Sir David Attenborough has said changes in technology means he faces a challenge to stay ahead of amateur film-makers shooting their own wildlife footage.

Naturalist Sir David, whose new BBC series Life Story starts next week, said the same technology that made his job easier made it easier for other people to film.

Speaking at a BBC event at Broadcasting House in central London, he said: "Now we can really do almost anything you can think of. We can film at night, we can film at the bottom of the sea, we can slow things down, we can speed things up. We can have remote cameras of the highest quality, we really are technically very close to, it seems to me, as much as we can ever hope for."

He added: "The clarity has just gone up and up and up and it's going to go into people's own hands. Now that's the interesting thing with cameras and remote cameras that can run forever or jolly near, people can make their own movies so it's up to us to keep ahead of them."

Sir David is also making a string of new BBC shows including Waking Giants, which examines the discovery of what is thought to be the skeleton of the largest dinosaur to roam the earth in an Argentinian desert, and a documentary about Birds of Paradise that live in the jungles of New Guinea.

The BBC has also unveiled a new set of spy robots including meerkats and monkeys that will secretly film animals for a new show.

The Natural History Unit has also filmed sharks giving birth, used thermal imaging cameras to reveal the lives of domestic pets including hamsters and rabbits and used cameras developed to film the Olympics to catch giant flying squirrels in the air and sparrowhawks hunting their prey in Britain's back gardens.

Meanwhile, a tailor-made snapshot of how the natural world has changed over the past few years - including a tally of volcanic eruptions and the distance moved through space - has been created for BBC online visitors.

The Your Life On Earth feature allows users to add their own date and marvel at discoveries, as well as facts and figures calculated from their lifespan, such as the number of times their heart has beaten, or the height a giant redwood tree would have reached.

It is part of the launch of BBC Earth, a new online area which pulls together much of the corporation's natural history, including images and footage.

Programmes such as Wonders Of The Monsoon, the forthcoming Life Story, Springwatch and the popular Radio 4 slot Tweet Of The Day will be included, and it features a calendar to allow people around the UK to get involved in local events. Photographs and video from members of the public will also be included.

Eva Appelbaum, launch director of BBC Earth, said: "The ambition of BBC Earth's digital platform is to bring audiences something amazing every single day - to reveal the wonders of nature and help us feel more connected to it."