Springwatch 2022 episode 1: Springwatch is back to wrap us in the comfort blanket that only the natural world can bring. Sit back and relax as we showcase the very best of the season’s wildlife across the UK.
Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan bring us an abundance of live nest cameras, and all the spring dramas that come with them, from Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk. Iolo Williams returns to the Isle of Mull to delight us with eagles, otters and orca, while Megan McCubbin will be taking us on a spring road trip around the north east of England, visiting Kielder Forest, Hauxley Nature Reserve and Newcastle city centre to reveal the wildlife that call these places home in spring.
Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, sometimes known collectively as The Watches, are annual BBC television series which chart the fortunes of British wildlife during the changing of the seasons in the United Kingdom. The programmes are broadcast live from locations around the country in a primetime evening slot on BBC Two. They require a crew of 100 and over 50 cameras, making them the BBC’s largest British outside broadcast events. Many of the cameras are hidden and operated remotely to record natural behaviour, for example, of birds in their nests and badgers outside their sett.
Springwatch begins on the Spring Bank Holiday and is broadcast four nights each week for three weeks. After the success of the first Springwatch in 2005, the BBC commissioned a one-off special, Autumnwatch, which became a full series in 2006. Winterwatch began in 2012, broadcast in January or February.
Springwatch 2022 episode 1
Kielder Forest
Kielder Forest is a large forestry plantation in Northumberland, England, surrounding Kielder village and the Kielder Water reservoir. It is the largest man-made woodland in England with three-quarters of its 250 square miles (650 km2) covered by forest. The majority of the forest lies within Kielder Water and Forest Park, with the southern tip known as Wark Forest lying within Northumberland National Park. The forest is next to the England – Scotland border.
The forest is owned and managed by Forestry England, which initiated the first plantings in the 1920s. During the 1930s, the Ministry of Labour supplied men from among the ranks of the unemployed. Many came from the mining communities and shipyards of North East England. They were housed in one of a number of instructional centres created by the Ministry, most of them on Forestry England property; by 1938, the Ministry had 38 Instructional Centres across Britain. The hutted camp in Kielder is now under Kielder Water. Numerous purpose-built villages were also constructed for workers’ families, including Stonehaugh.
Prior to the 1920s, the land was predominantly open moorland, managed for grouse shooting and sheep grazing with remnants of native upland woodland existing along stream sides and in isolated craggy areas. Forestry England, funded from the public purse, purchased land across the country with the brief of establishing a strategic reserve of timber for the nation. This single objective held sway until the 1960s. Since that time, management principles have changed in order to reflect rising awareness of environmental needs and to provide recreational facilities whilst seeking to maintain a sustainable supply of timber. Kielder today remains state-owned and its development from a single-objective plantation to a multi-purpose forest mirrors the development of plantation forestry across the United Kingdom.
