Song

Check out this beautiful robin sent to us by Watcher Marilyn Dewar! 😍 🎼🔈

Robins will continue to sing throughout the winter months as they still hold their territories! A very warm & welcome song during the long dark days! 💙

🎥 Marilyn Dewar #Winterwatch 💙 pic.twitter.com/58cmyc4gE5

— BBC Springwatch (@BBCSpringwatch) January 29, 2020

Watching the Watchers

The new gang

BBC bias is the meat and drink of Sue and I's free-to-view cottage industry blog, but that doesn't preclude us from praising the BBC for (largely) non-biased fare that gives delight and hurts not.

And this past week's Winterwatch on BBC Two has been absolutely magnificent - especially as the snow fell live on TV, almost Narnia-like in its magic at times. 

(Cue scowl from Chris Packham). 

'The Watches' don't just involve us with wildlife, of course. They involve people too. 

In their first years, the magnificent trio of Bill Oddie, Kate Humble and Simon King ruled the roost. 

Bill was odd, as prickly as a hedgehog, but splendid in his love and knowledge of nature; Kate was his put-upon-but-enthusiastic sidechick, who also knew her stuff; and Simon was the deeply-knowledgeable man of action, camped out on a blasted heath somewhere with an expensive piece of kit. 

Then Bill, who had long suffered from depression, got suddenly and mysteriously dropped; Kate moved on; and Simon departed for a business career leading high-price personal tours. 

Meanwhile, Chris Packham arrived. 

He didn't go down well to begin with the 'Watch'-watchers, but 'Watch' fans have grown to deeply appreciate him. Learning of his Asperger's helped fill in the gaps of our appreciation of him. Much more importantly, he knows his stuff too and is passionate about it. He's as cussed at Bill Oddie but, especially having met him (and found him sympathetic), I very much like him. But, yes, he is an activist, and the BBC - despite the odd telling-off - still cuts him some slack in that regard.

Happy Michaela

With him came Michaela Strachan - smiley, smiley, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, BBC children's nature programmes, Pete Waterman, etc. She was clearly meant to be the Kate Humble-replacing sparring partner from Bill's replacement Chris, but has never seemed quite as knowledgeable. Still, she certainly can smile and play the straight act in a comedy duo.

And with her came Martin Hughes-Games, whose first 'Watch; series saw him camping it up as if John Inman had been given a tutorial from Danny La Rue and then got overruled by Julian Clary.

Later series (and his personal biography) showed him to be much more of a white, middle-aged male heterosexual than he first presented himself. 

He was then dropped.

And in his wake came Gillian Burke - female, black, and with a markedly 'diverse' accent. 

Pretty much everyone could see what the BBC was up to in including her, especially as Martin H-G spilled the beans beforehand.

It was all about 'diversity'.

Unshowy Gillian struggled in her first series but is now growing in confidence and winning admirers.

Getting-better Gillian

Meanwhile, the latest 'Watch', Winterwatch, has reversed the diversity trend by introducing a second white, middle-aged male who knows his stuff, Iolo Williams. 

And Iolo has been making himself at home in the Winterwatch camp, spreading his manly legs wide to mansplain the facts.

Poor Martin, trying ever so hard, must have seriously misjudged the BBC here. A manly man might have got him through after all, if he'd been diversely Welsh enough. 

And thus ends this post, which presents one of the BBC's finest nature series as if it were a sociologically-informed soap opera - which, to some degree, it is.

Not that that's what really interests me about it. I prefer the waxwings, wildcats. pine marten, mountain hare, urban deer, etc, plus the stunning winter footage and the snow flakes falling during the live programme, and the science - including the graphs and diagrams and experiments.

A winter woodcock

Here's to the next Springwatch then, when hopefully Chris and Iolo will engage in a competition to spread their explanatory legs as far apart as a man can go and Martin gets reintroduced (George Monbiot-style) and beats them as the show's alpha-male, and balances avoiding completely doing the splits in his mansplaining (whilst getting very, very close) by diving into huge badger cesspools and shouting in the manner of Ray Winstone. 

And I pray to St. William of Oddie that Gillian is giving the chance to grow even further and doesn't get replaced by a transgender Sir Lenny Henry. 

But, we all know what the BBC is like...

Diverse matters re 'Autumnwatch'

The newly-famous (and, apparently, now very popular) ladybird spider

I very much enjoyed this week's Autumnwatch.

It had everything from sika deer to ladybird spiders, from edible dormice to golden eagles, from sand hoppers to spoonbills, from fungi to (that fun guy) Martin Hughes-Games.

Plus it had a daily mouse maze competition which, frankly, put the likes of Strictly Come Dancing and the Great British Bake (Off to Channel Four) to shame in terms of sheer excitement. 

