Ha ha, I was just looking at a friends profile on the Internet Movie Database (who is working on the new X-Men movie) and discovered that I am on there too for my appearance on
Springwatch's Wild Night In! How mad is that!
Here is the link. Being a massive film nerd this was quite a big surprise! Somehow, Wild Night In has gone down as a TV movie?! If you then click on the link to the
show itself, I am on there on top of Graham Norton (oo-er) and more importantly, two spaces above Bill Oddie! (I appreciate this is just down to the alphabetical order of things but little victories and all that). Anyway, that's another story. To be on the same cast list as David Attenborough and Prince William does make me feel rather proud.
The deadwood invertebrate piece we filmed at Ebernoe Common two weeks ago will air tonight at 6.30 pm on BBC South Today on BBC1 as part of Finn's Country with Roger Finn. I just saw brief glimpse of it on Breakfast and Ebernoe and the insects look amazing.
We had a great day filming an episode of Finn's Country with Roger Finn for BBC South Today on deadwood and the things that live in it. We even managed to get a few shots of beetles and flies which looked pretty good through the macro lens. Here, the camera-man is filming the hoverfly Myathropa florea investigating a rot hole on a huge fallen Beech limb. We did all the shots on one take, I'm definatley getting more used to being in front of the camera, this being my 5th time in 15 months. The show will air two weeks tomorrow being Wednesday 1st September. Athough overcast, the rain held off and the light was good. I really can't wait to see how it looks!
It's so great working in Sussex, I can't even get five metres out of reception sometimes before getting a great photo opportunity. Today this was due to a male Brown Hairstreak feeding on Hemp Agrimony right outside our office. I have seen one specimen each year for the past three years at Woods Mill but this was by far the most confiding and Gemma managed to announce it over the tannoy so a good number of people got a good view of it (thanks Gemma!). This is actually the first time I have had a good view of a male, as I was taking the shot I thought the pale patches on the top of the forewing were damage but they are part of the male's markings. I first labelled this male as a female in error, it's the females that I have seen before at Woods Mill that are difficult to get close to. Thanks for pointing this out Peter M. According to the 1991 edition of 'Butterflies of Britain and Ireland', to see a male so low down nectaring is a rare occurrence and coincides with a lack of honeydew in the master trees, has any one else had good views of males this year? The confiding behaviour is also mentioned as being typical when feeding low down.
If all goes to plan, I'll be filming with the BBC again tomorrow.
Here is my last collaboration with Roger Finn from summer 2009. Watch this space!
WOW! What an amazing experience and a great opportunity it was to take part in the live show Wild Night In. I am still buzzing from the whole thing. I really hadn't thought all that much about how big this event was going to be, I think it was a safety mechanism to stop me getting too freaked out about it. Anyway, Rich and I got to London Zoo about 4.00pm and spent nearly four hours waiting for a 60 second debrief. All the time we were getting tenser and tenser and we were finally ushered into the aptly named 'Green Room'. Fortunately I kept my lunch down and combated the intense fear I was feeling by sitting on my own and gripping the chair really tightly. Just like that we were on air and as soon as I had the camera shoved in front of my face I did chill out a bit, I was amazed how calm I seemed when I watched it back. It was not like that in my head at all. It was so good for Sussex Wildlife Trust to be involved with this and also for me personally as I wouldn't mind getting into natural history presenting. It really was a bit of a dream come true, to be talking live to thousands of people about practical conservation and ecology and to see British butterflies up there with some of the most impressive and exotic wildlife on the planet. Awesome, I am made up. I didn't get to sleep until gone 3.00am from all the excitement and coffee. It was funny watching one slightly bewildered contributor say to Edith Bowman after her slot, "that was great, you're a natural". I don't think he new who she was. Right, back to the real world of actual conservation now...
Tonight I am hopefully gonna get the chance to talk about Adonis Blues and the work we have done at Malling Down to benefit them, and other chalk-grassland plants and animals, with the help of the BBC wildlife fund. The programme is called Wild Night In and will air live from London Zoo from 8.00pm to 10.00pm on BBC2. It's a fund raising event with an aim to secure funds for conservation projects around the world.
I'm half way through the grasses, sedges and rushes course I run at Woods Mill. Did the grasses today and things are looking very differently to last year. I picked a selection of grasses and we spent the morning keying them out before going out on the reserve and identifying many more species. Many plants are not even in flower but I did find a species in the meadow I had not noticed before, one of the nicest grasses, Yellow Meadow-grass. It's also a good indicator, I only see it on chalk downland and old meadows, sites with low nutrients. Unfortunately, I am not going to be running the sedges and rushes day tomorrow as I have to go to London Zoo and take part in Springwatch's 'Wild Night In', a fund raising event where I might get chance to talk about the work we have done for Adonis Blues again at Malling Down.
If you missed The One Show last night you can see it here on BBC iplayer. The five minute slot starts at 22 minutes and 30 seconds into the show. I'm really pleased with it, I think we really got the message across and the Adonis Blues look awesome!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00smnsv/The_One_Show_31_05_2010/
I just had a phone call from the BBC, The One Show is airing tonight at 7.00 pm now, not tomorrow as previously planned. Please pass the message on as this is a bank holiday, most of the SWT staff and volunteers will not know of the change.
Today Mike Dilger and I and a crew of five finished filming a short documentary on Adonis Blues at Malling Down. Today we were in front of the camera and it was great fun. It was very hot on the chalk though and we were all a little frazzled by the end of the day. In the photo it looks like we are filming a strange floating man, he was actually jumping up and down doing an impression of a bird! There were many more Adonis today and an excellent supporting cast of other species included Green Hairstreak, Red-headed Cardinal Beetle, a male Peregrine and a really smart looking, nationally scarce (Nb) carabid called Lebia chlorocephala. The show will go out at 7.00pm on Tuesday the 1st June on BBC1. I am now looking forward to cooling off with some booze!
I have spent an excellent day with the BBC's Natural History Unit filming Adonis Blues at the Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve Malling Down. It did not take very long to find the butterflies today, there were at least 30 there. The female photographed may actually be on the TV in a few weeks. The documentary is a 4 minute feature on some funding the Trust had from the BBC to manage chalk-grassland for Adonis Blues and other species. It will appear on The One Show on the 1st June. We also saw Dingy Skipper, Small Heath, Large White and Brimstone as well as Crambus lathoniellus, Pyrausta nigrata and Blue Shield Bug. The strangest part of the day was catching a butterfly in a net with my left hand as I fell down a 30 degree slope, sliding backwards over a patch of Dwarf Thistles, the whole time being on the phone and the caller never even new! Tomorrow Mike Dilger is coming down and we are going to be in front of the camera. I have always wanted to do natural history presenting so this is a great opportunity!
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