Episode 1 Springwatch Unsprung

Welcome to a brand new series of Springwatch Unsprung,

coming to you live from Suffolk, in front of this feisty

and boisterous audience, drawn from the beautiful countryside

around us and the RSPB Minsmere staff and volunteers.

I'm Chris Packham, and I will be your host for the next three weeks

Full stop and this is what we gain to show you. Some of the most

fascinating and beautiful wildlife in the region. Have a look at this.

Frolicking in the fields. The birdsong sometimes produced by these

beautiful wrens. But all of a sudden a predator is lacking in the grass.

Perhaps chasing bad little money. And the magnificent sparrowhawk.

This camera is live from the woods about 700 metres away. And you can

watch these images live on your screen immediately after the

programme and throughout the next three weeks. The programme is a

little less about the wildlife and a bit more about the people who engage

with it. That is you. We really want to engage with the audience and to

help us we have experts in the studio and a few famous guests. It

is my pleasure to introduce our first guest this evening. Number one

and gentle man who used to be a barrister but has been guilty of

appearing on television rather a lot. Is extremely eloquent and

erudite and has a razor wit. I bet you do not know that he is president

of the Woodland Trust. Mr Clive Anderson! We will be talking to you

shortly. And the second guest gave up hunting, pop and rock stars and

made tracks into the world of wildlife. To find out if she's just

sweet or a fox on the run, we will be looking later at book. It is

Lucie Jones. As I was saying, this programme is all about the viewers.

Lindsay Chapman, nice to see you again. How are you? I trod on your

foot! You did, quite a lot of weight. How do people get in touch?

In so many ways. And so much stuff is coming in all day. They are

talking about tonight 's live show, what we might see later on and in

particular the live cameras. You can watch those on the website right

now. If you have never watched Springwatch this is one of the best

things about it. We have got this whole place wired with cable

everywhere and it is bringing images from nest cameras. That is the Stone

Curlew, rather strange looking, it is a wading bird. And crepuscular,

so active in the evening in low light. And we will tell you a lot

more about these birds in the programme at eight o'clock over the

next three weeks. Beautiful and rare. And also things you might

recognise from your own garden. This camera is the bluetit camera. Very

sleepy. And the great fit camera as well, let's take a look at that. --

great tit. You cannot see if it is the male or the female but feeding

is going on. It looks like it was a spider. Now rapidly becoming part of

a bluetit! Let's move on. A bit of life feeding straightaway,

brilliant. Those cameras are live, they're free and they are there for

three weeks 24 hours a day. We have been seeing a lot of pictures of

people who have their own nest box at home. This is fabulous, Trevor

Baker has a nest box with two bluetit is just meeting each other

are apparently they keep banging into each other. A bit of congestion

so the brood is probably prospering inside. Fabulous, looks like a

mirror. We may only pop up on your television screens once every season

but we are here all year online and we would love you to send in your

pictures and videos. People have been doing that and here is how you

do it. All you have to do is go to the BBC website and look for

Springwatch. Hit the play button if you want to see the live cameras.

And for live coverage, you could choose any of those cameras. We will

alternate those. And in the course of the day if something exciting is

happening we will put that camera up. People have been getting in

touch all year and sending in pictures and video. I just wanted to

build a picture of what has been happening since Winterwatch on the

online community. Take a look at this first picture. This is from Ian

Ledley, Canada goose, Gosling. And this as well, it really shows Spring

for me. Gratuitous bluebells! And that is rather good. The action is

fantastic. Sometimes birds of prey grapple with the talent but that was

holding its tail. Lots of ways to get in touch and this is exactly

how. It has never been easier to get in touch with us here on spring.

Wherever you are and whether you use the phone, laptop or tablet. The

easiest way is to go online and be our friend on social media. Like as

long Facebook and you can post comments and victories on the wall.