I learned a lot too. I didn't know that our poor old red squirrels now have leprosy to contend with (on top of everything else). Or that there may be now around a million non-native edible dormice leaping around the woods of southern England, devouring everything in sight - including vast swathes of bird's eggs and young birds. Or that smooth snakes are the top UK snake - at least in terms of frequently devouring other snakes and, thus, adding to the woes of our adders (which are being subtracted at a worrying rate). 

On the more typically blog-related stuff, however...

You may recall the strange tale of Martin Hughes-Games tweeting that he was getting the push from Springwatch because the presenters were considered too white and middle-aged and that the BBC wanted more "diversity". 

You may also recall that the BBC strenuously denied that, saying that Martin's career move (being dropped as a main presenter) had nothing to do with 'diversity'. 

Viewers of Autumnwatch this week, however, were introduced on a daily basis to Gillian Burke ("biologist, filmmaker, narrator, voice-over artist"), and will have noticed that Gillian is black and that she has something of a 'non-British' accent.

Gillian Burke

Michaela Strachan then let slip to The Sun that Gillian is going to be Martin's replacement and the BBC had to (abruptly) confirm that  Gillian would appear on both Autumnwatch and Springwatch. 

The BBC continues to deny, however, that this was to make the show more "diverse", despite the new -Watch regular being from an ethnic minority. 

Please excuse me for not believing the BBC here. 

Still, she seems like a worthy addition to the programme (and she's far less of a 'character' than Martin). I've got no complaints whatsoever about her (so far). I enjoyed her contributions. In the interests of ITBB impartiality though, I'd note that some on Twitter moaned that she mispronounced 'Brownsea Island' (the nature reserve near Poole, close to where Autumnwatch was being broadcast from), which, maybe, isn't quite what might be expected from a 'narrator and voice-over artist'.

Anyhow, on the other hot Springwatch/Autumnwatch controversy - Chris Packham's off-air campaigning against grouse hunters over hen harriers - I ended a post last Monday by writing:

As I'll be watching Autumnwatch (one of my favourite BBC programmes), I'll let you know if Chris Packham uses it to proselytise on behalf of his favourite cause.  

If he does, then it definitely won't be a grey area in any way, shape or form...

Well, on Wednesday's edition there was a piece on hen harriers. It featured two enthusiasts for hen harrier conservation and alluded, briefly, to the issue of hen harriers being killed on grouse moors. 

So, yes, Autumnwatch was going out of its way to include the issue - despite all the previous controversy. 

Chris, keeping shtum while Michaela talks hen harriers

However, Chris Packham didn't narrate the report and when the report ended it was Michaela Strachan who praised the hen harrier supporters' commitment (without criticising the shooting fraternity). Chris Packham himself just listened and - very conspicuously - said nothing. He merely quipped about something else before the programme moved on.

I'm sure they all felt very clever about that (and rightly so). They got to (subtly) stick two fingers up to those pro-hunting campaigners - who have been campaigning against Chris Packham's campaigning against them this summer - whilst, at the very same time, 'proving' Chris himself to be the very embodiment of BBC impartiality.

Too white and middle-class?

The Daily Telegraph has also been reading the new Radio Times. 

They've picked up on Martin Hughes-Games saying that he's been giving the push from next year's Springwatch because the present trio of presenters "are all white and middle-class" and that the BBC wants "a more diverse team". 

Martin (being as nice as ever) says he also sees the need for that too.

The BBC, however, (a) denies having having said anything about diversity ("This is not a decision about diversity and was never described as such") and (b) says that Martin's final fate actually hasn't been decided yet and that he's "a valued member of the ‘Watches’ team".

It's odd that Martin believes it did have something to do with the present team being "all white and middle-class", but that the BBC is so emphatic in denying that. (It does sound 'very BBC' though, doesn't it?)

Someone clearly has the wrong end of the prickly stick insect (Acanthoxyla geisovii) - a New Zealand species of stick insect that, along with two others, has now established itself in the south west of England (as the UK has no native stick insects).

Well, we'll have to see who's right, next Spring.

More mere prose

Do you know, I don't think I could care less about being topical tonight! So...

I have our windows open this evening, as it's hot up north, and some blackbirds are singing, others sounding alarm calls. 

The swifts are repeatedly tttssseeeessissing overhead. 

The collared doves are adding their usual three-note coo too (too), and the loud young lasses whose voices have dominated a fair part of this evening have just been dispatched indoors by their parents (though not entirely of their own accord, from what I've just heard).

The seagulls are still giving it their all too (having often overpowered the girls at earlier times) with their carefully judged hysterical laughter (like a Radio 4 audience at the one-and-only-genuinely-funny Marcus Brigstocke joke in a Marcus Brigstocke programme). 

Salmon-coloured streaks flavour the soon-to-be sunset over eternally beautiful Morecambe Bay and non-drinking drivers (presumably) shush by quietly on the nearby promenade (as we call the road that runs besides the actual promenade). 

