Dipper in a Lake District beck To find a dipper's nest behind a waterfall is impressive. To film fledglings launching out through the cascade on their first flight is awesome. Rob, the cameraman on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's programme about wildlife in the Wye Valley, should be proud. We see two beaks reaching out toward the curtain of water. Somehow the camera catches the moment of launch and picks them up as they scramble out of the river onto the safety of a rock. And Rob photographs the adult bird swimming and foraging for invertebrates on the bed of the river.
It's a privilege to share such an experience and to see a few moments of film that must have taken months of study and surveillance to capture. Perhaps Rob the photographer has studied this particular dipper over several seasons. The adult we see swimming is ringed. And so is one of the fledglings. There are ironies in our spying into the secret life of the dipper in this secluded spot as we sit back and relax on a January evening in the warmth of home.
Learning more of the making of a film can be the best part, as David Attenborough recognises with the wildlife diaries that conclude his epic series and show the challenges and the time-scale. I'd like to know how cameras were set -up to capture that moment of flight from behind the waterfall- timing could not be predicted.
So here we are, as Rob reveals mysteries impossible to penetrate without advanced photographic skills and years of studying wildlife.
A cascade is mesmerising, always. And there's a secret hidden in mossy rocks behind the waterfall. How do those food-begging youngsters make themselves heard through the falling water? I want to hear the waterfall but instead we hear jaunty music to echo the youngsters' dipping movement that gives the bird its name, or rather a name that humans confer. Why must there be this intrusive music? It almost drowns out the cheeping of the youngsters which few viewers will ever hear for themselves, so let's hear it now. Technically, I'd like to know how you cut out a loud waterfall and yet catch the youngsters' cheeping.
On Sunday evening there is a striking song in a radio 3 production of Ford's Tis Pity She's A Whore. In Deep, the song is called. It's the wedding night of Annabella and Lord Soranzo and the music is voluptuous. But nothing is what is seems: the bridegroom's former lover tries to poison him and is herself killed. The bride is pregnant by her brother. A 17th century Jacobean drama with music by Jimi Hendrix and Nick Cave. Can't wait for it to be repeated on BBC I player. In Deep is sung by two of the cast, Jessie Buckley and Indira Varma.
Learning more of the making of a film can be the best part, as David Attenborough recognises with the wildlife diaries that conclude his epic series and show the challenges and the time-scale. I'd like to know how cameras were set -up to capture that moment of flight from behind the waterfall- timing could not be predicted.
So here we are, as Rob reveals mysteries impossible to penetrate without advanced photographic skills and years of studying wildlife.
A cascade is mesmerising, always. And there's a secret hidden in mossy rocks behind the waterfall. How do those food-begging youngsters make themselves heard through the falling water? I want to hear the waterfall but instead we hear jaunty music to echo the youngsters' dipping movement that gives the bird its name, or rather a name that humans confer. Why must there be this intrusive music? It almost drowns out the cheeping of the youngsters which few viewers will ever hear for themselves, so let's hear it now. Technically, I'd like to know how you cut out a loud waterfall and yet catch the youngsters' cheeping.
On Sunday evening there is a striking song in a radio 3 production of Ford's Tis Pity She's A Whore. In Deep, the song is called. It's the wedding night of Annabella and Lord Soranzo and the music is voluptuous. But nothing is what is seems: the bridegroom's former lover tries to poison him and is herself killed. The bride is pregnant by her brother. A 17th century Jacobean drama with music by Jimi Hendrix and Nick Cave. Can't wait for it to be repeated on BBC I player. In Deep is sung by two of the cast, Jessie Buckley and Indira Varma.
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