'What a huge thrill!'
Who needs the Galapagos? Sir David Attenborough revels in the wildlife on his London doorstep
BBC / Passion Planet Ltd / Gavin Thurston
- Terry Payne
Wild London is on New Year's Day 6.30pm BBC One. Add it to your watchlist
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It’s approaching 11pm on a May evening and in a west London garden Sir David Attenborough is stretched out on a picnic rug, swaddled in a heavy coat to protect him against the night-time chill.
He’s almost nose to snout with a humble suburban hedgehog and the joy on his face, illuminated by TV lights that puncture the darkness, wouldn’t be any greater were he in Papua New Guinea observing his favourite bird of paradise.
Instead, he’s in Ealing, and clearly relishing the moment. In a world that’s unsettled by division and disharmony, there’s something deeply comforting watching Attenborough, a man who will be 100 next year, talking to the animals.
“I think they’re lovely things,” he chuckles as the hedgehog shuffles past him. “I used to have a hedgehog that lived in my garden all the time. But these days they’re a rare sight. Nonetheless urban areas are the one place where their numbers have stabilised and with a little help from us there’s hope they might increase.”
Attenborough, out and about on location, is also a rare sight these days, but filming wildlife in the city he’s lived in for 70 years was too good an opportunity to turn down.
And so, in Wild London, Attenborough is captured in various locations in the capital, including a north London allotment site waiting for some resident foxes to put in an appearance. Once again, his instinct is to engage with them. “Oh, here we are… Hello,” he announces as the foxes come out to play and, later, to forage. “Even though there are more wild foxes in London than almost any other big city, it’s still a huge thrill to see one emerging from the bushes,” he says.
Hedgehogs are lovely – but these days they’re a rare sight
Sir David Attenborough
We also see him high up in the Houses of Parliament helping as a peregrine falcon chick, from a nest that’s been established there for 11 years, is ringed with a numbered identity tag. “There we are, there we are,” he says, as he gently cradles the four-week-old chick in his hands. “And now we can recognise you anywhere. Yes, you…”
Daughter Susan accompanied her father on his trips around London, but did the film-makers have to make any concessions to his age? Like climbing all those stairs in Parliament? “David is always able to access more than you imagine,” laughs the film’s director, Joe Loncraine. “There was never anywhere we wanted him to go that he couldn’t. The main consideration at Parliament was where we could get our equipment in!”
Attenborough was also filmed releasing a harvest mouse into a west London wood to help build a population there, and at a nearby wetlands reserve, where a family of beavers has been introduced. “If someone had told me when I first moved here that one day I’d be watching wild beavers in London, I would have thought they were mad,” he says.
A fallow deer smells the roses in east London. BBC / Passion Planet Ltd / Christian Marot
There are other wildlife surprises as well: a colony of 40 to 50 non-native, metre-long, Aesculapian snakes that have made their home among the trees and undergrowth alongside the Regent’s Canal, deer leaping gazelle-like to dodge east London traffic and, perhaps most surprising of all, a killer gull that stalks and drowns pigeons on the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park.
“I know it’s gruesome, but it was a real thrill to film it,” says Loncraine. “It’s a hunting technique that this one gull has developed and he always takes them into the water.”
The documentary’s message, says Loncraine, is that “you don’t have to get on a plane to discover the wonders of wildlife. You can do that on your doorstep, wherever that is.” It’s a point echoed by Attenborough, who cites the 2,500-acre Richmond Park, which is close to his home, as both a “refuge and a source of inspiration”.
“I have been coming here ever since I moved to London over 70 years ago. Even after all that time, and after all of the places I have visited, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
HELPING OUT
David Mooney of the London Wildlife Trust has some tips
1. Insect café
“Cut up your Christmas tree into foot-long lengths, dig a little hole and put in the logs upright, half cover with soil and let them rot. It will be a restaurant for insects, and once the insects come, the birds and mammals will come, too, and you will grow a thriving food web in your garden.”
2. Water park
“If you haven’t got room for a pond, get yourself a washing-up bowl, sink it into the ground, put a couple of bricks in the bottom and fill it up with water. Invest in a plant from the local garden centre and watch what happens. Put water in your garden and wildlife will thrive.”
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3. Leave the leaves
“You are trying to create a mini eco-system in your garden and the best place to start is the decomposing material. Don’t pile the leaves in one place, leave them in small piles around your borders — it’s brilliant for insects.”
Authors
Terry Payne
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