COAST: A WILD YEAR
BBC2, 9pm THERE’S something dreamy about watching nature speedily unfold – a flower blooming or clouds whizzing across the sky thanks to time-lapse footage.
This series investigates iconic regions of the British countryside, with days, weeks and months compressed into just a few seconds.
The result is like that famous Notting Hill movie sequence, as the seasons change, people come and go and nothing looks the same.
In this first instalment, cameras are watching the Pembrokeshire coast in South-West Wales, where life is defined by the Atlantic Ocean.
There are some surprising visitors – not least, a colony of puffins.
Around 24,000 of them have travelled hundreds of miles across the
North Atlantic to a tiny Welsh island because it is the perfect place to breed and rear chicks. As one puffin awaits her mate, there is bill tapping – which looks like frantic kissing – as they are united.
Meanwhile, on Ramsey Island, there resides a flock of sheep which keep the grass just the right length for 11 pairs of chough.
Watch out for one amusing moment when the sheep must be bills with their mate herded to another spot off the island – which means piling them all on to a boat.
“After a few leaps of protest, they soon find their sea legs,” says narrator Toby Jones.
As autumn arrives, cameras capture grey seals that come ashore on a Ramsey beach to give birth.
And by New Year, hundreds of people brave the icy waters for a fancy dress swim in the ocean.