Springwatch starts tonight from The National Trust's Crom Estate in County Fermanagh, and the new series opens with a story that wildlife filmmaker from Yorkshire spent 30 years trying to catch on camera: a cuckoo egg in a reed warbler's nest. The find sits at the heart of a programme that is still built on patience, timing and a close look at the small dramas playing out in British wildlife.
Michaela Strachan said the cuckoo remains one of nature's strangest performers because the chick hatches first, then instinctively pushes the other eggs out of the nest. She said the eggs are also matched to the host bird they are laid in, asking how that can happen and adding that mother nature is far cleverer than people give it credit for. The host nest in this case belongs to a reed warbler, while the cuckoo chick can grow to four or five times the size of the smaller bird that rears it.
This year's Springwatch is based at the Crom Estate on the shores of Upper Lough Erne, where ancient woodlands, wetlands, open parkland and freshwater habitats give the cameras a wide range of species to follow. The series marked its 20th anniversary last year, and the move to Northern Ireland gives the long-running wildlife programme a new setting after a period in which Autumnwatch was dropped by bosses a few years ago.
Strachan, who turned 60 last month, said she treats every series as if it could be the last. She lives with her husband and family in South Africa, but said she approaches the show with the same urgency each year because everything changes and life should be made the most of while it is there. Asked about age, she said she is definitely liking it and feels she is no longer trying so hard to be something else, but simply comfortable with who she is.
That sense of make-it-count urgency hangs over the programme for another reason too: the Charter renewal is coming up. Strachan said, "We've got the Charter renewal coming up, so who knows what's going to happen," before adding that the team ends up exhausted by the end of it. For now, though, the series is continuing with Chris Packham as her long-term co-host and Iolo Williams bringing stories from a different UK location each week.
Williams begins at the Knepp Estate in Sussex before moving to London and finishing at East Yor, giving the show a wider national sweep alongside the main base in County Fermanagh. The format keeps the focus on wildlife, but the opening story about the cuckoo is the one that defines the night: a long wait for a rare shot, a species that tricks other birds into raising its young, and a reminder that the natural world still manages surprises after decades of filming.
Strachan's answer to the question of whether this is a series built on uncertainty is already clear. She said she treats each Springwatch as though it might be the last, and tonight the show begins with that same feeling of attention to detail, making the most of what is here before it moves on.
