Sir Charles Wheeler a personal tribute

My first memory of Charles Wheeler was during Watergate. While I was to young to fully understand what was going on, what made him stand out in my mind was that he just told it the way it is.

It was not until the fall of the Berlin Wall that I really noticed him again. What was amusing was that some BBC producer had decided to have an outside broadcast in the middle of a fireworks display. He made it clear that that was bloody stupid, and it made me realise that here was a journalist that just wanted to tell the story without all the bells and whistles, it was the facts that mattered not the fancy gimmicks that the media so loves. Moreover he had some powerful things to say.

That alerted me to be watchful of any stories he was covering. His reporting told the story in a concise and informative way. He did not speculate, he just gave the facts that he had been able to discover and frequently he did get to the heart of the story.

Then it was following the first Gulf War that came the story that sticks in my mind. Saddam was repressing the Kurdish people, again, and CW had gone looking for the people seeking refuge. The report that emerged was extremely powerful. It was so powerful that it forced the western allies to go to the UN and create the No Fly Zones in Iraq. There are few journalists whose work has impacted the world as profoundly as that.

With a career as long as his was, there were many events in history that he was a witness to. I for one will miss the humanitarian that brought a high quality of journalism to the BBC.

A link to the BBC Obituary where clips of some of his significant work can be seen

Bullfinch and Springwatch

I will start with an apology as I realise that my American readers will not have seen the Springwatch programme on the BBC. But while it is quirky and rather British I personally have loved the past three weeks. This year I think that it has been the best so far, and having had my fix of TV wildlife I can now happily ignore all the Football (Soccer) and the Olympics later on in the Year. Although with the Olympics had I been a sports fan I would have not watched it as a protest to the Chinese governments treatment of Tibet. Anyway before I get on that soapbox, back to Springwatch.

One of the things that Simon King had this year was an ultra slow motion video camera and if it were not that it costs a couple of houses to buy, I want one... Seriously, I love to see the details that filming with something like this reveals. It makes me want to buy a better camera myself but high definition suitable for filming wildlife is out of my league at the moment, perhaps I will win the lottery... Don't I have to buy a ticket for that?

Keeping on topic though, on Thursdays show, the last of the series (until Autumnwatch), there was a clip of film that showed a chaffinch dominating at a bird table. Now a couple of months ago I filmed the same behaviour but it was a Bullfinch doing it. However, other birds did come in and snatch a feed so this one was not quite as dominant. But I did it in slow motion and it does make the birds look very graceful.

Also as I do listen to my readers needs, I will just post the link to it at you tube rather than make it difficult for the folks on dial up to access this. Although I do listen for the two cats that are my other readers, I will not be posting the address of the birds as they requested anonymity.

Wildlife of China

As my regular reader will know, I have been taking delight with the Natural History series Wild China that has been showing on BBC television over here. The series has been criticised in reviews as being PR for the Beijing Olympics. While I will not shy away from critiquing any government regarding environmental abuse, Human Rights abuse or for just being plain stupid, this is a Natural History series and had the films been critical of China then it would no longer have been about the wildlife.

While a film that was critical could possibly be made, this also is a co production with China TV and if it had been made with the intention of being critical of China then the series would never have been made. Nor would we have discovered all the hidden delights of the previously hidden and unknown wildlife that we have seen thus far. In fact one of the scenes shown tonight would never have been filmed. That of Wild Giant Panda courtship and mating.

Also one of the remarkable aspects of tonight's broadcast was that there was at least some comment of some of the environmental mistakes of the past. Additionally, and this may be seen as propaganda, it appears that China and its dictatorship have realised that serious environmental damage has been done in the past and are at least trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. There was also an acknowledgement that greater industrial extraction of water from the yellow river, risks the ability of the central plateau to grow the fifty percent of Chinas wheat that it currently grows.

