Home / Latest news from Lancashire and Blackpool / Martin Mere Wetland Centre to host BBC Autumnwatch / Autumnwatch November 2007

Autumnwatch November 2007

Bill Oddie, Kate Humble and Simon King return with a second series of Autumnwatch broadcasting Live from Nov 5-15th Monday-Thursday, 8pm BBC2. In a 2 week autumn extravaganza, they witness the beauty and the drama of a critical time for UK wildlife. They delve deeper into the dark than ever before to catch up on a new cast of characters - bringing you daily wildlife dramas and the true natural spectacles that only this season of change can offer.

Autumn in the UK is so much more than just a season of "mellow fruitfulness". It's a time of great change, of spectacular migrations and of high drama. Autumn's calmer moments, with gorgeous light and rich colours, contrast with some of the UK's wildest weather, with huge storms and cold snaps challenging our wildlife's survival instincts, whilst hinting at the urgent need to prepare for the oncoming winter. It's this combination of natural beauty and wild drama that gives autumn a special place in the hearts of the UK public.

Daily Wildlife Stories

-Autumnwtch Surveillance Team - Autumnwatch's very own Simon King, ditches the life of isolation he's so far endured on various remote Scottish Islands and heads inland for a series of 'missions' based around autumn spectacles and themes. Testing even Simon's superb fieldcraft skills to the max, he'll be attempting to track down the elusive rutting wild boar in the forest of Dean, infiltrating a Bat Cave in the isolated Yorkshire Dales, penetrating the heart of a starling roost and making a perilous seafaring trip to the farne islands. With an impressive toolkit of camera equipment Simon will really be helping us see into the dark.

- The Red Deer Rut Diary - The Boys are back in town! Simon King delivers a nightly report from the gladiatorial Red deer rut on Isle of Rum. Will Percy retain his title as King of the Greens or will grand old man Caesar reclaim the trophy?

- Super Whoopers - Bill Oddie and Kate Humble will be at Martin Mere (Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve), with daily, sunrise-to-sunset reports of the return of the jet propelled whooper swans that fly at up to 90 km per hour on their return journey from their breeding grounds in Iceland. Bill will be on feeding duty, whilst keeping an eye out for unusual arrivals at this important migration staging post. Kate will be on the look out for the characters she bid farewell to on her Summer trip to Iceland when she met the new generation of super whoopers. Duck Cam will be making it's first appearance on Autumnwatch giving us a bird's eye view of the coming's and goings on the mere.

- Mr and Mrs Beaver New to Autumnwatch - Live camera feeds from the new beaver enclosure at Martinmere deliver a daily drama that hasn't been seen in the wild on british soil, let alone on TV, since beavers became extinct in the UK in the sixteenth century. Bill describes these highly controversial mammals as 'Aquatic Badgers' - and like our badgers from the farm in Devon, will they make a live appearance on the show?

- Fox in the City - We catch up on the action of our Glaswegian fox families that delighted and had us on the edge of our seats during Springwatch. Gordon Buchanan reports live every night on the next stage of our cubs development as they prepare for winter - how did Jamie and the Chip shop family fare over the summer?

Autumn Rerports

- The Icelandic Touch - Kate Humbles delivers reports from her travels to Iceland over the summer with the WWT on their yearly mission to visit the whooper swans in their Icelandic breeding grounds. Kate also encounters some spectacular marine mammals, including humpback whales that also migrate to British waters at this time of year.
- Bill Oddie will be looking back at the effects of the summer flooding on British wildlife and he'll be getting his hands dirty as he prepares Martinmere for the return of the winter migrants.
- Regulars John Aitchison and John Keeling return with some visual feasts for us - John Aitchison captures the drama and intensity of the first storms of Autumn and John Keeling bring us the delightful frivolity of the most elusive of mustelids - the Pine Marten.
- We'll be featuring the passionate people who spend 12 weeks a year living in a tent on a Northumberland beach to protect the rare arctic and little terns that nest and raise their chicks there.
- And of course we'll be bringing more high quality mini-epics where natural history meets drama taking us right into the world of some of our smaller garden inhabitants. This Autumnwatch we'll be encountering the high speed world of the shrew, learning to love fruitflies and discovering how our oak trees are home to an astonishingly diverse range of species.

''Doing Your Bit" - Audience Participation

- Website - As part of the new look Nature UK BBC web offer the autumnwatch website provides a home for our audience to interact with the show, talk to us on the hugely popular message board, access webcams from around the country and get in touch with our conservation partners.

- Autumnwatch is proud to be a key player in the BBC's ambitious five year Breathing Places Campaign to significantly increase wildlife-friendly green space across the UK. Breathing Places aims to engage large numbers of people in developing green spaces in their local area that will benefit not only wildlife but people too.

- Tree Planting - Last year, Autumnwatch encouraged viewers to participate in seed collecting and to grow saplings. Now, we take this to the next level and plant them. Viewers can participate in a number of key events across the UK. On the weekend of the 10th November our 15 Breathing Places cities will be holding tree parties - events that will lead our audience to our wildlife partner organisations and facilitate them to join in tree planting activities across the winter. In addition libraries across the country will be running tree parties of their own and our conservation partners will be running tree planting activities throughout the winter months.

- Find Britain Oldest Tree - we'll be asking our audience to participate in the search for Britain's oldest tree by joining in the Ancient Tree hunt run by the Woodland Trust. It's estimated there are around ½ million ancient trees still to be found across the country. How do you tell if a tree is ancient? You hug it!