Behind the scenes at BBC Winterwatch

The last two days have been AMAZING. I have gone from being nervous and slightly scared and excited, travelled over 200 miles, been on live TV (twice), spent a night in a hotel, and met some of my wildlife heroes. That's a pretty incredible two days.

About two weeks ago I was asked if I would like to be on BBC Winterwatch Unsprung, a show which follows the main Winterwatch wildlife programme on the BBC which is the best programme about UK wildlife even though it''s only on for a few days each time. Of course, I said yes ! The only problem was, they asked me to bring up my badger skeleton which wasn't even close to being finished at the time ! So for the last two weeks I've been rushing finishing that. This is what it's like behind the scenes at Winterwatch ! (with a video below !)

Here's my day yesterday:

9.00am I'd packed up my bags and my skeletons the night before, and Dad loaded them into the car. On the way up, dad stopped so I could collect my trail cam to see if there minute footage of the pine marten on it.

9.30am Checked the travel reports, the snowgate at Glenshee was still closed which meant the journey was going to be 140 miles instead of 80 !

12.30pm Arrived at Mar Lodge. It is a huge country house owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It almost burnt to the ground in 1991, but luckily all the paintings and valuables were in storage at the time. 

At the front were parked all the TV vans and a big satellite dish. 

You had to take your shoes off at the door. It was very busy with dozens of people coming and going. I found Lucy the Unsprung producer, and Louis, who had been the researcher. I had only spoken to them on the phone before.

Straight away Lucy asked if I'd like to see Chris Packham (who I first met when he filmed me for Autumnwatch). I said yes, and we went upstairs to the presenter's suites upstairs. Chris was working on his notes for tonight's show at a table, and we chatted for a bit. He told he had found a pine marten skull which I was very jealous of !

12.45pm Lucy asked if I would like to go on the 'red button' show of Winterwatch (which you see if you press a red button while watching a BBC channel).  I was taken through one room where they were watching all the remote wildlife cameras...

...and into a second room where the Winterwatch Extra studio was setup.

So the first time I ever got to meet Nick Baker was actually on camera with people watching. I talked about my golden eagle skull, and I'd brought a buzzard skull as well to show the different sizes. We talked for about fifteen minutes. During the show one of the online team was reading my blog !

They called me 'Bone Boy' in the subtitles !

There was this reminder next to the set:

(Don't worry, I didn't)

There were loads of other signs around the place. This was outside the studio:

This was actually from two nights ago. By the afternoon it had been updated, but the figures were about the same:

There was a timetable where everyone had to be at every single moment. It had taken months of preparation to prepare for the show. 

1.05pm I went for lunch at the dining room at the back of Mar Lodge and had soup with the producer Lucy and then Nick Baker, then I went to unpack all the things I had asked to bring. Then I discovered that when I had collected the trail cam that morning, there had been a slug on the strap, so the slug was now 140 miles away from where it had been that morning ! I let it go in a nice leafy bit of the garden.

1.30pm I moved all my skeletons up to the studio, and on the way back looked inside this hall next to the main building. There were 2,400 red deer skulls all over the ceiling ! It was amazing, I'd never seen anything like that before.

Some of the skulls had very unusual pathology, like this one I noticed:

1.45pm I went back to Mar Lodge and explored for a bit. I found this whole stack of Bushnell trail cameras which had been used to work out the best place for the BBC to put their own wildlife cameras o on the estate. I was VERY jealous, since I only have one !

 

2.45pm It was time for a run-through, which is a sort of rehearsal for Unsprung where the floor manager checks where all the cameras have to be at any time. It is all shot in a huge hut which was built specially just before Christmas. Here's me walking up with Nick Baker.

While the cameramen set up, I got to take pictures in all the famous seats:

And on the sofa too:

The studio had tons of props in. This was their BAFTA award. It was VERY heavy.

One of the cameramen showed me how to use the camera. It was great fun. On the night there would be three cameramen, all moving round the audience, and more people holding the cables behind them.

They practiced the whole thing, with Lucy the producer, who was about 500 yards away in a special lorry, giving feedback to everyone via earpieces. I didn't have an earpiece so I couldn't hear what was being said:

This was the practice segment with me. There was no script, and so I knew on the night I would have to answer whatever questions they asked me.

The floor manager and a producer had a timetable, though, of how long each segment would last. My bit was about half-way in.

4.50pm: After we finished we went back to Mar Lodge. One the way back I met Michaela Strachan, who is one of the three main presenters. She was lovely and asked me to sign a copy of my book for her son.

5.00pm I chatted with dad for a bit, then had a doze on one of the sofas on the landing at Mar Lodge.

This stag skull was above the sofa. It was shot in 1797 !

7.00pm We stopped for dinner. I had onion bhajis and peas, then crumble and custard, and an apple. 

8.00pm The audience for Unsprung started to arrive, and we watched the live show on TV in the main hall:

8.35pm We were led out to where the studio was. It was lit up amazingly.

8.45pm Because the weather was dry, the presenters would be on the outside bit with the fire, so we silently got led into the main studio and were put carefully into positions.

9.00pm The Unsprung show began as soon as the main programme ended !  It begins with Nick Baker outside the studio doing the intro, then the main credits rolled:

Then he came into the studio, and we all cheered and clapped. I was standing over at the far right with my skeletons (you can't see me yet):

9.13pm There was a clip from Mar Lodge, then as soon as it came on it was my turn ! I was nervous to start off with but I think it went well. Here's the video of the whole clip, with more notes about it below !

Nick introduced me by saying how impressed he had been when I was on Autumnwatch before, then asked me about my skeletons and some audience questions which I hadn't rehearsed at all:

I got to show off my new badger skeleton which I had only finished the night before ! (I'll write more here next week about how I put it together).

Then Chris Packham came over and said some VERY nice things about me. He said: "Jake: of all the people I have met in the last few years you are one of the greatest young naturalists. It was an absolute privilege coming to your house and see your bone collection. I know you've updated it since, I've got a few more myself. For old guys like us, to see young people doing this kind of thing is absolutely fantastic, so keep it up". That was incredibly kind.

Nick mentioned my book, then they showed my pine marten footage, and Chris said I was a fantastic young man and everyone applauded and my part ended.

9.30pm After the show the audience left and I talked to Chris some more about the book (he's mentioned in the dedications)

Then Martin Hughes-Games (who is the third Winterwatch presenter, and another massive wildlife expert) looked at my badger skulls with Nick:

I gave him a copy of my book too. He is a really nice man.

10.00pm After the show the crew like to finish early, so I left my skeletons there and went back to the hotel the BBC had booked for me. I had a drink and thanked lots of people on Twitter who had made nice comments about me.

This morning I went back onto set to say goodbye to everyone. I chatted more to Chris and Nick, and had a photograph with Lucy the producer, Nick Baker and Louis  the researcher, who were all amazing and made me feel so much at home. I had such a good time. Thank you everyone !

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