All the way through the series there have been comments that have highlighted some of the environmental impacts that have occurred in China. And while not apportioning blame, the series has not been shy in providing examples of these. One that was illuminated tonight was the fate of the Crested Ibis. It was thought to have been made extinct, but in 1981 seven individuals were found. A conservation programme was initiated and there are now just over five hundred individuals

While I could be critical, I would rather be constructive. There is no a single political geographic area on this planet that could not do a much better job on the environment, therefore I would rather that we had this limited openness that none at all. There is obviously a tacit propaganda exercise by China, but only from learning more about the world can we hope to change what's wrong and keep what's right.

Crane Reintroductions and Animal Behaviour

I guess that amongst my British readers you will already be aware of and probably already watch Springwatch, but as many of my readers are from overseas, I apologise in advance if I am talking about stuff you already know.

But last year on springwatch they showed one of the Barn Owl chicks eating his younger siblings. One thing that the programme can not be accused of is being over sentimental. This is part of normal natural behaviour. Then this year was something even more extraordinary. When the series started they showed a Swallow (Barn Swallow) that was using an artificial nest. On Monday the chicks hatched and the male killed the chicks. While there was an attempt to save the chicks, there was nothing that could be done and the male killed the chicks. He then went on to build a new nest.

Now while artificial nest boxes are a boon to many birds, even back twenty years ago I was told that artificial nests for swallows just don't work. This is because the building of the nest is an important part of the pair bonding. What possibly happened in respect of the birds on SW was that the male thought the female had been unfaithful. It was not his nest and he possibly thought that he was not the father.

As this has never been filmed before, even the experts are not sure what is going on, but it shows that we don't know everything and we humans have more to learn.

One of the other things that SW has been showing is the work being done to reintroduce the Crane to the UK. This has involved one of the presenters having to dress up in a silly costume to disguise his human form. Something I can empathise with as I have had to do similar things myself. However, while the techniques may seem silly, they are in fact proven ones. In the US the same processes have been used to help increase numbers of the Whopping Crane. This includes all the dressing in silly costumes and using litter pickers to mimic the bill of the chicks mother. As well as teaching the chicks to become cranes, well it has to be seen to be believed. However, the aspect that differs with the American programme is that they have to also teach the birds to migrate.

This is done by teaching the chicks to fly with and behind microlight aircraft so that they can learn the migration route to Florida.
For my American reader you can see this on Wild Chronicles in an edition called Operation Migration.

The success of the red kite reintroduction programme all bodes well for the Crane School.

Broadband Rip Off

Today on the News was a story about just how slow Broadband really is. While this will be news to people in London, anyone outside the capital will know that this is true. For people in rural locations its even worse. My regular reader will know that I had problems with BT when I moved house and was getting speeds of less than 100 Kbps (Kilo Bits per second) This improved when the corroded cable was replaced, eventually. But even now I normally only get 200 Kbps on a good day nearly 300 Kbps Although if I am trying to deal with Video I will sometimes do it at night when if I am very lucky, I can get 500 kbps That is still only half of the speed that I am paying for.

It is Ironic that this story should arise when I have just posted about trying to help my readers who are on dial up and don't have access to broadband at all.
The get out clause that all the companies use is up to whatever speed you are paying for. Well one of these days I think that someone will get so hacked off with being conned that a customer will take the companies to court.

Therefore, I am fully aware of the difficulties of internet connection. So I hope that my posting of video to this web log is not causing to many people difficulties. If it is please let me know and I will see if I can adjust the settings and lay out to make things easier.

Water Voles, Bank Voles and Springwatch

Wednesday morning saw me heading out in the rain, towards the Derwent River with the aim of filming Water Voles. As Folks may not realise this star of the Wind in the Willows, (Ratty should have been called Volley) is the fastest declining mammal in Britain. However we still have a relatively healthy local population. This is mainly due to the fact that we do not have a problem with Mink.

However, before waxing lyrical about the water vole, I have to admit that I should have postponed my attempt when I saw the weather forecast. As any one with more than one brain cell working, I seem to have had only one working this morning, Heavy Rain and electrically operated cameras don't mix. While I do use covers and rain shields, I was risking getting my equipment water logged. Just as I got water logged. When I got back home I even had to wring out my boxers.

