OtterCam on Winterwatch

I expect most of you will have had better things to do but a few may have seen Winterwatch on BBC2 last night.  This was quite a surreal experience for me and, as you might imagine, I was way out of my comfort zone.  The only benefit was that rather than one or two hundred people seeing my otter videos, two million might enjoy them.  It wasn't easy for me watching that shrivelled old man in the silly hat but, hey ho, you only live once.

The initial approach came from Andy Strong, a BBC researcher on "The Watches", via an introduction from Vivien Kent, our local otter expert.  It was closely followed by a Zoom call with Andy and Amy Young, my producer.  They had seen the otter videos on my blog and set up a filming day at Gosforth Nature Reserve in mid December.  We met before dawn at the reserve and were busy all day with no breaks.  Amy and Andy were there along with Simon Glass the camera man and Graham Smith doing sound recording.

I spent most of the morning walking up and down, being filmed from different directions with different lenses, outside the reserve, at the entrance, in the woods and on the boardwalk.  Simon then flew the drone while I was walking up and down the boardwalk and we eventually got in to where the trail cameras are.  More filming with me explaining where the cameras were, how they were set up and where the otters would be.  Then an interview, which I don't think I did very well. I guess part of the reason for all the other filming is to be able to cut away from me rabbiting on and to be able to shorten the audio.

After another drone flight we moved on to one of the hides in the afternoon but in mid December there usually isn't much to see and to no surprise but much to Amy's disappointment no otters appeared.  This is Simon flying the drone with Amy watching and Graham spotting.

By the time we finished it was getting dark so it was a relentless long day - a one off for me but that is what the team does every day.  Amy, Andy, Graham and Simon were all very supportive, very encouraging and seemed pleased with the way things went although I suspect they were just being polite.  Amy and Andy came back here to look through my otter videos, concentrating on the winter recordings and taking my edited versions plus all the original clips so they could re-edit them properly.

I think I had been waffling a lot in the interview because I then met up with Graham a couple of weeks ago to re-record the audio - I suspect some of my descriptions had been much longer than the videos but a lot of the re-recorded audio sounds a bit slow and "flat" to me, not really the way I speak in real life.

Here are Amy and Andy the producers.

Simon camera.

Graham sound.

While I was explaining about the trail cameras they were still recording so here is a brief camera's eye view of the process.

Having watched the final result last night I am amazed how good a job Amy and her team did pulling it together and the response from friends and family has been very encouraging and very positive.  It has caused a lot of excitement in and around the reserve so I am very pleased I got involved.  Looking back I can think of lots of things I could or should have done better (two hours in makeup would have helped), not that I want to have another go.  Believe me it is much more difficult than David Attenborough makes it look, but then he does have 70 odd years' experience. His job is safe for now.

I am grateful to Brian Rutter for these photos and to Clare Freeman, the NHSN director, for approval for the whole project.  The recording of the programme is available on the BBC iPlayer here for over a year - my section starts at 45:00 if you don't want to watch the whole thing.  It was also previewed on BBC Look North and I was interviewed on BBC Radio Newcastle so it has been quite a week!  You can find out more about Gosforth Nature Reserve and the Natural History Society of Northumbria on their website here.