<< Page 1, Page2 >>
27th February 2002
The first day on a new project is always exciting, but Scotland the Wild is unique. I don't think anyone has ever tried to make a reasonably comprehensive series about Scotland's wildlife before, and we've got less than a year to do it in! At first light, I was crouching behind gravestones in Glasgow's Western Necropolis. Not the most rural or remote location for making a documentary on Scotland's wildlife, you would think.
The rising sun and murky gravestones made the cemetery very atmospheric; then the shadows of an animal's antlers appeared, making the scene rather surreal. The antlers belonged to a roe buck that lives in The Necropolis, right in the heart of the city. The buck and his mate happily shared their morning activities with me. They showed who was king of the graveyard by chasing away some cheeky foxes intruding on their patch. Roe are normally so shy that it was a real privilege to sit beside them while they snoozed in the sun. What an auspicious beginning to the project! 8th March 2002
After the sunny start to last week's filming, we returned to familiar bleak Scottish weather. The team, helped by Neil Macintyre, a skilled wildlife photographer, spent the day near Aviemore trying to get close to mountain hares . I set up the camera behind a boulder and waited, trying to keep still and look as much like a rock as I could manage.
My patience was rewarded by the arrival of a group of hares that ran in my direction, passing close by. I got an opportunity to film their odd, lolloping gait. Next, I needed to film the hares feeding on their staple diet of coarse grass. After a few false starts, I found a hare hiding in a clump of heather. I started creeping in on my knees with the camera and tripod on my shoulder, stopping whenever it looked up. The hare hardly moved and, after half an hour or so, I was just 4 metres away, far closer than I'd expected to get. Amazingly, the hare got up and took a few hops towards me before starting to graze right in front of me.
I was just about to get some wonderful close-ups when the hare froze. My heart sank - I thought after getting so close I'd blown it. But the hare didn't notice me at all; it was staring up at the sky, keeping a wary eye on a jet passing 30,000 feet above us.
4th April 2002
Time to film some seasonal visitors. We spent a couple of days on the Solway Firth, filming barnacle geese at the RSPB's Mersehead reserve. Today we moved to the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust's reserve at Caerlavaroch. There were geese here too, but we were concentrating on the whooper swans which I've filmed before in their Icelandic breeding ground. It's nice to think that I might have met some of the birds before.
After the swans' beauty, the second best thing about Caerlavaroch was the toast and marmalade in the tearoom. 'This is very posh marmalade,' I said. 'We gave it to the King of Norway when he came to open the new building a few weeks ago,' the lady explained. It seems the swans aren't the only visitors from Scandinavia! 5th June 2002
Filming the west coast programme was a pleasure, because that's where I live, and we regularly see otters from our house. I had recommended a place for filming where sets of tidal rapids carry so much floating food that the shallow seabed is alive with fish, sponges and brittlestars. It's a great place for otters to fish, and we thought it would also be fun for Julie to get into the world of otters by snorkelling.
Even in the summer, it's not very warm in the sea so a wetsuit was essential. However, the weight belt for diving was forgotten. I filmed Julie talking to the camera about the rapids and how she was about to enter the otters' world. Julie put on her mask and ducked elegantly underwater, bringing the shot to a great finale. The shot was spoiled only slightly by her over-buoyant legs, which immediately bobbed up within shot. 13th June 2002
At first sight, the many golf courses at St Andrews seem to be too busy with human traffic to be much use for wildlife. Nonetheless, this morning we set out across the links in search of hares - but not on foot. A golf buggy turned out to be the perfect camouflage - the hares see them all the time, and they let us get close enough to film the delicate way they nip off grass stems. I think I could get quite used to filming from a golf cart… 24th June 2002
Chanonry Point on the north shore of the Moray Firth has to be the best place in Europe to watch dolphins from the shore. I was there just as the low tide turned and fish started to swim back into the Firth. The dolphins clearly knew all about this, and were waiting hungrily for the fish only a stone's throw away from me. After some serious high-speed chases, they started to jump more than their body length out of the water. These huge creatures can be up to 4 feet long, so their leaps were spectacular.
<< Page 1, Page2 >> | 