I was in the right location though as I could see the voles were active in the place I had hoped to see them. It is one of the real benefits of the loss of the heavy industry that blighted this region that the rivers are now clean enough to support a healthy biodiversity in the rivers. There was a time, only thirty odd years ago when the river was so polluted that even common weeds were killed off by the waters from this chemical cocktail of a river.

When I got back and dried off by having a bath, there is twisted logic there somewhere. I sat down to write up my notes. As I did this I watched with interest a Blue Tit that was going around the plants in my yard picking off any insects. Then he or she, started collecting flies from the spiders webs in there too. Quite remarkable behaviour and something I had not seen before.

Today, Thursday saw me dealing with other Voles. As some types of conservation work requires trapping of small mammals, under licence, I have been seeking to get the training needed. As I am financing this myself. The costs are coming out of my pocket rather than being funded by a Charity, Conservation body, or government department, one of the people providing me with the training and experience has been providing me with a lift. This morning that meant a very early start of three thirty. Therefore I was rather somnambulant this morning. It meant that while I picked up my packed lunch, I forgot my cameras.

Learning to handle any small mammal can be a painful experience, but so far I have escaped being bitten. Although everyone else has suffered bites. My mentor thinks that it could be that I have some sort of affinity... Rubbish, I am just careful as I know it would hurt.

While others suffered the indignity of getting nipped in the name of conservation, I while laying on the ground removing one of the humane live traps, suffered by having a smelly muddy dog run on to my back and grab my ponytail. For nearly a minute it refused to let go or allowed me to try to rise. When one of the other students freed me from the clutches of her mutt, I rose with my pride feeling very bruised. I felt like giving the dog an Anti-Social Behaviour Order. I did however keep the trap intact and the vole safe.

When the Vole was released, its released into a bag, I thought it was a field Vole. However, as I am not an expert, I was surprised to discover that it was a Bank Vole. This lesson made me realise that I had previously seen them in my local woods and misascribed my observations. If only school had been this interesting.

Anyway, even though I have bathed I can still smell that damn dog on me.

To go off on a tangent, my regular reader will know that I have been enthusing about the springwatch that the BBC have been doing this year. In previous years, there have been parts that were less good, this year I can not fault the programme. In part this is because the whole team have grown in confidence and have pulled out all the stops to garner some remarkable images. For example the wildlife film maker Simon King, one of the co presenters, shot some ultra slow motion video of an Osprey catching a fish. Remarkable and graceful. However, what for me will be the highlight was the footage they shot of the Scottish Wild Cat. This is an animal so rare and elusive that it was a delight to see. Having spent three weeks of my life trying to see one myself and not doing so, I know just how difficult that was. And this has only been the first week of three.

Anyway, while talking of elusive creatures, the film here is of a Jay. While not rare, and can be seen occasionally, I was chuffed to bits when I got this bit of film.

Bird Taxonomy

There is true story that I was told years ago of a woman who after living all her life in London and only ever seeing pigeons, moved to a house with a garden and started noticing birds for the fist time. When her son visited he would reel off all these elaborate names for the birds, to the delight of his mother. She became so interested that she bought a field guide to birds. To her amusement she discovered that her son had just been making the names up and most of the birds she had seen were the common species found in the garden.

I know that story was true as it was the woman herself who told me. It however sparked a real interest in birds and wildlife.

I mention this as an American friend made a comment about my posting about the Great Tit; saying that it looked like a Black Capped Chickadee. I think that she is revealing something I have long suspected, that the pilgrim father's took over our British birds and just renamed them. I think that there are Americans, even as I speak, painting the wings of our native Blackbird and passing them off as Red Winged Blackbirds.

I bet that most of the exotic sounding species of birds over there are really ours, just renamed. Only kidding! But I do wonder if there are species in the Americas that are evolved from old world birds? While I know that many were named because they reminded the early colonists of European birds, but are unrelated, there will be some that share a common ancestor with old world species.

