panama and pole

Off today to a wee island off the coast of Panama.

We're there to film some of the last hundred remaining pygmy sloths.

These most rare of beasts apparently swim in the Caribbean ! i cant wait.

it also looks like I'm off to the south pole in November!

nitin

Had a great couple of days working with the composer and musician Nitin Sawhney, in his Brixton Studio.

I was filming him as he worked on the score for Human Planet. I was in awe watching and listening to him playing, a real honour.

on the Thursday evening i got to hang out with him and James Taylor at the Royal Albert Hall as they jammed on the vast organ there.

very very cool to have the place to ourselves!

New York and New Orleans

Now home.

A busy three weeks in America.

I've finished on bears and this trip was somewhat different. First stop was New York to film two stories for Human Planets urban

programme. Bee keepers on top of Skyscrapers and Rat Catchers

in Manhattans less salubrious restaurants.

It was a full on week. The days spent up high getting stung and the nights down low trying not to get bitten.
We visited a wonderful, surprising market where our bee keepers sold their wares and everything on sale came from the city. There where stunning veggies, flowers, pickles and preserves.

We were lucky enough to visit one vast roof top of 50,000 m2 that was one huge allotment ( well it was really a field in the sky). I did a crane shot starting on a fellow pulling up carrots and then start to move as a wheel barrow trundles past, slowly rising to reveal the Manhattan skyline behind us and the streets down below. quite fun.

Our rat catchers were great characters. We couldn't get into the restaurants until they shut at oneish, then we sneaked in with torches. QUITE QUITE disgusting. NEVER eat Chinese in New York. We were all unable to eat for a good 48 hrs after this.

Then onto New Orleans.

This was a one hr special with Stephen Fry and Mark Carwadine looking at the oil slick off the Louisiana coast.
5 star hotel and blueberries for breakfast! my kind of shoot.

Stephen and Mark were charming. Due to Stephens schedule we had a really tight timetable to get our film. we had to try and get ten minutes of broadcast television every day.....tricky.

It was fascinating to see the vast slick BP pr machine in action. and the story defiantly isn't one sided. I went thinking BP was the bad guy, but realised we're the ones that demand the oil and they just provide it. A very complicated problem with the solution being fairly unpalatable for almost all of us.

I do know I had a lot of fun and laughs on air boats, speed boats, helicopters, green peace boats, BP boats and fishing boats.

We also nearly got sucked up by a water spout ( well not that nearly!)
New Orleans is amazing, when you get away from the tourist street its little lanes of wonderful architecture, great food, stunning music and dancing. doesn't feel like America at all.

All in all a full on, challenging three weeks, but fascinating and fun.

Deer fawn pt 3

And today not only did we have Juliette catching and eating a deer fawn but her three tiny cubs were getting in on the act as well!

Deer fawn prt 2

Ok so two days ago I was sat with a deer fawn nuzzling on my lap.
Yesterday we were walking along a lane, tracking juliette, a mother of three as she walked parallel to us in the woods. Suddenly we hear a child like scream, we ran in to find the bear ripping a dear fawn to pieces.
This was a different image to the gentle lumbering vegetarian earth mothers i had been following
I took one step to close and BWAARR. A 250 lb killing machine with blood dripping jaws charges.
Ooooookkk fine by me, your the boss. I'll back off.
She then trundles off and feeds her cubs at the base of a ceder tree.

June in the north woods

I know, I know,
Things were busy I didn't write.
It's early June and I'm back with the bears. Young mum lily has abandoned her cub hope who is being kept alive out in the forest with food supplements.
We went out last night in torrential rain and filmed the little sodden ball of fur being hand fed blueberries by Sue. poor little thing. It's stirring up massive controversy across the state betwen the ' intervene' and ' and let nature take it's course ' camps.
I'm a fan of the nut cases, one of whom things 'hope' Is the Jesus Christ of bears !
Driving along this morning we spotted a White tailed deer and two fawns, we stopped to film and the mum disappeared and the two tiny fawns dropped into the grass and became instantly invisible. I moved closer and crouched with the camera. One of the fawns rose and shakily stepped over to me and settled next to me as I stroked It! A wonderful wonderful experience.

April 1st

Currently sat with Juliette - a 7 year old mum- and her three new cubs.
Spring has arrived. It was yesterday ! Yep all the ice vanished in about 48 hrs. It's now warm, barmy and the first midge has been seen.
Juliette's cubs have changed noticeable in the last couple of days. One is particularly adventuress and is clambering up any available branch, although Lilly's cub Hope seems way ahead of them, clambering 6 ft up a pine tree yesterday. She also got me in trouble.
I was quietly sat there with little docile hope off to my left and Lilly wandering off right. I turned to try and film a silhouette of Lilly in front of the lake. I turn and see that hope has spotted me and is stumbling toward me! I try and put her off with hand waving. Any second Lilly will turn and see me with her cub!
Hope gets to within a foot and shows no sign of stopping so I have to leap over a fallen tree. Hope screams, Lilly turns, bellows and come charging, I shriek and ruin another pair of trousers.
Don't trust cubs.