TV blog Feed

Socks, chocolate and saddle sores: Filming The Hunt

2015-11-25T16:28:07+00:00

Being thrust together with a colleague for weeks in wild, faraway landscapes while your family are a whole continent away: it could go either way, right? So it was a good job that crew members Sophie and Mandi bonded for life through shooting The Hunt, camping together in the isolated mountains and coasts of Ethiopia and Patagonia.

It all comes down to boosting each other's mood in the low moments and sharing socks when it gets too cold. Meeting these two left us smiling at their stories of coping strategies – from a phone ban to a chocolate stash.

On filming what they’d always wanted to

Sophie: Mandi and I have wanted to film Ethiopian wolves since the beginning of the mention of The Hunt. And so we couldn’t quite believe our luck I think.

Mandi: They’re extraordinary animals, and quite rare - there are fewer than 500 of them in the wild. I love wolves anyway: I am really interested in animals that have such sociability. I love the pack structure and their bonds and the hierarchy. And also I really wanted to go to the Bale Mountains where they live: it’s epically beautiful.

Sophie: It’s like this mad, alien landscape isn’t it? You’re up high and it’s incredibly green but quite other-worldly. It’s quite like you are in outer space. And then the wolves are bright red.

We had quite an epic journey with all our kit, because you never travel light, and so we finally get there after I don't know how many days of being on the road and the guy said to us: "Welcome to Bale Mountains". And at that moment this wolf just bounced through. It was magical.

The Ethiopian wolves were 'tolerant' of the crew, hunting close by them

On long trips away

Mandi: I’d say typically, for the type of filming that we do, very infrequently would you be away for less than three weeks: three to five is typical. The longest one I had for The Hunt was nine and a half, but that was two shoots back to back.

My husband and I met working at the Natural History Unit, so for our entire relationship this has been the normality. But nine and a half, ten weeks is pushing it for any relationship (laughs) and I would say that would be the absolute limit. I only did that because it was Ethiopian wolves, and I wasn’t missing that for anything.

Sophie: But because of the nature of the job, you go away for a month and then you have to come back and live life and do all of that boring stuff. You have to pay your bills. And of course we’ve both got family. Mandi’s got a husband, I’ve got a son. And they’ve got used to it.

Mandi: My personal way of dealing with it is to switch off. It’s too difficult. I find it easier to actually not speak to my husband very often when I’m away because it makes it harder. I find emails easier.

Sophie: And my son is 15 now and he’s like: "Mum, just go away". I‘ve had to learn not to go on about what I’ve been doing. He’s like: "Yeah, whatever, I got an A in science".

Mandi (left) and Sophie also worked together on The Hunt in Patagonia

On creature comforts

Mandi: My mum sends me the same advent calendar every year which I really love, so I’ve taken it on trips. It’s super old fashioned, and last year we had a little ceremony every day.

Sophie: It was to break the day up, because you do go slightly bonkers on shoots. You are in these very remote, beautiful, exquisite places, just very few of you. We decided because each country we were filming in has such beautiful traditions, we would start showing them some of ours. So every morning or evening we would stand and sing random carols in front of the calendar. Really seriously too.

Mandi: And Sophie’s great with food. I generally get through my treats by day five. Then you’ll get to three days before the end of a shoot and Sophie will whip out some amazing chocolate that she happened to get in Paris, that she just hadn’t mentioned the whole way through!

Sophie: You’ve got to wait for that really low moment. We do the best job in the world, there’s no doubt about it, we’re lucky lucky lucky, but there are days which are tough, and there are days when you need high quality chocolate.

Mandi: What are the things that I always take?

Sophie: Not enough socks!

Mandi: (laughs) Yeah, never enough socks! I’ve still got a pair of your socks actually.

Sophie (left) was one of Mandi's wedding photographers after the pair became close

On facing their fears

Sophie: There were also some amazing moments of madness. Mandi is allergic to horses, but she had to go and do a recce and the only way to get to the nearest town, 22 kilometres away, was by horse. So we’re loading Mandi up onto a horse, watching her, just going: "Will she ever come back? Will she be alive? Will she… explode from this horse?"

Mandi: I mean it was the size of a Shetland pony in fairness, but if you’re scared of horses, you’re scared of horses, OK!

Sophie: And if you haven’t been on a horse in 20 years, and your horse happens to have a wooden saddle as well, she came back - I promise you - she couldn’t sit down.

Mandi: It was so painful.

Sophie: It was so funny – sorry, I mean… really awful!

Mandi: I’m never forgetting that!

Sophie: On our last day, because I had laughed so hard, Mandi organised for both of us to leave by horse, and so we both went down singing. It was one of the best journeys of my life: the two of us on horses who wouldn’t respond to any known signals. It was 22 kilometres of us singing Christmas carols as we headed home to our families. Although, it did make sitting on a plane hard!

Sophie Darlington is a camerawoman and Mandi Stark is an assistant producer on The Hunt.

The Hunt continues on Sunday, 29 November at 9pm on BBC One. Each episode will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

My love of surfing inspired me to film Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth

2015-08-13T08:50:25+00:00

I am a surfer. I have been surfing for nearly 20 years. Being a surfer gives you an obsession with - and an addiction to - the ocean. It is a strong bond that drives me and leads me through life. I spend my first waking hours of every day thinking about the tides, the swell and the wind hitting my home beaches in Wales.

It felt like a gift to make an episode of Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth, on the tropical side of an ocean that I already know so well. I wanted to learn its moods, discover its magic and tell its stories.

When you surf somewhere, whether the waves are good or bad, you connect with the ocean in a special way. You are immersed in it, harnessing its power, developing respect, sharing time and energy with it. Only then can you discover its secrets and stories, like getting to know a new friend. I take a similar approach in making a programme and telling a new story – you need to immerse yourself in the environment to understand its character.

In the case of the tropical Atlantic, I spent many weeks exploring and swimming the Caribbean coasts to find the right characters and locations to tell the story. In doing so I met people who have an affinity with their sea just as I do with my local Atlantic coast at home - people who know every inch of a beach, reef or mangrove forest, how it changes with the tides or comes alive with bioluminescence (light emitted by living things) at night.

One of the locals in Belize told me about a mangrove forest that he described as an underwater wonderland, and on hearing about it, I knew it would be perfect for the programme. But nothing prepared me for the astonishing beauty that I saw. As soon as the crew arrived, I couldn’t wait to show them what we were about to film!

