John Byrne talks to Colin Stafford-Johnson about the new season of Living the Wildlife.
Emmy Award-winning nature cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson returns tonight, Tuesday March 24, to RTÉ One for a seventh season of his series, Living the Wildlife.
Once again, he'll be taking viewers on an extraordinary wildlife journey of discovery that shines a light on the unique beauty of the Irish landscape as well as the diversity of the wildlife that surrounds the Emerald Isle.
John Byrne: You're back for a seventh run - is there still plenty to show viewers?
Colin Stafford-Johnson: It seems like it all started yesterday, but [I'm] enjoying it more than ever. It's been good fun this year - we've got some good stories.
Tell us about tonight's opening episode. . .
We're looking at the skuas. What's interesting about those, I guess, is that they are sort of colonising Ireland now. They're a new bird to Ireland, really, and they started breeding here probably in the last 10 years. And there's only about 10 nests in the country so we're lucky to get permission to go and film them, and we went to Inishark, just beside Inishboffin, and spent some time living and camping out there. We really want to be there when the chicks hatch.
Must be exciting when a new creature comes along and decides to take up residence in Ireland?
It is. That change is always going on. There are natural and unnatural changes. The skua arrived naturally as they're northern birds, and you'd associate them with Scotland and north of there. They've moved south, we don't know why - it might be the fact that we've more places for them to nest now.
On Inishark there used to be lots of people living there, but it's abandoned now. Conditions just have to be right, and the only change that I can see is maybe they have less disturbed nesting areas now. It's hard to tell.
What else is coming our way on this season's run?
The next programme is about badgers. There's a big badger research programme that's been going on in Wicklow for the last few years, and they're finding out all kinds of new things about badgers. It's important that we research animals so that we know what to do. There's been a lot of talk about badgers - they've had a lot of negative press - and so it's good, finally, to see some really good signs about badgers in Ireland.
And then the next programme is about seals. I'd only ever filmed seals above water before, but I went out diving with them in Dublin Bay, just off Dalkey Island, and they're incredibly curious animals and, for the most part, extremely gentle. They come up to you, right into your face, and they hold on to you and they're really good fun.
We've a good, positive story about red kites and sea eagles, who were hunted to extinction in Ireland a hundred years ago. They've been brought back in recent years and they're now breeding in Ireland again. So that's a positive conservation story.
Then we've a programme about toads. There's only ever been one kind of toad in Ireland, the natterjack toad in Kerry, and this year was a brilliant year for toads. Sometimes all the ponds dry up before the tadpoles develop, but this time the rain came in May. And we discovered a new toad in Donegal. And it's thriving in one little area.
Living the Wildlife, RTÉ One, 7pm
