A passion for nature  | Sanjida O'Connell has always been passionate about animals and nature. Sanjida talks about how she caught the nature bug, and some of her favourite moments from the Nature's Calendar television series.
| | Sanjida caught the nature bug from an early age |
A passion for wildlife
I've always been passionate about animals. When I was five we were living in Africa and I remember looking into long grass (much taller than me) and thinking, 'I must go in there and find some bugs', but being just a little bit too frightened to go for it! I studied zoology at university and went on to do a PhD on chimpanzee psychology, where I compared chimp minds with childrens'. The real difference lay between male and female chimps: the girls paid attention to my experiments and did well, but the boys, sadly, chucked things and peed on me. They failed the tests. Right now, as well as presenting, I direct science documentaries and write novels, as well as non-fiction books and articles on science and the environment. Brilliant nature  Nature's Calendar has been a real pleasure to work on over the last few months.
I've travelled to places I wouldn't otherwise have gone to - it's always brilliant to visit places in this country as, like many people, I tend to travel abroad for holidays. My favourites are the Bitterns at Lee Valley, where you can sit very close to the birds and observe these incredibly shy creatures up close and personal. I was so close I could see the green of a Shag's eye, and lay in a patch of nettles nose to beak with a nesting Tern - what a treat! World wildlife
 As well as presenting, I also write books. My latest is called 'Sugar: The Grass that Changed the World'. It involved travelling to terribly difficult places like Barbados. In the meantime you can see me back on home territory presenting Nature's Calendar on BBC Two. I hope that you'll join me and my fellow presenters. Photo credits Bird photographs courtesy of the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust. Meet the Nature's Calendar team: Chris Packham
Mike Dilger
Janet Sumner Meet the web team:
Sue Wilkinson
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