Legendary cameraman Didier Noirot, our assistant producer Lucy Wells and I spent a week filming among the mangroves, snorkelling and free diving among the shallows to capture new scenes.

Lucy and Renee outside the hut that doubled as their base in Belize

Didier has been diving for many many years and has filmed most of the underwater spectacles we all know and love in wildlife films. He isn’t easy to impress. However, on the first day of filming Didier and I did a recce dive so that we could plan how to get the shots I wanted. He has seen a lot in his long career, and generally plays things very cool, but on this occasion we were both utterly wowed by what we had seen.

Swimming down among the roots was captivating - with every corner turned, we found a new kaleidoscope of colours, textures and variety of life. It was like a British woodland walk in spring, but instead of bluebells, primroses, wild garlic and violets there were tunicates, sponges and corals clinging to the underwater roots, and every so often, if you looked carefully, shy long-snouted seahorses would emerge from the shadows.

A cave near Grand Cayman, with tarpon and silverside fish

I have never seen anything as intricate and beautiful as the underwater wonderland hidden among the mangroves of Belize – such a precious and enchanting world. The mangrove scene is one of my favourite parts of the episode, not only for its beauty, but for the bigger story about how special mangroves are. They normally get bad press as sludgy, ugly places, however there is real magic among Belize’s mangroves. The programme, I hope, will help tell their story and the importance of the role they play in the stability of the tropical Atlantic will become better understood.

Renee Godfrey is a surfer and the director and producer of the third episode of Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth - From Heaven to Hell.

Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth continues on Thursday, 13 August at 9pm on BBC Two. Each episode will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

The photo of Renee surfing is used with kind permission from Stu Norton.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

What happened when this claustrophobic presenter went caving for Secret Britain?

2015-04-07T06:00:00+00:00

I found out I was being sent caving for Secret Britain after a Q&A session in the Countryfile tent at our summer special. Someone asked what I would hate to do. I said anything in tight spaces. My executive producer then came up to me chuckling about story ideas for Secret Britain.

So the proposal was that I squeeze my way into Britain’s deepest cave – Ogof Ffynnon Ddu in the Brecon Beacons – to witness a remarkable secret, the beautiful stalactites deep below ground. When these kinds of challenges come up, I’m usually asked weeks beforehand when the reality of it seems a long time away. I’m then in a rational state of mind so I reason with myself that it is the BBC, with risk assessments and insurances. And I also take the view that I’m being paid to do the work so I should bloody well do the work.

'I even freak out in a tight wetsuit. I'm not even joking.'

It was a challenging day in many ways. Mostly logistically. We were on site at 8am and by the time we had finished faffing with kit, it was nearly lunchtime and we still hadn’t gone down the cave. Although I was horribly nervous about going underground, it’s not really possible for our bodies physiologically to maintain a state of great anxiety for hours on end. After such a long time preparing, I just wanted to get on with it and get down the cave.

The sound of water flowing overhead was not especially soothing! The reality of metres and metres of rock above one’s head wasn’t a pleasant thought for me so it’s a good job I am quite adept at imagining it is something quite different. I remember jumping out of a plane once and pretending I was jumping into water in order to do it.

If I needed a wee once I was in the caving suit, it had to be in the darkness when the crew were a long way past. But what a faff getting caving suits, radio mics and battery packs off and not letting any of them fall in the cave stream. On nearly every shoot I go on, I subconsciously stop drinking because the opportunity even for wild wees are really limited. We end up most Fridays with crashing headaches and UTIs!

I never thought I would pull out - not after the massive effort in getting there. Hours and hours of prepping, 15 bags of kit, extra caving hands to carry all that kit. That would have been terrible sportsmanship to pull out then.

The day was hard all round. For safety - and for filming - we had to double the amount of bags that we ended up needing, including a scaffolding pole which wasn’t used (but was still carried to the end of the cave system and back again). The journey was incredibly slow going and we weren’t able to film the hardest part: straddling waterways and balancing on beams, just to get to the spots where we could film. We were hours and hours later than we should have been, probably using up all our goodwill with the caving team. Peanuts and chocolate fingers were our underground diet because they have the highest calorie to weight ratio.

Has the experience helped me with my claustrophobia? Nope! It’s something you have or don’t have I think. I still get claustrophobia in the back seat of a car if my feet get caught under the driver’s chair.

Ellie Harrison presents Secret Britain alongside Adam Henson.

Secret Britain starts on Wednesday 8 April at 9pm on BBC One. Each episode will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Watch a clip: Why seeing stunning crystal formations made it all worthwhile

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Liz Bonnin on Animals In Love: How a pair of greylag geese could rival any great romance

2015-01-30T12:22:20+00:00

Filming Animals In Love was an eye-opening experience in so many ways. Not only did I witness animal behaviours I hadn't seen before, but it also allowed me to understand a lot more about emotional intelligence in animals.

Until very recently we believed animals were not capable of emotion. But over the past two decades great advances have been made in the study of animal behaviour and we now know that many animals experience emotions like fear and joy.

Visiting Lola Ya Bonobo Sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo was particularly moving for me. Far too many orphaned bonobo babies are brought here on a regular basis because their mothers are killed for the bushmeat trade.

One orphan, only a few months old, was cowering with its adoptive 'maman' (as the dedicated carers of these orphans are called), its eyes as big as saucers as it watched our soundman's boom hovering above us. I asked the 'maman' why he was so scared, and she said that the boom probably reminded him of the guns that shot his mother.

Like humans, bonobos use laughter as a communication tool

To see such intelligent social animals left so traumatised at the hands of humans is a very difficult thing to watch. The 'mamans' will devote the next five years to earning the trust of their orphan and caring for them day and night, so that they can become psychologically and physically well enough to live with a larger bonobo group. And having experienced how loving bonobo infants are, seeking out a cuddle at every opportunity, it's not difficult to see how important affection is to these animals.

One of the most extraordinary behaviours we filmed is the mating ritual of alligators. Male alligators produce a mesmerising, deep and powerful bellow to denote their territory and attract females. Their deep rumblings produce vibrations which cause the water on their backs to dance in delicate little fountains.

Once a male attracts a female, the courtship dance begins. It's probably one of the gentlest, most delicate interactions I have ever seen. The male and female nuzzle each other repeatedly, moving ever so slowly alongside each other. For such powerful, fearsome predators it is quite a surprising behaviour to witness!

