Springwatch 2022 episode 3: With spring in full swing (or is it summer?), our nests are full to bursting. It’s a season of new life. As well as all our live nest cameras, the programme showcases some of the season’s most recognisable stars.
The call of the cuckoo is a sure sign spring has arrived, and Michaela wants to hear it first-hand! Megan McCubbin revels in Kielder Forest being one of the best dark sky locations in the UK and what that means for its wildlife. Over on the Isle of Mull, Iolo Williams is investigating the comings and goings of one of his all-time favourite birds, the hen harrier.
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 3
A harrier is any of the several species of diurnal hawks sometimes placed in the subfamily Circinae of the bird of prey family Accipitridae. Harriers characteristically hunt by flying low over open ground, feeding on small mammals, reptiles, or birds. The young of the species are sometimes referred to as ring-tail harriers. They are distinctive with long wings, a long narrow tail, the slow and low flight over grasslands and skull peculiarities. The harriers are thought to have diversified with the expansion of grasslands and the emergence of C4 grasses about 6 to 8 million years ago during the Late Miocene and Pliocene.
The genus Circus was introduced by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1799. The type species was subsequently designated as the western marsh harrier. Most harriers are placed in this genus. The word Circus is derived from the Ancient Greek kirkos, referring to a bird of prey named for its circling flight (kirkos, “circle”), probably the hen harrier. The name harrier is thought to have been derived either from Harrier (dog), or by a corruption of harrower, or directly from harry.
