Sam & Ade Go Birding | Series 2 Preview (5)
Samuel West and Adrian Edmondson return for a new series, travelling through our most spectacular landscapes in search of Britain’s extraordinary birdlife.
From a magical dawn chorus in the Yorkshire Dales to raptors in West Wales and vast seabird colonies on the East Coast, the pair share laughs, stories and the occasional pint as Ade’s passion for birding deepens. A warm, witty & wise celebration of friendship, nature and the joy of looking up.
In the Yorkshire Dales, close to where he grew up, Ade picks up Samuel West from the set of All Creatures Great and Small for a weekend of birdwatching. Their adventure begins as it should: with an after-work pint by the river, watching swallows, swifts and house martins swoop and wheel overhead in a dazzling aerial display.
But there is no time to linger. Sam insists that, to experience a true spring dawn chorus, they must rise at 3am. Sleepy but game, Ade follows Sam into the early-morning darkness, where the Dales gradually burst into sound. Chiffchaffs, warblers, robins, tits and cuckoos all make themselves heard, creating a glorious, overlapping soundtrack that proves both thrilling and baffling for Ade.
After breakfast and a well-earned kip, Ade takes a trip down memory lane, recalling his father’s less-than-successful attempts to teach him the birds and the bees as a teenager. Later, Sam takes Ade to a farm used as a location in the first series of All Creatures.
There, sitting quietly together, they watch a swallow repeatedly return to its nest to feed its newly hatched chicks - a small but enchanting glimpse of family life in the natural world.
The following morning, Ade brings out his guitar while Sam checks the local patch, before the pair head high onto the moor in search of curlews. There, they meet one of the threatened bird’s most devoted champions and discover why protecting this striking, much-loved species matters so deeply.
Sam & Ade Go Birding returns Thursday 1st October at 7pm on 5.
