Living The Wildlife

This week, Colin visits some old friends at their farm on the outskirts of Dublin, where a trail of shredded milk cartons leads him to an extremely resourceful family of urban foxes. From there it’s off to county Limerick, where, at a weir underneath an old road bridge, he comes face to face with one of Ireland’s most ancient and, some would say, terrifying species – the sea-lamprey: a bizarre, prehistoric vampire fish. Colin also meets John Tiernan a Mayo farmer who has adapted his entire approach to farming to suit a migratory corncrake he has heard but never seen. Together, the two travel to Tory Island in the hope of catching a glimpse of the country’s most elusive bird.

Colin joins forces with 'batman' Conor Kelleher to go hunting for the nocturnal creatures and teams up with shark-spotter Colin Barnes in West Cork. Having heard that basking sharks have been seen near Union Hall in West Cork, Colin teams up with veteran shark-spotter Colin Barnes for a closer look at these extraordinary creatures. Armed with only his underwater camera, Colin dives into a plankton-bloom to observe the enormous sharks as they feed. Colin joins forces with bat-expert Conor Kelleher on the trail of horse-shoe bats whose woodland hunting ground has been earmarked for a new bypass road. Their attempts to radio-track the tiny animal quickly turn into a frantic night-time game of follow-my-leader through the woods. But will they be able to prove that bats have more of a right to be here than bulldozers?

Colin travels to the Inishkea islands to film the Grey Seal. And he explores the world of fungi in Wicklow. Braving treacherous seas, Colin Stafford Johnson travels to the uninhabited Inishkea islands to film the Grey Seal, Ireland’s largest mammal. At the risk of being stranded in the middle of an Atlantic storm, he resolves to sit it out, and complete his mission. In Wicklow, Colin joins in with an annual mushroom forage, and discovers the culinary delights of edible fungi, while learning an important lesson about certain varieties which are better left untouched. From there, Colin takes his daughter Sylvie to the Saltees Island, five miles off the Wexford coast to shows her what inspired him to become a wildlife cameraman in the first place – Ireland’s largest natural bird sanctuary.

Colin meets the bat population in Westport, tracks down Red Deer in Killarney and examines the decline of the river mussel. Out on the hills of Killarney National Park, Colin tracks down Red Deer during the species’ brief but fascinating rut, or mating season. Equipped with high frequency audio-detectors and plenty of flashlights, Colin and a group of young wildlife enthusiasts from Westport set off into the forest to meet the local bat population. Finally, Colin sets out to uncover an ecological travesty happening right under our noses – the decline of the river mussel – a species being poisoned out of existence by agri-pollution. He meets a small, but highly committed group of conservationists, who are attempting to save the mussels by breeding them in controlled conditions.

Colin attempts to track down a near extinct bird in the Gaeltacht and follows the progress of eagle chicks in Killarney National Park. Colin travels to the Gaeltacht areas of Mayo and Donegal with Derek McLoughlin, who’s been studying a near-extinct Irish bird – the Twite – for the past two years. Together, they attempt to track down the Twite’s near-inaccesible nest, to see how productive this year’s breeding season has been. At Killarney National Park, Colin joins project manager Alan May, and follows the progress of 15 white tailed eagle chicks – a gift to Ireland from the Norwegian government – as May attempts to coax this once-indigenous species back to its former home on the cliffs of the west coast.