A NEW LEAF
IOLO WILLIAMS HEADS OFF TO THE CAIRNGORMS TO BRING US OUR AUTUMNAL CHECK-IN…
It may be grey and wet out, but that’s no reason not to keep a close eye on what’s going on in your garden and local green spaces. Autumnwatch returns this week, and Chris Packham, Michaela Strachan, Gillian Burke and Iolo Williams have got lots of exciting stories lined up…
“Chris is going to be investigating the science of deer antlers and how amazingly robust they are,” Iolo tells us. “Michaela will be chasing geese as they arrive back in Scotland, Gillian has been diving with blue sharks off the coast of Cornwall, and I’m looking at creatures that are only exposed for two or three nights a year in exceptionally low tides, like squat lobsters and brittle stars.”
And that’s only the stories that they’ve already got in the bag, as the team will also be bringing us updates across the week live from their Cairngorms base, chronicling the big changes of the season.
“It’ll be interesting to see autumn in the highlands this year,” predicts Iolo. “It varies so much – if the weather conditions are right, you get a fantastic show of red, orange, yellow and brown leaves, but sometimes it’s just a bit of a damp squib!”
The “Watches” have been based in the Cairngorms since January’s Winterwatch, and Iolo tells us that having a fixed location over the year is useful in a number of ways. “You can see how the landscape changes from season to season,” he points out.
“And there’s so much behind the scenes that people don’t realise – we’ve got the cables down already; we’ve got the nest boxes up with cameras, so from a production point of view, it does make things a lot easier!”