And, yes, part of my relative silence over the past three weeks has been my dogged post-work, post-exercise, post-family determination to watch every last second of BBC Two's Springwatch and the Red Button's' Springwatch Unsprung. 

Attentive readers of this blog may have spotted that I absolutely love this particular BBC spectacular (and its various offshoots, such as Autumnwatch). 

It's another thing I'd be very willing to pay for if the licence fee were given the Duke of Wellington's boot - and, to be honest, one of those things that make me extremely queasy about giving up the licence fee.

[Ed: But, Craig, please don't forget the fact - and it is a fact (More or Less?) - that a good 10% of UK convictions arise out of BBC prosecutions over the licence fee.]

Still, Springwatch (and Springwatch Unsprung) have yet again been the BBC at its very best. 

Yes, I've read the criticisms of the programme at various sites (a) denouncing it for daring to feature an "effnik" (the delightful David Lindo) - and thought, "Oh dear!", or (b) denouncing it for focusing sympathetically on those highly-controversial badgers (of TB fame) - though Springwatch has been badger-fixated ever since it began (and before TB), or (c) denouncing it because of those occasional, fairly-cautiously-veiled references to climate change/global warming...

...but I still love it, LOVE IT (as Kevin Keegan might have put it)...

Go Spineless Si!

Swallowing an Old Wife's Tale

TL: House martin; TR: Swallow; BL: Swift; BR: Sand martin

On Springwatch this week, Martin Hughes-Games gave us a memorable lesson in how to tell a swift from a swallow and a house martin from a sand martin.

(I recall the latter being easy to differentiate by the fact that the former's song sounds uncannily like Caravan of Love while the latter sounds like Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?).

Along the way he dismissed the popular misconception about swifts having no legs. 

Swifts do have legs. They're just very, very short. (Even shorter than Ernie Wise's. Or mine for that matter).

So listening to this morning's quiz on Radio 4's Broadcasting House, I snorted as guest presenter Jonny Dymond said the following: 

So that's the sound of a swift - a bird that's always in flight. In fact, it doesn't even bother with having legs. Its feet are directly attached to its body.

That's one of those "in fact's" that doesn't quite live up to its billing really.

And it got worse. Much, much worse...

As I spend some time last week lazily watching Springwatch's live camera of a swift's nest, watching a pair of swifts lying down on their nest, preening each other, I spotted that swifts aren't always in flight. 

Yes, they can fly around without landing for a couple of years but when they're going into the family business they most definitely do take a break from flying - hence them loafing around on a nest on Springwatch this past week (rather like me), the lazy beggars.

What's to be done about this terrifying lapse in accuracy from BBC Radio 4 then?

Discussing the matter with my local sharia court, we've agreed that the appropriate punishment for poor Jonny is 100 pecks from a woodpecker.


Update: And for the sake of candour, I've just fallen foul of Skitt's Law here myself: The original version of this post had Martin Hughes-Games down as "Martin Games-Hughes".

My local sharia court has ruled that I should play 100 games of Monopoly with people called Hughes as punishment, one after the other, over the next week.

(The jokes on them though. I love Monopoly). 

No cultish refusal here

As you may recall from the previous post...

Nick Cohen, denouncing people like us for our "cultish refusal to allow one good word to be said about the corporation", must have missed Is the BBC biased? (I know. It's not exactly hard to miss us, is it?). We've praised good BBC programmes from the start.

And, despite fleeting qualms about its "protected species" badger coverage (in the light of the must-discussed cull of badgers over TB in cattle), I'm happy to add my voice to the chorus on praise for this year's Springwatch on BBC Two. 

Part of the reason I was so quiet, blog-wise, last week was that I was watching Springwatch and Springwatch Unsprung.

I'd gladly subscribe to such BBC broadcasting. It is world-beating stuff.

Oh, but shouldn't I be mining it for bias though? Those boring, pretty-looking yet scentless Spanish bluebells invading our south coast, weren't they BBC propaganda persuading us to accept mass immigration (as I've seen said)? Was the programme's favourable coverage of urban pigeons proof of some kind of BBC bias too (despite Chris Packham's disdain for pigeons, as reported here last year)? Was the programme proselytising over micro-plastics and their ingestion by all manner of animals - from plankton to something else beginning with 'p'- propagandist? And, gosh, a couple of guests also mentioned climate change, so is that evidence of BBC bias too?

I really wouldn't want to be one of those people who tries to extract BBC bias from a sausage roll, so my answer to those four questions is 'no', and my reaction to reading comments of that kind is: "Is that really all you have to say about Springwatch?"

Bring on the avocets and the adders, the bitterns and the badgers, the perilous scrapes and the heroic shrimps...and bring me Chris Packham (who I've met in the flesh and found charming), Michaela and Martin (who I've warmed to as time goes on), and everyone else involved in the show.

So, Nick Cohen, do you fancy (like me) going to the Scottish Isles to watch the newly-revived white-tailed eagles?