One of the most touching stories of the series came from one of the most unlikely sources: the greylag goose. The story of Tariq and Judith could rival any Disney classic. The two formed a very close bond, as all greylag couples should to be successful in life, but two years into their relationship, Judith disappeared in a violent storm. According to the scientists studying the geese, Tariq's behaviour could only be described as grief-stricken. After some time he did appear to move on and find a new mate, but a year after their separation, Judith unexpectedly returned. Tariq's response was undeniable. He immediately returned to Judith and they have been together ever since.

Judith and Tariq have since had a family of goslings together

Learning about the elephants of Thula Thula Reserve in South Africa was really special. Conservationist Lawrence Anthony's close relationship with the herd he rescued was already heartwarming, but hearing about Frankie, the matriarch of the herd, making a concerted effort to support and befriend another female in distress (ET), convinced me all the more about elephants' capacity for emotional intelligence.

I couldn't believe our luck when, after days of searching, we finally came across the herd. Frankie and ET approached our jeep, side by side, with ET's tiny young calf almost hidden from view, squashed between them. It was an emotional moment to see these elephants thriving, thanks to Lawrence and his team.

Science has shown us that elephants are capable of extraordinary behaviours we still don't fully understand. They grieve their dead, and somehow always know which watering holes to visit, even if they are hundreds of miles away and only just full again after years of drought. I would not be surprised if in the future science were to make more exciting discoveries about the cognitive and emotional capacities of these extraordinary animals.

Is it possible for animals to love? For one thing, we still can’t fully define what love is even in us humans. But all across the animal kingdom, the chemicals involved in attraction and attachment are very similar. Although of course we can’t say whether this feels the same in a human as it does in a goose, the physiology is the same. And if we can call that love, then love is more common across the animal kingdom than we first thought.

I’m very excited to see what else we will discover about the emotional lives of animals.

Liz Bonnin presents Animals In Love

Animals In Love starts on Sunday, 1 February at 6pm on BBC One and BBC One HD in England and Scotland. It is also on at 6pm on BBC Two Wales and 7pm on BBC Two NI.

For further programme times please see the upcoming broadcasts page.

More on Animals In Love:
Radio Times: The world's five best places to watch cuddling creatures

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

That 'Pets: Wild At Heart' hamster who filled his cheeks? I fell in love and kept him as my own

2015-01-27T13:33:43+00:00

When we first researched ideas for the series Pets: Wild at Heart, we never seriously considered the hamster - our thoughts were mainly on the larger, more popular pets. It was only when I visited the local pet store that things changed.

While looking at the hamsters, one particular fur ball stood out from the crowd. He was stuffing his cheeks in great haste as his cheeks stretched down the side of his body. He doubled in size before my eyes. The behaviour was visually funny and intriguing, so immediately I wanted to learn more about how those cheeks worked. His audition was a success.

Just watch those bulging cheeks stretch back to the hamster's hips!

We spent several weeks observing and filming him in the comforts of a typical home – my own. He was a joy. So intelligent, gentle and inquisitive. The original idea was to find a suitable home for the hamster after filming, but there was no need. After spending so long with him we were now the best of buddies and I became the proud owner of a hamster.

At home we also have a German Shepherd called Cooper. In fact he too features in the documentary. We filmed him running on a beach using high speed cameras and thermal imagery to show how dogs use their tongue to lose excess body heat.

He was once a police dog but lacked the credentials needed to fight crime. Cooper gets on very well with Hampy, they often sniff each other’s noses in friendly recognition of each other.

Cooper in his element (and regulating his own body temperature) on the beach

Our hamster was an instant hit at home. My two boys (aged seven and six) named him Hampy. They love to build tunnels for him and hide food treats for him in their playroom. So Hampy is given all sorts of missions, he's a great problem solver and always sniffs out the hidden food.

In filming, we used special lenses and high-speed cameras to capture Hampy’s behaviour in detail. We also used a technique called fluoroscopy which produces moving X-ray images. This was done at a veterinary hospital using very low dose X-rays.

Hamsters are also well known for escaping, so we gave him the opportunity to explore under the watchful eyes of our cameras. He quickly discovered the bathroom, and went straight for the toilet roll.

I was quite alarmed when he started eating the paper. Huge mouthfuls disappeared into his cheeks. I was worried he was going to swallow it, but then I thought better of Hampy: there must be a good reason why he was doing this. Then, with cheeks full, he followed his nose back to his cage and unloaded his cheeks, furnishing his nest with soft dry tissue paper. That was surprising!

Watch Hammy use his unique instincts to guide him on his midnight run

Philip Dalton is the series producer of Pets: Wild At Heart.

Pets: Wild At Heart continues at 8pm on Wednesday, 28 January on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme availability please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Meet the animals who stole our hearts in 2014

2014-12-31T15:35:10+00:00

To celebrate the close of 2014, we’re reliving some of the most breath-taking, heart-warming and downright brilliant clips of wildlife on the BBC over the last 12 months. So here are some of the most-viewed nature clips on the BBC YouTube channel this year. (Did someone say pengwings?)

The 13 baby pandas that made our hearts all fluttery

YouTube views to date: 49,907

Take 13 baby pandas, aged from one to four months old, lay them out together for playtime, and this is the result.

This rare sight – recorded at China’s Wolong National Nature Reserve as part of Clare Balding’s Operation Wild series – shows new hope in pandas’ survival.

According to executive producer Helen Thomas “just one content panda cub is enough to make you smile, seeing so many happily exploring their surroundings together is a real treat!” She also reveals “Clare has such a natural affinity with animals that her enjoyment of the moment makes you feel part of something very special and life-affirming"

Warning: this clip may make your face do strange things…

This external content is available at its source: Clare Balding at a baby panda nursery

The most grotesque video of a leech eating a worm you may ever see

YouTube views to date: 369,975

It might not be cute, but this rather uncomfortable clip of a giant red leech devouring a worm managed to captivate viewers nonetheless.

The footage – captured as part of BBC Two’s Wonders of the Monsoon – is impossible to take your eyes off.

This external content is available at its source: A leech swallows a worm

James Honeyborne, the series’ executive producer, said: “I love this sequence because it’s such extraordinary new behaviour, filmed in detail for the first time. As memorable TV, it certainly delivers the ‘yuk’ factor. But most significantly, it’s also a scientific revelation.

“Wildlife film makers rely on scientists all over the world for their stories and for once, it’s great to pay back the support with some scientifically valuable observations.”

