BBC Springwatch will tonight (June 13) begin a four-day stay at Veolia Environmental Services Pitsea landfill site in Essex in order to explore the strange and surprising wildlife found there.
Over the course of the week, host Liz Bonnin will discuss the range of wildlife that inhabits the 680 acre site on the outskirts of Basildon.
Ms Bonnin is assessing life on brownfield sites and the Pitsea landfill is seen as an example of a location which provides food and shelter for a huge range of creatures.
The landfill site is known for attracting a variety of unusual animals such as lizards, water voles and green woodpeckers.
Springwatch, which has previously filmed on Skomer Island and the Isle of Man, will air on BBC Two tonight at 8pm and conclude on Thursday (June 16).
Series producer Roger Webb said the show would take in a wide array of strange and surprising animals and insects that call the Essex site home. He said that the series was attempting to uncover how and why animals lived on industrialised land.
What species live here? Why do they live here? How do they manage to survive here? Our adventure team explore these questions from a very unusual wildlife hotspot – one of the South East’s biggest landfill sites, he said.
It’s an edgeland of massive proportions and astonishing biodiversity. It’s home to lizards, hares, stoats, rooks, badgers, snakes and butterflies, not to mention the thousands of gulls and much, much more.
In 2011 Veolia was awarded The Wildlife Trusts Biodiversity Benchmark certification for all the work put in to promote, enhance and protect the biodiversity on site.
Commenting on Springwatch, Shaun Taylor, landfill manager at the Pitsea landfill, said: Landfill and wildlife are not two things people would usually put together, but actually at our landfill we have a really diverse range of species that we know will be interesting for viewers.
Veolia take great care and pride to protect all the creatures and plants on site whilst ensuring we can continue to operate.
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