There was now real concern in the BBC camp regarding the wolves.
They’d been gone for seven whole days and the majority of the crew felt that they were not necessarily coming back.
Even if they did come back they couldn’t possibly have pups which would have starved by now. Unless we just didn’t see the mother coming out of the den at night to get some fresh air.
Unless she had such a cache of food from previous hunting forays she didn’t need feeding, or unless the hunting party had been unsuccessful so far and had nothing to bring back to the pups and mum.
All of these points of conjecture made it rather difficult to plan events.
Jonny Keeling exchanged emails with Fergus Beeley back in Bristol, who in turn sought the advice of various scientists and series producer Tim Martin.
The plan was to continue filming Sally the snowy owl throughout and look for some Arctic hares to film, perhaps with leverets.
We could also get more footage of the Jaeger nest, especially when the eggs hatched.
Another plan was to look for a fox den in the hope that we might be able to film a mother and cubs.
So Mark kept filming what he could around the story while Jonny, “H” and I kept trying to locate other stuff.
When the crew does find something to film, the dedication of these guys comes to the fore.
No matter how tired Mark and Jonny are, they are always on the case, eventually returning to camp exhausted having perhaps captured just a few seconds of the final programme, if anything.
Fundamentally, they are all wildlife people and occasionally their particular area of interest comes through.
For “H”, it seems to be birds and I’d say the same for Mark. Jonny is evidently a good all-rounder.
As for me? Well no-one seems to know anything about plants so I’ve picked up the mantle having a natural interest in them and I am rapidly becoming knowledgeable on Arctic plant life.
It’s not just plants either. Insects abound and whoever it was that told me mosquitoes didn’t exist above the latitude of 75 degrees – well I’d like them to join us at our base camp for a day without insect repellent!