WELCOME TO THE SUNSHINE ISLE
Known for being one of the sunniest places in the UK, the Isle of Wight is a wildlife haven waiting to be explored
Ashort ferry ride across the English Channel, the Isle of Wight offers undulating landscapes, stunning beaches and a wealth of wildlife. It is home to the Glanville fritillary butterfly, white-tailed eagle and one of its most famous residents, the red squirrel. The island is an incredibly special place to those seeking the best of British wildlife. Over 50 per cent of its land is classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, home to a rich variety of unique landscapes. The Isle of Wight was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2019 – testament to the harmonious existence between its people and the natural environment.
SQUIRREL SPOTTING
The island’s thriving population of 3,500 endangered red squirrels is a draw for many wildlife enthusiasts keen to get a glimpse of this characterful species. The Red Squirrel Trail meanders through 51km of the glorious Isle of Wight countryside, directing you through lots of woodland inhabited by red squirrels, so ensure you have your binoculars at the ready. Also, not to be missed is Borthwood Copse, located near Winford and owned by the National Trust, it is a woodland specifically managed to support the red squirrel. The Isle of Wight is one of the few remaining homes of the red squirrel and, while it offers an ideal environment for them to thrive, they are not always easy to spot, given their timid nature and aversion to any loud noise. The best time to see them is often at dawn or dusk.
SPECTACULAR SHORELINES
The Isle of Wight has some incredible beaches and viewpoints that provide the opportunity to spot some exceptional marine life. St. Catherine’s Point, the most southerly headland on the island, is partially owned by the National Trust and Trinity House. It makes an excellent place to look out for cetaceans, such as harbour porpoise and bottlenose dolphin, particularly during late summer.
Bembridge Ledge, located at the east end of the Island, boasts rockpools and lagoons that are home to many rare seaweeds, including the wonderfully-named peacock’s tail, as well as other marine life such as the stalked jellyfish. No visit to the island would be complete without a spot of fossil hunting. Over 125 million years ago, the land which now forms the Isle of Wight was a thriving habitat for dinosaurs. Today, the 34km stretch of coastline that runs between Compton and Sandown is a hotspot for dinosaur bones and many other types of fossils, ideal for adventurers of all ages.
Wildlife documentaries have been criticised in the past for excluding people. Although Wild Isles focuses on the interactions of wild species, we glimpse their human-shaped setting: wild horses are filmed against a glorious sunset – and pylons. Villages, farms, tractors and fences pop into view. And Sir David’s narration unflinchingly returns to what’s in peril – the pollution in most chalk streams, for instance – and what we can do about it. Sir David begins the grasslands episode in a wildflower meadow, explaining that 97 per cent of wildflower meadows in England and Wales have disappeared since he was a boy in the 1930s, roaming rural Leicestershire. At the conclusion of the wild horses sequence, which tells how they are helping revive the species-rich wetlands of Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire, he adds: “We could restore large swaths of our lost wilderness, if we wanted to.”
For Gates, it was “absolutely essential” that Wild Isles delivered a robust message. “Although we wanted to show the best of what we do have, it’s imperative that the audience understands that we need to help restore an awful lot of what we’ve lost because we are one of the most nature-depleted nations on Earth,” says Gates. “I don’t think we could ask for a better ambassador for the natural world, particularly in Britain, to be delivering that message than Sir David. When we heard that he was really keen to be involved, all the production team were absolutely delighted.”
PEOPLE POWER
We’ve had five years or so of natural history blockbusters carrying more hard-hitting conservation messages, but Fothergill feels that audiences are sometimes left in despair, lacking the solutions for addressing the intertwined biodiversity and climate crises. “We’re determined to give solutions,” he says, “and we’ve made a 50-minute film called Saving Our Wild Isles, which is what we need to do to make it wilder. The BBC are putting that on iPlayer, which I’m delighted about.” The involvement of the RSPB and WWF-UK means that the series and its accompanying book and website are full of invitations to the audience to get involved in active conservation and restoration work, and ideas about how they might do so.
The series concludes with Sir David on the cliffs of Skomer Island, off the coast of Pembrokeshire, in the gloaming, watching young Manx shearwaters leave their burrows for the first time. For Fothergill, who has worked with Sir David across more than four decades, this scene was tinged with poignancy. It represents the pinnacle of a long and remarkable career as a naturalist and natural history broadcaster. Sir David turns 97 this spring.
“This moment with the shearwaters was just one of the best pieces to camera he’s ever done,” says Fothergill. “He is interacting with them as they are about to take their first flight, a 6,000-mile journey to Argentina. He does it beautifully. It’s just joyful. Then he says – surely you can be the first generation who passes it on to the next in a better state. It’s up to you.”