A little bit about me

The creation of a naturalist

Just so you know: if you want an abridged biog, a summary or a career CV please click here. Because what follows is a bit of a rambling justification and explanation of my life.

I’m a naturalist, ecologist, TV presenter, cyclist, harmonica player and I have occasionally been known to twang a banjo. But it’s the naturalist bit that defines me the best and my love of the natural world is truly my first love.
Nature has been part of my life and I’ve been immersed in it and its many diverse forms from as far back as I can remember.
A naturalist is someone who studies the natural world, tick. But for me I guess it goes a step further and I would probably prefer the term biophile. It’s a word coined by the German philosopher Eric Fromm and made famous by one of my heroes the great, late ‘ant man’ himself - E.O. Wilson (His book Biophilia is a keeper and sits on a shelf of books that have changed my life). In short a biophile is someone who experiences an urge to affiliate with other forms of life and is attracted to all that is alive and vital. I think anybody who really knows me, knows this to be the case.

It all started in the small back garden of my first home; on a modest new estate just outside of Crawley in Sussex. I recall vividly the daily quests to look for creatures. I was always in trouble with my parents for turning over the stones on the rockery and not putting them back properly. It was a magical and exciting world down there. Hidden away from view were Woodlice, Earwings, Beetles and Worms. They caught my eyes and captured my curiosity and hours were spent seeking and catching them, poking and prodding them to see what they would do. I have a very keen memory of being fascinated by the Yellow and Black speckled Caterpillars of Large White butterflies that were consuming my mums nasturtiums.
I would collect them and rear them in jam jars with holes poked in the lids. One of my enduring memories is watching an adult butterfly bust out of the perfect packaging of its Chrysalis which it had secured by threads of silk to the underside of the lid. It utterly blew my mind and to this everyday backyard miracle of transformation and change, this easily missable magic became a thread in my life.

I’ve always held a special fascination for butterflies, a fascination which naturally then expanded to include all other insects and other invertebrates.
There is not much difference to me between a Peacock butterfly and a burying beetle. While one is easy to like for its obvious flouncy wings, adorned with colours and patterns and loved by poets and painters, the other is just as fascinating and shaped by exactly the same pressures of evolution. I very quickly developed a love of the traditional ‘underdogs’ even if it was just to stick up for them and tell others their story without bias.

I never understood how people would coo over my butterflies but cringe at the caterpillars. It made no sense. Then later as I started school life, this inherent disconnect and prejudice became even more apparent. Why, when I produced a house spider from my pocket, picked up a slowworm in the school playground, or demonstrated a slug sliding around on my hand did everyone react so strongly? At best my friends and acquaintances would look at me funny, at worst they’d leave the room screaming! This was an early lesson for me; an awareness of ecological injustice and prejudice based entirely on what an animal looked like - the less warm, fluffy and bewhiskered it was, or the more limbs or eyes it wriggled or stared at you with the less we related to them and the more likely we were as a species to loathe, distrust and hate.

Sticking up for all life forms and telling their story, trying to persuade and train others to see beauty, where they had previously struggled, became my calling. Trying to help others see them through my eyes, as creatures of equal standing and value has become a bit of a life mission. To me a Giant Panda scores the same as an intestinal tape worm!

A short biog

I’m a life-long Naturalist. I accidentally made my life obsession my profession and so far I seemed to have gotten away with it. I owe a lot to my childhood ( I’m really a professional 10 year old). I’m self-taught starting by learning about the denizens of the fields, ditches and woods around my rural home in the Sussex countryside - here I developed my biophilic tendencies spending time with and obsessing over everything from Badgers to Butterflies.
Increasingly though, I spent much time convincing folk to see the less than loved creatures through my own eyes. This was the foundation of a career that followed on from my graduation from Exeter University in 1993.
I co-founded the ‘Bug club’ then with the Royal Entomological Society and since graduation I’ve enjoyed a diverse career as a freelance naturalist. Having worked as a field ecologist on Badgers, some of Britain’s most threatened insects, the Fritillary butterflies (Butterfly Conservation and Dartmoor National National Park), the endangered Ring Ouzel (RSPB) and project Officer for the River Teign Restoration Project.
My communication skills and interest and natural history knowledge drew the attention of various broadcasters and in the mid 1990’s I found work as a radio and TV broadcaster. I’ve worked internationally as presenter/host for BBC, FIVE, National Geographic, Animal Planet and Discovery. I’ve also authored over 11 books all on natural history subjects.
I guess I’m a bit of a multi-hyphenate. I enjoy teaching in the field having worked for the Field Studies Council, been a lecturer in the public understanding of Science at Exeter University and have held the position of Fellow of Natural History at Winchester College (2016-2019). I have experience as a wildlife guide and leader heading up trips both at home and abroad. I currently live within the Cairngorm National Park in Scotland with a diverse menagerie of exotic creatures (cockroaches, snakes, tarantulas) including my wife and 15 year old daughter. I am currently doing my best to drive them out by playing Banjo and Harmonica at them very loudly. I enjoy my photography and can paint and draw. Blues and roots music is anther passion and I especially enjoy performing. I am also as obsessed with everything human powered on two wheels - I try and get out on my bike most days.

