Dr Sanjida
O'Connell |
Sanjida O'Connell has always been passionate about animals and nature. Sanjida
talks about how she caught the nature bug, and some of her favourite moments from
the Hands on Nature television series. | | Sanjida
- a passion for wildlife |
I've always been passionate about
animals. When I was five we were living in Africa and I remember looking
into long grass (much taller than me) and thinking, 'I must go in there and find
some bugs', but being just a little bit too frightened to go for it! I studied
zoology at university and went on to do a PhD on chimpanzee psychology, where
I compared chimp minds with childrens'. The real difference lay between
male and female chimps: the girls paid attention to my experiments and did well,
but the boys, sadly, chucked things and peed on me. They failed the tests. Right
now, as well as presenting, I direct science documentaries and write novels, as
well as non-fiction books and articles on science and the environment.  Brilliant
nature
Hands on Nature has been a real pleasure to work on. I've
travelled to places I wouldn't otherwise have gone to - it's always brilliant
to visit places in this country as, like many people, I tend to travel abroad
for holidays. My favourite has to be the Farne Islands, where the birds
have
so little fear of humans that you can sit right next to them. I
was so close I could see the green of a Shag's eye, and lay in a patch of nettles
nose to beak with a nesting Tern - what a treat!  World
wildlife
As well as presenting, I also write books. My latest is called
'Sugar: The Grass that Changed the World'. It involved travelling to terribly
difficult places like Barbados. In the meantime you can see me back on home
territory presenting Hands on Nature on 91热爆 Two. I hope that you'll join
me and my fellow presenters. Nature teamMeet the Hands on Nature
team: Chris Packham
Mike
Dilger
Janet Sumner | 
