Springwatch

The history of all living things is examined through five key species chosen for the way they move, feed and reproduce and also for their size and intelligence

Chris Packham famously hates so-called “T-shirt” animals – preferring beetles and bugs to the more box-office elephants, lions and tigers.

But for his major new BBC series examining the history of every living creature’s existence, the presenter had to block that prejudice as he looked back over 4 billion years. In Evolution, viewers will see how every plant and animal evolved – differently – from a single celled organism called LUCA.

And in order to explain this effectively, the five episodes focus on the elephant (size), ostrich (reproduction), horse (movement), bat (feeding) and dolphin (intelligence) to show what changes have happened over the millennia until they started to look a bit like the creatures we recognise today.

“TV likes an iconic species, something to put on the T-shirt,” Chris laughs, acknowledging that he doesn’t normally go for these “celebrity” animals which tend to draw in viewers, but go against the grain for Chris. “On Springwatch we’re always keen to champion the underdog, we make films about slugs and snails and flies and all those sorts of things, so we’re trying to build up that idea in people’s minds that everything counts – not just the fluffy birds in the nest, or the cute pine-marten kits. Survival of the cutest has always been an issue.”

“But had we picked, I don’t know, some innocuous little bug, it wouldn’t have looked great,” he laughed. “I’m not a great fan of T-shirt animals, but I am a fan of using them constructively.”

He even admits that filming the series, in different locations around the globe, brought him one of the best moments of his life, when he found himself right in the middle of a pod of dolphins during a break in filming. “It was absolutely extraordinary,” he says. “There were times when the cameraman was doing something and I was still in the water and I could just actually just be there with them.

“I dived down about four metres and I looked down and I had a dolphin right underneath me, under my chest. And I had couple on one side, I mean they never touch you, but they’re close, and a couple on the other side – and then I looked up and they were above me. And I was like in the middle of a pod of dolphins. You can hear them the whole time, they’re constantly clicking. So you can here that that’s that communication going on.

“It was just five minutes or something, it wasn’t a lot of time, but long enough to actually just engage, and realise that this was one of the most remarkable moments in my entire life. To be in that environment with these astonishing animals. I thought ‘blimey, I’m Flipper’.”

The five-part science show, which must be Packham’s most ambitious programme to date, has clear similarities in scope to Sir David Attenborough’s 1979 series Life on Earth, which set out to look at the earliest life forms. “I’d say it was more modern in its narrative structure,” he says thoughtfully. “Also, we’re catering for an audience that we know we need to surprise. We want to feed them short snippets, which are basically entry information into a bigger story, if you like. Those twenty-second things that get people to prick up their ears. And we want people to down the pub and say, ‘do you know what? I just watched this programme and, you won’t believe it, we couldn’t have a head before we had an arse’.

“I don’t think Life on Earth is like that. That felt very 1970s, because that’s when it was made, this just feels like a really modern, cutting-edge version.”

To film the series the BBC team were very careful about where they went in order to limit the carbon footprint. “Ten or 15 years ago, we would have gone to multiple locations to make a series like this,” Chris says. “But I’m pleased to say that each of our programmes was essentially made in one location.”

The elephants in the series opener were filmed in Kenya and the ostriches in South Africa. The horses were in the UK, with three days in France which was reached by train. Then the dolphins were in the Bahamas and the bats were in Borneo.

Chris says his role as presenter on the show, from the team who previously brought us Earth, is to keep the audience enthralled, and showing his own excitement is a big part of that, just as he experienced while watching his hero Attenborough. He particularly remembers a programme made by the veteran broadcaster about birds of paradise, filmed in Papua New Guinea.

“They were my dream birds because they’re mental, they look like space aliens,” he explains. “And I was sat there waiting for it to come on, just thinking, ‘you b****rd, I want to go to Papua, I want to see that.’ But in fact my response to the programme, and a testament to his broadcasting, was that I absolutely loved it because I felt the connection to the birds through his joy.”

Chris found himself caught up in some beautiful moments that will also tug at the audience’s heartstrings, such as when a baby ostrich hatched out of its egg right into his hands. “You’re peering into it, it’s not even in the world yet, and it’s like you’ve had a sneak preview into a life which is going to unfold,” he marvels. “It’s just this little thing moving, and that was really very emotional, that formation of new life.”

Learning new stuff is “the greatest joy” of his job. “I get to work with people who know more about a subject than I do. And their job is to tell me and the team everything they know about it in 30 seconds,” he says. “So my joy is that I attend the University of Zoology every single day that I’m working, and this is updated information, so we’ve constantly gone to the latest science.”

While they don’t skirt away from the technical stuff, like explaining how DNA works, Chris feels it is carefully woven into the narrative. “There’s no dumbing down, but we are conscious constantly of building a narrative which will keep our audience engaged.”

– Evolution, BBC2, Monday 13 July, 9pm

The BBC has confirmed that Winterwatch is coming to an end after 14 years on our screens, with the nature show set to be replaced by a new Naturewatch podcast

A beloved BBC programme has been replaced after 14 years on air.

