITLEWild-London.jpg\")
The family of foxes who live in an allotment in Tottenham, north London, are incredibly tame(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC \/ Passion Planet Ltd \/ Gavin Thurston)<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_541574TITLEWild-London.jpg\")
David also gets to hold a tiny field mouse(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC\/Passion Planet Ltd\/Joe Loncraine)<\/p>\n![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_544624TITLEWild-London.jpg\")
Sir David holdes the delighted peregrine falcon chick as it is ringed for surveillance and protection(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC \/ Passion Planet Ltd \/ Gavin Thurston)<\/p>\n