The day I went down to film Springwatch Unsprung Live

I had a wonderful day yesterday. I travelled down to Sherborne Esate in Gloucestershire from my home in Thixendale, North Yorkshire. I went down to be filmed on BBC Springwatch Unsprung, which is the live analysis programme into fun wildlife stories. The Springwatch team had asked me to take down one of my original paintings, so I decided to take down my new acrylic painting of a kingfisher, below.



 

They also asked me to take my pet weasel - fidget - as a surprise guest. I have trained him to follow an assault course in my artist's studio and they wanted me to try and recreate this by bringing just the maze section into the studio. Here he is, below, doing the full course in my studio. Click the video to watch it.



Fidget wasn't too sure about being in the car in his large pen at first, but he soon settled down inside his favourite sock! I also took a new protégé 'Flash Junior' with me. Flash Junior is a baby male stoat who I think is about 4 weeks old. He was given to me by a local wildlife hospital as he'd been found abandoned in a garden near Selby.

 

It was very exciting to see arrive in the beautiful setting of Sherbourne Estate. It was amazing to be in the Springwatch production village after watching Springwatch so many times on the television over the years. The site was much larger that I expected, there were marquees for a large canteen, portakabins for the different editing teams, caravans for each of the three presenters, a huge lorry just to contain the generator to power the site with electricity. Then we went into the lorries containing screens to all the live cameras - these were amazing. There was around 15 people employed just to watch all the action unfold before noting down any unusual behaviour which might go on to be highlighted on the main show.



 

In the production suite I spotted a familiar face - Brett Westwood - who asked if he could do an interview between 4-5pm for his programme Springwatch Extra. He wanted to record me spotting different behaviour on some of the cameras, which I was more than happy to do! Next stop was to the studio of Unsprung, which was in the middle of a field, backing onto a glorious landscape.

Inside we met with the Floor Manager and all the camera men and crew. We needed to make a plan of where they wanted me to position my artwork and also the large maze for fidget to climb around live on TV. They let me know that I'd need to have it all set up for 3pm when they would start doing the first rehersals of Springwatch Unsprung of the day.

Next stop I was introduced to Lindsey Chapman. She is one of the presenters on Unsprung and also is in charge of all the online and social media content. She was great fun and I found out that she was originally from Lockington, nr Driffield which is only a short distance from my home and gallery. It turned out that she had spent many summers camping in Thixendale, the village closest to me.



She was fascinated to meet my two creatures, Flash Junior and Fidget and decided on the spur of the moment to do a little film all about him in her presenter's caravan for 'Unsprung Undressed', which is a short feature on the 'Unsprung' programmed. This airs tonight at 6.30pm. Here's me sitting in her comfortable caravan!

When I came out of filming, one of the researchers came to grab me to get me to come quickly to set up the maze for fidget and my artwork. Time had flown and I had only 30 minutes to get everything in place before the first rehearsals began.

I set up the maze with my colleague Jack Ashton-Booth. I needed to be sure that everything was just right, as if anything was out of place Fidget could escape into the studio. All the crew were fascinated to see Fidget and before I knew it the camera crew were gathering around to see what I was doing!

Everyone was keen to stroke Fidget. But unfortunately he is not that friendly - he bites everyone apart from me! And I can tell you, when it bites it really hurts. Before I knew it was nearly 4pm and I was ready to go for my interview with Brett Westwood.

After my interview, I was taken into the hair and makeup trailer. I didn't have much done, just some sort of foundation to take away any sheen and a shave! The lovely lady even smartened up my sideburns. She only spent about 10 minutes on me, but she really went to town with the lady guests and presenters, who all came out looking very glam.

Next it was straight across to the studio to run through what we were going to be doing. They positioned my painting behind the sofa.

Then I was introduced to fellow guest, Helen Glover. She won a medal at the Olympics in Rio and is married to outdoor enthusiast Steve Bagshaw. She was great fun and really interested in nature and the environment, having just completed a mammoth 125 mile kayak race to raise funds for the Land Trust who had planned to buy a portion of Borneo Rainforest.



Next presenter Chris Packham entered the studio and what a nice guy he was. He had a lot to remember having done rehearsals already for the main show, now this one and then followed by 1 hour of presenting live in front of the nation. How he manages to remember it all is anyone's guess! We ran through the entire show. The camera man and the presenters needed to know exactly what order everything would be happening in and where they would need to be and stand for each shot.



I discussed with the crew what would happen when I put Fidget in the maze and the route I expected him to take through the maze. This was so the cameras would know where to focus and how quickly he might travel through. Next I got Fidget out. He was very wriggly and wanted to go off exploring!



This made it quite hard for me to speak to Chris on the sofa whilst talking at the same time. But I think I managed okay and Chris seemed genuinely interested. Next stop was putting him into the maze. I was confident that he would do it - but there is always that element of doubt in the back of your mind.



 

He went through like a dream! Chris was fascinated to watch how flexible he was bending up and around all the corners. When he completed the maze and went back into his pen I was relieved! But then he made us all laugh by coming back out to show off that he could do the whole thing in reverse - talk about stealing the show!

Next we discussed how I turned my photographs and videos into inspiration for my paintings and they played a timelapse of me producing the kingfisher painting in the studio. This is the timelapse of me painting below.



Finally it was onto the 'Fantastical Beasts section. This is where you have to think up an animal that could do something positive in the world in the future. Helen Glover came up with a great idea to have a Carrier Harrier that would help hedgehogs and toads cross the road without getting run over. Below is the leader board where Chris ranks the ideas of the guests.



I decided to do something with stoats as they are such interesting creatures and produced this painting especially for the show.



 

I decided the best thing to do would be to create a 'Super Stoat' that instead of eating baby birds and eggs would solve one of the most devastating environmental problems: that rats and mice have caused 75 extinctions in the world and cause many more predations around the world. Particularly notable was the problem rats have caused to ground nesting birds on South Georgia. See my blog about this here:

So I decided to digitally add a red cape onto this stoat painting and here he is in full super stoat mode:



 

Finally it was all over - my day at Springwatch had come to an end - but what an amazing experience for me to meet such a lovely group of people and see what really goes on behind the scenes of a big program like Springwatch. I hope you enjoyed watching as much as I enjoyed filming it.