0:09

Being a wildlife cameraman wasn't just

0:11

something Hamzi Yassin wanted to do, it

0:13

was the only thing he wanted to

0:15

do. Inspired by the Attenborough

0:18

documentaries he learned English from after his parents

0:20

moved to the UK from Sudan, he

0:22

gave everything to make his dream a reality.

0:25

A dream he never dreamt about though, was

0:27

lifting the glitter ball on Strictly Come Dancing.

0:30

Strictly was just a whirlwind of adventure.

0:33

It was the glitz, the glam, the sparkles,

0:36

the outfits and at first it took

0:38

me by surprise.

0:39

I don't want to put makeup on. Oh,

0:41

I wouldn't look nice in that suit. Suits don't

0:43

really suit me. By the end of it I

0:45

was like a diva and I'm like, yes, bring it to

0:47

me more please. The brighter

0:49

the better, the more sparkles the better. And

0:52

it's just funny, the best

0:54

thing that I did and a few other contestants on

0:56

the show did was just let

0:59

loose, embrace it because it's

1:01

an amazing, amazing experience.

1:05

Join Hamza now for a hilly hike to

1:07

a spot from which he's watched the same pair of eagles

1:09

for eight years, where the Ardenmerken

1:11

Peninsula stretches away beneath you and

1:13

the sea sparkles a bit like

1:16

a sequined waistcoat.

1:33

My name's Hamza Yassin. I'm a wildlife

1:35

cameraman and I live in the West Coast of Scotland

1:37

and I've been living here for the last 12, 13 years

1:42

and I'm about to go up and

1:45

do the regular check of my white-tailed eagle nest.

1:47

And I say my white-tailed eagle, to be honest, they're not

1:50

mine, they belong to everybody, but this

1:52

is the particular pair that I've been following

1:54

for the last eight years and

1:56

I've got a special licence

1:58

from National Wildlife Service. Scotland

2:01

to look

2:04

at them and film them and

2:07

get up close but because it's broad

2:09

daylight I'm just gonna go and

2:11

I use this term loosely,

2:14

inspectigate the nest just

2:17

kind of check out the nest from a distance and

2:20

make sure that everything's going all well. It's

2:25

an absolutely beautiful day

2:28

there's not a single cloud to

2:30

be in the sky. It's the typical

2:32

picturesque image that you get off the west coast of

2:34

Scotland with the blue sky

2:37

and green mountains. We've

2:40

got a little lock in nearby that

2:42

hopefully when we get up to the top we'll see it and

2:44

we're very very close

2:47

to Loch Soonart at the moment and

2:49

yeah it's a it's a beautiful day. Everybody

3:01

goes to their special place and

3:04

my special place is always somewhere

3:06

with eagles and my

3:09

favourite pair to film are

3:12

Agatha and Lawrence and

3:14

people say you've named the eagles and I go yeah

3:17

he sounds like a Lawrence and

3:19

Agatha because she's

3:21

like an old lady she gets him to

3:24

do all the hard work and as soon as

3:26

he comes back to the hide with a bit of food she

3:29

calls at him and moans at him and

3:31

he then has to go off and go and find some more food

3:34

even though he brought her a razorbill

3:37

to eat or a gillimot to eat so

3:39

it's a lovely old relationship between

3:42

the two of them and I

3:45

don't normally name my wildlife but because

3:48

I've been following this particular pair for

3:51

nearly eight years now it's

3:53

kind of like a personal thing to me. There's

4:05

a chaffinch calling in the corner and

4:07

it's like... Just

4:13

seeing it disappeared over in the far

4:16

side of the tree. This

4:18

time of the year the place is humming

4:21

with bird life and dawn choruses

4:24

and everything's trying to nest and if it's not

4:26

nesting it's trying to mate. It's

4:30

really beautiful to sit and hear

4:32

what all the birds sound like. It's a great opportunity.

4:36

Hopefully along the way up we might see a few skylarks

4:38

displaying and calling and they'll have a really

4:40

beautiful call where they go up higher

4:43

and higher and higher and higher and eventually

4:45

they're just a speck in the sky. But

4:48

that's a fitness mechanism. The females

4:50

want to pick the highest male that

4:52

goes the furthest that shouts the loudest

4:55

and then on their way down they do this beautiful parachuting

4:58

where they go...