Follow us on histogram and Taggart into your photographs or get in

touch on twitter using the hashtag Springwatch. And if you cannot

remember all this it is explained on the website. It is as easy as that,

head straight to the website. And one more thing we would love you to

get involved with and this is the quiz. Over the next three weeks we

will set the quiz every night by a young viewer. This week it is

Melanie and she has an incredible collection of skulls. I will hand

over to Melanie to set the first question.

I'm Melanie, this is my quiz for you. On this skull, this animal had

huge eyes so excellent night vision. It has a huge pointed set of

canines. What do you think it is? I love that. It is a mystery. I had a

massive collection of skulls myself, I started when I was younger than

Melanie. I like it when young people get hands-on with nature. Would you

like a skull like that? Yes! They beat we could arrange that. I'm sure

we could slip Q1. Get in touch and send us your answers on the hashtag

Springwatch. Over to our first guest. Welcome, Clive Anderson.

Famous for entertaining as in chat and quiz shows. But there has been

another side to you we did not know about, the passion for wildlife.

Exactly. I have always liked wildlife. I wish I had brought in a

photograph, a couple of years ago I was photographing beavers in

Scotland, they had been released back into the wild. That is quite

the borders, you have to sit there for two hours waiting for them to

turn up. If you make any noise they do not come. You have also been

overseas in the Masai Mara. We have got a clip. We have seen an

elephant, the sun is just coming up over the forest. A perfect day to be

trampled to death by a rogue elephant enraged by crowds of people

shooting at it! Thankfully not trampled to death. We were trying to

scare the elephant away from the crops because the Maasai people are

taking up farming, which they did not used to do. There is a bit of

conflict there and that was the problem that we were looking up. The

wildlife scares the elephant away for them. They tried all kinds of

things, bumblebees, all sorts. It was quite dangerous. Sometimes an

elephant will come towards you and trample you to death. Your interest

goes back further, you did an A-level of the I did science

subjects at school, I had an idea to become a doctor so I did zoology and

things like that. So I did things on humble bees and termites. Social

insects. Why did you turn your back on wildlife? To enter the legal

world. If I knew I was going to go into broadcasting I would've stuck

with science and nature and I have been co-presenting with you! I do

not know, I was unimaginative, becoming a doctor or a lawyer. And

the Woodland Trust, you have been present for some time. It is a grand

title, I'm just an adornment! Your familiar probably with a wooden

trust. Of course, we work with them constantly. Looking to preserve

ancient woodland, and new woodland and battling disease. These are some

Twitter pictures. These are good. Sometimes a tree can be hard to

capture on camera. You want to get the size and the beauty. That is

excellent. It is nice. I do not know what that in the middle is. It is a

hawthorn. And this is nice as well. In the UK we have less woodland than

any other country in Western Europe. Since every man arrived we have been

cutting down trees. But recently with the work of the Woodland Trust

and others, ancient woodland we're worried about losing because once it

has lost it is lost for ever. It develops an ecology of hundreds of

years. And people when they want to build something, but you have got to

wait 400 years to get the same. And old trees are especially good for us

because they have got holes in big enough to hide a substantial bird.