Anyway, I have had one bit of disappointing news today. The farmer on whose land sits one of the Badger setts that I watch has suspended permission for access. This is because over the Bank Holiday someone started a camp fire near the sett and cut down a couple of trees. Not only that the location was strewn with broken bottles and cans. While I helped with the clean up, he want to prevent anyone going there at all so that he can protect the Badgers and prevent any more damage occurring. I can understand him taking this action, and while it may seem unfair on me, he will stand a better chance of catching who is doing this if no one has any access. Once he can say “Get off my Land” to them, I should be able to gain access again, but I will miss the Badgers.

On a much more positive note though, something I saw on Springwatch last night solved a mystery for me. Back in the first winter in the village and exploring the woods, I had spotted an extraordinary looking mass on the trunk of a tree. I had been watching a tree creeper, but it disappeared from my view. As I scanned the trees for it I saw this strange looking mass on a tree trunk. I fought my way through the Brambles to try and get closer, and the sound of my approach disturbed the tree creeper and I saw a couple of them fly off. But I could not find the strange mass that I thought I had seen. Anyway, on TV they showed something that looked identical to this. Mystery solved, as the mass was a family of newly fledged tree creepers huddled together. This apparently they will do in winter too to keep warm. So what I probably saw was a huddle of adult Tree Creepers keeping warm. Well I learn something new each day!

The film is a clip of a Nuthatch feeding off a bird table.

A Good excuse for being late for work

In a good friends blog today I read that she was late for work because of needing to repair a flat tire. Well in the annuals of history, that has to go down as pretty lame excuse. If you really want a good excuse you could ave used one like this one . Folks in Newcastle had to stop, causing a traffic jam because of a family of swans had to cross the road.

A link to the full story, and my thanks to the BBC for the image.

Cyclone in Burma and the Media

While I was aware that a Cyclone had struck in Burma, it was not until this evening that I discovered the scale of the disaster that has struck that benighted country. Today (although this will be posted on Tuesday) has been a bank holiday here in the UK, so I did not hear the radio or the TV news until late.

While news is difficult to extract from Burma at the best of times, and no doubt this has been exacerbated by the physical damage caused by the cyclone, I would have thought that with a disaster that results in ten thousand people being killed would have merited more prominent coverage.

However, as it has been a bank holiday, I didn't go out into the countryside as I know from experience that it is likely be crowded with people and I would stand little chance of seeing much. Therefore, I had a relaxed day listening to some of the podcasts I down load, reading and writing. This is where I have a difficulty with the way the story of the Cyclone was covered, as several times I logged on to the web and the news feeds from my ISP were full of crap about “celebrity” and that bunch of people that are only famous for being famous.

Now I know that Burma is a long way away and obviously the fact that some unknown celebrity wannabe has had a boob job was far more important!

That is no exaggeration, following seeing the story on Burma on the TV, my ISP was still leading with four nonsense celebrity stories. I had to search out real news for myself. However, this just one example, and possibly the most serious, of the way that the media are abdicating their responsibility to report the news.

While the TV news from the BBC is quite good and comprehensive, I have see to much of the celebrity non story appearing in the news. Most of the other TV channels news is far to tabloid and low brow. The print media here is a complete waste of time. The tabloids have lost all pretence that they cover real news, and while the broadsheets are still readable to a point, there is nothing like the real investigative journalism that the press used to excel at. Additionally they spend far to much space to reporting football. How can any game that a dog can be taught to play be worth all those acres of news print?

While this may seem like a tirade, good quality journalism via the media is important. Its rather appropriate that it should be a media report about Burma, a repressive and secretive regime, should have prompted this posting. As good journalism helps shine a light on the dark corners that governments and businesses would rather remain obscured. Further, we need good quality journalism helps increase understanding about what is happening in the world.

Part of the reason why we have so much going wrong in the world is that the media is failing to scrutinise events properly. The concentration upon celebrity distracts people from discovering what is really happening.

