Pond and River

VHS cover

*Pond and River* is the ninth episode of the second season of Eyewitness. The topic of the episode is about pond and rivers, their effects on the landscape, their wildlife and role in human society and culture. The episode aired on 10th June 1996.

*Pond and River* is based on a book title that was first published in 1988, and has been republished in 1998, 2003 and 2011.

## Episode

### Introductory sequence

A European brown common frog jumps out of the way of a falling water droplet. The resulting ripple is investigated by a salmon and a damselfly, with the splashing water turning into a mute swan that flaps its wings. The screen fades to white.

### Episode outline

Click here for the full transcript for Pond and River.

More creatures depend on pond and river for life than on any other habitat. Flowing fresh water makes up just one millionth of the world’s water, but supports almost fifty percent of its species. Since human life began, the river has been a source of myth and legend. A story from the Cherokee is shown, in which a water beetle retrieves the first land from below a great body of water.

The birth of the river is shown, and introduces the origami boat that serves as the episode's hero. Every river starts as a stream, only becoming a river when it is four metres wide. The beginning of a river's journey has often fascinated explorers such as Henry Morton Stanley.

Wildlife from the river's upper reaches are shown, together with their adaptations. These include the torrent duck, bullhead, West African hairy frog and dipper. Plants are also adapted, with strong roots to fight the current. The upper reaches are clean and rich with oxygen, so are an ideal habitat for insect larvae and the sea lamprey, which grips with a sucker-like mouth.

No species has relied so much on the river as mankind, with many of the earliest civilisations springing up on the banks of rivers where the fresh water was used to irrigate crops. As a result, rivers entered religious significance as symbols of life and, in the case of the Greek mythical River Styx, as a place for the dead to cross.

The river is movement, above all else. Rivers snake across and shape the landscape around them. They can carve away rocks and sculpt canyons and gorges, with the massive Grand Canyon carved out by the Colorado River. Rivers can travel great distances, the Amazon has the most powerful flow of any river and stores a third of the world's freshwater and some rivers, like China's Yellow River, carry enormous quantities of silt.

The slower current of the lower reaches supports a rich and varied collection of animals, including all the world's species of crocodiles and alligators, fish such as the pirarucu and piranha and the huge anaconda snake.

Ponds are a quieter habitat that can form from the river or independently. A pond is one of the world's richest habitats, with a sunlit pond producing more plant matter than the most fertile grasslands. Among the contrasting inhabitants of the pond are the water scorpion, which breathes through a snorkel-like air tube in its abdomen, the minnow with its counter-shaded camouflage, the kingfisher and the swan, which mates for life.

The most enduring fairy-tale image of the pond is a frog sitting on a lily pad. Lily pads are universal symbols of life and eternal existence, having great significance in the Hindu religion. The biggest lily pad is large enough for a child to sit on. No animal is so associated with the pond as the amphibian, with almost all breeding here. The stillness of the water is favoured by amphibians and other animals for nurturing the next generation. Toadlets will live in woodland for much of their lives, but return to the pond of their birth to breed.

In the river, the current creates challenges for life. In one myth, the son of Jupiter, Tantalus, is forced to stand forever in a river under an apple tree. When he gets hungry, the apples float from his reach - the source of the word tantalising. Amphibians that have ways of fighting the current include the midwife toad and Surinam toad, which keep their young safe until they are large enough to swim strongly.

Water, so essential to life, took a hold on belief and superstition. Offerings were made to freshwater gods, like the Mesopotamian Enki. The water was also feared, in the form of monsters like the water panther. Freshwater has very real dangers, with water and its animals spreading many deadly diseases including malaria. Malaria spread by mosquitoes still kills millions of people worldwide each year.

Other wetland insects do not have such a lethal reputation. Dragonflies have impressive powers of flight. The water surface is used by insects such as whirligigs and pond skaters, although rain can be an issue for them. Escaping the turmoil on the surface, the water spider spins a web among the underwater plants in which it traps a bubble of air for breathing.

Water plants have been celebrated throughout history. The bulrush featured prominently in the story of the birth of Moses. Rivers are included in many religious ceremonies, with the Hindus bathing in the sacred Ganges and the ancient Egyptians worshipping the Nile's crocodiles and adorning them with crystal and gold.