Just remember to keep your shoes on if you’re off for a stroll in the woods any time soon…

The baby gosling diving 400ft to safety

YouTube views to date: 525,566

This external content is available at its source: Within the first few hours after hatching a Barnacle gosling must make a giant leap from it's clifftop nest

Perhaps one of the most memorable moments of the Life Story series, this clip shows a newly-hatched barnacle gosling hurling itself from a cliff edge, to fall 400ft to meet its parents.

Reflecting on the scene, and the music composer Murray Gold created for it, executive producer Mike Gunton said: “The barnacle geese scene is among my favourites. Murray’s music brilliantly mapped that journey, both sensitively and dramatically.”

Our hearts stopped and restarted with every single squeal.

The pufferfish who went all out in the name of romance

YouTube views to date: 805,574

Potential suitors of the world, take note – this is your wooing barometer. In Life Story, cameras captured this pufferfish, who spends 24 hours a day for a week devising this work of sand art to attract a mate.

This external content is available at its source: A Japanese pufferfish makes an extraordinary sand sculpture to attract and win a mate

Commenting on the clip, Mike Gunton, executive producer for Life Story, said: “The pufferfish ‘crop circle’ sequence is very powerful with the music underscoring the reveal of the fish’s masterpiece with just the right level of fanfare.”

Well, it beats petrol station flowers and the smell of questionable aftershave.

The incredible escaping honey badger

YouTube views to date: 5,497,432

If you were ever in any doubt about the intelligence of the humble badger, this clip will disprove any theory you had.

The video, from BBC Two’s Natural World: Masters Of Mayhem, shows honey badger Stoffel repeatedly escaping from his enclosure – AKA ‘badger Alcatraz’. From piling up rocks to create a makeshift climbing frame to shimmying up discarded rakes, this mini-Houdini is a force to be reckoned with.

This external content is available at its source: Honey badgers escape from their enclosure using anything from mud balls to rakes

Series editor Roger Webb on working with the star of the show, Stoffel:

“By displaying his own amazing agility and ingenuity he’s showing the world just what intelligent and incredible animals honey badgers are. There’s no doubt, these feisty animals have big personalities and clearly never know when they’re beaten. For this reason I think you can’t help but love a honey badger!”

We couldn’t agree more!

Sophie Maden is a researcher for BBC iPlayer.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Snow Animals: Wonderful moments in pictures

2014-12-29T15:06:10+00:00

In anticipation of BBC Two’s latest animal adventure, Snow Wolf Family And Me, we thought we’d take a look back at our favourite snow animal moments of the past year. But beware – there’s more cute in this blog post than you can throw a really big cute-stick at. Especially if you like penguins.

Snow Wolf Family And Me

Gordon Buchanan travels to the remote Canadian Arctic to get close to a pack of wolves. After spending most of his nights alone in his camp with the rest of the film crew half a mile away, Gordon gains the wolves’ trust by adapting his behaviour. (Seriously. It is the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen.)

A pup emerges from its den in Snow Wolf Family and Me

We can’t decide which is cuter so here they both are: the clip of the three-week-old pups leaving their den or the trailer featuring the wolves snoozing.

Natural World: Penguin Post Office

We didn’t need a department store with a magical Christmas advert to tell us that penguins are great. Back in July, Natural World took us to Port Lockroy in Antarctica, where there is a working, British post office surrounded by a colony of 3,000 gentoo penguins.

Every day at the post office they go about their daily business of feeding, socialising and generating a lot of mess – and that’s just the humans.

For more on this fascinating place, and to find out how the unlucky employees keep the area free from penguin poo (though not of the smell) see all the Penguin Post Office clips here.

Animal Odd Couples

What is better than being friends with a polar bear?

Being licked on the face by a polar bear, of course.

Late last year, wildlife biologist Liz Bonnin explored the ever surprising world of animals that have formed unexpected friendships with other species - and with human beings. In this episode, we meet Mark and Agee (Mark is the big friendly thing with the white fur on the left of the photo. Agee is the polar bear.) They have been inseparable since Agee was eight weeks old.

Have a listen to what Agee ‘purring’ sounds like. Polar bears purring definitely don’t sound like cats purring. Unless it’s a 30 stone cat with an actual frog in its throat.

Penguins On A Plane: Great Animal Moves

In this most excellent of penguin-based adventures, expert animal handlers and the team at Birmingham’s National Sea Life Centre were tasked with receiving some precious cargo that had been flown in all the way from New Zealand: penguins!

We discovered how these penguins were transported huge distances – and how they were treated to a luxury flight with their very own ‘penguin hotel’ – a £40,000 refrigerated transport crate fitted with its own seatbelts.

Read an interview with the National Sea Life Centre’s penguin keeper Naomi, who probably has the best job in the world.

Life Story

Do not be deceived by this photo from David Attenborough’s Life Story. This is not actually a goat selfie, or as they’re known in the goat world, a ‘gelfie’ (we may have made that up.) This was in fact a successful attempt by a mountain goat to investigate the film crew that were following its progress down the hillside.

But seeing as 2014 was the ‘year of the selfie’, it seemed like a fitting photo to finish on!

Emma Bradshaw is a researcher for BBC iPlayer.

Snow Wolf Family And Me is on tonight at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Talk To The Animals: Witnessing a chimp apology

2014-07-15T07:15:12+00:00

Presenter and zoologist Lucy Cooke meets a few engaging animal conversationalists while filming BBC One's Talk To The Animals.

Lucy Cooke tries to understand the banded mongoose squeaks that scientists have decoded

In addition to being hugely chatty creatures, scent also plays a key role in mongoose life. It actually allows them to identify each other.

They live in tight gangs - extended family units with distinct boundaries between rival territories.

One of the experiments that didn’t make it into the show tested the importance of scent in maintaining these boundaries and involved me standing in a mongoose latrine in the fierce midday sun collecting a bucket of fresh poop.

After a few minutes the mongooses themselves turned up en masse catching me red handed with a scoop of their poop in my hand.

They all stood up and looked at me as if I was nuts. Which was fair enough, I felt decidedly awkward being busted for such a peculiar theft.

I took the mongoose poo and dumped it in the middle of their neighbours’ territory.

The result was a frenzy of sniffing and chattering that suggested that scent is clearly very important for communicating an enemy invasion.

I discovered that the clans have a distinct scent which allows them to work out who is in their gang and who isn’t.

