Vic Reeves Big Flight Out
Jim Moir and wife Nancy invite us to go twitching
Jim Moir is dressed in a dapper bluey-grey tweed jacket, cream roll-neck jumper and black beret for a good reason.
We are in the middle of Hothfield Heathlands in Kent looking for a rare visitor to the UK, known as a “butcher bird” for its grisly hunting tactics.
“I’m dressed in the same colours,” Jim, 64, tells me proudly, adding, “I’m hoping it will entice him or her out.”
His carefully selected outfit pays off as minutes later we spot the elusive great grey shrike, a striking species that has twitchers flocking to the spot from across the UK.
“Do you know about the shrike?” Jim asks me. “They eat birds, frogs and newts but as they have no talons to rip them apart they pin their prey on thorn bushes so they can pick them apart.”
I thought I knew my birds but my knowledge now feels lacking compared with Jim’s, the product of a 50-year passion. His love of birds has also rubbed off on his wife Nancy, 48, who is wearing a pair of bullfinch earrings.
“When I first met Jim, all he did was birdwatching,” she laughs, “so it wasn’t long before I got involved, too.”
Jim proposed to Nancy in 2003, two years after they met on TV, at the Groucho Club in London’s Soho. But the couple are now more likely to be found in the reedbeds of Dungeness, Kent, near their home in a nearby village.
Nancy said: “We love going for a walk looking for new species. I love lapwings and all the different types of owls.”
You might know Jim best as Vic Reeves, mucking about with comedy partner Bob Mortimer on TV in the 1990s in shows including Vic Reeves Big Night Out, Shooting Stars, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, and Bang, Bang, It’s Reeves and Mortimer.
But it seems that was just a distraction from his two major passions: birdwatching and painting.
Jim is a prolific artist, producing “thousands” of pictures a year, which he sells online. “I paint every day,” he says. “I wake at six, lie in bed thinking about what my next picture will be, then I go to my studio [a state-of-the-art shed in the garden] and stay there until about 12.”
He paints shoes, including a lovely watercolour of Paul Weller’s penny loafers, and portraits of celebrity ghosts. But mainly birds – 100 of which were included in his book called, quite simply, Birds.
He tells me has loved birds from childhood, and growing up on the edge of Darlington he would head out into the fields with his friends, a copy of The Observer’s Book of Birds and binoculars.
“In those days we used to collect birds’ eggs, a terrible thing, but we didn’t know better. We’d just take one and leave the rest,” he says. Now, Jim has united his passions with his third great love to create a new six-part TV series, Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir.
Starting tonight, fans can see the couple tour the country looking for winged muses to sketch, with showbiz pals including Jools Holland and Chris Packham offering insights along the way.
They begin by seeking out curlews in Northumberland, where they are joined by actor Mark Benton. Nancy is more chatty than Jim as we walk through the nature reserve – which also had
I’m dressed in the same colours. I’m hoping it will entice him or her out
JIM MOIR ON MATCHING HIS OUTFIT TO THE ELUSIVE GREY SHRIKE
There is so much amazing wildlife in the UK. If only we all just looked a little closer
JIM MOIR ON HIS JOY AT TRAVELLING NATION FOR SHOW
sightings recently of a Dartford warbler, a stonechat, a snipe, a woodlark, a hen harrier, a redwing, a hawfinch, a kestrel and a buzzard.
Then I realise Jim might not actually be able to hear me, because he is deaf in his left ear as a result of a noncancerous brain tumour diagnosed a few years ago, so I shift places. He tells me the tumour, the size of a grape, snapped the nerve and cut off his hearing. “I rely on Nancy now to tell me exactly where the birds are as I can hear them but I don’t know what direction,” he says.
Observing the couple, it is instantly clear that they are best pals, who love each other’s company, laugh together and enjoy the same hobbies.
Nancy admits they have even sneaked in a bit of birdwatching on recent holidays in Lanzarote and Costa Rica. She says: “He spends most of his time at home with us these days, painting. It’s his main love in life and he’s so good at it. I particularly love his birds. I’ve tried to paint alongside him but I’m just not very good.”
Earlier this month, Jim announced that he will not be taking on any more TV projects. And while similarities may be drawn between his latest series and Bob’s Gone Fishing series, he says the former comedy partners do not actually talk as much as fans would expect. Jim says: “We never really speak much. Bob and I have never been ones for talking on the phone. We’ll see him now and then and have a chat.”
As for deciding to call it a day with telly projects, he made an exception for his new show, saying: “Well, I said I’ll do this one if it’s about painting and birdwatching, and I’ll do it with Nancy. And they said yeah.” Nancy adds: “We had so much fun. I hope people think, ‘I’d like to go bird-watching, or painting’.”
And could Jim be tempted to make another series?
He says: “There are a lot [of birds] in Britain I’d like to see and there’s a lot Nancy wants to see. I’ve never seen a puffin and I’d like to see a crossbill.
“Travelling around Britain has made me realise there is so much amazing wildlife on our doorstep. If only we all just looked a little closer. They should teach looking in schools.”
■ Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir launches on Sky Arts, Freeview and NOW tonight at 9pm.