{"id":718,"date":"2024-07-23T08:46:44","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T08:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/?p=718"},"modified":"2024-07-23T08:46:45","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T08:46:45","slug":"planet-earth-2-cities-bbc1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/?p=718","title":{"rendered":"Planet Earth 2 &#8211; Cities (BBC1)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>BBC <\/strong>contacted <strong>Fabio Di Segni<\/strong> to help them with filming the phenomenon of <strong>starling swarms<\/strong> in <strong>Rome<\/strong>, for their landmark series <strong>PLANET EARTH 2<\/strong>, narrated by <strong>Richard Attenborough<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"http:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/planet-earth.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-719\" srcset=\"http:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/planet-earth.jpg 960w, http:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/planet-earth-480x270.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 960px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-47df6a889a683a5ee42da40333e9d65d wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Each evening during the autumn in <strong>Rome<\/strong>, swarms of starlings fly over the city attracted by the heat rising up from the streets below. They form huge <strong>swarms <\/strong>that swirl and change form above the buildings, millions of birds taking part in a type of aerial acrobatics. And then suddenly, as if responding to a signal they can hear but we can\u2019t, they all alight on the trees along the city avenues to roost for the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"575\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/WP_20151130_025-575x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-720\" srcset=\"http:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/WP_20151130_025-575x1024.jpg 575w, http:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/WP_20151130_025-480x855.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 575px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1c4541da6c72a9bc8d9768997a3b85d5 wp-block-paragraph\"><br>It\u2019s one of nature\u2019s great spectacles. But for the Romans who live below them the beauty is somewhat diminished by what the birds leave behind. Tons of guano drop on the roads, parked cars and buildings of the city. The slippy city streets have been responsible for accidents, and residents are frustrated by the dirt and the smell. So, the city council has been trying for years to find a solution, some method to encourage the birds to nest elsewhere. They\u2019ve used alarms that sound like guns firing (not very popular with residents) and more recently natural predators such as peregrine falcons. The problem with the latter is the sheer numbers: you\u2019d need thousands of falcons to make any kind of impact on these huge swarms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4c57612e4ab1bae59173e8452503f8e1 wp-block-paragraph\"><br>To film this\u00a0<strong>natural history documentary<\/strong>, the <strong>BBC <\/strong>needed to find the best vantage points in the city and as the <strong>location producer <\/strong>and <strong>fixer, Fabio<\/strong> <strong>Di Segni<\/strong> was there to help them. He identified the ideal rooftops for filming and negotiated <strong>access <\/strong>and <strong>film permits<\/strong> on behalf of the <strong>producer<\/strong>. He also spoke with local scientists researching the phenomenon and members of the city council to find out what programmes they were implementing to scare the birds away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cf14a3c3a8c109eca0427bdc0984a807 wp-block-paragraph\"><br>The result is one of the most enchanting and breathtaking scenes in this excellent series, <strong>PLANET EARTH 2, Episode 6 Cities<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC contacted Fabio Di Segni to help them with filming the phenomenon of starling swarms in Rome, for their landmark series PLANET EARTH 2, narrated by Richard Attenborough. Each evening during the autumn in Rome, swarms of starlings fly over the city attracted by the heat rising up from the streets below. They form [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-our-work","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":722,"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions\/722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2026.italyfixer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}