A chimp dictionary: Lucy discovers saying sorry isn't so different in chimp

Ever since I was a kid and watched David Attenborough roll around with gorillas in Life On Earth I have longed to interact with wild apes.

So when I heard we would be visiting wild chimpanzees I was thrilled at the chance to connect with our closest animal relative.

But Dr Cat Hobaiter’s approach is different to past research into chimp communication in that she has a strict observational policy with no interaction allowed.

She wants to document their pure behaviour, uninfluenced by humans.

In the presence of the chimps we had to be careful not to catch their eye and if we did we had to quickly look away and feign interest in a leaf.

We also had to be careful not to point at the chimps or wave our hands while communicating with the crew.

Our gestures are too similar and could mean something to them. I thought this would be difficult. And I was right, it was.

I also thought I would be disappointed not to communicate with the chimps directly. But I was very wrong.

The privilege of observing their intimate conversations right in front of us, as if we weren’t there, was more profound and moving than I could ever have imagined.

Lucy finds chatting up fireflies takes serious commitment

We filmed fireflies on a steamy, stormy summer night in a field in Massachusetts where the Americans allegedly began their battle for independence.

It was the eve of the Fourth of July and our British crew were also under attack, from American mosquitoes, which were the most vicious I have ever known.

I had to hide in the van with a net on my head between shots and the poor sound man was so savaged he looked like he had chicken pox.

But we battled on with the filming. And much to my delight I managed to chat up a firefly.

Lucy Cooke presents Talk To The Animals.

Talk To The Animals is on at 8pm on Wednesday, 16 July and Thursday, 17 July on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme time please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Secrets Of Bones: The bony adaptations we missed

2014-02-25T10:55:12+00:00

I'm an evolutionary biologist, specialising in primate adaptation and evolution.

My work now focuses on studying often-small physical differences in the skeletons of monkeys, to see how they change over time in different environments.

When the idea for Secrets Of Bones came about, a six-part series on skeletons and all things bony, the next thing I knew I was having my skull printed off, building a silverback gorilla skeleton and watching a horse on a treadmill... it all happened so quickly.

Discover how the skeletal blueprint uniting all vertebrates has come to dominate life on earth

It’s not the obvious thing that they’re all so very different that’s cool (or weird) about bones, for me it’s that they are often so very similar.

You’d be surprised at how similar a whale and frog skeleton are, for example. Well, apart from the slight difference in size, that is!

It just takes a few tweaks for a hook-like spider monkey hand to be the precision tool that is the human hand, and from there, it’s only a few adjustments until you have the bizarre and quite frankly amazing aye-aye hand.

They’re all primates and they’re all hands but with just a few changes, you have major impacts. With skeletons, a little goes a long way!

One of my favourite scenes was with a young great grey owl up in the wonderful International Centre for Birds of Prey.

The staff there had trained the chick to descend onto one of several buzzers, hidden among the leaves, to demonstrate a bizarre skeletal adaptation which gives them exceptional hearing capabilities.

The Arctic habitat of the owl means they rely on hearing to locate prey hidden underground by snow

The owl was very sweet and seemed to enjoy the day but like any young animal, he was playful and more than a little misbehaved.

While the sequence came out smooth and impressive, we had quite a few laughs throughout the day.

Given just three hours to cover the most amazing skeletal adaptations on earth is like asking an artist to recreate the Sistine Chapel ceiling 'in a couple of hours or so'.

A few special bony adaptations we missed out include when some species of seals dive to the depth of the Eiffel Tower, their rib cages fold down like a concertina to cope with immense pressure changes.

But that’s nothing to the horror frog. As if its name isn’t bad enough, this gruesome amphibian defends itself from predators by raising its front feet and clenching its toes so much that the bones split, forcing the jagged pieces through the skin, ready to swipe at a would-be predator.

And even that’s tame compared to the Spanish ribbed newt.

This potentially-tasty treat doesn’t look as if it can look after itself but any unsuspecting predator is in for a nightmarish morsel if it tries to grab this amphibian for lunch.

It squeezes its body to the point where its ribs puncture through its body.

When the ribs are cutting through the skin, they pass through toxic glands, which coat the broken bones, making them even more effective weapons.

When the predator decides that lunch really needn’t be this much of a potential fatality, the salamander simply walks off and heals, ready to fight another day.

With stories such as this still out there, there is plenty yet to cover in the world of skeletal anatomy.

Most vertebrates have pentadactyl limbs consisting of five digits, but moles have a unique adaption

A lot of people ask me for advice about articulating animal skeletons and while I say it isn’t easy, I do always say that people should give it a go.

Apart from the rather messy stages associated with removing the pink and squishy bits from the bones, it’s a very interesting, clean and rewarding pursuit for any natural historian.

It teaches us things about anatomy that we would otherwise never learn from lessons, books, or TV alone.

There are obviously several secrets associated with the work and I’m not about to reveal them (obviously, we all have secretive ‘skeletons in our closets’) but if you’re patient, interested in natural history and enjoy a challenge, then give it a go.

All you need is a drill, a skeleton and several plasters – drilled fingers are an occupational hazard, I’m afraid.

Part of the fun when building skeletons is that there are no rules and there isn’t usually a step by step guide. You don’t need a degree and you can be any age.

If you don’t believe me, check out Jake McGowan-Lowe, a young up and coming evolutionary biologist and fully-fledged bone geek, if ever I saw one.

Ben Garrod is an evolutionary biologist and presents Secrets Of Bones.

Secrets Of Bones continues on Tuesday, 25 February at 8.30pm on BBC Four. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Secrets Of Bones is part of BBC Four's Life Inside Out season: Watch clips examining bodies as never before.

More on Secrets Of Bones
BBC Four: Secrets Of Bones: Download a free interactive ebook
BBC Nature: Nature's bizarre bone quiz

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Hidden Kingdoms: Finding our real-life stars

2014-01-16T12:05:14+00:00

The stars of BBC One’s Hidden Kingdoms are miniature Jack Bauers, packing enough drama into 24 hours to put Kiefer Sutherland to shame, so from the start we knew that to portray their lives would require a new approach.

The world and its dangers look very different to the little creatures who star in this new series

This is a departure from the BBC Natural History Unit's usual output and is dramatised natural history.

We've filmed real behaviour but recreated certain key events, which are both scientifically and biologically accurate, that would be impossible to film in any other way.

The search for small animals leading dramatic lives began in iconic locations - the Wild West, African savannah, enchanted woodlands of North America, steamy jungles of Borneo and the urban jungles of Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.

