91Èȱ¬

OK, so it's a day early, but as it's our last show this week - tonight's the one with the Halloween theme!

The studio has been dressed with pumpkins and props, which have been generously donated from the edit van (pictured right) our webteam have made home.

Bill has made a lovely film about the natural explanation for ghost stories and we've our very own 'shower scene' complete with screaming woman (Nikki from the production team doing a fine impression of Janet Leigh).

Content wise, things just keep on coming - tonight we have a leap into the unknown by the red squirrels, Bill's tale of the little egrets (and the new kids on the block, cattle egrets), and Kate's early morning quest to get up close and personal with the sika deer.

Talking of deer, check out my last blog if you have muntjac in your neighbourhood. Tonight Simon is on the track of otters in the suburbs of Birmingham, while Gordon is battening down the hatches for some storm-force northerlies.

Make sure to from the National Trust's Farne Islands' warden David Steel. It'll be updated all weekend while we're off the air, so that's the place to go for the latest info from Gordon's team.

A huge thank you to all of you who are uploading your videos and and wildlife - we are currently number three (out of about 11000) Flickr groups - thanks to YOU!

So enjoy tonight's programme, get out and do one thing for autumn this weekend, see you on Monday and Happy Halloween.

Stephen

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If you saw Wednesday night's show, you'll recall Simon made an appeal for sightings of our smallest deer, the Muntjac. Originally from China, the Muntjac was introduced to Woburn Abbey in the 19th century, and has been spreading outwards ever since. Despite now probably being the commonest deer species in Britain, it can be very hard to see.

Simon gave us some really useful tips on how to know if you have Muntjac in your neighbourhood - the staccato, dog-like bark, the tiny footprints, and if you are lucky enough to catch sight of one, its tiny size - less than half that of a Roe Deer. So do let us know via this blog if you have Muntjac where you live.

Just in: here's the muntjac sightings map that Simon showed on the show.

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It's Thursday morning, and in what seems like a blink of an eye, we are almost halfway through our current run of Autumnwatch. Already we've seen some truly astonishing sights - Gordon's baby seal pup braving the waves, Simon playing the guitar (and showing us some fabulous secrets about Fallow Deer and Muntjac), and Bill and Kate's .

Tonight Simon will be back in Birmingham in search of another elusive mammal - the urban Otter. Simon knows more about tracking Otters than almost anyone, so hopefully he will at least be able to prove their presence, and maybe even find one during the live show.

Kate goes out to watch the Sika Deer on Brownsea, while Bill looks at one of the island's newer residents - the beautiful little egret. And of course Gordon and his team are still on the Farnes braving the elements along with those feisty little seal pups.

A|nd don;t forget there are lots of events you can do this weekend - as well as a wealth of autum,n wildlife to go and see - check out Breathing Places for details of things to do near where you live.

Oh - and as you saw on Wednesday night, Bill and Kate are being well fed!

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Once again, thanks to the dozens of you who responded to Simon's deer antler challenge in last night's show.

As revealed by Simon on tonight's programme, the results are, in clockwise order, roe, sika, red and fallow.

As many of you also pointed out, roe and red deer are native species, while fallow and sika were introduced here.

The other two British deer species found in a wild state, muntjac and Chinese water deer, were also introduced to Britain.

Some of you also pointed out that another species, Pere David's deer, can also be seen in some deer parks, while there is an introduced herd of reindeer in the Cairngorms.

Once again, many apologies for confusing you all with the reference to muntjac.

Stephen

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Just to say a huge thank you to everyone who watched the programme last night - over four million of you! After all the hard work everyone's put in it is really great to know that you tuned in to enjoy the show. I thought Bill and Kate did a splendid job, despite a few technical problems, while Simon and Gordon brought some of our favourite creatures, deer and seals, to our screens again.

So what's in tonight's show? Well, the red squirrel assault course makes its first proper appearance, with the reds successfully completing a couple of relatively simple tests. The jury's still out as to whether they will bother with the more complicated stuff, especially as there is so much abundant natural food available on the island. But we do know that grey squirrels seem to do these assault courses for what looks very much like fun - so maybe our reds will want to have a go too!

