News

The Alan Titchmarsh Show

05/03/2008

On the 28th of February the producers of The Alan Titchmarsh Show contacted the centre asking if we had a female Falconer and a Kestrel available to appear on the 5th of March show as they were doing a feature on the plight of the Common Kestrel. With only 3 working days notice and after numerous phone calls the show had organised our transport needs and added extra UK birds to the invitation. At 04.00am on the Wednesday morning Kerry and Nikki started their adventure by going to the centre to load the van with equipment and birds.
We took Kyla the White Tailed Sea Eagle, Boris the Golden Eagle, Reilly the Common Buzzard, Branston and Pickles the Kestrels and finally Muppet the Little Owl. We left the centre at 04.45am for the long journey to the BBC Television Centre in London.
We arrived safe and sound at 10.00am, after being introduced to our P.A for the day we were settled into studio 4 and met Alan Titchmarsh, and Wreck Detective, Coast presenter and Zoologist Miranda Krestovnikoff and the rest of the crew. We were then required for sound checks, rehearsals and finally make up.
Over the lunch time period we were taken to the “Green Room” to experience the excellent hospitality. Having enjoyed our lunch we then set off to explore the Television Centre and this gave us plenty of photo opportunities.
Once back at the studio it was then count down to the live show going out to over 5 million viewers. At this point both of us were very nervous however all went smoothly the birds seemed relaxed and behaved well even with having 90 seconds dead line to clear the stage of all props and birds.
After the show Alan and Miranda came to handle some of the birds for photo opportunities and to say goodbye.
We then loaded the birds and equipment back onto the transport for the long journey back home. We arrived back at the centre at around 21.00hrs we then settled the birds back into their weatherings and gave them a good feed.
We both enjoyed the experience of going to the Television Centre, the memory will stay with us for a long time and a big thank you to all who were involved.