The animals had to be true characters which the audience would engage with - real-life stars.

The two animals in the episode I produced and directed were a kick-ass mouse in the Sonoran Desert that takes on America’s deadliest scorpions and howls at the moon like a tiny wolf.

Grasshopper mice have made their home in an unforgiving desert full of poisonous creatures

And the sengi (or elephant shrew) that lives for speed– building a series of race tracks in the African savannah in order to evade predators and find food fast. I could immediately see the dramatic potential in these two animals.

A mouse that 'roars', living an action-packed life in America’s Wild West – no brainer.

The sengi may be less of an action hero but it's story had some real strengths.

It's an animal that owes its life to something which also renders it incredibly vulnerable.

It builds an enormous series of trails through the savannah which it races along at high speed to find food and evade predators. They’re its greatest strength, but also its Achilles' heel.

The idea of this tiny animal owing its life to something it couldn’t possibly hope to defend seemed very attractive from a story point of view.

Twice as fast as a cheetah: A sengi's racetrack is its secret to success

The only animal I regret not being able to include was the Mongolian gerbil – a common pet in the UK!

I loved the idea of filming them in their native home - evading foxes, battling each other for territories and running for cover as the ground shook with the coming of Mongolian hunters on horseback - tame golden eagles on their arms.

Sadly the gerbils were a casualty of our storytelling approach.

We were initially worried there might not be enough variety in each programme and early treatments (documents where we outline our plans) featured three main animals per programme.

But as we gathered scientific information from the team's researchers and the producers started to develop the narrative structures, we realised that 15 minutes each wouldn’t do their incredible lives justice.

We didn’t want this to be a succession of five to six minute vignettes which is often the norm with our big flagship series.

We wanted the stories to develop and for viewers to become engaged, so chose to focus on just two animals per film. I hope it’s paid off.

Seen scurrying across the kitchen floor both the stars of my programme could be mistaken for pests.

By taking this unique perspective, not only have we been true to the scientific reality of their tiny lives, but we’ve also shown whether man or mouse, we all struggle to make a living, build a home and nurture our families whilst doing our best to avoid the hardship and dangers along the way.

I hope that the result is a programme that will give viewers a new found respect for the little things in life.

Simon Bell produced and directed episode one of Hidden Kingdoms.

Hidden Kingdoms stars on Thursday, 16 January at 8pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Kangaroo Dundee: Sharing my life

2013-12-13T18:31:29+00:00

So while cooking on my fire pit out in the bush in 2011, I receive an international phone call on my wildlife rescue mobile phone from film director Andrew Graham-Brown (AGB Films) asking me if I would be interested in doing a taster tape about my life with kangaroos.

A taster tape is a short film which gives broadcasters a kind of movie trailer to entice them to want to commission a film. I was filmed non-stop for a week.

The taster tape was well received by the BBC, and they decided to fund a two-part series. The first sequel in Natural World's history. This lead to the BBC Two series Kangaroo Dundee.

Pillowcase practice: A handy substitute for a pouch takes some getting used to

I thought it would be a good way of showing people overseas my life living in the outback with my family of kangaroos.

I have been a kangaroo mum to orphaned joeys (baby kangaroos) for near on 20 years and it's always been a great passion of mine.

In the early years of my kangaroo sanctuary in Alice Springs were roos ‘mad as a cut snake' Roger, beautiful Ella and always curious Abigail.

Ella and Brolga are still close now that she is an adult

I always knew keeping a hand-reared male roo with a couple of girlfriends would be a problem later on. And Roger’s aggressive behaviour did not surprise me.

He grew up with no fear of people and saw them as a threat to his harem.

He started kickboxing people at two years old and three feet tall, and continues today at over six feet tall, eight years old and 80-odd kilos.

I enjoyed having a TV crew follow me around the bush with my family of kangaroos.

I was particularly interested in having them come out on the road with me for my daily patrol of the highway, looking for orphaned kangaroos still alive in the pouch of their road kill mothers.

This is a message I have always tried to educate people about.

Having a TV crew with me at all times was only really difficult when we were filming Roger the alpha male.

The film crew had to be protected behind a wire cage when filming him as he would try to attack them.

The cage was built to be transportable and about five feet tall, so a camera and tripod could see over the top.

Follow the leader: Baby joeys need to learn it's safer to stick together

The filming of the new series of Kangaroo Dundee has been a really enjoyable part of my life and the film crew of AGB Films have become close friends.

I am really looking forward in the next six-parter to the introduction of orphan roos Rex and Ruby, and Rocky who is a new character and new species in the show, a wallaby.

My life has changed with a lot more people telling me I inspired them to be a wildlife carer.

This gives me great enjoyment to know that I have changed some people lives, and helped the lives of orphan animals.

Kangaroo Dundee is a beautifully filmed documentary and I am proud to be one of the human characters in it and I hope it inspires more people to look after the environment and its animals.

Chris 'Brolga' Barns is a conservationist and presents Kangaroo Dundee.

Kangaroo Dundee continues at 8.30pm on Friday, 13 December BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom

2013-12-05T10:18:57+00:00

Filming in the jungle is always tricky. As the series producer, getting to the location in the first place, setting up power supplies when we are there, transporting enough food and water to feed a large team are just some of the logistical hurdles I have to think about.

For Wild Burma: Nature’s Lost Kingdom, I was part of the first team of wildlife filmmakers to be granted access to some of the least studied forests in the world in a country just emerging from a 50-year military dictatorship.

A jungle alive with sound: A light trap in the treetops to catalogue the insects in the canopy

This was a challenge on a different scale from anything I had done before.

The only reason we succeeded in Burma (also known as Myanmar) was that no matter what strange request I came up with, our fixer Tony Htin Hla and his assistant Tin Tun always came up with the answer. We relied on them entirely.

One of our biggest problems was how to transport two tonnes of camera kit around the country.

Our second location was in the heart of the Rakhine Yoma mountains in western Burma and, without roads or helicopters, our only option was to walk.

My original plan had been to use boats – 20 of them – so we could transport the kit as far upriver as possible. We would then use domestic elephants to help carry the kit the rest of the way.

However, when we arrived the river was much lower than anticipated and the elephants had not materialised because they were busy transporting logs elsewhere.

We reverted to plan B – ox carts. The heaviest kit was loaded up and taken to the last village along the river.