5:01

And they do this beautiful display and they land on the floor and they're

5:04

like... Right round two and then they start flying up

5:06

again. So hopefully we'll hear one. I

5:23

was born in Sudan and

5:26

I came to the UK when I was eight. Not

5:29

speaking a word of English. I had four words

5:31

with me. Please

5:34

thank you pizza and chips. That

5:37

was the four things that I wanted. I

5:39

had the pleasantries

5:41

drilled into me by my parents and I really

5:43

wanted to try pizza and chips because I heard that's

5:45

what the western world eats. So

5:48

yeah, I fell in love with

5:50

the natural world in Africa not knowing that I was in

5:53

a privileged location to

5:56

see what I saw there. We had hippos,

5:59

crocodiles, and other things. We lived about 800 meters

6:01

away from the Nile. And you hear

6:03

all these stories of the wildlife and the hyena

6:06

men from Hara. And

6:08

coming to the UK at first glance it looks

6:11

barren. It looks like there's nothing here. But

6:13

in reality it's chock-a-blocked

6:16

full of wildlife. You just need to know where to look. And

6:20

my interest of the natural world was already inbuilt

6:22

in me. It just took the time of

6:24

learning and following people and going to bird reserves

6:27

to then fall in love

6:30

with birds. And birds, the way I see birds,

6:32

it's kind of like the gateway drug into the

6:35

natural world. You start off with

6:37

birds and then you go on to mammals and then potentially

6:39

moths and then the bigger better things,

6:41

mammals. I love my mammals. But

6:44

birds are my staple, staple

6:47

diet. There's

7:01

a snipe. So

7:04

if you see it, it's

7:06

about to just go land. It's just landed. Did

7:09

you see it? So the snipe

7:11

have this beautiful call. They've got two

7:13

kind of calls. One's a tick-tock,

7:15

tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock sound. And

7:17

then there's the drumming sound. And you

7:20

hear this... And

7:25

that's basically the outer two

7:27

tail feathers. They,

7:30

as the snipe dives to the

7:32

ground, they jot out at 90 degrees

7:35

and they make that sound. It's a vibration

7:37

against the wind. And the faster

7:40

the snipe dives from a higher distance,

7:42

the longer the sound is, the deeper the sound

7:45

is. And to the female snipes, that's

7:47

like, hey, how you doing?

7:50

And that's what they're wanting.

7:52

They're wanting the... Hence

7:55

where you get the name sniper in

7:57

the shooting terms. If you can flush a snipe...

8:00

and shoot it, that means you're a good marksman.

8:03

That's where the term smithers and swim. When

8:18

I came to the UK, not speaking a word of English,

8:22

my parents turned on the TV, and

8:24

the first thing that I was seeing was

8:26

Sir David Attenborough narrating Life of Birds.

8:29

And I fell in love with that, I'm

8:31

going, oh, don't understand a word that

8:34

man is saying, but I'm loving the

8:36

wildlife, I'm loving the birds. And

8:38

some of the birds were like, oh, that's

8:40

similar to the ones that we have back home. So

8:42

it kind of gave me a little comfort thing.

8:45

But then as I started learning about

8:48

birds and learning English, I

8:50

learned how to turn on the TV, and I went to the Discovery

8:52

Channel, and then lo and behold,

8:55

Steve Owen was there. And

8:57

he just opened up the world to me, him and

9:00

Attenborough, because Attenborough

9:03

had the knowledge, and the ease, and

9:06

he puts you at ease watching

9:08

these documentaries. Steve Owen does

9:11

the complete opposite, but he still

9:13

hooks you in. And

9:16

we, me, my family, growing

9:18

up in Sudan, we had the Nile Crocs nearby,

9:21

and everyone says, Crocs in the water, don't go in, don't

9:24

touch it, leave it alone. Everything is just

9:27

based out of fear, the knowledge that we have. Whereas

9:30

Steve Owen brought something such as

9:32

the croc, and made

9:35

me understand it in a different way. And

9:37

that was the beauty about it. And I was like, I

9:40

want to be like these two guys,

9:42

so David Attenborough and Steve Owen. And if I can't be them,

9:45

I'll be the cameraman that films them, because I love

9:47

photography. And I'm like, okay, mix

9:49

the two together, we have a wildlife cameraman.

