Africa (BBC1, 9pm)

His name is synonymous with some of the most weird and wonderful inhabitants of the animal kingdom.

And yet the veteran broadcaster still does not show any signs of slowing down although he is in his mid- 80s.

Alas, he might be suffering from a severe case of overexposure at the moment. Not only has the BBC been paying tribute to him with a series of Friday night documentaries, he is about to pop up on Sky 3D, present a programme about the Galapagos islands and is also taking charge of tonight’s show, Africa.

He takes a breathtaking journey through the vast and diverse continent of Africa. It is a place he has been to before, of course, but not quite in as in-depth a way.

The stunning-looking six-part series has been filmed over four years.

It certainly covers some ground – from the Atlas Mountains to the Cape of Good Hope; the brooding jungles of the Congo to the mammoth Atlantic Ocean.

Using the latest filming technology, we get an animal’s-eye view of the action, as his journey begins in the Kalahari, Africa’s ancient southwest corner.

It is a place where two deserts sit next to one another, and where even creatures we are familiar with have developed the most ingenious survival techniques.

For Attenborough, the programme comes at the end of a another busy year in which he has celebrated his own diamond jubilee.

Yes, the naturalist and filmmaker has been in the business a whopping 60 years. It is a milestone that, of course, hasn’t gone unnoticed by the Beeb, and was marked last month with the documentary series 60 Years in the Wild.

He still remembers where it all began – in Sierra Leone, filming Zoo Quest.

“We were very incompetent,” he says. “We would not survive a minute in today’s world. We bumbled about.

The gear was pretty amateur stuff.”

In the first episode of Africa, cameras capture meerkats outsmarted by birds, a rhino in its natural habitat, giant insects preying on baby birds, and the rarest fish in the world is filmed for the first time.