August 21st 2014

I awoke today to the most stunning rainbow out over the fields. Dawn breaks now around 6am and so low light brings with it a golden glow before the day fully awakes.  A time Richard Jefferies would have loved I'm sure. Having written a blog posting for the Radio 4 Tweet of the Day website, I found out today only three lines will be used. It seems a shame to waste my efforts. And so, longer than usual in this blog, herewith the entire thought for the day.

"It was one of our greatest nature writers Richard Jefferies who wrote in Hours of Spring, one of his last essays “It is sweet on awaking in the early morn to listen to the small bird singing on the tree. No sound of voice or flute is like to the bird”.  Almost 150 years later Radio 4’s Tweet of the Day provides a sweet awakening for its many listeners around the world.

Having returned from an extended leave to celebrate my half century, I was offered possibly the best birthday present I could have dreamed of “would I like to produce the second series of Tweet of the Day”. New bird species are being found every year but there are currently 10,530 known species of bird in the world. Of these 150 are now extinct.  But that still left me with over 31,000 bird species to choose from, if I also included the 20,964 recognised subspecies. This second series has a global reach, I had 120 programmes to make, I had a blank canvas which allowed me to choose any birds in the world, and I had a first recording deadline with Sir David Attenborough by mid-July. I had just 9 weeks.

Luckily at my disposal were the great team involved in the first series of Tweet of the Day, winner of the prestigious Broadcasting Guild Award. Writer Brett Westwood had just left the BBC but agreed to put pen to paper for this second series.  Fellow producer Sarah Blunt again agreed to act as script editor, and one of the best wildlife knowledge researchers I know, Rob Collis swung immediately into action, providing much needed species lists, facts and details. Excellent, we had a producer, writer, researcher and a script editor but as yet, no birds, and no birdsong.

Some birds instantly came into mind, as they bring wonder and glamour to the natural world. Blue bird of paradise, emperor penguin, blue footed booby, resplendent quetzal slipped under the wire immediately. Others like the unique wrybill, or the blood sucking vampire finch, waited patiently in the wings as encore understudies.  I now had the birds, but what of the birdsong?

In the time I had available it would be impossible to source specially recorded birdsong from around the world. This is where sound archivist Claire Diamond came to the rescue. As the World’s leading wildlife production house, the BBC’s Natural History Unit has been to every corner of the globe. For two weeks she and I immersed ourselves in this vast catalogue of sound. Amazingly some species I desired were not included in the back catalogue. Enter stage left the Macaulay Library in America, part of the Cornell Labs of Ornithology. What the BBC didn’t have, Macaulay did. The series had hatched.

I could only choose 120 bird species, therefore some favourites amongst the listeners will be missing, yet I hope to bring you the best of what the avian world has to offer around the world; the spectacular, the bizarre, the songsters or in some cases those we’re about to lose forever. I hope Richard Jefferies would approve of this sweet awakening on the airwaves."