9:52

And that's kind of where my job started. I got

9:54

into dentistry, my whole family

9:56

are medics. And when it came time

9:58

for me to choose. I felt the pressure

10:01

and I'm like I'm gonna be a dentist like

10:03

my brother and then I got

10:05

into dentistry Four months

10:08

before I started I went

10:10

up to my parents plucked up the courage and said to them Is

10:12

it alright if I do something that I really want to do

10:15

rather than just follow the trend because

10:18

I'm severely dyslexic And I

10:20

know that I'm not gonna be able to cope with everything

10:23

when it comes to the medical side And they were like

10:25

we support you 100% of the way and

10:28

what do you want to be? I said I want to be a zoologist in

10:30

a wildlife camera lab cool Let's

10:33

find your university, and I went to the one of the world's

10:35

best universities Bangor, North

10:37

Wales and Yeah

10:42

I look back at it, and I think that was the best one

10:44

of the best decisions in my life To

10:46

go study zoology that it's well renowned for its zoology

10:49

and even more so for its marine biology And

10:51

so David Attenborough got a honorary degree

10:53

from there I think a year

10:56

or two before I started and just

10:58

last year I received the same degree as

11:00

him so for me that is kind of like mind-boggling

11:03

to think that I Here's

11:07

this young kid who likes nature

11:09

and Has fallen

11:11

in love with it, and now he's following

11:14

in his idol foot I

11:27

Lot of people ask why I went on strictly

11:30

seeing as I'm a nature lover and Best

11:32

place to find me is off of health and work covered in ticks

11:35

and mud, but in reality I'm

11:38

I'm eclectic. I like collecting things. I

11:41

ride a unicycle I like juggling

11:43

I shoot a bow and arrow and it's

11:45

the weird things in life that kind of interest me and For

11:49

me I love dancing,

11:52

but I never really thought there's much to it I

11:54

love Kaylee dancing in particular Incidentally

11:57

would dance a party or something along

11:59

those lines but I did

12:01

not think A,

12:04

I'd be a presenter and B, get

12:06

asked to go on strictly and if

12:09

you ever get the chance to get asked on strictly,

12:11

which I know for a lot of people that's a

12:14

non-impossible thing that's going to happen, but take

12:17

it up because it changed

12:19

my world completely. I've

12:23

now married 16 million people

12:26

with my love of the natural world without

12:29

knowing. I love the natural

12:31

world and I thought okay go on there, second

12:34

week is when they keep the first person out, I

12:36

have a little bit of fun, maybe I'll learn a dance

12:39

or two and then you know talk about

12:41

the natural world and that's it, there we go, done. I

12:45

think it was 14 weeks later, three

12:47

months later, I am being uvita

12:50

and I have been crowned king and queen

12:52

and yeah it's mind-boggling

12:55

really. I get

12:57

to present more, people

13:00

get to see that I love the natural world and hopefully

13:03

people then start caring about the natural world as

13:05

much as I do and they can run

13:07

with it. So if I teach one person how

13:09

to look after a particular animal, hopefully

13:12

that button gets passed on and my

13:15

true love is watching the next generation

13:18

be inspired.

13:35

Now we're coming

13:37

up to my friend

13:40

Rocky and

13:43

there's a special tradition that you've got to do with Rocky,

13:46

you've always got to greet him, say hello and give

13:49

him two taps with the

13:51

walking stick and to

13:54

anyone else they would probably think I've lost my

13:56

marbles by this point but This

14:00

is the moment where I always used to take a break. And

14:03

here he is. What up,

14:05

Rocky? How

14:07

you doing, big man? Hope you're

14:09

well. This is the infamous

14:12

Rocky. That's

14:14

the rock that I send

14:16

postcards to from Antarctica

14:19

and six months later, the

14:21

postcard arrives and I actually come up and

14:23

read it to it. This particular rock

14:25

is when, as I'm coming up the hill, trying

14:28

to film those eagles, I'll always

14:31

find myself stopping here, taking a breath. And

14:34

I realized this is

14:36

where I'm doing this. So I've named the rock Rocky,

14:38

but it actually became a moment where

14:42

you kind of do a little bit of meditation or

14:45

you're having a tough day, you

14:48

go for a walk. Where do I go to? I

14:50

found myself coming up here all the time

14:53

because I love the eagles. But before

14:55

I even get to the eagles in the wintertime, I stop

14:57

off at Rocky. You've got

14:59

this amazing view looking over to Mull and

15:02

down the sound of Mull. And it became

15:04

kind of my quiet spot. To

15:07

just sit, enjoy life, and

15:09

an eagle happens to go fast. Just. This

15:25

place is fantastic when

15:27

it comes to wildlife, just

15:29

because it's a peninsula. And

15:32

because it's a peninsula, we're

15:34

surrounded by the sea on three sides.

15:37

And that adds to the variety of wildlife

15:39

that we can get here. We've got the moorlands

15:42

for the golden eagles. And

15:45

we've got the forests for the white

15:48

tails. But you've

15:50

got the pine martens, the grouse.

