BILL Oddie, Kate Humble and a large BBC film crew will return to the Fishleigh Estate near Hatherleigh this spring to beam Britain?s wildlife direct into millions of living rooms. The BBC crew will be returning to the award-winning, organically-farmed Fishleigh Estate to make another batch of programmes following last year?s amazingly successful natural history series, Britain Goes Wild. Debbie Chapman, BBC press officer, said the programme was called ?Springwatch?, but would follow a similar format to Britain Goes Wild, mixing live wildlife footage with reports from around the country and interviews with wildlife experts. She said: ?It will be an opportunity to catch up with the wildlife we met in the last series, such as the badgers and birds, and see how they coped with the weather this spring. ?A Springwatch survey has been launched by the BBC in conjunction with the Woodland Trust, asking people to record their first sightings of bumblebees, ladybirds and frog spawn and we will be reporting on the results of that survey.? Ian Sargent, of the Fishleigh Estate, said everyone at the 400-acre farm was delighted to welcome back the BBC film crew. He said: ?The wildlife haven created at Fishleigh supports a wide diversity of flora and fauna, as well as encompassing our monitored bird-box scheme, currently comprising some 217 boxes dotted throughout our woods and around our barns. Little wonder that the BBC natural history unit, think so highly of our farm. ?At Fishleigh we are committed to conservation and believe in farming with nature to provide the very best quality organic meat.? Springwatch will run for around three weeks on BBC2 during May.
