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The bees on the red button

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    The bees on the red button

    Bloody brilliant TV. Springwatch generally has been ok as usual. Strachan is annoying and Packham is great (can't believe he is 53) and the birds and other animals have been interesting from time to time.

    The bit on Unsprung the other night with the Great Tit pecking the head of the Long Tailed Tit to a bloody stump was a bit strong, mind.

    Anyway, there's a camera in a bumblebee nest which you can watch via the red button, if you're kind of doing something else and just want something to glance at occasionally. It's like an amusing screensaver for your telly.

    #2
    The bees on the red button

    Chris Packham is on the left. And he's actually 53.

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      #3
      The bees on the red button

      I found his Desert Island Discs to be a really interesting listen.

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        #4
        The bees on the red button

        The badgers are good too, natch.

        On Springwatch, that is, not Desert Island Discs.

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          #5
          The bees on the red button

          I think Mrs H had been watching tennis on the red button on Monday and, as is her wont, hadn't bothered switching the telly off when she left the room. Anyway when I walked in there was a fidgetty, ruddy head poking from a hole in an oak tree. I guessed green woodpecker, do you happen to know if I was right?

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            #6
            The bees on the red button

            Yep, green woodpeckers have been on there as well.

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              #7
              The bees on the red button

              Springwatch is the best thing on telly at the moment. I was absolutely enthralled last night with the white tailed eagle flipping off the attack of the buzzards, and Packham's inspired feathery free-form jazz riff to a bemused Strachan. Awesome...

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                #8
                The bees on the red button

                I don't even need the red button - there's a bumblebee nest in the soffits right above my flat at the moment.

                And they're absolutely no bother either - minimal noise, and although one will occasionally bumble (see what I did there?) into my living room, they'll just fly around for 30 seconds, realise there's no flowering plants to be had and go back out the open window.

                Bumblebees are ace.

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                  #9
                  The bees on the red button

                  Bees are my current favourite, by a mile. And the Springwatch team are always good for a nice jacket or two. Their choice of outdoors wear is terrace suitable. Top telly all round.

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                    #10
                    The bees on the red button

                    Obviously Springwatch reads OTF, Hive Alive starts in ten minutes.

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                      #11
                      The bees on the red button

                      Vole.

                      I haven't seen much of it this week, so does anyone know if they've mentioned swallows, swifts and martins at all? I have only seen one swallow so far this year, on Monday, which seems really late.

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                        #12
                        The bees on the red button

                        kevinho wrote: Chris Packham is on the left. And he's actually 53.
                        For people who've spent a great deal of their lives in the Great Outdoors, he and the lovely Michaela Strachan are looking good. Certainly better than that Scottish cameraman who resembles a cliff face.

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                          #13
                          The bees on the red button

                          Martin Hughes Games (on the right of the trio there) is 59 years old. Yes, this facebelongs to someone born in April 1956. I heard someone say a year or two back that he was 57 and flat-out refused to believe it, thinking "they must mean 47, surely, at a pinch?", but no — it appears that all that time crawling around in little-inhabited corners of the wild has uncovered the Fountain of Youth somewhere.

                          As someone who grew up on Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan on The Really Wild Show in the early '90s, it's always a joy to see the two of them together on screen again now. I've always enjoyed Springwatch and its seasonal variants regardless, and I like how they're playing a few subtle twists on the ...Unsprung format this year, having Vic Reeves on last night and Stornoway performing tonight. There was a live wren cam on the red button a few minutes ago when last I looked, and 'Spineless Si' the engagingly hopeless-in-love stickleback earlier today.

                          Oh, and Kev, I don't know if you caught this but on the swallow front Chris went off on an excellent random nature-geek sidetrack tonight on Unsprung, explaining how they're not really blue, like virtually all birds that seem to have blue [iridescence] on them, and got a fair way into a technical explanation of how micro-bubbles in the wing feathers diffract the light and create what we only perceive as the colour before noticing how More Than Capable Laura at the computer was looking at him and reining himself in.

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                            #14
                            The bees on the red button

                            Kevchenko wrote: I haven't seen much of it this week, so does anyone know if they've mentioned swallows, swifts and martins at all? I have only seen one swallow so far this year, on Monday, which seems really late.
                            I caught some of the programme the other night, and as I recall they had a nestbox video of a swift.

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                              #15
                              The bees on the red button

                              "We'll get Michaela out of bed to show her a blackcock in the flesh."

                              Unbelievable deadpan tekkers from Packham there tonight.

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                                #16
                                The bees on the red button

                                Hahaha, I was rolling. That man can smuggle anything into a sentence. Is he going to attempt some song or film titles on Winterwatch? Not enough programme time I imagine, unfortunately.

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                                  #17
                                  The bees on the red button

                                  He did squeeze in 'Sunshine After the Rain' midway through....an Elkie Brooks fest?

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                                    #18
                                    The bees on the red button

                                    Kevchenko wrote: "We'll get Michaela out of bed to show her a blackcock in the flesh."

                                    Unbelievable deadpan tekkers from Packham there tonight.
                                    Ah, thank heavens, I wasn't imagining it. I was on my own at the time so when I said "Hang on, did he really just say that?", no-one could respond.

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                                      #19
                                      The bees on the red button

                                      I think the pair of them made a very similar joke last year.

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                                        #20
                                        The bees on the red button

                                        There's a pleasing proliferation of these on YouTube already and a surprisingly high number of people who think it's a mistake/accident of some sort. Fools! Talking about the watershed too - have they never heard the works of Humphrey Littleton?

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                                          #21
                                          The bees on the red button

                                          Ye gods. Pt. 2 – "I get the impression you weren't entirely satisfied by blackcock Michaela?" "Actually, I rather enjoyed my blackcock experience."
                                          8:20pm, live on BBC2. A deadpan masterclass all round. Outstanding.

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                                            #22
                                            The bees on the red button

                                            The right wing press won't be happy at the BBC giving that pine marten a fake egg.

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                                              #23
                                              The bees on the red button

                                              Speaking of things being not quite what they seem, I was rather disappointed to learn from Unsprung why it is that Lindsay, newest conduit between the presenters and the world of social media etc who's the latest to be seen manning the computer, had irritated me irrationally when she debuted on Autumnwatch Unsprung the other month, because she seemed to be distractingly and unnecessarily 'polished' compared with predecessors Level-Headed Jo and More Than Capable Laura, like she was too-obviously being groomed to take the leap into presenting. She blithely revealed on this evening's programme that she trained as an actress, which probably explains why she came just that bit too camera-ready.

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                                                #24
                                                The bees on the red button

                                                A quick Google reveals her to be Lindsey Chapman who has co-presented with Hugh Fearnley-whatever and has presented netball on Sky Sports amongst other things.
                                                So no grooming required.

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                                                  #25
                                                  The bees on the red button

                                                  Blimey. Thanks hobbes, that would indeed explain things. Seems a weird sideways jump for them not to use someone already part of the production team, which I think was the case with both the previous two and lent a much more organic and natural (no pun intended) fit to the whole affair, rather than parachuting in a random 'proper' presenter.

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