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.
