I probably should have known better than to expect too much from a programme about birds made by Sky, but the first two instalments of Bill Bailey’s Big Birdwatching Bonanza (Thursdays, 9pm, Sky1) have been disappointing.
As with anything I’ve ever seen him in, Bill is funny, and enthusiastic, but the show’s biggest problem, from a birder's point of view, is that he doesn’t actually know very much about birds. I wasn’t keeping notes, so I can’t remember any specific examples, but I remember sitting there constantly correcting his bird factoids and, on several occasions, identifications.
Worst of all, one of last night celebrity ‘challenges’ was to digiscope some waders out on the mud at Snettisham. The winning team managed to photograph three species, which were named as: Ringed Plover, Redshank and Golden Plover. The first one was indeed a Ringed Plover, but the Redshank looked like a Dunlin (I think – they didn’t show it for very long) and the Golden Plover was definitely a breeding plumaged Grey Plover. The photos had been printed out, so these weren’t just snap identifications – there must have been plenty of time (probably days, knowing how TV programmes are made) for someone to have correctly identified them.
Other things which rankled include the running joke in the first programme about the contestants continually flushing big flocks of waders and geese on the Solway Firth (yeah, that’s fucking hilarious isn’t it); terrible grainy old stock footage of birds that looks like it was shot in the 1960s (obviously keeps the cost down) and the so-called ‘celebrities’ (most of whom I've never heard of), who seem to have absolutely no interest in or knowledge of birds.
In short it’s not very good, but I shall keep watching it, if only to find out exactly what they were doing flushing all those ducks at Rutland Water last September...
As with anything I’ve ever seen him in, Bill is funny, and enthusiastic, but the show’s biggest problem, from a birder's point of view, is that he doesn’t actually know very much about birds. I wasn’t keeping notes, so I can’t remember any specific examples, but I remember sitting there constantly correcting his bird factoids and, on several occasions, identifications.
Worst of all, one of last night celebrity ‘challenges’ was to digiscope some waders out on the mud at Snettisham. The winning team managed to photograph three species, which were named as: Ringed Plover, Redshank and Golden Plover. The first one was indeed a Ringed Plover, but the Redshank looked like a Dunlin (I think – they didn’t show it for very long) and the Golden Plover was definitely a breeding plumaged Grey Plover. The photos had been printed out, so these weren’t just snap identifications – there must have been plenty of time (probably days, knowing how TV programmes are made) for someone to have correctly identified them.
Other things which rankled include the running joke in the first programme about the contestants continually flushing big flocks of waders and geese on the Solway Firth (yeah, that’s fucking hilarious isn’t it); terrible grainy old stock footage of birds that looks like it was shot in the 1960s (obviously keeps the cost down) and the so-called ‘celebrities’ (most of whom I've never heard of), who seem to have absolutely no interest in or knowledge of birds.
In short it’s not very good, but I shall keep watching it, if only to find out exactly what they were doing flushing all those ducks at Rutland Water last September...
