Snow Animals Peaceful Arctic Wildlife Winter Landscapes

I'm in the Arctic. It is incredibly beautiful. It's also incredibly cold. Winter temperatures here can drop to as low as minus 50 degrees, yet for some creatures like these magnificent wolves they call this place home. They live on top of the world in one of the Earth's freezers, the Arctic Circle. I'm in Polar Park in Norway, the most northerly wildlife park in the world. The wolves here have grown up with humans around, so they're used to people. But I still need to gain their trust and have to remain quiet and calm. Despite the cold, I've had to take hat and gloves off, or these guys would be too tempted to snatch them off. This magnificent beast is treating me like another wolf and saying hello. That's how they greet each other, with their mouths. Wolves often nibble each other's faces. It might look aggressive, but it's a sign of affection. The size of the paws. You are a beaut. Just stroking this wolf, you could lose your hand in its coat. When I part the hair, you can see that underneath is these fine, very soft hairs. It gives insulation, and these longer outer hairs repel the snow and water. This coat is perfect for these conditions. But like a domestic dog, the foot pads, the toe pads of the wolf are completely naked, and they spend most of their lives with those naked toe pads and foot pads in contact with the snow and ice, certainly in the winter. So how do the wolves stop that cold temperature coming from the ground up through their naked feet into the rest of their body? Well, they've got a very, very clever solution to that. Hot blood never reaches a wolf's paws. As it flows down the leg, it's cooled down, almost like entering a fridge. Only cold blood is kept within the paws, so that all the warm blood can remain within the body. This clever adaptation means that any heat loss is kept to an absolute minimum. On a thermal camera which shows body heat, the upper part of the wolf's legs are red, showing them to be warmer than its feet. The wolf's coat looks blue. That's because his stunning thick fur is preventing heat loss from his body. One of the most successful snow animals is solitary, and lives most of his life alone. They can be found in the very far north of the Arctic, the polar bear. This male, like every polar bear, is almost completely covered in fur. But his secret to staying warm in this frozen land is actually inside his large body. He has a huge layer of insulating fat, about 10 centimetres thick. It traps heat, keeping him warm from the inside. To maintain this fat, he relies on his good hunting skills. His prey is hidden under the thick ice. Luckily, he has a secret weapon to help him hunt. An extraordinary sense of smell, a hundred times stronger than ours. He can detect a seal carcass from 30 kilometres away, and under a metre of snow. Success. He will eat all the fat of a seal first, often leaving the actual meat. This extreme fatty diet would kill us, but for the polar bear, it's essential. Indeed, they are one of the fattest mammals on earth. Their incredible insulation and intense sense of smell make the polar bear a master in the snow. They're also built to move around effortlessly in this snowy environment. Unlike me. I am a perfect example of an animal that is not adapted for walking about a snowy environment like this. I'm 12 stone, 12 and a half stone, and all of my weight is distributed onto my feet. Size 12, big feet for a human, but not big enough to stop me from sinking down into the snow. What I need to do is increase that surface area, put on some snow shoes. I suppose the secret to moving around in deep snow is to do it efficiently. There we go. Adapted for walking in the snow. That is so much better. It's easy. I can walk through the forest. I'm not sinking down into my waist. I can go fast. I can almost go silently like I belong here. Polar bears have built-in snowshoes. Their paws are wide, measuring about 30 centimetres across. This helps them to distribute their weight evenly on thin ice. Underneath their large paws are small soft bumps to give them extra grip on the ice. And it's not just that fabulous fur the fox has got. They have incredible senses, particularly their hearing. Despite having these fairly small ears, this fox will be able to detect its prey with pinpoint accuracy, even when it's hidden underneath the snow. In the depths of the Canadian winter, a young Arctic fox is searching for food. He's still a hunting novice. It's not easy when you can't see your prey. With his acute senses, he can hear a faint sound under the snow. Lemmings. To catch one, he uses a special pouncing technique known as mousing. He has to judge its exact distance as well as the depth of snow. To help them find the right spot, foxes actually align their pounce to the Earth's magnetic field. An extraordinary skill. But mousing isn't always easy, especially for a beginner. Reindeer traditionally pull sleighs and have a popular reputation for red, glowing noses. But behind this folklore, there is some surprising truth. An ingenious adaptation which helps them survive the extremes. Their noses are full of blood vessels. These cool warm air down as it leaves the body and warms cold air up as it comes in, keeping the reindeer's brain constantly warm and active. So, as the thermal camera proves, reindeer's noses are actually red. It's not just the nose of the reindeer which is extraordinary. How they view their winter surroundings through those large, characterful eyes is truly astonishing. When it's bright and sunny like this, my eyes struggle to cope with the amount of UV light that's coming from the sun and is bouncing back up off the snow. If I was to spend too long here, I'd eventually damage my eyes. I could become snow blind. But reindeer, they see things differently. Not only can they see in colour like I can, they can also see in ultraviolet. For us, it's difficult to make out detail when the landscape is so white. But with UV vision, a reindeer can see things in much greater contrast. They can see shapes and detail that we can't. The lichen on the trees which they eat or animal urine in the snow becomes more prominent. In such a white, snowy world, it certainly helps to have that extra insight. Reindeer even have specially designed flexible hooves. In the winter, their four toes can spread out wide to act like snowshoes. This means they can walk on bumpy ice without slipping. However, on smooth ice, they can sometimes find their shoes a little ill-suited. In the far northern coast waters, most birds have migrated for the winter. But one species of bird braves the icy seas. Eider ducks. Hundreds of thousands of them. This patch of water is their last refuge. These open pools are kept free of ice by strong currents underneath. From here, the birds can dive down into the water, picking off mussels from the depths of the sea. Surrounded by ice, the Eider's survival depends on this single, vulnerable oasis. And conditions here can change very fast. In a smaller pool, other Eider ducks are learning a bitter lesson. An early winter storm has caught them out and the ice is closing in. The pool is shrinking and the ducks are perishing. The larger pool has a far greater chance of staying open all winter and the ducks will have avoided an exhausting migration. It's always a gamble, but for these ducks, one which should pay off. A family of otters is making its way to a river kept open thanks to the underwater geysers. Here, they can happily fish for a much-needed dinner. However, they are not alone in this snowy landscape. They are being spied on by a clever trickster. A coyote. He's been watching and waiting as the otters die for fish. This otter doesn't want to risk losing his dinner and plans to hide his catch under the ice. Although the coyote can't see the otter, he can hear him moving somewhere underneath him. The otter emerges, but without the fish. He's stashed it somewhere under the ice. But where? It's turned into a game of hide and seek and the coyote fancies his chances. A huge trout. What a prize. In these conditions, being cunning as well as a little bit devious can be the key to survival.