Living the Irish wildlife

Living the Wildlife, is a new Irish nature tv series. Filmed exclusively in Ireland by the Emmy-award winning Irish cinematographer Colin Stafford Johnson.
Cabinteely man Colin Stafford Johnson has swum with sharks and spends months most years tracking tigers. Now he's tracking wildlife nearer to home, for the new RTÉ TV series, Living the Wildlife.
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Colin usual job was to track and filmed animals all over the world everything from big cats in India to crocodiles in the amazon.

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Colin Stafford Johnson is a wildlife cameraman living and working in the west of Ireland
Episode 1 Living the Wildlife
In episode one, Colin follows a trail of milk cartons to track an urban fox family living on a farm on the very edge of Dublin city. He then travels to Limerick and takes his cameras underwater to film sea lampreys bizarre, prehistoric vampire fish . He will meet Mayo farmer John Tiernan who has adapted his farming methods to suit a migratory corncrake he has never seen but just heard. Together Colin and John travel to Tory Island in the hope of catching a glimpse of this elusive bird.

Colin Stafford Johnson relates the inspiration for Living the Wildlife
Just over a year ago, I was sitting outside one of those nice cafes by the seafront in Dun Laoghaire. The road in front of me was full of traffic, people were rushing by laden with shopping bags, a few were relaxing on the nearby benches, eyes closed and faces pointed toward the spring sun. Then above the din, I heard the cry of the fastest creature that has ever lived on earth. The waitress arrived with my coffee and I got up to investigate. I wandered towards the old church and looked to the spire where the call seemed to have come from. Nothing to be seen. I scanned the sky, In the distance and from a great height, I saw something that appeared to be falling from the sky. It fell until it hit a pigeon that was flying towards the church. The poor old pigeon fell to earth behind a hedge and some of its feathers drifted slowly after it. What appeared to have been a falling object suddenly spread its wings and followed its kill to the ground. I walked back to the café and sat down. My coffee was still hot enough to drink. I had just witnessed a peregrine falcon make a kill. In its stoop it could have reached speeds of over100 miles per hour. But not a single person had noticed. Nobody had tuned in to the calling falcon that had initially grabbed my attention. It had not made itself heard to them above the man-made din. It had not been heard because nobody knew what to listen for. It seemed that the people around me had simply tuned out of nature.

For years, I have travelled the world and have been fortunate to witness all kinds of exciting wildlife events. I have sat in the montane rainforests of Papua New Guinea and watched birds of paradise dance. In India, I have been close enough to fighting tigers to have felt the vibrations of their roars in my body. In Guyana, I have been close enough to a 25ft anaconda to know that they’ve got really bad breath.
As a cameraman I have been involved in making some visually beautiful films but of late I have questioned how valuable that has been. What I hope to do in this series is to show people how much we have in this country that is worth cherishing and protecting. I hope that by making films here about Irish wildlife for Irish people will be rewarding. To often, we watch films about amazing animals in amazing places that end with a warning that all this is about to disappear. We tend to feel just helpless. Televisions are turned off and everything just seems plain depressing.
In Living the Wildlife, we will certainly come across a few issues that need sorting out however at the programme’s end, I hope we feel that we can do something about them. These are our animals. They live in our country. The solution to any problems they face is in our hands.

Throughout this series Colin takes to the road in his camper van on a journey that will take us across Ireland in search of all sorts of wildlife and a few wild characters that share his passion for nature.
Week by week we will follow him as he builds hides, tracks animals and talks to experts. He will show us the wildlife all around us and how easy it can be to see and enjoy, the simple pleasures of an afternoons butterfly catching with your children among the sand dunes, the exhilarating experience of swimming with basking sharks off the south coast, the search for the elusive corncrake in Tory Island and the impact of modern life on the longest living animal.
The native Irish Red Squirrel endangered species
Irish Foxes
White tailed sea Eagle back in Ireland
Golden Eagle Ireland
Irish Birds
Rabbits And Hares In Ireland
Irish dog breeds
Peregrines and hawks
Wild Animal Relationships
Irish wildlife quiz

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Living the Irish wildlife