As the north wind blows, and the weather gets pretty chilly, the lagoon is hotting up! Up to 500 avocets are feeding in front of the hides, while the black-tailed godwits are spending part of their time on the lagoon and the rest feeding around the main harbour. Brent geese numbers are on the up, while two spoonbills dropped in today - these huge, yellowish-white birds stand around at the back of the lagoon, occasionally showing the famous spatula-like bill which gives the species its name.

Tonight's show will also bring us an update of some of your favourite characters from Springwatch, including Hannibal the barn owl, and the Penshorpe swallows. Gordon will send us another live report from the Farnes (weather permitting!), while Simon is spending his last day at Petworth House, where he'll be revealing the secrets of the fallow deer rut.

So tune in at 8pm, and I hope you enjoy the show - do let me know your verdict!

Stephen

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HUGE APOLOGIES to all of you on the blog, and ESPECIALLY to Simon. In my haste to get the pictures of the four deer antlers on the blog last night, I made the cardinal error of NOT checking the facts with my colleagues on location.

Because of this, one of the four choices I gave for the possible answers was WRONG... There are NO muntjac antlers shown in the photos, NOR were there any in the selection shown by Simon - the antlers shown belonged to a sika deer.

I shouldn't be surprised that many of you immediately spotted my mistake - as we often say, our Autumnwatch audience includes some of the UK's leading wildlife experts!

So just to clarify, the four antlers shown by Simon (and here on the blog) belong to red, roe, fallow and sika deer, NOT muntjac. Simon will reveal the correct order in tonight's programme - in the meantime you're welcome to have a go at getting the right answer.

Once again, I can only apologise to you all - and also to Simon and his expert team, who of course knew the answers all along - for my mistake. As a birder I must now make sure I brush up on my mammal identification skills!

All the best - Stephen

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Like Houston Mission Control before a shuttle launch, things have gone eerily quiet here in the Autumnwatch location office. Everyone involved in the live show is out and about, checking scripts, watching the wildlife footage shot today, or running through where they will point their cameras. Now that the clocks have gone back it is almost dark outside, and the red squirrels (and the hundreds of people who were here today to watch them!) have departed - the squirrels to bed and the visitors to the boat back to the mainland.

It's been a bit of a hectic day from a press point of view - 91Èȱ¬ News were here most of the day, recording interviews and doing live broadcasts, and what feels like every local radio station in the country has rung us for a chat - proving just how Autumnwatch continues to grab the imagination of people all over Britain! The most frequently asked question has been 'why did you come to Brownsea?' - and tonight I hope you'll find out!

Radio Solent have just rung for another live interview... so talk later... Hope you enjoy the show!

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On tonight's Autumnwatch, Simon set us all a test - which set of deer antlers belongs to which of four different deer species - red, fallow, roe and muntjac?

Incidentally, can you also tell us which of these are native species and which were introduced to Britain?

And for the really keen cervophile (deer enthusiast to you and me), can you name the other two British species - both non-native ones?

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Autumnwatch is beginning to resemble a very complicated plate-spinning exercise. No sooner has one problem been solved than another rears its ugly head. Editorial, technical and logistical issues vie with each other, and at times it's easy to wonder whether we'll ever actually get the show on the air.

Outside the office where I'm typing this blog it's now pitch dark, and beginning to rain - a light drizzle that threatens to turn into a full-blown downpour, complete with winds gusting up to gale force eight, according to the nice man from I just spoke to. There is a very real chance that by the time we've finished the rehearsal at around 8pm tonight, we won't all be able to get off the island and back to the mainland...

On a brighter note, Kate and Bill have had a great day exploring the island, while wildlife cameramen Mark and Pete have already started to get some fantastic material in the can. Stars of the show have been, as expected, the red squirrels, which Mark managed to film feeding on sweet chestnuts. I haven't seen the footage yet, but our editor Steve is raving about it (and believe me, editors don't always rave about the stuff they have to cut together!)

