SPRINGWATCH is back for an Easter Special that looks at how our Great British wildlife is faring in Spring 2016, after the exceptional winter weather. And this year Springwatch at Easter will be based in Pembrokeshire – Britain’s only coastal national park.
Internationally renowned for its plants and animals, the team will showcase the best it has to offer, just as the countryside is bursting into colour and life. With a mild climate, relatively long daylight hours and low rainfall along the coast, it’s perfect for the variety of species which live there.
From the guillemots and razorbills that nest on the rocky ledges, to the choughs, which probe for food on the short, chopped grassland and limestone cliffs.
There are skylarks, kestrels and peregrines soaring overhead, and reed bunting, sedge warblers, and jack snipe hidden in the lakes and reeds – we might even be lucky enough to get a glimpse of the otters.
Chris and Michaela launch the “Springwatch: Do Something Great Campaign” by joining a beach clean at Freshwater West.
In conjunction with the Marine Conservation Society, National Trust and Keep Wales Tidy, we’re looking at how plastics are affecting the environment and what we can all do to help. The remarkably warm and wet winter weather this year has affected the signs of spring, with premature flowers, blossoms and blooms​.​
​A​nd wildlife out and about earlier than normal.
Springwatch weatherman Nick Miller will be on location with a giant map of the UK etched into the sand at Broad Haven Beach, to explain the year’s weird weather so far and the sort of spring we might expect.
Skomer
Meanwhile Martin will be exploring the UKs favourite nature reserve – Skomer. Having been closed up for the winter, Martin is on the first trip out to the island this spring. As part of the ‘Springwatch: Do Something Great’ campaign Martin will become a volunteer for the Wildlife Trust team, helping with its annual spring clean of the island and finding out the effects the wild winter weather has had on its animal inhabitants.
Sea Empress
Twenty years ago the oil tanker Sea Empress ran into trouble off the coast of Milford Haven. The result was a wildlife disaster with thousands of sea birds killed by the oil that seeped onto the West Wales beaches.
Springwatch reporter Lolo Williams remembers it well. He was working as an RSPB warden at the time and helped to lift hundreds of ailing sea birds out of the oil slicks. Twenty years on he has returned to the coast to see what legacy remains of that dreadful time and to track down the volunteers who helped him at the time.
This year, presenters Chris Packham, Michaela Strachan and Martin Hughes-Games will be launching the big BBC volunteering campaign: “Springwatch: Do Something Great”, with its own wildlife appeal, asking viewers to get out and sign up for a range of voluntary activities, all designed to help our UK wildlife.