Autumnwatch 2020 is ‘falling back’ onto TV

Chris Packham was apparently “heartbroken” when his ‘TV wife’ Michaela Strachan could only make guest appearances from South Africa on this year’s Springwatch.

Travel restrictions meant Michaela could not fly in from Cape Town where she lives with her husband and son, for the latest run of the BBC show in May and June.

She is “the glue that holds it all together”, he said. Well, the good news for Chris and TV viewers is that Michaela is ‘falling back’ into her role for the Beeb’s Autumnwatch 2020.

She will be based at Tentsmuir Forest in Fife, an area containing miles and miles of forest trails and rich wildlife, including great flocks of sea birds that come to feed on shellfish, red squirrels in the trees, and roe deer weaving through the undergrowth.

Michaela and the team there will be covering, among other things, a live camera set-up on the Isle of May as the grey seals haul out for pupping. While Chris is staying close to his home in the New Forest, Gillian Burke is at RSPB Old Moor in South Yorkshire’s Dearne Valley.

This family friendly nature reserve is also teeming with wildlife, and at this time of year it is home to hundreds of ducks, swans and geese, as well as kingfishers, barn owls, bitterns and avocets.

Finally, Iolo Williams at the Centre for Alternative Technology near Aberystwyth in the foothills of Snowdonia. As well as watching the lesser horseshoe bats, dormice, wood warblers, otters, polecats and peregrine falcons, he will be learning more about the charity based there that is dedicated to researching solutions for environmental change and helping create a sustainable zero-carbon Britain.

The two-week window into these places of natural beauty begins tonight as the teams settle in to their bases around the British Isles.

In tomorrow’s show, Chris catches up with a mob of hungry white-tailed eagles released on the Isle of Wight.

And there’s a look at the surprising science that explains why getting out into natural world is good for us, whatever the weather.

Then on Friday, in an edition inspired by Halloween, Gillian shows off the hydraulic power of spiders’ legs, and Iolo has an update on the story of a giant vulture that set up home in Derbyshire.

Finally, Megan McCubbin joins Chris to look back at the mouse experiment and their friendly foxes, while Michaela catches up on the highs and lows of the Scottish seal colony. Admittedly, Autumnwatch doesn’t feature the colossal, stunning natural world as chronicled cinematically by David Attenborough. But it shines a light on something even better – the natural world down the road – and in these difficult times, Packham believes the show is more important than ever.

The combination of top-notch wildlife footage, extraordinary but accessible science, and the winsome and soothing presenters, make this a therapeutic TV hit time after time.

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