Wom Brook Blog

The main theme of last Wednesday’s Nature of Britain was ‘Coastal Britain’. This latest programme in the 8-part series continued to maintain the very highest standards of photography, producing a good match between underwater and above the surface shots, so we saw Arctic Skuas diving for fish, as well as whales and killer whales hunting off our shores. Most remarkable for me was the feature on the otters-the camera crew and production team responsible for producing that work must be in line for an award-the patience and time invested in obtaining that footage merits one alone!

From large coastal creatures to small ones-we saw a species of bee that cleverly utilises discarded snail shells as ‘hatcheries’ for its young. Again, the very informative nature of the programme managed to convey the interaction of a number of factors which influence life along the British coastline – the sun, the wind, rain and tides all play a part in shaping the lives of our coastal creatures. This is particularly so in inter-tidal zones, and this was very well demonstrated through the use of time-lapse photography, as the tidal cycle which dominates life in our rock pools was quickly speeded up, revealing isolated pools of water as the tide went out, which in turn were replenished with fresh micro-organisms that in turn fed the occupants of the pools, as the next high tide returned.

This led cleverly to the local West Midlands feature of the programme-how do you represent the coastal aspect of the Nature of Britain, to reflect that aspect of nature in a land-locked region of the UK? Slimbridge of course!

Web-link to Slimbridge

Web-link to the BBC Staffordshire web site-where you can see the local features of Nature of Britain again.

Last Wednesday night, towards the end of BBC 1’s Nature of Britain, Wombourne was featured for a few minutes, when Miranda Krestovnikoff presented her report about the conservation and education work that the Friends of Wom Brook undertake along the Brook in Wombourne. Rather fittingly, her report began in Wombourne, and then switched to highlight the sterling work being undertaken by the Whitchurch group who have developed their water vole habitat.

The main part of the programme, produced by Alan Titchmarsh, focused on ‘Freshwater Britain’-not only providing an informative insight into the lives of some of Britain’s more ‘interesting’ water wildlife, but also presenting a veritable geography lesson, which gave an interesting account of the journey our water takes, from rain falling on our uplands, flowing downstream and forming with other streams into small rivers, which in turn join others to make a large river flowing down to our coasts and thus into the sea.

Below is a link to the BBC Staffordshire website.

When you get to the BBC page, look for ‘Watch Video’/'Freshwater’ - please be patient-Wombourne is featured towards the end of the feature.

Click here to see last Wednesday’s West Midlands part of Nature of Britain

The latest in the series of BBC 1’s Nature of Britain, shown last Wednesday night (24/10/07) on BBC1 continued to uphold the high standards of photography and presentation set in the first 2 issues. Alan Titchmarsh, despite having provided countless feeding opportunities for the bird life of this country during his many gardening activities, was still being attacked by them during last Wednesday’s programme!

On this occasion, in demonstrating the adaptability of many of Britain’s creatures to urban life, Alan revealed how city buildings provide ideal nesting grounds for what were originally coastal birdlife. This was graphically shown on the famous bridge over the Tyne in Newcastle.

Naturally nesting birds will defend their young-hence their aggressive flying directed at Alan, when he investigated the ‘penthouse’ area of a high rise building.

Elsewhere in the programme we saw other wildlife more originally associated with the countryside such as blackbirds, robins, foxes, hedgehogs and badgers that are now established urban dwellers. The main reason for this-the abundance of discarded food within reach of this urban-dwelling wildlife.

There were two enduring memories from last week’s episode-ducklings taking their first plunge from on high, into the ornamental water feature at the Barbican in London, and secondly, Miranda Krestovnikoff revealing the startling abundance of sticklebacks beneath the surface of a Birmingham city centre pond.

Next week, the work of the Friends of Wom Brook group in Wombourne is due to feature in the ‘Where you live‘ section shown during the last part of each episode of the Nature of Britain series. We believe that only viewers who are able to receive BBC 1 Midlands TV (available on Sky as well) will be able to see this.

Review Number 2:

The second of BBC 1’s Nature of Britain series was screened on Wednesday night.