This is not the most inspiring view but this is a little owl inside a

hollow oak tree. We had a barn owl inside. This is live now. She has

three young and she is putting them at the moment. She will be active in

the next hour or so. Not keen on appearing in the programme! This is

real life wildlife, you cannot beat that. Do not clap your hands! Here

we have one of the adults feeding one of the young. It has got a large

beetle. Appearing on your show is life and death, sometimes you either

start and sometimes you're being fed to the real star! A lot like show

business! One last thing, tree of the year, it is something run by the

Woodland Trust. There is a European competition and you have got to find

the English tree of the year, Scottish, European. A little bit

like Eurovision. This is the pear tree. It is magnificent. And this is

the major oak, Robin Hood is said to have hidden inside it but I'm afraid

it would have been a sapling when he was around. We're not sure whether

or not he existed at the European competition is normally one by a

tree in Romania. Terry Wogan sadly is no longer with us or he could

have done the commentary. As with a lot of things, the English element

came in last, Scottish, Irish and Welsh were ahead. But we could win

four. What are you up to next? A mini nine miles from here, on with

the London Palladium. With the show, whose line is it anyway. -- million

miles. So if you want to see Central London and wildlife onstage, I would

imagine tickets are available. Do come along. Thank you very much. We

set all our guests a challenge and they have been tricky. We had to

make a wildcat from plasticine and draw barnacle geese and take

photographs on mobile phones. This year we offer a range of artist

materials and people have got to, with the visual representation of

Minsmere. Clive, going first. This is a painting in acrylic, ten

minutes is not longer enough for me to get beyond that. You have got a

tree. I was going to do the water, I did not get around to that. I love

it. This is a bit or John Nash over that side. Maybe another ten days.

Ack Van Gough did not paint as quickly as this! He only had one

ear! He did not sell many paintings in his life! It is a competition. A

representation of your work here. I will put it in the middle, because

we don't know if anybody will get any better. Slightly below the

middle! Mike Hedges too big, it is waiting it down! That is pretty

good. What do you think? It is top of the leaderboard, not bad.

It's time for a new feature that we are calling Hide Share,

where well-known faces have the dubious honour of sharing

time in a small bird-watching box with our very own Chris here.

It's two people sharing a bird-watching hide,

They told me I would find you here. What I do looking at? One of your

LPs, making sure it has got no scratches. I have not changed a bit!

Seriously, we have all aged a bit, but you have not changed that much.

You are a smooth talker! Can I get you to sign them? You can be

self-effacing, but 7 million albums! It is amazing! I have been doing it

an long time. In four years I made 16 albums as a kid. Spitting image

happy in the studio and I had to keep going, walking in the air, and

my voice started breaking, and somebody would kick me and the voice

would shoot back up, and they would say, ten minutes before his voice

breaks, that is 37 albums! It felt a bit like that. Have you been here

before? I live around the corner, I used to bring the kids here all the

time. I am looking at this gull. The surface of the water is alive with

insects. I swallowed 30 of them on my way to meet you. It is not good

for a single! But it is good for the birds. It is thick with insects. If

you can it is from the centre of London. It is stunning.

All I do is to see was roosters like this. At 8am I have got a jam some

edge in my pocket, my mum does not see me until tea-time, I was out

running through rivers and climbing trees. We went out in those days. It

did not matter if you cut your on, you did not go home until it was

dark. Your dad was into wildlife? He could not believe we were in London.

A swift here as well. I am wrong, it is a swallow. I thought you were

never wrong! I spoke before I looked, which is a fatal mistake in

the world of birding. Always look first, especially when you squinting

into the sun! I once thought a plastic bag was a kingfisher, I made

somebody reverse of a busy road so we could look out across the river

at a plastic ack! I was only 15! Everybody believes what you say. You

shouldn't! A blue plastic bag over their! It is a kingfisher!

His musical success is remarkable, he has a new album, him duetting

with himself as a boy. I will be honest, it looked like you were

having problems identifying a kingfisher. I have got a couple of

pictures. Here is the first one, this is a kingfisher coming out of

the water, quite easy to identify. Very striking. Fabulous photograph.