Change of plans: The ox carts move off

From here the track ran out completely and we would have to continue on foot.

We overnighted at the local monastery, the oldest in the region – made from entire tree trunks over 15 metres in length, it towered into the sky.

The head monk was not in residence, which, in retrospect, was a good thing – I suspect he would have been horrified at the sight of thirty dishevelled crew sleeping on the floor of his beautiful monastery.

The girls had the best deal as we slept outside on the balcony. I woke up the next morning to, what was for me, one of the most memorable scenes of the trip.

The village headman had hired over 100 people from the surrounding area to come and help us carry all of our equipment to basecamp.

Local Rakhine villagers also acted as guides to help the team reach the forests of Salu

Camera kit, food, solar panels, generators, fuel and cooking pots were all tied to bamboo poles until a long line of us, stretching over 100 metres, were ready to set off.

We waded through rivers, across rice paddies, clambered over rocks and trekked into the heart of the mountain range. The whole journey took two days.

Once in the jungle, the first things to do, in this order, are: dig the loos, build the kitchen, create a washing area upriver from both, find a clean stream for drinking water and clear the area of leaves to make sure you aren’t going to step on an unsuspecting snake.

Burma has the highest death rate from snakebites in the world but, with no mains power and two days walk from the road, keeping anti-venom refrigerated is a problem.

Our only option was to leave a store of anti-venom in the nearest hospital over two days walk from basecamp – too far.

Unbroken forest for 1000 miles

Usually on a remote location shoot, we would have medical helicopter evacuation planned, but Burma does not yet have any commercial helicopters that we could call on in case of emergency.

After a lot of head scratching, we decided to speak to the Burmese military. They immediately agreed that, should we need their assistance, they would send their helicopter to pick us up.

Having a hotline to the head of the Burmese Army is certainly one of the stranger evacuation scenarios I’ve come across.

Luckily, the expedition went without major incidents and I did not need to make the call.

Susanna Handslip is the series producer for Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom.

Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom continues on Friday, 6 December at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Great British Year: Our magic ingredient

2013-10-17T09:32:43+00:00

The changing seasons are something that makes Britain special: the lengthening days, the turning leaves, the first touch of frost.

These little signs are things that we naturally tune into – things that make our landscape unique.

In making The Great British Year, the team and I had to bring these moments to life on camera and, thankfully, today’s technology was a tool that helped like never before!

Perfect timing: Under a blanket of white a delicate flower makes its move

Much of the series relied on time-lapse filming - a technique that allows us to bring events in nature, that take many minutes, weeks or hours, to life - sometimes revealing things that would never have been obvious when viewed in normal time.

Take the story of the slime mould – one of my favourite characters in Autumn, the episode I produced.

Slime moulds look little more than blobs of yellow goo, yet they are fascinating and unique creatures that munch their way across the forest floor at about 1mm per second, clearing away bacteria from the leaf-litter.

The challenge was to bring their story to life and, for that, I called on expert time-lapse cameraman, Tim Shepherd.

Tim is no stranger to slime moulds, and using a carefully-constructed set where he could get in close with macro lenses and proper lighting, managed – over several weeks – to understand the slime mould’s behaviour and capture its remarkable life story through the lens.

Through time-lapse, a yellow blob comes to life as a moving, feeding character!

A dramatic time-lapse study of yellow slime mould as it crosses the forest floor searching for food

We also needed to capture events in the natural world that happen rapidly, and unpredictably... in places it would be too hard to reactively scramble a camera team.

For that, we cast the net out wide, to the nation’s fleet of amateur time-lapse photographers.

Technology today, means that almost anyone with a good-quality digital SLR camera can go out and shoot time-lapse – you can even do it on your mobile phone.

OK, the quality we needed had to stand up to broadcast level, but using Twitter and photography forums we began to tap into a network of time-lapse enthusiasts whose work was excellent, and who were ready and waiting in locations all across the UK.

One of these locations was the northernmost tip of Scotland – one of the only parts of Britain that witnesses the aurora.

Though clear to human eyes, the aurora is too faint for most cameras to film, but time-lapse, where each frame may be exposed for several seconds, allows enough light into the camera to capture the effect.

But predicting something so enigmatic is tricky, and it would have been very difficult for a camera crew to guarantee filming when conditions were right.

Enter Barry Stewart, a builder from Wick. Barry got in touch with the team via an online forum for amateur time-lapsers.

A keen photographer, Barry works as a joiner by day and by night, his hobby is filming with the time-lapse technique.

Barry had been photographing the night sky for a while, but one evening he happened to be out when an aurora was ‘playing’ overhead.

Aurora activity is related to sun activity, which works on a roughly 11-year cycle. It goes through phases with low activity (meaning auroras are relatively uncommon), and then phases when spectacular events occur.

In John O’Groats the 18-hour nights are the perfect backdrop for the aurora borealis

Over the following months, Barry – along with fellow Wick time-lapser Maciej Winiarczyk – went out many times in order to document the best aurora.

Some shots were made from the sea shore, others from the local golf course – but all involved braving long hours in the cold Scottish night!

By working with people on the ground, suddenly a sequence of the Northern Lights which we didn’t dare hope to achieve, became possible.

Barry, and our other time-lapse contributors added the magic ingredient to The Great British Year – capturing ephemeral, yet magical moments in our seasonal landscape that it would be impossible to plan for or predict.

It’s a wonderful demonstration of how passionate people are about documenting Britain’s landscape – it may be our backyard, but the seasonal events on our doorstep can be an inspiration to us all.

Elizabeth White is the producer of episode four of The Great British Year.

Barry Stewart features in the Making The Great British Year section at the end of episode three.

The Great British Year continues on Wednesday, 23 October at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Horizon: The Secret Life Of The Cat

2013-06-13T08:21:01+00:00

I've got six cats and am officially mad about them, so as soon as I heard about Horizon's plans to make The Secret Life Of The Cat in our village, Shamley Green in Surrey, I was keen to be involved.

My background is in animal behaviour and I work professionally in natural animal health care, so you would expect me to be fascinated by this programme which uses GPS on collars to follow domestic cats outdoors.

For one week 50 cats in a Surrey village are put under 24 hour surveillance.

I have always talked about wanting to track the cats (and children - not interested in tracking my husband!) as I do worry a lot, having had two beloved cats run over on our country lane.

What we were really intrigued to know was the extent of their territory, how active they are at night and where they actually go.

