In the old days... it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes.

London has fine museums, the British Library is one of the greatest library institutions in the world... It's got everything you want, really.

I'm luckier than my grandfather, who didn't move more than five miles from the village in which he was born.

People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure.

If I were beginning my career today, I don't think I would take the same direction. Television is at a crossroads at the moment. And although I am not up to date technologically, I suspect that somewhere out there people are conveying things about natural history by means other than television, and I think if I were beginning today, I'd be there.

What I am interested in with birds, just as I am with spiders or monkeys, is what they do and why they do it.

The process of making natural history films is to try to prevent the animal knowing you are there, so you get glimpses of a non-human world, and that is a transporting thing.