Posted by Brydon Thomason on Wednesday 30th May 2018 | Brydon's Shetland Nature Blog, News, TV Appearances

BBC Springwatch were back again for their third time to share or wild secrets with the nation and once again, we were thrilled to be involved.

It was particularly exciting series for us working as otter consultants/guides as Josh Jaggard, on his fourth season working with us here worked as one of their main cameramen. It was pretty cool for myself and Richard Shucksmith to be out with him on that assignment, especially given that’s what each of us do for our clients.

Working together we managed to get some good footage over the few days, perhaps the best of it was Josh’s sequence of a dog and bitch mating! Quite unique behaviour to see in the field let alone film.

The bar was raised when the series producer Stuart Armstrong asked us, “do you think we could get otters on screen for the live show”? A challenge it might certainly be, the tides especially were not ideal but we pulled it off, regardless of how far off in the bay it was!

It was fascinating working on the live show. Intense and exciting with no room for error or the nation knows! But nonetheless, everyone knows their role and what needs done and just gets on with it – it’s what they do!

As always the team and everyone we met were really good to work with, particularly Stuart and the presenter Gillian and Gretta the assistant producer.

I was really surprised to be asked to do a piece to camera about my my love for Birding my local patch, Halligarth right next door to our home. As the most northerly woodland in UK, amidst such a diversity of treeless habitat, annually attracting many exciting migrants it did actually make a nice feature. It turned out to make pretty cool short film and although never a massive fan of onscreen appearances, I was really pleased they pursued the idea – especially as I managed to get the whole family to appear on screen with me, all be it briefly!