- This film is about the Burren, which is this rather extraordinary rocky world on the west coast of Ireland.

And I've been in wildlife filmmaking for close on 40 years now.

And my very first job was here.

I came down and couldn't believe this different landscape that we have in Ireland.

I didn't know it at the time, I lived on the other coast.

And to see this vast rocky desert and the moods and the changing light was extraordinary.

(gentle music continues) You expect Ireland to be green and verdant and rich.

But this place was different and I've been enchanted ever since.

And it's taken a few decades to come back and make a film here, but we finally got round to it.

So we're setting off for the next two years to capture its natural history, its wildlife, its landscape.

And we hope viewers around the world will enjoy it and see something different about Ireland.

In Ireland, the weather rules everything.

We always say we need two years to do anything in Ireland.

'cause literally a season can be wiped out with say rain for weeks and weeks and weeks and you just get nothing.

Everything heads for home, sits in its burrows, hides away, and we can get one bad spring and summer, which if you were depending on it would mean you're getting nothing.

So fingers crossed, we'll get some good weather and fingers crossed, the animals will be happy and relaxed and do their thing.

(gentle music continues) Big challenges are that it's bare rock, a lot of it.

Also, it has small little pockets of woodland where creatures live and survive.

So we have to try and be careful and be stealthy and be low-impact, try and capture them with their natural behavior.

(birds chirping) (gentle music) Specific challenges are in Ireland, we don't have massive predators.

We don't have great herds of wildebeests storming across the plains.

So a lot of the beauty is finding the little creatures and trying to capture behavior and trying to capture intimate behavior that shows them going about their daily lives undisturbed by us trying to film them.

(gentle music continues) (birds chirping) A big target for this film, for our production is to film pine martens, which almost became extinct in Ireland and Britain.

They are these phantoms of the forest.

When I grew up, always passionate about wildlife.

The animal that we all talked about in whispers was the pine marten.

And if you got to see a glimpse of one in a decade, you were so lucky.

Now they have made something of a comeback and the Burren is one of their strongholds.

They survived in the small pockets of woodland that still exist here.

So we're hoping to be able to film pine martens and get some intimate behavior.

(gentle music continues) You can see this is one of the magic places in the Burren here, this hidden valley.

Hardly anyone ever comes here and sheltered, warm.

It's March and the flowers are starting to burst outta the ground.

So we're getting the cameras in early.

(birds chirping) We have a bit of time ahead of us, but we also have to make use of good weather like this.

We've noticed some droppings around this rock in front of me, which would suggest that both fox and pine marten visit here from time to time.

So we're using one of our key pieces of gear, which is a remote camera trap.

This is a very high-quality 4K camera inside this case.

And we have a trigger that if any of the animals go on the rock, it'll trigger the camera to record.

The fox or pine marten may only visit once a week, but fingers crossed, it'll trigger the camera and we get the shot.

(gentle music) The rock is in the foreground, and there's a lovely view of the hills and valleys behind.

(gentle music continues) The animals are scarce and they only visit places once in a while.

So this particular piece of kit is going to be crucial for us.

And we've got a number of these spread throughout the Burren both in woodlands and in open country to capture behavior that we really wouldn't get otherwise.

Because you could have a camera person sitting out for days or weeks and you know, they might get the odd shot, whereas at least having these in situ means that our camera people can just concentrate on the most likely places to get footage.

(gentle music continues) This is one of the more remote parts of the Burren, and this overhang we're almost sure was used in Stone Age times as a shelter.

You can see it's a perfect kind of stony roof on it, which would've been great for shelter.

And it's up on the side of a hill, so you have a lovely view.

And we believe here there's a badger set in a small low cave at the back of it.

So I've just come up and we're setting up a camera trap here, which we're going to leave for a couple of weeks in the hope that we'll get something.

Now they only come out at night really or very early morning or evening.

So we are going to not do this by daylight.

We're gonna use infrared light.

And that adds a whole layer of complications because basically the badger has to come out, trigger the camera, also trigger the light, and you hope everything lines up.

So we have our camera trap here.

I'm gonna stick a light on a tree nearby and fingers crossed we'll get something.

The badgers have obviously moved into the cave, so they have a set deep inside here.

And I'm just putting in a trigger now, which if anything sticks its head outta the hole, this'll trigger and hopefully the camera will start rolling.

(light upbeat music) They're a bit messy.

You have to come back every week or so to change batteries, check the cards and so on.

But yeah, they're worth their weight in gold when they work.

(light upbeat music continues) One of the surprising things about the Burren is, it's dry, it rains all the time, but the water drains away so you really don't get streams and rivers.

I think there's one river in the Burren way to the north of here.

(light upbeat music) Offshore, there's interesting things happening in the seas.

Basking sharks and whale cruise up the coast.

So you know, it's right on the edge of the Atlantic.

Where we are now, the rocky landscape falls into the water, so we'll be chasing big marine animals.

(light upbeat music continues) It has lots of different challenges and in bad weather, it's pretty grim, but when the light comes out it's astounding and just stunning.

So looking forward to that.

And we have a team of great camera people from Ireland and production staff who will get to work and get out there and try and find the animals and make the film come alive.

(light music) (water splashes) (birds chirping) (light music continues)