Bird-wise it's been fairly quiet today - after lunch I needed some fresh air, and wandered down to the reserve on the north of the island. Along the path, I discovered the 'hide on stilts' which gives such a great view over the whole of the lagoon - a hide I remember visiting on my first trip to the island in 1970. Then, birds like the and even the were new for me, but almost 40 years later the view from the hide is still pretty amazing. Today I watched three hunting in formation: carefully stepping forward, necks hunched, ready to strike.

So with just four days (and about an hour!) to go before we go live, the first rehearsal is about to start. I can hear Kate and Bill speaking live, via a satellite link, to Gordon on the - which makes me realise that whatever the problems we may have with the weather here, compared to Gordon and his team we don't know we're born. If I had the choice between being on Brownsea or Brownsman (the tiny island where Gordon is right now), I know where I'd rather be. And I bet they don't have a plate of scones to keep them going...

Friday morning I'm off back to the office in Bristol to collect (and watch) our very last batch of films - in the meantime I hope you have a good weekend, and don't forget to keep sending us your pictures of autumn and wildlife videos wherever you live!

All the best - Stephen

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We're finally here! After months of planning, endless meetings and the odd sleepless night, the Autumnwatch team has arrived on Brownsea Island. And once again, the weather is absolutely perfect - this morning dawned cold, bright and clear, and the view across the harbour as we chugged across on the early morning boat was simply breathtaking.

It's hard to describe just how relaxing this place is - as soon as you step off the boat it's like going back in time, to the sort of island you always wanted to visit as a child. But we need to be careful not to get too relaxed - with just five days before we go live on air we need to focus on getting everything up and running. As , who ran the world's first ever scout camp here a century ago, would have said: "Be Prepared!"

Outside our makeshift production office there's a hive of activity, as cables are laid, trucks are put into place and editors work out how to get their machines working in the back of a van! Because Brownsea is an island, we can't have the usual production village we have on Springwatch. So Portakabins and huge trucks are out, and the technical team is having to squeeze a quart of facilities into a very small pint pot.

Meanwhile, away from the frantic comings and goings here at the production village, the wildlife carries on as usual, preparing for the winter to come.

Out on the lagoon, things have subtly changed since I was last here a couple of weeks ago. Many of the global travellers such as and that were feeding in front of the hide then, have now headed off south, to spend the winter somewhere along the west coast of Africa. Other birds - those that will spend the winter here feeding on the rich pickings to be found in the mud - have built up their numbers. Avocets and black-tailed godwits are the dominant species, and others such as , and , have now arrived.

As I looked out of the hide yesterday evening I was pleased to see at least two dozen , feeding alongside their commoner cousins the redshanks.

Greenshanks are truly beautiful waders: pale, long-legged and long-winged, with a delicately upturned bill which they use to filter marine invertebrates out of the mud and water. In flight they show their elegance o ff to the full, as they whip across the sky calling as they go.

On our way down to the hide we disturbed a small group of . Like so many of our 'wild' creatures they were brought in by the owners of stately homes in the 19th century; and like so many of these non-native animals they have now become a bit of a pest. Nevertheless it was still a magic moment, as the deer stared at us from their hiding-place in the reeds.

The island's most popular creature, the red squirrel, is much more welcome! Almost as soon as I got off the ferry I saw one of these charming little animals, which promptly shinned up a tree and sat watching me from a safe distance. I'm sure red squirrels will be the stars of a very packed show next week!

In the meantime, do tell us what's happening in your neck of the woods. The past week has seen a noticeable change in the weather, and the colder nights remind us that autumn is now well and truly with us. Check out the Messageboard to find out what the rest of the Autumnwatch viewers have been up to, and don't forget you can send us still pictures and video footage of any wildlife you've been seeing!

Talk soon - Stephen

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Let me introduce myself - my name's Stephen, and I've recently joined Autumnwatch as Series Editor. One of my jobs will be writing a regular blog - of which this is the first instalment. I'll be doing weekly updates until I get on location in a couple of weeks time, then daily ones (more frequently if something really exciting happens!) after that.

