GREAT COASTAL RAILWAY JOURNEYS
Tomorrow, BBC2, 6.30pm
Does Michael Portillo, pictured, ever spend any time at home? It appears not, because he’s back with yet another new series.
This time, across 20 weekday episodes, he’s exploring more of only two decades since Sir David Attenborough looked at the Life of Mammals for a previous series, but in that time the issues facing them have grown and grown, with many species now facing extinction.
The second episode in his latest series, The New Wild explores how other creatures have adapted to living alongside perhaps the most successful mammals of all – humans.
While some animals have struggled, others have evolved, sometimes in alarming ways. The episode takes us
Britain’s shores, beginning with a trip from the Jurassic Coast to the Isles of Scilly.
Among the highlights of his journey are an exploration of palaeontologist Mary Anning’s work in Lyme Regis, a tour of Exeter’s Meteorological Office HQ and watching flour being ground at a 1,000-year-old water mill. to Malaysia, where forest has been cut down to make way for palm oil factories.
That’s bad news for much of the wildlife, but a troop of pigtailed macaques, which were previously largely vegetarian, have started to hunt and eat the rats that can be found on the plantations.
Working on the BBC’s new nature series Mammals would be a dream job for many people, and not just because it means they get to meet broadIT’S casting legend Sir David Attenborough.
As Lydia Baines, who produced this second episode The New Wild, explains, there’s also the chance to go to some incredible locations and film some remarkable creatures.
She says: “People adore mammals because we have a natural affinity with them – some of them even look like us!
“They also act like us. “There’s a lot of us that we can see in mammals, which I think makes them particularly appealing.”