Telly Talk: Going underground
When you are first introduced to a programme that has Chris Packham focusing on badgers, rabbits and water voles, the urge is to reach for a copy of Wind In The Willows and throw a toad in there for good measure. Silly us though, as clearly a toad doesn’t live in a burrow but in a massive stately home, according to the text, and so would never qualify to be a part of this gentle and oddly invasive (despite its best efforts) study of burrow-dwelling creatures. And so wave goodbye to the kids’ bestseller, giving it simply a small nod by naming the male water vole Mr Ratty, and it’s time to get to grips with what happens behind closed burrows, deep underground, with our furry digging friends.
The Burrowers is a three-part series showing six months in the life of the best artificially made burrows Chris and the gang of animal doctors and rescue workers could research and construct. There are three – one for the rabbits, one for the water voles, and another for the badgers. Did you know that badger sets are protected? Makes it darn difficult to research what their burrow is like, I can tell you. Still, they measured and explained, and got the appropriate heights of the mouth of the entrance and the chambers. Oh, and found half a dozen adorable rescue badger pups to take up residence that squirmed and nuzzled in Chris’ arms until you just knew that if Paris Hilton was watching this there’d be a new basket in her menagerie for Brock.
“Maybe his name had given her second thoughts about his integrity”
The water voles were less cuddly, but really quite fascinating in thier determination not to do what the team wanted them to. There was a male, the aforementioned Mr Ratty, and a female named Bonnie. Water voles are very territorial so any more would have meant trouble. As it was these two were not prepared to share anyway. They quickly divided the burrow into two – with two bedrooms, two latrines, separate living areas – and went about staying out of each others’ way. When they did cross paths Bonnie was the dominant and didn’t make any secret of the fact she wanted nothing to do with Mr Ratty. Maybe his name had given her second thoughts about his integrity. Regardless, it was quite good fun hearing Chris’ hopeful and somewhat reaching commentary over a pair of water voles that seemed determined not to mate and create their own community within the precious burrow. Did they really have a ‘fiery Latin relationship’ as he hoped, or maybe they just didn’t like each other, simple as? Ever since GCSE science there’s been a glee in seeing what might happen when experiments don’t go according to the teacher’s plan.
Finally, there were the rabbits in their warren. Really, this looks like it might just be a question of maths, as it was announced quite clearly that there were eight does and two bucks in the original burrow collective. One month in and Hazel, the alpha lady rabbit had added a litter of five to that number. A week on and three more litters had arrived. Good thing they built a big warren. And as cute as baby animals are, what was really interesting was how they were left to develop and grow by themselves down deep.
It’s an uneasy watch, hoping for animals to procreate and form families to study their behaviours, but then it’s probably the right watch – sans the anthropomorphism of so many studies. They’re not actual babies, they’re creatures – and none of them are likely to live in a stately home called Toad Hall.
The Burrowers, BBC2, Friday 9 August 2013
