It’s as firm a fixture in the BBC’s spring calendar as the FA Cup Final. But have you ever wondered what goes into making an episode of Springwatch?
Words by PAUL MCGUINNESS Photos by TOM GILKS
BEHIND THE SCENES
For an hour a night, four nights a week and for three weeks from the end of May, the BAFTA-winning Springwatch will again see the nation glued to BBC Two. Since the series fledged in 2005, presenters like Bill Oddie, Kate Humble, Simon King and Martin Hughes-Games, plus today’s crop of Gillian Burke, Chris Packham, Michaela Strachan and Iolo Williams, have engaged a primetime audience with the wonders of the British countryside. In spring 2022, BBC Wildlife spent a day on location at Wild Ken Hill, Norfolk, with Chris and Michaela to see how the programme comes together.
10 AM The first call of the day is the editorial meeting. The presenters join via Zoom from their respective locations – Iolo on Mull, Chris and Michaela in Norfolk, and Megan McCubbin in Northumberland.
Talk is of the weather forecast. Will the rain hold? The weather on Mull is rotten and Iolo is sheltering from the storm, while in Norfolk the sun is beating down.
In Norfolk, Chris and Michaela are in the Green Room (actually the living room of the estate manager’s charming old red-brick cottage). The windows offer idyllic views across glorious red poppy fields.
Beyond the garden wall is a barn, where a mass of cabling spaghettis around giant trailers and makeshift workstations. A bank of screens shows the live feed from cameras tucked away in boxes, barns and boltholes.
The main purpose of the editorial meeting is to run through this evening’s show. Every item is detailed and discussed, albeit at breakneck speed.
Conversation turns to kestrels, the undisputed stars of this series. They have now more or less fully fledged – could we expect any more from them live on the show tonight? Will they still even be there? It’s this uncertainty that makes working on Springwatch so unpredictable. Decisions have to be made on the fly, and last-minute changes are standard.
11 AM With the meeting finished, Chris and Michaela run through their sections and divvy up tonight’s script. “Chris will usually tackle the big science stuff, because he likes that,” Michaela tells me. “I’ll do the more emotional stuff, because that’s what I really like.” She explains that, having worked together for so long – not to mention being such firm friends – there’s very little discussion needed to decide who’s do
