celebrated his 100th birthday<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\nIn a video screened as part of celebrations at the Royal Albert Hall, a chain of animals transported the note from Balmoral Castle to Sir David’s London home.<\/p>\n
He was described as “a remarkable man” and a “marvellous presenter” before the concert, which featured musical performances and montages of some of Sir David’s most memorable work. <\/p>\n
Lily the barn owl took the letter to Sir David’s London home. Credit: BBC Studios NHU\/Buckingham Palace<\/p>\n
The creature courier service started with a border collie sheepdog called Flynn and features eagles, a hedgehog, a red squirrel, a flock of geese, an otter, a swan, a duck, a fox, a deer, and finally barn owl Lily, who posts the letter through Sir David’s letterbox.<\/p>\n
The King recounted a seven-decade friendship with the naturalist, with the pair having first met when the then nine-year-old Prince Charles visited the set of the BBC children\u2019s programme Zoo Quest in 1958 with his sister Princess Anne. <\/p>\n
King Charles enlists friends from the animal kingdom to congratulate David Attenborough on his 100th birthday<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Queen’s adopted dog Moley also made a cameo in the film.<\/p>\n
The King was “delighted” to feature in the tribute, according to Buckingham Palace, and followed each stage of the filming process “with great interest”.<\/p>\n
“He was only sorry not to meet Lily the magical barn owl in person,” the statement said. <\/p>\n
A fox was among the animals delivering the letter to Sir David. Credit: BBC Studios NHU\/Buckingham Palace<\/p>\n
“Her Majesty was particularly touched that her mischievous Moley was invited to make a cameo appearance and was on hand with a ready selection of dog treats to help coax a willing performance on the day.<\/p>\n
“The King and Queen send their warmest wishes to Sir David on his special night and hope he enjoys the resulting film as much as they enjoyed making it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter <\/a>for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning. <\/p>\nReporting History sees journalists join News At Ten anchor Tom Bradby to revisit their remarkable on-the-day reports of the defining events of the modern age. Listen to the episodes below… <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Play Brightcove video There were celebrations across the city to pay tribute to the naturalist who has brought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-573976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/david_hedge.jpg\"\/)
Play Brightcove video<\/p>\n