Britain Goes Wild with Bill Oddie was a live BBC TV show, broadcast nightly, Monday – Thursday, from May 31, 2004 to June 17, 2004.
Following on from the previous year's Wild In Your Garden, presenters Bill Oddie, Kate Humble and Simon King spent one hour each evening, describing wildlife and presenting live action from a number of hidden cameras in or near nest boxes, as well as a badger sett. Short, pre-filmed documentary pieces were also included. While Oddie and Humble both presented the series from an organic farm in Devon, England, where the nestboxes and sett were located, King worked on location - at Bass Rock observing gannets in the first week, at a quarry observing a family of peregrine falcons in the second week, at the London Wetlands Centre in the third week, and joining Oddie and Humble on the farm for the final programme.
It set a record for its timeslot of 8pm on BBC Two on its first evening of broadcast of 3.4 million viewers — one million more than the Channel 4 programme showing at that time. It also created a run on nest boxes for wild birds and bumble bees, bird baths and bird feed from suppliers, likened to the Delia power phenomenon created when Delia Smith mentioned the tools and ingredients she was using on her cooking programme Delia's How to Cook.
Oddie presented an update of some of the featured animals later in 2004.
A sequel, Springwatch with Bill Oddie, was broadcast in 2005.
The series' theme music was composed by David Poore, and is still used as the theme for Springwatch and Autumnwatch.
Famous quotes containing the words wild and/or bill:
“There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knolwedge, Grammatica parda, tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard to which I have referred.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Mildred Pierce: You look down on me because I work for a living, don’t you? You always have. All right, I work. I cook food and sell it and make a profit on it, which, I might point out, you’re not too proud to share with me.
Monte Beragon: Yes, I take money from you, Mildred. But not enough to make me like kitchens or cooks. They smell of grease.
Mildred Pierce: I don’t notice you shrinking away from a fifty- dollar bill because it smells of grease.”
—Ranald MacDougall (1915–1973)