WINTER wonderland

MICHAELA STRACHAN and CHRIS PACKHAM on a new season of spectacular wildlife stories

-  HANNAH DAVIES

WINTERWATCH NEW TUESDAY-FRIDAY, 8PM, BBC2 NATURE

Many of us like to cosy up inside during the chilly winter months. But, as the Winterwatch team knows, the great outdoors is still a hive of activity as species great and small find ways to survive and thrive in this magical but challenging season.

‘There’s always this lingering misconception that winter is a time of death and decay, where everything has hibernated or migrated – but it couldn’t be further from the truth,’ says Chris Packham, 62, who along with copresenters Michaela Strachan and Iolo Williams returns to RSPB Arne in Dorset this week for a new run of the ever-popular BBC2 nature showcase.

‘We get an enormous influx of waders and waterfowl from further north in Europe. So Poole Harbour, Brownsea Lagoon and the estuary areas around Arne itself will be full of those migrant birds.

‘But we probably won’t see some species that would have been quite common 20 years ago because it isn’t as cold in northern Europe, so we’ll discuss that on the show as well.’

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