15:55

The seabird life is

15:59

out of this world. The cetaceans have

16:01

got orcas, Jonko and Aquarius come

16:04

round on a regular basis, common

16:06

dolphins, bottle nose dolphins, the

16:09

place is teeming with wild. I've

16:12

been lucky enough to go all over the world

16:15

and see most of the seven

16:17

continents and my favourites are

16:20

the arctic. But saying

16:23

that, there's nothing like

16:25

being at home and knowing that the

16:27

wildlife is all around

16:29

you. And as we speak there's a group of

16:32

eight or nine stags halfway

16:35

up the hill and this is exactly

16:37

the reason why I love living here

16:39

in the west coast. There's just nothing like

16:41

being back home and coming back home to

16:44

the west coast of Scotland. I'm honestly

16:47

one of the luckiest wildlife cameramen, even

16:50

more so one of the luckiest people to be living

16:53

where I am and making a living out

16:55

of the natural world. A lot

17:06

of people ask me if I'm ever lonely

17:08

here living in a place by

17:10

myself and I

17:13

say 100% no. I might

17:16

get the odd one day a year where

17:19

I feel lonely and all I

17:21

then have to do is ask the neighbour, hey you

17:24

want to come over for dinner and there's always someone

17:27

willing to shake you off on offer or

17:30

food. So I'm never

17:32

lonely here, I'm surrounded by people

17:34

who love me and surrounded

17:37

by a place that I love.

17:39

And if you want to have

17:41

your peace and quiet this place gives you

17:44

that opportunity and if you want to be social,

17:47

by God can you be social. I

17:49

am more social here in

17:51

the west coast of Scotland than I've ever

17:53

been in the middle of a town or a city.

18:09

So now we're approaching the

18:12

true eagle territory where

18:15

by getting close to the nest I'm going

18:17

to go up and sit my favourite spot that

18:21

is somewhat flat in

18:23

this hilly terrain and

18:26

hopefully I can spot

18:28

an eagle.

18:40

So the nest is probably

18:44

about 400 metres beneath us and

18:46

this is the beauty about this particular nest that it's

18:50

a nest where if you look into it you

18:52

can see the eggs. You can see

18:54

the mum, the dad sitting on there

18:56

incubating the eggs with no

19:00

ease. Inside the hide

19:03

I can see the retina of the eagles.

19:05

It's a phenomenal place

19:08

to be but I'm probably

19:10

about three four hundred metres above it and

19:14

the birds at the moment

19:16

don't know I'm here and even if they do see

19:18

me they'll fly straight past

19:21

and they'll go straight in but

19:23

all I'm gonna do now is sit down get

19:26

my binoculars out and scan

19:28

the tops of the trees see if I can spot

19:31

the male. It's

19:42

very rare that you get to look down on birds

19:44

of prey and this is the unique

19:47

thing about being in this particular part of

19:49

the world and this particular nest.

19:53

Most of the time when people see an eagle

19:55

then looking up at it where

19:57

here I have the pleasure of looking down

19:59

on

19:59

them and filming their backs, giving

20:02

them the presence, the

20:06

beauty that they deserve to be filmed properly

20:09

rather than a black and white bird up

20:11

in the sky and it's silhouetted most

20:13

of the time.

20:18

It's very rare that you get to see an eagle at

20:20

eye level and

20:23

because we've climbed so high up I

20:26

have the pleasure of sitting here and enjoying it

20:28

really. At

20:43

first they come and take a close look and once they

20:46

figure out it's me, they

20:48

kind of say, he's back again. This

20:50

is his eighth year and he

20:53

doesn't do much, he doesn't harm us. A

20:57

lot of the times I would sit and

20:59

lie on my back and

21:01

just watch the eagle soaring above me.

21:22

That was an absolutely

21:25

beautiful walk but I do have to admit

21:27

that whilst we saw the nest and

21:30

where the eagles lived we didn't actually

21:32

see any eagles. Until

21:34

at the very last minute, whilst we were almost

21:37

back to the start point of the hike, one went

21:39

soaring high, high above us. And

21:42

as the times have said it has probably been watching us

21:44

the whole time. Next

21:47

time on our last episode in the series you'll

21:49

be walking with Sarah Wilson, an award-winning

21:52

author, presenter, thinker and constant

21:54

traveller who'll talk about using hiking

21:57

to ground herself in new places. I'm

21:59

being recognized.

21:59

If

22:02

you haven't already, give us a follow on your podcast

22:04

app, tell a friend about the podcast

22:07

and check out at canapienstalls on Instagram.