Wildlife on One - S12E04 - Sparrows of St James’s (December 8th 1983)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Here's something special for Attenborough and wildlife fans. I've been tracking this down for quite some time, and here it is at last, one of the few lost episodes of Wildlife on One! It's episode 04 from season 12, Sparrows of St James’s originally broadcast on BBC One in 1983.
The story behind this is that months ago, I stumbled upon a UA-cam video from the channel @mummygiraffepresentsclassi8722, where they filmed the credits of this episode on their CRT TV. I couldn't believe my eyes, as this particular episode was completely missing, and no recording had ever been made available online. Unfortunately, comments were disabled for that video, which drove me nuts. I tracked down the owner’s Twitter account, but messaging was disabled there too. I took a chance by commenting on an old post, and to my delight, they replied to my request to buy the tape (a Beta tape, apparently). While they didn’t want to sell it, they generously offered to have it digitally transferred and even arranged for the company to forward me the raw footage so I could do my usual clean-up and restoration work!
Huge thanks and credit go to @mummygiraffepresentsclassi8722 from the UA-cam channel "mummy giraffe presents classic uk tv”, not only for helping preserve what was essentially lost media, but also for being awesome and constantly uploading a massive amount of vintage UK TV content for everyone to enjoy. If more people and channels were willing to collaborate like this, it would be much easier to track down rare material and make sure it gets preserved for the people who care about it.
Using the raw movie files their transfer company provided me, I worked on restoring it by first de-interlacing with QTGMC, seamlessly patching a few missing seconds of both video and audio from the intro, fixing about a dozen frames affected by tape damage and also corrected two scenes showing inside the sparrow's nest that were having a strobe light effect for some reason. I also cleaned up the sound as much as possible without losing the ambient background noise, and did some colour correction, as the original recording was fairly old and a bit washed out.
I personally think it came out great, and I hope people will enjoy watching this episode about the rarely seen life of sparrows living around Buckingham Palace!
As usual, you are encouraged to go download the full resolution video from my Internet Archive page. And please, get in touch me me if you anyone have others missing episode they would like to have preserved!
____
Sparrows of St James’s
First broadcast: Thu 8th Dec 1983, 20:05 on BBC One LondonThe “Sparrows of St James’s" features House Sparrows - one of the most familiar birds in Britain. We see them in almost every public space, but how much we really know about them? Theo Cockerell's remarkable photography tries to answer some of the questions. The choice of St James's Park, London, as the setting for this programme reveals some of the character of the sparrows themselves. Producer Robin Prytherch explains: “Here, the sparrows are so used to people that the cameraman had an ideal opportunity to get close to the birds".
Contributors:
Narrator: David Attenborough
Filmed and Directed By: Theo Cockerell
Written and Produced By: Robin Prytherch
A Rare beautiful film. Thank you for posting. Really enjoyed watching and it’s in great improved quality too.
Keep these episodes coming. Wildlife on One are classics!!!
@skinnyvthebasementarchivist
Hey, can you upload National Geographic's Stalking Leopards narrated by Keith David on your UA-cam channel?
I do not have this one but could arrange to get it if you are truly interested and couldn't find it anywhere else online. Let me know and I could upload it to my internet Archive page.
@@skinnyvthebasementarchivist it’s true; I really am interested and can’t find it anywhere else.
@quiggc1 Ok, I think I found a copy and wouldn’t need to order a copy of the DVD. I will be uploading it to my Internet Archive page tomorrow and will comment back once its done👍
@@skinnyvthebasementarchivist I can wait
@quiggc1 It is now available on my Internet Archive page, you can find the link in my profile page👍
Hi Vinnie
I’m trying to send a message to your contact part of your website. It won’t let me send for some reason. Is there another email address I can contact you on. Wildlife video file related.
Paul 🙂
Strange, I’ll have to tale a look, thanks for letting me know. You can e-mail me at skinnyv AT dbwbp DOT com 👍
Absolutely mesmerising
Thank you very much indeed sir David
I personnally loved that episode, there is something cool about getting documentary on species that you see around constantly and take for granted.