The slow-flowing water in the lower reaches is home to many freshwater mammals. These range from the tiny water shrew to the largest river mammal, the hippopotamus. River dolphins, heroes of many Amazonian river stories, also live in these lower reaches. The beaver is nearly extinct in Europe but flourishes in America. Their only defence against predators is diving underwater, so they create dams in order to make small lakes.

Human interference with the river's course is on a different level to the beaver, with a fifth of the world's power coming from hydroelectricity. The building of the Aswan Dam meant that the 3,000-year-old Philae Temples had to be rescued and reassembled away from where the water would rise to. To help fish like salmon bypass dams, fish ladders are often added. Man may need rescuing from America's greatest river, the Mississippi. It is diverting its course and could leave New Orleans and Baton Rouge high and dry. The US Army Corp of Engineers is trying to stop this meander, but the Mississippi may prove unstoppable. When man interferes with the river to create dams and reservoirs, the result can be the river’s most ghostly image – the drowned village.

The river expresses itself in many extreme ways, including river rapids, river bores and waterfalls. Angel Falls is the tallest waterfall while Iguazu Falls is actually 275 waterfalls merged into a single curtain of water. When nature is at its most extreme, people attempt to conquer it - this includes Annie Edson Taylor, who became the first person to go over Niagara Falls and survive. Humans are not the only creatures to try and conquer the waterfall, with big-headed turtles also doing so.

The delta at the end of the river's journey can be its grandest feature. It is here that the river joins the sea and meets its end. However, this is also the beginning for the river, as moisture evaporates off the sea, is blown inland back to high ground where it will fall as rain and begin the great journey again.

## Animal species filmed for the programme

### Studio footage

* European brown common frog, *Rana temporaria*
* Atlantic salmon, *Salmo salar*
* Mute swan, *Cygnus olor*
* Common pond-skater, *Gerris lacustris*
* Corn snake, *Pantherophis guttatus*
* Nile crocodile, *Crocodylus niloticus*
* American alligator, *Alligator mississippiensis*
* Common roach, *Rutilus rutilus*
* European bitterling, *Rhodeus amarus*
* Three-spined stickleback, *Gasterosteus aculeatus*
* Leopard, *Panthera pardus*
* Spectacled caiman, *Caiman crocodilus*

### Stock footage

* Saltwater crocodile, *Crocodylus porosus*
* Torrent duck, *Merganetta armata*
* European bullhead, *Cottus gobio*
* Hairy frog, *Trichobatrachus robustus*
* White-throated dipper, *Cinclus cinclus*
* Caddisfly, Trichoptera
* Stonefly, Plecoptera
* Mayfly, Ephemeroptera
* Sea lamprey, *Petromyzon marinus*
* Common dace, *Leuciscus leuciscus*
* Arapaima, *Arapaima gigas*
* Red-bellied piranha, *Pygocentrus nattereri*
* Green anaconda, *Eunectes murinus*
* Water scorpion, *Nepa cinerea*
* Eurasian minnow, *Phoxinus phoxinus*
* Common kingfisher, *Alcedo atthis*
* Whooper swan, *Cygnus cygnus*
* Pool frog, *Pelophylax lessonae*
* European common toad, *Bufo bufo*
* Common midwife toad, *Alytes obstetricans*
* Surinam toad, *Pipa pipa*
* Malarial mosquito, *Anopheles sp*.
* Common darter dragonfly, *Sympetrum striolatum*
* Whirligig beetle, *Gyrinus substriatus*
* Common pond-skater, *Gerris lacustris*
* Water spider, *Argyroneta aquatica*
* Eurasian water shrew, *Neomys fodiens*
* Three-spined stickleback, *Gasterosteus aculeatus*
* Hippopotamus, *Hippopotamus amphibius*
* Pink river dolphin, *Inia geoffrensis*
* American beaver, *Castor canadensis*
* Atlantic salmon, *Salmo salar*
* Big-headed turtle, *Platysternon megacephalum*