Painted Lady and Red Kite

I can always tell when I've been neglecting my wifely duties, as is normally manifests in the running out of underwear. So while I was out this morning, and knew I had to return fairly early so that I could get some washing ton. Therefore, I was in the House to hear the radio four programme World on the Move. While I do listen to this as a podcast, it is rare for me to be able to catch it as a live broadcast.

I have mentioned in previous postings about this programme, and I dare say it will again, as this is quite inventive of the BBC to broadcast such a project. However my reason for mentioning the programme today is that of the two of the species that they're asking listeners to track, one of them I have seen already just three days ago. While sitting at the computer when I noticed something fly past the window, I looked out expecting to see a bird, and there was a painted lady butterflies sitting on my window ledge. I quickly grabs the video camera, but in the time it takes for the electronics to warm up the butterfly has flown off. Had I got the film of the butterfly I would have mentioned it at the time here, as I thought it was early for this species. Yet by listening to the programme today, I realised that the butterfly painted Lady is at least two weeks early here. Another effect of climate change.

While my wildlife watching this morning had not yielded up much that was worth reporting, it is still been pleasant to be out. And it was wild if I was having a cup of tea following a late lunch, that out of the living room window and saw one of the red kites fly over.

My poor neighbours must wonder what goes on in my place at times as I ran straight up the stairs to grab both video and still camera. When I got back downstairs, the red kite was no longer incite. But awaited as I know from experience, when they are all about they tend to fly in a pattern where there quartering the fields looking for false or shoes or beetles. My decision to wait was rewarded as into a very clear expanse of sky the red kite gracefully gliding over.

After taking the still images, I waited at longer to see if that kite returned but it is policy flown off. However it did find it rather amusing that one young mother returning with her child from infants school, had to, mildly, chastise the child after it said something mildly rude about me that was obviously a repeat of something that an adult had said, previously in the child's hearing. Personally I don't worry about what the neighbours think, if they think I'm eccentric then so be it. The one thing I haven't lost as an adult is the ability to see the world as a child, with wonder and excitement.

A Link to the World on the Move Website

In Praise of Radio Four Journalism

Yesterday, on Thursday, I had to make changes to my plans as I needed to go shopping. The previous Evening I had to get a take away from the Chinese, as I had run out of stuff to make a proper meal.

Therefore, I got the opportunity to listen to the radio in the morning. As my regular reader will know, I love to listen to the intelligent speech radio we have here in the UK, particularly Radio Four.

There are time though when some of the programmes and the news reports make for uncomfortable listening. A year ago there was such a report about a woman in Eastern Congo, who had been brutalised by an armed rebel group the Interahamwe. That original report made me feel physically bilious. So yesterday morning when they introduced that the reporter had returned to DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to reinterview the woman in that report, I knew that it was not going to be a pleasant or light hearted experience.

I will not go in to the details here, but here is a link where you can listen to both the original report and the one from yesterday.

The Today Web Page

One of the aspects of organisations like the BBC that I appreciate is the willingness to tell the difficult story and to tell it well. Further, this quality only really happens in the considered thoughtful reports rather than the instant reaction pieces of live television news.

The story stuck in my head as I went round the supermarket, and I was going to write this posting yesterday when I got back. However, when I returned, I put the radio on and there was another programme that I never miss, Crossing Continents. As this is available as a podcast, I now never miss hearing the broadcast.

Yesterdays programme was about the illegal logging of Russian timber for export to China. Not only that but, the impact of our buying of goods from China is fuelling this.

The Crossing Continents Web Page

While the two stories are very different, they actually carry a common thread, that of the way we in the West ignore what happens in the rest of the world.

Am I glad that here we have the BBC to prick our consciousness and remind us that we share a common humanity.

The Boreal Forest

There was a real sense of irony when a couple of days after I was singing the praises of the BBC and the high quality of programmes that the Natural History unit down in Bristol produce, that I had a salesman from Sky knocking at my door. I should explain to my overseas reader that Sky, owned by Rupert Murdock, is the satellite broadcaster over here. Its also a subscription service and while it also carries the free to air services, all the really decent programming you have to pay a high monthly fee for.

