Sneak behind the scenes at BBC Wild Week Live at Castle Espie – Day 5... The Finale!
Well what a week it’s been here at Castle Espie
and what a fantastic hour long finale to end an amazing five days.
We started with 6km of cable at the beginning of the week and now the BBC have used all the cable they brought with them, in ever increasing efforts to cover as much of the vast area here at Castle Espie – so by transmission time last night (Friday) there was no less than 8kms of cable winding its way round the centre and throughout the grounds!
On last night's programme, Kerry Mackie also gave Donna a tour of the hatchery - candling one of the developing eggs which is always an amazing thing to see. There was even some live footage of a hatching Argentine red shoveler! Then they went through to the duckery to see some of the young ducklings who, unlike the blue tit chicks, leave the nest almost straight away and become almost completely independent from their parents. Castle Espie's public hatchery and duckery tours start next month (every weekend in June) to visitors can come down and have the same tour as Donna.
There was a great link into the programme from Chris Packham and Kate Humble from Springwatch's new West Wales home. Chris gave a welcome glowing endorsement of Castle Espie by saying "Its a fantastic new centre which has had an amazing transformation. What a beautiful place for people to come and watch wildlife." Thanks, Chris!
And then there was our first look at artist and Castle Espie volunteer Lorna Hamilton's amazing oil painting of an owl. She'd worked from dawn till dusk all week, suffered a locked neck yesterday afternoon brought on by hours of concentration on the work. But the finished result unveiled last night was truly fantastic. Lorna has kindly offered to donate some of the proceeds of the sale of the painting to WWT Castle Espie. If you want more details, visit her website at www.lornahamilton.com.
We've been thrilled with the number of Castle Espie staff and volunteers whose work have been featured on the programme all week. Nearby landowner and Castle Espie volunteer, Wesley Jamieson, granted permission for a BBC otter cam on his land. This provided a nightly insight into this most elusive and secretive animal and was great to watch..
One of the undisputed stars of the week has to be our very own Dot Blakely who has been on screen with presenter Donna Traynor every night giving her invaluable round robin of web-cam nesting box activity around the site.
Dot has been associated with Castle Espie for some 19 years. She’s run a birdwatching club at the centre for 15 years and also takes a birdwatching class at Castlereagh College on Wednesdays. About six years ago she also started a popular monthly birdwatching morning at the centre from 10.30 am on the last Thursday of the month.
Dot said: “I love Castle Espie because it has so much variety: you can see an eider duck in the captive collection, then wander out to the shoreline of Strangford Lough and spot a wild one too. Castle Espie is also one of the most fantastic spots to see the light-bellied brent geese from our fantastic, heated, glass limekiln observatory in October and November.”
When asked which was her favourite bird, Dot gave the reply that leaves you in no doubt of her passion for our feathered friends: “whatever bird I’m looking at”.
Dot’s monthly birdwatching mornings at Castle Espie are suitable for all competencies and is a great way to find out not only about Castle Espie but the birds and wildlife there.
So if you want to meet one of the stars of BBC Wild Week Live and brush up on or learn some bird watching skills – why not come down to the next one?
And so Wild Week Live came to a close and we had to say a sad goodbye to the fantastic BBC NI crew who have become regular faces around the site and who we hope will come back and see us sometime soon – and all of you too!