The remarkable footage depicting a variety of British wildlife riveted attention throughout the hour-long episode. Especially outstanding was viewing the pre-nocturnal behaviour of the Norfolk rooks. (These are supposedly reflected in the ‘theme’ within the above graphic.)

Here in Wombourne we regularly have our own flying display twice a day-when we are reminded to look skywards by the sound of geese cackling to one another as they fly in their distinctive ‘V’ shaped formation-south in a morning, north at night.

The predominant theme of this week’s programme was based around agriculture-particularly how a growing number of our farmlands are becoming natural wildlife havens. Hedgerows and the grasslands bordering them are being left ‘wild’, in order to encourage the establishment of mini eco-systems. This practice has been repeated along stretches that border the Brook here in Wombourne. In much the same way as Wednesday’s programme showed, flora and fauna are returning-we have seen the return of orange-tipped butterflies and a species of flowering plant called lady’s smock, as a result of such conservation measures.

Alan Titchmarsh (the programme presenter) also showed how careful husbandry of dairy herds had helped re-establish the horseshoe bat-which dwindled significantly in numbers as a direct result of a farmers in the 1980s worming their cattle. This practice decimated populations of dung-beetles, (the natural food of that species of bat), which were unable to survive because of the chemical residue found in cow-dung as a result of the worming practice.

The regional feature of the programme saw presenter Miranda Krestovnikoff visiting amongst other locations a Worcester farm where bio-diversity is a long-established practice.

Last Wednesday night at 9 o’clock, the first in a series of eight episodes, entitled -Nature of Britain, was screened on BBC1. Apart from the fact that the Friends of Wom Brook are due to appear in one regional focus of the programme (on the 31st October we believe-thanks to the Wolverhampton Express & Star for unearthing this fact), the appeal of some top quality photography was an enticement to watch television that night.

Personally speaking, I wasn’t disappointed. The most striking images were those of a killer whale bursting to the surface off one of our coasts, scattering helpless mackerel like skittles before it.

Back on dry land, when not dodging very aggressive seabirds, Alan Titchmarsh explained the unique position of the United Kingdom on planet Earth, which coupled with the effects of moist south westerly winds which predominantly dictate our climate, help provide this country with such a diversity of flora and fauna.

Hopefully future episodes won’t disappoint.

The above photographs provide some idea of the range of technology employed by television production teams these days.

The left-hand picture shows the producer previewing the film currently being recorded by the cameraman in the right-hand picture �__ he was filming some of the sticklebacks and water scorpions at the time, which can just be seen on the mini-TV screen. The television pictures are being sent wirelessly from the camera to the preview machine, in much the same way as we are able to use video calls on mobile phones.

As previously reported within this weblog, a regular task undertaken by the Friends of Wom Brook is to check for and monitor the presence of aquatic life in the Brook. The discovery of several species is an indicator of the quality of the water-in other words, it is clean enough to support life!
In the above photo, members of the Friends Group were filmed last Thursday engaging in such a survey.
Regrettably, no water voles were captured on camera, although several people caught a fleeting glimpse of one in the vicinity!

Tne BBC were looking for Water Voles!

Throughout today, a BBC film crew have been recording various aspects of the voluntary work undertaken by members of the Friends of Wom Brook.

The day commenced with the 8 a.m. arrival of the BBC team to the Brook area, and then accompanied by members of the Friends Group they visited areas where water voles have either been sighted, or where evidence exists of their feeding on plants. As could have been predicted, these creatures proved to be camera-shy!

In the above photo, the BBC production team, comprising of the sound-man, cameraman, producer and assistant take some ‘establishing’ shots of the Brook.

Hopefully over the next few days, other photos of today’s filming will appear here on the Wom Brook blog.

On Tuesday this week, the Wom Brook was the setting for the BBC Midlands Today weather forecast. Weather presenter and Wombourne resident Simon Keeling presented his forecast from the Gravel Hill section of the Brook, following an interesting feature on one of the Brook�__s more elusive creatures, the water vole. He even found evidence of their presence, from recently chewed plants.

Simon confirmed the numerous sightings of the water voles by the Friends of Wom Brook