Therefore, when the salesman called and was trying to get me signed up, he started to alienate me by criticised the TV licence fee and what he thought was the way that the BBC wasted money on programmes like Life in Cold Blood. Suffice to say that he never got a sale, but nor did I get the information I wanted about how much it would cost me if I wanted to get the Natural History channels. With digital TV only a couple of years away, I will have to do something if I still want to see TV after the analogue switch off.

However, whatever happens I will still have some great radio to listen to. While I promise you that I don't work for the BBC, again I have to sing their praises again. Going back to my teens, I discovered programmes like the Living World and other natural history broadcasting on BBC radio. What the BBC have recently started is not just something new in interactive broadcasting it is also cutting edge science too.

The programme, The World on the Move, is a year long project tracking the migration of birds and animals, not just in the UK and but around the world. What makes this unique is it relies on contributions and observations from listeners via its web site. Also by collaborating with scientists and conservation groups there is some real science happening. Such as learning how much fuel, energy geese need to make their migration flights. Further, by using new technology such as satellite tagging is allowing us to discover where some animals actually go. A good example of this is the picture, its from the entry for the Grasshopper Warbler in a book published in the late 1970s I bought the book in 1980 I think. As can be seen there is a question mark about the wintering grounds in Africa.

However, what this programme has done for me, is to set me on a path of discovery about what happens around the world. Thus I discover that the Boreal Forest in Canada is the breeding nursery for both North and South America. However there is the ubiquitous problem, that of substantial threats to the habitat, placing ninety five percent of the birds under threat and in serious decline.

I just wonder when we will all start to treasure our world and wonder at the beauty it holds for us.

Anyway you can all find the BBC World on the Move Web pages here. And even if you don't live in the UK you can still listen to the programmes on line.

The Delight and Despair of Natural History on TV

A few weeks ago I said that on Mondays I could not be disturbed as I have been watching the BBC programme Life in Cold Blood. It lived up to my expectations and I know that there will be folks around the world that will enjoy it too. So I will not spoil any future enjoyment of my three readers and the cat.

However, the one thing that makes watching this natural history documentary and others like this is just how rare many of the animals in these programmes are.

Today two hundred species will have become extinct. That is two hundred lost today, another two hundred will be lost tomorrow. That is the rate of extinction the fauna and flora on our planet every day. That is the greatest rate of loss since even before the dinosaurs

This is much more important than we realise, not because we loose the beauty of our planet, as important as that is. But its the loss of resources that we have not even discovered yet that is the real loss. Who knows if a species that we have lost could have been a cancer treatment? That's not being emotive as many drugs on the market are derived from plants.

Also by loss of a species we could allow another pest species to become more prevalent. This happened with the Passenger Pigeon in the US. When the Europeans first invaded north America there were five or six billion of them. Their flocks were so large that they would darken the skies for hours as they flew over. But they were easy to shoot and tasted good. So they were shot barrelled and shipped in large numbers. Then in 1915 in Cincinnati Zoo the last member of her species died.

While the loss of a species that once had a global population the same as all the humans now on the planet was lamented it was not until the nineteen twenties that the effect of this loss became clear. As the Passenger Pigeon was a key part of the food chain that once removed lead to the explosion in the insect populations that were in part responsible for the dust bowl in the twenties.

Often in Natural History documentaries there is almost what has become a throw away line that in ten years, in fifteen years, in five years this critter will be extinct. I truly hope that will still be able to see the the beauty of our planet in real life and not just on film.

The TV Licence

When I write a posting here, I do try and remember that I am talking to an international audience. But a Tree (yes I am talking to a tree) has pointed out, in the US they don't have a TV licence and was confused. I dare say that most people are confused by me and my postings anyway, but that has more to being a fruitcake than anything else.

