River Cottage Road Trip (C4)

Natural World: Flying With Condors (BBC2)

The Hurricane That Drowned New Orleans (five)

WHILE David Attenborough watches wildlife, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall kills it. Having slaughtered everything edible around his Dorset home, he headed North on a killing spree in River Cottage Road Trip.

After describing the teal - a small wild duck - as "a beautiful little bird", he decided he had to bag one with his gun. A couple of shots later, he'd got the bird and was cooking it.

He declared it to be "one of the finest wild birds I've eaten in my life". What a pity the creature wasn't alive to hear the compliment.

In a more light-hearted scene, Fearnley-Whittingstall put on a kilt to go haggis hunting. A variety of implements - nets, spades and brooms - were used to hunt the wild haggis in this curious ritual.

In the Lake District, he went collecting wild mushrooms. It was a good job he had an expert with him as the variety he thought looked good enough to eat turned out to be "deeply poisonous".

The birds in Flying With Condors were alive, although mother-of-two Judy Leden had them in her sights. She didn't want to shoot them, but to fly with the world's largest flying bird in the Patagonian Andes.

The world championship hang-gliding pilot wanted to get up close and personal with this "supreme glider". "I've always wanted to fly like a bird, that's why I started hang-gliding. To have the opportunity to fly wingtip to wingtip and being accepted in their environment is my dream," she said.

She had five weeks to achieve her dream, which may seem a long time, but thermal air currents made hang-gliding difficult. We saw how bad it was when Judy, who's been flying for 20 years, broke her wrist during a difficult landing.

"I can repair the glider but she might not be able to fly it," said husband Chris.

So she changed to a para-glider, easier to manoeuvre with an injured wrist. That was the theory, but a gust slammed her into the rock face and she broke her foot.

This still wasn't enough to deter her. Came the final day of the expedition, she opted to fly. You had to cheer her on as she soared alongside condors against the magnificent scenery of the Andes.

She beat the weather but as we know only too well, Hurricane Katrina was the victor in the US this summer. The Hurricane That Drowned New Orleans recounted the disaster that left 1,300 dead, hundreds of thousands homeless and a city destroyed.

The documentary made the point that, while nothing could be done about the weather, the authorities could have paid more attention to those who'd been predicting the tragedy. There wasn't an adequate system to keep the flood water out or to deal with it if it got in.

It's no comfort to the people of New Orleans, but this really was a disaster waiting to happen.