大象传媒

In the heart of Hampshire鈥檚 rare chalk streams, Matt Baker meets Liz Bayliss, daughter of famed wildlife film-makers Ron and Rosemary Eastman. The Eastmans made the first-ever wildlife film to be shown in colour on the 大象传媒 鈥� The Private Life of the Kingfisher. By popular demand it was shown eight times and it still looks good today. Liz helps Matt uncover the secrets of how her parents made their pioneering films about river life along these beautiful waterways. Later Matt joins forces with John Slader of the Salmon & Trout Association to discover how improved management is giving a new lease of life to our precious chalk streams.

IMAGE:听Matt, Liz and the catch of the day

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Find out how you can help protect our chalk steams

Deep in the heart of the New Forest another pioneer used television to revolutionise the way we thought of our native wildlife. Born at the end of World War One, Eric Ashby went on to set the standard for filming mammals. Julia Bradbury finds out more when she walks in his footsteps to capture shots of the forest鈥檚 elusive badgers, with the help of a modern film-maker, Manuel Hinge. Manuel is a real expert on the wildlife and a life-long admirer of Eric Ashby鈥檚. He shows Julia around Eric鈥檚 old camera kit, and passes on tips about how to find and film wildlife.

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Learn more about how Eric filmed badgers underground

Later Julia joins the Forestry Commission to see how they are turning straight-cut water channels back into the meandering brooks of old in an effort to restore the forest that Eric Ashby loved. She鈥檒l discover why this work is so vital to the health of the New Forest.

In a sleepy Gloucestershire village, John Craven and naturalist Richard Mabey, try to re-create a ground-breaking television 鈥渆xperiment鈥� 鈥� they turn up in the village of Sapperton and film just what they see. Four decades earlier, as a response to the increasing technical complexity of natural history film-making, Richard and a team of experts had done just that. With the help of wildlife cameraman, Richard Taylor-Jones, our contemporary team discover how much has changed and what鈥檚 stayed the same in this Countryfile tribute to wildlife films and their makers.

While Countryfile farmer, Adam Henson and his father, Joe, take a very personal walk down memory lane to reminisce about the time when it was his dad telling the world about life on the land. Long before Adam took to the screen Joe starred with television royalty, Angela Rippon, on the rural magazine programme, In the Country. As they tackle the work on the farm, Adam reminisces about how his father鈥檚 passion for preserving rare breeds and love of traditional methods of farming still inspires work on the farm today.

Finally John travels to the forest. He鈥檚 eager to find out more about another early colour television classic, The Major. This film made full use of the drama of felling an age-old oak tree to tell a dramatic story of the life it sustained 鈥� but, as John discovered, not everything was as it seemed on screen.

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To finish, John treats local wildlife lovers to one of the first-ever natural history films made by Oliver Pike in the early years of the 20th century. This is the first time it鈥檚 been seen in a hundred years. Without the British Film Institute National Archive, this film could have been lost forever. This hand-tinted classic of birds on their nest, has been newly restored. Once it played to packed music halls, as an interlude between acts. In those days capturing intimate shots of these shy birds was no mean feat, as John discovers.

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