The North Sea stands for storm floods, vast tidal landscapes, high dunes and rugged coasts: it’s also one of the most important intersections for bird migration. All year round, her beaches attract not only holidaymakers but also countless seals. The North Sea is extraordinarily varied and surprisingly unknown, her diversified underwater world often hardly accessible. In over days of shooting above and below the water, the team has collected footage of the rarely filmed and spectacular: only a few days every year, basking sharks, at up to seven meters long the second-largest fish in the sea, surface off the white cliffs of Dover. In the Norwegian fjords lurks the even rarer Greenland Shark. They age anciently and skulk their way through the ice-cold deep sea mostly blind. Every spring in Holland, massive squids meet up to mate and spawn.
The German North Sea also has much to offer: one can encounter porpoises, the smallest of all the whales, off the island of Sylt, with its young. They are mostly mistaken for dolphins and are extremely difficult to film. On the beach of Helgoland, grey seals stage their spectacular fighting on a few days each year. And last but not least: the Wadden Sea. It is among the most productive environments on earth. In spring and autumn, flocks of migratory birds stage breathtaking air-shows over the North Sea – like we’ve never seen before.