Sir David Attenborough’s landmark series Wild Isles, which features some of the wonderful wildlife of west Wales, debuts tonight, Sunday March 12.

Filmed over the course of three years, the five-part series aims to shine a light on the challenges affecting the British Isles and celebrate nature that exists on our doorsteps.

The first episode, Our Precious Isles, sees broadcaster and naturalist Sir David, 96, watching puffins chased by greedy gulls on Pembrokeshire’s Skomer Island.

READ MORE

And the fifth episode, Oceans, spotlights Manx Shearwaters in Cardigan Bay and on Skomer and Pembrokeshire spider crabs.

It will also feature new behaviour from killer whales hunting seals, golden eagles scavenging in mountains, and sinister plants holding unsuspecting insects hostage.

The biggest colony of northern gannets in the world will be shown migrating to the east coast of Scotland, and barnacle geese travelling to the west coast attempting to avoid the white-tailed eagle.

Capturing the first ever complete sequence of hunting white-tailed eagles, formerly extinct in the British Isles, took more than 70 days and saw wildlife cameraman and 2022 Strictly Come Dancing champion Hamza Yassin on the job.

The introductory episode will also highlight Britain and Ireland’s diverse geology from the chalk formations of southern England to the limestone pavements of Yorkshire, as well as the rugged granite of Northumberland and the volcanic basalt of the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.

Despite Britain and Ireland’s rich and varied habitats, Sir David will highlight that it is among the most-depleted in the world and asks how we can restore our wild isles for future generations.

The remaining four hour-long episodes of Wild Isles will celebrate the isles’ four key habitats – woodlands, grasslands, freshwater and marine.

Sir David will appear in Richmond Park to introduce the Woodland episode; a hay meadow in Dorset for Grassland; a chalk stream in Wiltshire for Freshwater and the Green Bridge of Wales on the Pembrokeshire coast to introduce Ocean.

He will sign off from Skomer Island at the end of the Ocean episode.

Across the five episodes, the Wild Isles crew filmed in 145 locations and 96 species which took 1,631 days to film.

Episode One: Our Precious Isles will air on BBC One and iPlayer on March 12 at 7pm.