Here in the UK to provide the money for Public Service Television, everyone in the UK has to buy a licence to watch television. That pays for the BBC and all its domestic services including Radio. While other television channels exist they are paid for by advertising. The BBC carries no advertising. I can hear two hundred million Americans applying for visas as I write!

While the BBC does do “Commercial” programming like soaps and all the other tosh that is inflicted upon us, because the BBC does not have to be as commercial as some of the other channels, they can afford to invest in the high quality wildlife documentaries that none of the other channels produce. Without the Licence fee system we would never have had the “Life on Earth” “Blue Planet” and the up coming “Life in Cold Blood” (I still do not want to be disturbed from nine PM!), and we would have ended up with a lot of cheap poor quality television.

Additionally, the licence fee also pays for the high quality speech radio that the BBC produces, predominantly Radio Four, that if they had to please advertisers would never be able to carry out the in depth analysis of many aspects of life, business, politics, the police etc.

There is a down side as people who fail to get a licence, get fined up to one thousand pounds for not having it. Further, some people call it a tax on the poor, but while the licence is now one hundred and thirty five pounds, it pays for so much quality content (and some of the dross) that I don't really see it as a tax.

So while the system in the UK is not perfect, as long as the BBC keeps producing gems of quality amongst all the dross then I keep on supporting this quirky British system.

Anyway if the BBC stopped making natural history programming where would I get my screen savers from?

Wildlife On Television

When I was a child, part of what turned me on to the Natural World was the Survival films on television. For reasons that escape me my parents would hardly ever watch the BBC, I think that at some point they had been told that if they were not watching the beeb then they wouldn't need a TV Licence. I know that this was wrong and they got caught twice. However, it was not really until I left home and was able to make my own choices, I discover the films that the BBC made.

There have been periods in my life when I have not had a television, and during those times it was always the wildlife documentaries that I missed seeing the most. During these times I was however busy getting involved in physical conservation work. So while I may have missed seeing some remarkable wildlife films, I did get to see aspects of the natural world that I would not have seen otherwise. For example I was involved in building the first artificial Bat Cave in the UK down in Kent.

Over the years, like so many others, I have been amazed and delighted by the beauty and diversity of the life on our planet. There was a time when I really doubted if we would continue to see the these remarkable films. When the independent television companies decided to axe “Survival” it fell to the BBC to become the only provider of quality content. While some of the imported films were and are worth watching, frequently they lack the quality that has been the standard we in the UK are used to.

Recently though there has been a renaissance in wildlife documentaries on TV here. On a small channel here, Five, they have been making some lower budget but still reasonable quality programmes. Yet the BBC are still leaders in the field and this coming week sees the final chapter in the Life series, with “Life in Cold Blood” I am sure that my American readers will get to see it soon as I have no doubt that it will be aired of Public Television.

With the retirement of David Attenborough, I was worried that there would be a loss from our screens of wildlife television, but the films that have been shown on television over the last couple of weeks shows that natural history will remain as will the quality. Last week, we had Simon King the film maker going to India to try and film a Tiger making a kill. Something never before filmed. While he didn't get the footage the man he was helping finally did after eighteen years of trying. It makes my missed shots pale into insignificance. The dedication should be a lesson to us all.

Then last night I watched a film that was about the wildlife in the Arctic tundra. Before Christmas I had heard the film maker being interviewed and he had been talking about the gyrfalcon. So I was interested to see the film. What was incredible was the previously unseen behaviour of the Arctic wolfs.

Therefore as well as spending my time cooking yesterday, see previous posting, I was lazing about watching wildlife on television. What an exciting life I lead.

Photo courtesy of the BBC

Post Script
Do Not Disturb On Mondays

BBC Autumnwatch

As my reader in the UK will know on television at the moment the BBC are broadcasting again there Autumnwatch season. I should explain to my overseas reader that this is the second year of doing this although for the last five years they have been broadcasting a similar programme in the Spring, yes you guessed it; Springwatch.

While I know that some people feel they don’t like the presenters, they seem to want their natural history/nature programmes to be rather po-faced, I actually enjoy the style. One of the things I love about the fact that they are live, is that we never quite know what is going to happen or if the animals, the real stars of the show, are going to turn up.

