Challenge one: How many red squirrels can you see in 1 hr?!

What a day!

Having started writing a post at 10am this morning I can't believe I'm only just getting round to it now, nearly 12 hours later. That's the problem with being surrounded by both amazing wildlife and fascinating people, time passes in an instant.

I've just hotfooted it from the not-so-snug-snug (see before and after shots above with Tim Scoones Executive Producer and Stephen Moss Production Editor watching nervously) where the producers, VIP's and other skeleton staff watch live transmission from. Headsets donned, the director and production co-ordinator's voices fill your ears with every possible instruction for the running of the show. Tonight was a finely tuned exercise in timing. The first quarter of the show rattled through fairly fast meaning it was running 1 minute under schedule. So, word went out to Bill and Kate to relax it out a bit and at the half way mark timing was perfect. However, being a little too relaxed, as the end came into view it was running 2 minutes over. Luckily, this is exactly the kind of thing the BBC know how to handle. In this case the last 3 minutes of the show are known as the 'buffer' and can be altered as needed. It's great because it allows some flexibility for Bill, Kate, Simon and Gordon to be reactive to the wildlife around them as well as beautifully scripted.

You might also be interested to know a few things about how Bill and Kate work that I picked up from hanging around the rehearsals. Bill never practices his opening bits properly but instead opts for a steady flow of hilarious banter to keep it all fresh for the live show, whereas Kate and Simon run through almost word for word. And during transmission, Bill only gets direct instructions for him in his ear-piece ("Bill, say more" or "Bill, don't go there" for example), whereas Kate gets every instruction for everyone so she's filtering out a near constant stream of information as she's talking.

Very impressive!

Anyway, enough of the production chat, down to the serious business of my first challenge! Mike got things off to a swing with this challenge - "I challenge you to see as many red squirrels as possible in 1 hour and get photographic evidence of each one". Well Mike, I hope I'm not going to sound a bit cocky when I say I think I triumphed on this one.

After careful thought and consideration about where I could maximise squirrel viewing, I opted for joining the BBC wildlife cameramen as they filmed the second stage of the squirrel assault course. So, as you see below, in an hour spent silently sitting, we were not short on squirrels! I think I counted 7 at once, though to be honest my eyes are not yet attuned to the subtle squirrel characteristics that differentiate them as individuals so it may have been more, or less. Either way, I not only saw 7 highly endangered and very lovely animals for you Mike, but I saw them learning to fly across the jump on the second stage of the assault course.

Very cool!

Am sorting through the challenges for tomorrow so please do keep emailing me with your suggestions. And Andrew, don't worry, I'm working on the foraging challenge and will happily take it up once I can track down someone who knows a whole lot more about fungi than me!

Yawn. Time for bed, if I can sleep with all this excitement ping-ponging through my head...