Springwatch returned to the on Wednesday, June 3, with Michaela Strachan and Chris Packham fronting the wildlife programme from Northern Ireland, and the opening episode quickly turned into a talking point for reasons that had little to do with the scenery. The broadcast featured daylight sightings of pine martens, but it was Packham’s close inspection of their faeces that drew the most immediate reaction from viewers.
That made Strachan one of the faces of the show’s return, even though the moment people were searching for involved Packham. He said he “couldn't resist going out and seeing if I could meet my own pine marten in broad daylight,” and the episode followed him as crew members spotted the animals during the day in Northern Ireland.
Packham, 65, lay on the ground to sniff the animal droppings before picking up a pile of faeces with his bare hands. He described what he found as pine marten poo, saying there was “only one way to find out” and later calling it “unmistakably pine marten.” He also explained that the material could reveal what the animal had been eating, pointing to ivy berries and the seeds inside them as evidence of the marten’s diet.
Viewers on X complained about the sight of him handling the poo without gloves, but the programme framed the sample as more than an unpleasant prop. Packham said he would put it back where he found it because it was part of a system of communication, a scent marker that helped identify the particular pine marten that left it behind. The scene was presented as fieldwork, yet the reaction online showed how quickly a natural-history lesson can collide with an audience’s limits for what they want to watch on a Wednesday night.
The return episode has now done two things at once: put Michaela Strachan back in the frame for Springwatch’s latest run, and made Packham’s hands-on approach the story viewers will remember first. What comes next is whether the series keeps leaning into that kind of close-up wildlife reporting, or whether this first outing becomes the moment that sets the tone for the rest of the run.