Daisy, Fluffy, Duffy, Patch, Coco, Ralph and baby Pumpkin are all from a rescue home. What is unusual about our cats (three boys, three girls), is that none of them are related, they were introduced at different times, yet they all get on well.

Initially all the cat owners from Shamley Green were invited to our village hall (renamed as Cat HQ) to be given a full brief on how the cats would be tracked, and how to introduce the GPS collars to our cats to avoid any stress for the cats wearing them.

All of our cats are used to wearing normal collars with tags, so we had little difficulty introducing them to the training collars, and then eventually the real thing.

The exception to this was Coco who found many ingenious ways to get the tracking collars off. Maybe she was picking up on the electro-magnetic signals that animals are so sensitive to?

Luckily by the final two days of tracking she managed to keep the collar on, so we were eager to see the results of where she had been.

The Horizon team were knowledgeable and organised and what surprised me about being part of a TV show was how quickly you forget there are cameras there!

My son, 13 and daughter, 11, have loved finding out more about our cats. They both have an excellent understanding of animal behaviour and having the opportunity to see the camera men and technical experts at work has been an inspiring experience for them.

When Dr Sarah Ellis, one of the cat experts on the project, showed us the GPS data on a laptop in our kitchen, it was such a treat.

To actually see where our cats are going, how they largely use the same territory, how active they are at night was amazing.

Cat HQ: Prof Alan Wilson, Dr John Bradshaw and Dr Sarah Ellis track 50 cats’ movements

I was delighted to see that they very rarely crossed the road, my main fear. The highlight of the week was to find out that Patch, our shyest cat, has the largest territory at night.

When we go to bed he is asleep on our bed, when we get up at 6am he is still asleep on our bed, yet overnight he has been miles! I was sure I had a pretty good grasp on what my cats get up to but that was a real revelation and shows just how much his confidence has grown over the past year.

I was pleased that our cats’ behaviour surprised the experts.

They were expecting a lot more tension between six cats in one household, and I hope that we have shown that, when you take each cat’s needs into consideration, they can live harmoniously together.

Hopefully this knowledge will help many of the lovely cats in rescue homes get loving homes, giving owners confidence that if they introduce a new cat correctly all will be well.

The cat owners in the village were delighted to have this rare opportunity to find out more about their beloved family members. It really added to the village spirit.

We all really love our cats (who are part of our extended family with horses, dogs, guinea pigs, fish etc).

Our six all have distinct personalities and are very sensitive to the family’s needs. What makes it even more special is they could leave home if they wanted to, yet they honour us with their graceful presence.

The research is over now but I would love to keep tracking the cats. My poor husband would be extremely relieved not to keep being sent out in the dark to search for one!

Catherine Edwards is one of the cat-owners on The Secret Life Of The Cat.

The Secret Life Of The Cat is part of Horizon on BBC Two and BBC Two HD at 9pm on Thursday, 13 June at 9pm except in Scotland. For full details of programme times please see the upcoming broadcasts page.

More on The Secret Life Of The Cat
BBC News: Watch the tracking cameras and follow the roaming ranges of 10 cats
BBC News: The science of tracking our pets
BBC Internet blog: The secret life of the cat: Interactive infographics

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Operation Snow Tiger: A rare glimpse into the wild

2013-06-07T07:52:15+00:00

When I first got the call to film for Operation Snow Tiger I knew we were in for a challenge. Siberian tigers are something of a wildlife holy grail, as almost no one has filmed them in the wild before.

Often when you think of tigers it conjures up an image of an Indian safari with a tiger basking in the shade of a tree, these days typically surrounded by jeeps full of tourists snapping away on their cameras.

Siberian tigers live in a spectacular and brutal landscape in the Russian Far East

With Siberian tigers it’s a different ball game altogether. They are eking out an existence on the very edge of a tiger range in one of the harshest environments on the planet.

In the Sikhote Alin reserve, 12 hours’ drive north of Vladivostok, temperatures can drop to -40C, which makes filming almost impossible.

We had to keep cameras outside at night so that lenses didn’t fog up and freeze with the temperature change and batteries would last just a matter of minutes unless we kept them warm with heatpacks.

To make matters even more challenging, each tiger can range over an area the size of a small country, and we were trying to keep up on foot so it really was like looking for a needle in a haystack!

You would think that looking for a huge, bright orange cat in the snow would be easy, but I can assure you it is not.

Luckily for me I was teamed up with a crack team of Russian experts - tiger tracker Kolya Rybin and biologist Svetlana Soutyrina.

In a scene you’ll see in episode two, we were soon hot on the trail of one of the last females known to be living in the reserve, who the team had called Varvarra.

Kolya had identified that she was in the area by tracking the radio collar that had been put on her a year previously by the research team. Our mission was to find out whether she had cubs - precious information for this critically endangered species.

Mothers with cubs are even more elusive than usual, as they stay away from major trails and marking trees to keep their cubs safe from potential predators.

After discussing the options with Sveta and Kolya, it seemed that the only chance to get a glimpse into the world of a first-time mum would involve getting a bit too close for comfort - snow-shoeing to within 100m of Varvarra and deploying our camera traps.

Varvarra makes her entrance, caught on the camera traps

The thought of walking up to a mother with cubs, who was more than likely guarding her deer kill, sounded a bit like suicide to me but I was handed a flash flare and told that if a tiger came charging towards me I should light myself up like a Christmas tree and I would be fine.

As we donned our snow shoes and set off into the Sikhote Alin forest I began to try to calculate how long it would actually take for an angry mother to cover 100m, given that tigers are considerably faster than Usain Bolt!

The second thought that popped into my head was that the only time I had actually deployed a flash flare, the polar bear that I was trying to keep at bay seemed to think that I had put on a quaint indoor fireworks display and continued towards me.

My third and final thought was the parting words of my mother as I left the UK.

“You’re not going to get too close to those tigers are you?” she asked.

“No, mum” I replied. “It’s a Siberian tiger, we’ve got no chance of seeing one.”

We were privileged to get a glimpse into the world of these incredible animals by stepping into the lives of some amazing Russian scientists working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the AN Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution.

They know the tigers better than anyone else, and they can second-guess what they’re going to do next.

Developing this knowledge takes a lifetime of work, and without people like Sveta and Kolya we would never have got the footage we did.

Max Hug Williams is a camera operator on Operation Snow Tiger.

Operation Snow Tiger begins on Sunday, 9 June at 8pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD, except in Northern Ireland where it starts at 9pm. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.