Winterwatch, a spin-off from the massively popular Springwatch, is the latest show to face the axe after the broadcaster recently confirmed that 2,000 members of staff would be losing their jobs.

The series is set to be replaced by a weekly video podcast called Naturewatch, which will run all year round. Springwatch will continue as normal and is due back on our screens in May 2027.

Head of Commissioning, Specialist Factual Jack Bootle said: “Nature never stops – and neither should we. Every week, Naturewatch will give Springwatch fans – and all wildlife lovers – a new way to stay connected to the natural world, whether that’s on TV, iPlayer or Sounds.

“The BBC is committed to celebrating British nature across all our platforms, and we hope this new series will encourage audiences to fall in love with the natural world around them.

“By expanding the Watches brand we are making the BBC’s brilliant Natural History content even more accessible.”

Winterwatch first aired in 2012 as a means of capturing the tenacity of British wildlife as creatures across the UK battled the harsh winter conditions, reports the Daily Star.

The announcement follows news that Escape to the Country’s Jules Hudson was recently forced to pull out of a work engagement due to a family crisis.

He took to social media to tell fans: “It’s with huge regret that owing to a sudden and serious family illness we’ve had to postpone my evening this Friday at the Blake Theatre in Monmouth.

“Your tickets can of course be refunded, but we have agreed a new date, Saturday the 12th September.. It’s hugely disappointing to have to change plans, but I hope you’ll understand on this occasion, and hopefully we can all get together in a few short months.

“With thanks, and apologies once again, Jules.”

After hearing news regarding the show’s cancellation, some viewers were not happy, with one writing: “Such a shame to lose Winterwatch. I hope Chris Packham, Michaela Strachan and Iolo Williams will still be involved with the new format. BBC confirms end of Winterwatch after 14 years as show to be replaced with new format.”

Opinions are divided on whether dog owners should allow their beloved pets to lick their faces or not – but Springwatch’s Chris Packham has some strong scientific backing for his take

It’s one of those questions that can divide even the closest friends: would you let a dog lick your face? Medical opinions vary.

Professor Graham Roberts, honorary consultant paediatrician in paediatric allergy and respiratory medicine, is quoted in medical journal The Hippocratic Post as saying that that babies brought up in homes with pets are far less likely to suffer from allergies than babies who grow up in pet-free homes. He states: “If you are born into a household where there is a pet, you are less likely to be allergic.”

But others, such as Professor John Oxford, emeritus professor of virology and bacteriology at Queen Mary University of London, is strongly opposed to excessively close contact with dogs.

He points out: “It is not just what is carried in saliva. Dogs spend half of their life with their noses in nasty corners or hovering over dog droppings so their muzzles are full of bacteria, viruses and germs of all sorts.”

But for BBC Springwatch’s Chris Packham, there’s no debate. Speaking on the Oh My Dog podcast, the naturalist told host Jack Dee: “When we cut our finger, what’s the first thing we do? We lick it. And you lick it because there are bacterial fauna in your saliva which have antiseptic and healing properties.”

Similarly, he says, there’s a health benefit to be gained from dogs’ saliva: “In days of old, when they were having medieval battles and doing unspeakable things to one another with swords, there were a lot of wounded people and they would allow the camp dogs to come and lick their wounds. They discovered that if the dog was licking the wound… it would be less less likely to get infected.”

All domestic dogs are ultimately descended from wolves, and Chris says that while a small amount of a dog’s saliva can be good for us, wolves’ saliva has even more healing power: “I’ve been licked by wolves, been kissed by wolves,” he says, “and they have even cleaner, or bacteriologically richer, saliva than than dogs.” They’ve never been treated with antibiotics or other medicines that might compromise their natural state, he says.

Chris adds that when wolves lick each other, it’s part of ensuring the survival of the pack: “When wolves go back to their their den, in order to carry the food which they may have caught many kilometres away, they eat it and swallow it, and partially digest it.

“So when they get back to the den, the pups lick their lips and that stimulates the adult wolves to regurgitate the food.”

“Now obviously,” Chris adds, “dogs have lost that habit – they don’t regurgitate for their young. But that licking is retained into adulthood in dogs because it’s a greeting.”

Similarly, he adds, when dogs eat each other’s poo, there is a valid reason for it. While it might seem disgusting to us – providing support for the opponents of face-licking – this also dates back to wolf behaviour.

“Research has been done recently in California,” Chris explains, “which shows that they will only eat faeces that are between one and two or three days old.”

Chris adds: “It was a relic to wolf behaviour. Because adult wolves will come back and eat all of the faeces in the den area when they’ve got cubs… because it’s a way of reducing parasite load because the eggs of those parasites are in the faeces, and they don’t want their young to get them.

“So that apparently appalling behaviour, because everyone’s nauseated by the fact that their dog eats other dogs’ faeces, that comes from the wolf and it’s about reducing parasites.”