## Stock footage sources

* Web of Life: The Living River (1973) - Lamprey attached to screen, bullhead, water shrew, dipper underwater
* Wildlife on One
	+ Amorous Amphibians (1980) - Pool frog
	+ The Water Walkers (1981) – Pond skaters, whirligig beetles
* The Living Planet: Sweet Fresh Water (1984) – Big-headed turtle, hairy frog
* Natural World
	+ Amazon – The Flooded Forest (1989) – River dolphins
	+ Amazon – The Flooded Forest part II (1989) – Piranhas, arapaima, anaconda
	+ Toadskin Spell (1994) - Surinam toad

* The Great Rift: Out of the Ashes (1989) – Hippopotamus
* Living Isles: Streams of Life (1987) – Leaping salmon, dippers, dace, minnows, water spider, water scorpion, river estuary,
* Land of the Eagle: Confronting the Wilderness (1990) - Beaver carrying branch

## Credits

* Director - Leanne Pooley
* Producer - Richard Thomson
* Writer - David Hanson
* Music - Guy Dagul
* Graphics Director - Dean Stockton
* Graphics Design - Stan Peplinski
* Camera - Sean Bobbitt and Matthew Poynter
* Set Design - John Brace and Mark Dadswell
* Production Co-ordinator - Nicola Melluish
* Production Assistants - Tilly Colaco and Quin Jessop
* Researcher - Rebecca Cody
* Archive Researchers - Philippa Graves and Anuschka de Rohan
* Graphics - Simon Kilroe, Kim Aldis and Kate Hood
* Editors
	+ Offline - Mark Fox
	+ Online - Richard Wilding
* Dubbing Mixer - Steve Cookman

## Making this programme

The most elegant animal filmed for Pond and River was the ice swan. A professional ice sculptor carved the swan from a single block of ice, made from only pure distilled water. The tools he used ranged from a chainsaw to a chisel, with water used as polish. Under the hot studio lights, the swan could literally melt away, so the crew had to get the shots quickly before the swan lost definition. The sculpture was set on a rotating table to get an easy graceful floating motion. Rippling reflections required a lapping pool of water, with the images coming from a television monitor hung upside-down. Pond and River required a human baby to sit on a giant water lily. The lily pad came from London’s Kew Gardens, while the baby was a professional actor. The director had to go to extreme lengths to coax a smile from the baby. Fortunately, the frog needed no coaxing to hop and was added later on. For the baby Moses scene, a bulrush set had to be built. Having a baby on-set affects everyone, with even the camera decorated with baby toys. The camera takes on a searching point of view, winding through the bulrushes until it finds a baby in a basket.

## Home media releases

As well as being released on VHS, Pond and River was released as a DVD in the USA and as one of the free DVDs provided with the UK's Daily Mirror newspaper.

Pond and River America-release DVD coverEyewitness Pond and River Daily Mirror DVD cover

**Writing staff**: Anne MacLeod • Ben Southwell • Ben Steiner • Brian Meehl • David Hanson • David Stafford • David Helton • George Bloom • Lynette Singer • Mike Tomlinson • Paul Thomas • Stan Cullimore
**Directors**: Gavin Maxwell • Justine Kershaw • David Hutt • Andrew Jackson • Justin Hardy • Ludo Graham • Jerry Foulkes • Derek Hall • Sanjida O'Connell • Caius Julyan • Bonni Cohen • Leanne Pooley • Edwina Vardey • Alexandra Beazley • Sam Hodgkin • Karen Walsh • Jack Weber • Richard Simkin • Alex Hearle • Brian Cummins • Ben Southwell
**Composers**: Guy Michelmore (season one) • Guy Dagul (seasons two and three)

**Season One**: Cat • Fish • Horse • Dog • Jungle • Bird • Amphibian • Insect • Shark • Elephant • Reptile • Dinosaur • Skeleton
**Season Two**: Desert • Tree • Ape • Mammal • Butterfly and Moth • Volcano • Rock and Mineral • Seashore • **Pond and River** • Weather • Arctic and Antarctic • Prehistoric Life • Shell
**Season Three**: Flight • Bear • Sight • Island • Survival • Mountain • Monster • Human Machine - Plant • Ocean • Planets • Life • Natural Disasters