So have you noticed those subtle changes in the weather, light and landscape that signal the coming of autumn? I always think autumn creeps up on you more than spring - but in the last few days, as the temperature has dropped, I'm seeing classic signs of the season at my Somerset home: flocks of starlings are whizzing overhead at dawn; more birds coming to our seed feeders; and outside our office window in Bristol, we're enjoying the annual invasion of that gorgeous bird the jay.

With just nineteen days to go until Autumnwatch goes live on air, the office is astonishingly calm. Not that we haven't had the odd hiccup in the past few weeks. Producer-cameraman Richard took two days to get onto the last week, once again because of the autumn gales that threatened to disrupt Simon King's visit this time last year. Meanwhile Martin, producer of Simon's outside broadcast, is racking his brains on how to get his team from Anglesey to Dorset, overnight - without resorting to helicopters!

But to the Autumnwatch team, especially the veterans of all three series so far, these little local difficulties are just par for the course. If live wildlife television was easy everyone would be doing it - and they aren't! So I'm sure we'll have a few more setbacks before we finally get on air, at 8pm on Monday 27th October....

Last week we had a really productive day on the magical island which will be our HQ for this year's Autumnwatch - in Poole Harbour. Bill and Kate also joined us, along with a gaggle of national and regional journalists, many of whom were visiting Brownsea for the very first time. Everyone who comes here falls under the island's spell, and Kate was no exception - after being shown round by warden Chris Thain and our wildlife producer Nigel, she can't wait to be back for the live event.

Bill has been here before - first, back in the 1950s as a young birder, and then in the 1990s with me, filming for the second series of . This truly is one of Bill's very favourite places in Britain. As he says, "If Dorset is one of the best counties to watch wildlife, and Brownsea is one of the best places in Dorset, then it ranks pretty high in the Premier League of UK wildlife hotspots!"

I first visited Brownsea as a wet-behind-the-ears ten-year old, more years ago than I care to remember. I can still recall being astonished by the sheer number of wading birds on the lagoon, and even more excited by seeing my first ever rarity - a snow-white perched in a tree above the lake.

It was a rarity then, but now it's so common that visiting birders don't give this beautiful bird a second glance - there were at least thirty egrets on the lagoon last week! In fact the very first little egrets to breed in Britain did so on Brownsea, back in the mid-1990s.

And there's much, much more to see on the lagoon. Several hundred , a picture of elegance as their sweep their upcurved bills from side to side to feed; a host of other wading birds, including on their epic migration from Siberia to West Africa; and ten stately , who according to our wildlife cameraman Graham were using the twigs of a tamarisk bush to clean their enormous, spatula-shaped bills!

By the time we get on the air some of these may have departed on their long journey south; but there place will be taken by all sorts of new arrivals - watch this space!

So what wonderful wildlife do we plan to bring you? An awful lot! As well as the island's famous (100% guaranteed, according to Bill), we have a whole range of other stuff to tempt you... And of course during the two weeks we're on air we'll constantly be on the lookout for anything new and unexpected.

'New and unexpected' are also Simon King's watchwords - aren't they always?! Check out his planned route, which includes some of the most ambitious live wildlife broadcasts ever attempted, from places as diverse as in West Sussex, Birmingham Airport, Anglesey and the Dorset coast. The last location involves a 'live dive' in search of underwater giants - !

Meanwhile, Gordon Buchanan is hoping to spend the two weeks on the - and hoping he and his crew can get off at the end. Fingers crossed for good weather...

On a personal note, I'd like to say it's really good to be back. I helped launch our first live UK wildlife show, , back in 2003, and produced the first Springwatch in 2005; since then I've been off working on other projects. But anyone who's ever worked on live television knows it just can't be beaten - as someone once said, it's a bit like skiing naked down Mount Everest with a carnation between your teeth - not that I've actually tried...

So I hope you now feel as fired up as we do about the prospects of another Autumnwatch - from such an exciting new location. Before we go on air do let me know how your autumn is going - have you noticed any interesting animal behaviour, seen any unusual creatures, or just had some wonderful autumnal experiences. In the meantime, enjoy this lovely weather while it lasts!

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