This being on has brought me in from the cold where I have been out watching Badgers and other wildlife, and made me appreciate the warmth of a cat on my lap and a cup of hot soup.

However, it is two of the animals that they have shown that sparks my wish to write here. Firstly are the beavers. Every night they are showing live images of a colony of wild European Beavers that have been breed at a compound with the hope of reintroducing them to the UK. As we lost our Beavers about five hundred years ago, I can see the difficulty in reintroducing them. As we would have to educate people to accept them, and we would have to learn how to change the way we manage our rivers to meet their needs. But on balance I think I am in favour of them being reintroduced.

The second animal though is a bit more controversial, Wild Bore. For many years now there has been a small population of wild bore that have re-established themselves, often as escapes from farming of the wild bore. Again this is an animal that was hunted to extinction, about seven hundred years ago, so while it was native to the UK its accidental reintroduction could be problematic.

The greatest problem is its interactions with people and specifically with people with dogs. Dogs and wild pigs don’t get on, and with wild bore having tusks, I can see some dog owners demanding “something is done” especially if a dog gets injured or killed. Then there will be the farmers who suffer losses from the damage they will do to crops. However, the biggest danger will be when the population starts to rise. As wild Bore no longer have any predators, we killed the Wolf off here about one thousand years ago, and there are no natural controls on the population size.

Thus I cautiously welcome this happening as well. I know that locally, though fortunately not in Chopwell Wood, there is a female wild bore on the loose. I have spoken to reliable witnesses of this fact, but also there appears to be no male in the area. Therefore the population is not growing here. But as this makes my nocturnal wildlife watching potentially dangerous, I have mixed feelings about knowing she is out there. That makes my personal preference for dealing with the actuality of wild bore being present in the UK even more controversial. I think there should be a reintroduction of the European Wolf into the UK.

Now I know that would upset almost everyone, but it would help to control the numbers of Bore, Deer and other potential pest species in the UK.

I doubt that it will happen, but it would restore the balance in nature.

Learning Lessons from the Great Storm

When the Great Storm of 1987 hit the UK, my now ex-wife and I had not long moved up to the Northeast. It troubled us greatly as both our families were down in the area devastated by the hurricane and of course the telephones were out of order. Fortunately, none of our kin were hurt in the storm, but with reports of deaths it was an anxious wait for news.

For me though the most memorable part of the events of that time was that it was the first time that I was able to have a sensible discussion with “Non Environmentalists” about global warming. Until that event, everyone I ever spoke to always dismissed it by saying “Great we get better Weather” or some other nonsense.

While that particular storm may not have been caused directly by climate change, the simple principal of a warmer planet does mean that there is more energy put into the atmosphere to drive the weather systems. This brings me to an article on the BBC web site talking about the lessons that the met office learned from the storm, and the improvements that new and improved technology now plays in more accurate forecasting.

You can read the article here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7044050.stm

However, it’s a quote from Ewen McCallum that really caught my attention.

"It is like if we have a big storm tomorrow, you'll get the same answer out of places like the Met Office, where they will say that it certainly fits with the [future] scenarios, but to blame any one event on climate change is facile.

"It is only when you look back over time and you look at global trends, can you make comments like that."

While what he says is scientifically accurate, the greatest obstacles to persuading people to stop polluting our planet is the lack of leadership from people like him, who could get people to take notice. The science is now clear that Climate Change is happening and that it is man made. Therefore with that extra energy in the atmosphere, the changing climate must be substantially at the root of any dramatic weather occurrences.

The trouble is that there are still far to many people, politicians and scientists among them, that are looking for that magic single bit of data, that single event that can only have happened because of Climate Change, before they will commit themselves. Yet if we wait for that single event proof, we will already have destroyed our home world and our species will be facing extinction.

Even if we stop burning all fossil fuel tomorrow, it will take more than one millennia for our planet to get back into equilibrium.