See seahorses dancing in dazzling green underwater meadows, salmon battling up waterfalls, a caterpillar which tricks ants into worshipping it as a queen, hunting sea eagles, battling butterflies and a bee riding a broomstick.
Did you know there are more than 6,000 islands and islets in Great Britain? And that David Attenborough himself says the wildlife sights they harbour match natural spectacles anywhere in the world?
The new BBC1 television series Wild Isles begins on March 12, exploring the spectacular wildlife of our island nation. It is accompanied by a book, also called Wild Isles, written by Norfolk naturalist Patrick Barkham.
Both book and documentary explore the woodland, grassland, rivers and seas of the British Isles, illustrated by astonishing photography.
Vivid vignettes of how our wildlife works include the night-life of an ancient oak complete with dormice and bats, the courtship dance of adders, bees transforming empty snail shells into nurseries and both the annual migration of toads back to ancestral waterways and the horror of the horse-leech awaiting their tiny toadlets.
From huge dramas like the murmuration of starlings to the delicate interdependence of tiny woodland flowers and fungi, the wildlife of our wild isles is mesmerising.
“The most incredible spectacle I've ever seen is the one which opens the Wild Isles TV series,” said Patrick. “Orca hunting seals off the coast of Shetland.”
Beneath the sea Patrick describes a weird, wild technicolour world, the domain of the lumpsucker and clingfish. “I actually loved writing about marine life, about which I knew almost nothing before I began researching the book,” he said. “We tend to think of British seas as being grey and turbid but there is spectacular multicoloured life beneath our waves from cute little clingfish to the bizarre tompot blenny. The incredible chalk reef off Cromer is now getting justifiable attention for its riches.”
And there is no need to travel far to see spectacular British wildlife. “I always get a bit of Norfolk in all my books!” said Patrick. “The filmmakers spent weeks on Blakeney Point in the winter filming the grey seals that give birth there."
He describes the tens of thousands of pinkfeet geese which gather on the north Norfolk coast every winter and the July flight of the purple emperor butterfly. “This is our second-largest and most charismatic insect, and it is the lord of places such as Foxley Wood in midsummer,” said Patrick, whose childhood was rooted in Norfolk nature.
He grew up near Reepham and spent childhood holidays at Holme, near Hunstanton, where he fell in love with butterflies. His acclaimed first book, The Butterfly Isles, focused on his quest to see all 59 British breeds of butterfly in a single summer. The next, Badgerlands, was called “a must read for all Britain's naturalists” by Chris Packham. Then came lyrical journeys around some of the most remote parts of the country in Coastlines and Islander. Almost as soon as his twin girls were born, he began Wild Child, focusing on how being immersed in nature can help children grow up healthier and happier.
Patrick, now president of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, is the Guardian newspaper’s natural history writer. He was asked to write the Wild Isles book after interviewing Sir David. “Of course, I jumped at the chance!” said Patrick. “He is an amazing storyteller and is funnier off-screen than you might imagine. I was amazed how intellectual agile he was in his mid-90s.”
READ MORE: BBC Wild Isles: Watch trailer for David Attenborough's new series
The book also details the increasing fragility of our wildlife habitats, calling Britain one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet. Ways to help range from nurturing an outdoor space to investing in a sustainable pension. Patrick said: “It is too easy to feel eco-despair but the best antidote is to join a local group and help the nature in your neighbourhood.”
He tells the stories of the people who are helping keep our wild isles wild, including Diana Bell, the University of East Anglia scientist who has been studying rabbits for decades, David Vyse of the Friends of Horsey Seals, and Helen Smith who became so fascinated by the fen raft spider when she moved to the Waveney valley that she has done more than anyone to save it from extinction.
The five-part television series, a collaboration between the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Open University, was made over three years by Silverback Films, the filmmakers behind Blue Planet, Our Planet and Green Planet.
Wild Isles by Patrick Barkham and film producer and director Alastair Fothergill is published on March 2.
Patrick’s next book, due out in May, is a biography of environmentalist Roger Deakin, who lived at Mellis, near Diss, and popularised wild swimming with this book Waterlog.
