RIP Tony Soper

Yesterday I was saddened to hear that Tony Soper had died at the age of 95. Personally, Tony did so much to engender a love of birds and wildlife for me which endures to this day and this is still a personal life long passion. Tony was a founder of the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, he was a cameraman initially but seemlessly took to presenting his smooth, calm, suarth yet authoritative presnting style was ideally suited to wildlife programmes of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. He was initially on 'Animal Magic', but Johnny Morris's anthopomorphic take on animals was not Tony's style and he presented programmes such as 'Discovering Birds', 'Go Birding with Tony Soper' and the 'Birdwatches' which had such an impact. I vividly remember 'Birdwatch' at Minsmere and especially the Farne Islands when panning through a Sandwich Tern colony, the camer briefly stopped on an orange billed Term, a Lesser Crested Tern, yet Tony didn't mention it. He later explained he couldn't as the colony was on an inaccessible island where landing for twitchers would be impossible! The series 'Discovering Birds', was iconic and I particularly liked the programme on autumn migration, which featured the Scillies and the episode where he visited the Camargue in France! 'Go Birding', followed a similar pattern and Tony again visited Scilly. I never met Tony in person, which is a regret but his programmes instilled a great love of nature in me, he will be sadly missed, rest in peace, Tony.