I’m a FRES, FBNAS, FRCGS and a VP of Buglife, RPSB and the Wildlife trusts.

Bibliography

Your First Millipede & Cockroach
Nick Baker’s Bug Book
British Wildlife
New Amateur Naturalist/First Time Naturalist
The Complete Naturalist (A fully updated version of above)
Habitat Explorers Guide: Woodlands
Habitat Explorers Guide: Gardens & Parks
Habitat Explorers Guide: Rivers and Ponds
Habitat Explorers Guide: Seashore
Bugzoo
Wildlife Trackers Handbook
Rewild

(TFH)
(New Holland/Bloomsbury)
(New Holland/Bloomsbury)
(Collins/National Geographic)
(Bloomsbury)
(Collins)
(Collins)
(Collins)
(Collins)
(Dorling Kindersley)
(Bloomsbury/RSPB)
(Aurum)

Many of these books have been published in other languages and are still available, although not all are still in print. The most pertinent to our current situation is the latest book Rewild which is all about learning to connect with nature and to value its salve. A book about rewilding our heads, minds and senses and stimulating the bored inner hunter gatherer in all of us. I’m currently writing a book on ponds for WildGuides and Princeton University Press.

TELEVISION & RADIO

It's been quite a journey from those slightly nervous moments being dragged out of the wilds of Dartmoor to talk about my butterfly work or a train trip to 'the big smoke' to talk about the 'Bug Club' on Blue Peter in the old and iconic BBC TV Centre - now sadly no more.

Radio is where I got my confidence - being interviewed by Kelvin Boot for Radio 4's Natural History Programme and becoming the go-to guest for local BBC Radio Devon is where it started to come together. That was back in the early 1990's while I was still at University and the rest, as they say is history.

Here is my history as so far as it's been broadcast. My personal archive has some holes in it, and there is quiet a bit missing from the online archives (for example the Radio 4 and Watch Out's very first Spring Watches were hosted by me, but seem to have been expunged from, the record). Anyhow here's the best version of my videography and Radiography that I can recall.

Those in bold are series in which I was a lead presenter.

Nature Detectives
The Really Wild Guide to Britain
Playdays
Watchout
The Really Wild Show
Wild West Country
Spring Watch (The Radio original)
Autumn Watch (The Radio original)
Explorer National Geographic
Nick’s Quest
Tomorrow’s World
Nick’s Quest Christmas Special
Twister Week
UK Wild 2000
Nick’s Quest Down Under
Explorers Journal
Under the Skin (Nick Baker’s…)
Baker in the Oven
Serious Jungle
Serious Desert
Ultimate Explorer
Inside Out
Killer Shark Live
Weird Creatures 1
Pirate Ship Live
Weird Creatures 2
Weird Creatures 3
The Paul O’Grady Show
Autumn Watch
Spring Watch
Alan Titchmarsh Show
Beautiful Freaks
Malaysian from Below
Britain’s Big Wildlife Revival
Spring Watch in the Afternoon
Paradise Malaysia
Zac and Quack
Winter Watch 2014
Autumnwatch Unsprung
Springwatch Unsprung
Winterwatch Unsprung
Nick Baker’s Wild West
From Darkness into Light: civilisations
Living on the Roof of the World
Big Week at the Zoo
Nature Table
Japans Wilderness

1994
1994
994-96
1996-1999
1996-2006
1997?
1998-99
1998-99
1999
1999
1999-2001
1999
1999
2000
2000
2000
2001
2002
2002
2003
2003-04
2004-2019
2005
2007
2007
2008
2009
2009/10
2010
2011
2011
2012
2013
2013
2013
2014
2014
2014
2013-15
2014-15
2014-15
2016
2018
2018
2018-19
2019
2021

BBC
BBC 1
BBC 1
BBC
BBC 1
ITV
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
National Geographic USA
Channel FIVE/Animal Planet
BBC 1
Channel FIVE/Animal Planet
BBC 2
BBC 1
Channel FIVE/Animal Planet
National Geographic
BBC 2
BBC 1
BBC 1
BBC 1
National Geographic/MSNBC
BBC 1
FIVE
FIVE, Animal Planet,
FIVE
FIVE, Discovery
FIVE, Discovery
ITV 1
BBC 2
BBC 2
ITV
SKY 3D
National Geographic Asia
BBC 1
BBC 2
National Geographic Asia
Nickelodeon
BBC 2
BBC 2
BBC 2
BBC 2
BBC 1
BBC 1
CCTV-9 & Discovery Asia-Pacific
FIVE
BBC Radio 4
BBC World News

With regular/favourite or notable appearances & presenting on Harry Hill’s TV Burp, CBBC, Loose Women, Richard & Judy Show, Holiday Programme (1999), Ready Steady Cook (2010), Celebrity Eggheads, Celebrity Mastermind, Blue Peter (2008).