This is absolutely gorgeous, a baby kingfisher. This has had over 25,000

likes on our Facebook page already. It is a treat. Everybody goes for

the cute! The kingfisher for you! Do come and join us, Lucy! You have

done a U-turn, you were writing for the NME, interviewing Bjork, into

Radiohead, and now you have written about foxes. I am still into

Radiohead! Nature and wildlife has been a lifelong passion. I decided

that is the area I wanted to move into, especially when I started to

learn how much we stand to lose. Foxes, it is an interesting topic

for a journalist, because they incite so much opinion, they can be

contentious. I wanted to get my teeth stuck into that. You learned

at a young age, with your grandfather? He was into fox

hunting? He was a Foxhunter, there was hunting in my family, and

farming. I became aware of the fox being more than an animal. Hunting

is part of the reason why the Fox has an ambiguous and complex

relationship in this country, I wanted to look at that. Lots of

cultural references, fabulous Mr Fox here. Very much intertwined with our

culture. There is a rich cultural history. Traditionally, he has

always been demonised, a devil preacher in Church art or a chicken

pincher, the villainous character, until you get to fantastic Mr Fox,

with Roald Dahl. He starts to change and becomes a hero, which is

mirrored in the way attitudes changed as well. Most people love

them these days. You start with urban foxes, the foxes you meet,

they are the world's most successful carnival. They go well in our

cities. There are 10,000 in London, my patch is Walthamstow marshes. I

had a frustratingly few months when I could not find any. In Stoke

Newington, it is very built-up with pubs and restaurants, I saw one.

That is one of the wonderful things about being a city dweller and

seeing them. I live in Highbury, just down the road. There are

hundreds of boxes. Come to my back garden or hang around my dustbins!

Even if you can't see them, you can hear them. Let's listen to this.

They are very vocal. Here is another one.

But the complaint I heard, people don't like the vixen scream, it is

quite chilling. We hear that in their mating season. Is that their

mating? When they make, they remain in the mating process, given that we

are before the watershed, for quite some considerable time. Minutes, but

nudging two hours. They are mobile, moving around. I would be screaming!

We don't want to be thinking about you! Your book is experiential, you

went fox hunting with the Hunt saboteurs and you met people who

don't like them and many that do. It is very rational. I enjoyed the book

greatly. How did you feel, trying to reconcile these polarised opinions

about the animal? It was challenging at times. I wanted to approach it as

a journalist and be as impartial as possible and present the different

agendas, let the reader decide. That was my intention. I love foxes. My

motivation for writing it was to investigate them as a wild animal

and get past the myths and rumours that you hear and explore them,

their social groupings, which are interesting and complex, how they

hunt. You have completely turned! You have gone from the NME to fully

appreciating the science of boxes! What a transformation! Did you name

them after your favourite bands? I should have done! It is a fantastic

book. I should not be advertising get. Other Fox books are available!

If you are into foxes and you want a balanced view from both sides of the

argument, which lays some of the myths to rest, the psychopathic

henhouse nonsense, this is the book for you. You have got to show us

your artwork, ten minutes, what have you come up with? This is inspired

by our trip today. This is what we saw. What do we think about this? It

is pretty good. Clive, you did quite well. The three-dimensional aspect

of the mixed media, as they say... And difficult the fact of what we

saw, which was fantastic. Pretty good. That is really good. We are

running out of time. We have got to get to the quiz. Those pictures are

on our Flickr page. Go to the website, follow the link, so much to

see. Go and have a look. This is one of the pictures on the Flickr site.

Have a look at this. It is a Flickr picture of a weasel that we were

sent, a baby weasel. How cute is that? Getting out of control! Cute

rabbits, cute kingfishers, and now weasels. It will turn into a

voracious predator, ripping the heart out of old. Sorry! Josh, who

took that, is 13. The quiz answer, my Twitter feed went crazy. Loads of

people said Badger, pine Martin, Yorick, but this is what it is.

This is a red box. A red Fox! Anybody in the audience

get that? One or two. Those large canine teeth are gripping teeth,

they are therefore piercing the prey, hanging onto wet, shaking it

about. That is typical of that. Well done if you got it right. More quiz

tomorrow. If you want to follow Melanie, she is on Twitter.

MelanieGBones. It has been a great first programme. Thank you to our

guests. We are back at 6:30pm tomorrow.

We are back in an hour, where we will be finding out more

But before that, if you head to the website now, you can

join our expert commentators and Clive for a sneak-peek

Thank you, see at 8pm, and tomorrow at 6:30pm.

As they come in towards the home straight,

Jessica Ennis challenges Brianne Theisen-Eaton.