Winterwatch 2017

For most of us, wrapped up in our cosy, centrally heated homes and offices, the changes in the weather, as the seasons roll by, are little more than minor inconveniences.

Sure we might forget the brolly sometimes. Our coat may not be as warm as we need that day. It might even take us a few extra minutes to scrape the ice off the car. However for our wildlife there are no such creature comforts. This often brutal and unforgiving season is the hardest time of the year.

On Winterwatch we have spent the past few months out and about, charting how some iconic British animals deal with this perilous season.

We have followed everything from the fortunes of an otter family on the west coast of Scotland, a house mouse desperately trying to find somewhere safe and warm to have her young and the wildlife of the Hoo peninsula, who have found a niche despite human encroachment onto their territory.

Chris Packham braved the elements in Somerset to emulate the night-time roosts of the crane and Michaela Strachan went on the trail of a bird which survives the winter by somehow rustling up enough insects and spiders to eat despite the cold.

Gillian Burke has been to track down her first ever waxwing, a deliciously exotic winter visitor that she caught up with in urban Sheffield. Martin Hughes-Games spent a day knee-deep in mud to understand how avocets find enough food to keep hunger at bay, and Iolo Williams stole into a raven roost at the dead of night to try to unravel their secretive ways.

Today, we are all packing up and heading back down to the wonderful RSPB Arne reserve in Dorset to set up the live part of the series.

After three years in the towering mountains of the Cairngorms, often amidst heavy snow, we have chosen to return to our Autumnwatch base at Arne, as it provides just the opposite: relative warmth and security for wildlife in the winter months.

This part of the UK has its own micro-climate – regularly near the top of the charts as one of the warmest places in the country – and that means it is a haven for all kinds of wildlife; from the huge flocks of wading birds and rich mammal life, to insects and smaller song birds desperately trying to make it through the winter.

For us, this part of putting ‘a watch’ together is always a bit nervy. What will we be able to capture on camera? Will the weather allow us to tell the stories we hope to tell? Will the animals deliver for us? But that unknown is also why we do it – being able to tell the incredible animal stories of this toughest time of year, as they develop, is a privilege. And of course they will deliver – we just don’t know how yet!

And, in case you were wondering, we have even forgone the central heating ourselves this winter. Our production office is in a barn with zero insulation, no heating and plenty of holes for the wind to whip through…

…this Winterwatch, we will be sharing the perils of winter with the animals themselves.