Channel 5’s Sam & Ade Go Birding turns a north Norfolk outing into something more personal when Samuel West says hundreds and hundreds of pink-footed geese flew over after he and Adrian Edmondson had been talking about Prunella Scales’ death.
The three-part series follows the pair through birding, but it is that brief moment over Norfolk that gives the programme its sharper edge: the episode is not just about spotting birds, but about grief, friendship and the landscape they were walking through.
Hundreds over north Norfolk
West described the arrival plainly: “We came out, and there were hundreds and hundreds of pink-footed geese flying over, going to roost,” he said. He added that the birds appeared after they had been talking about his mother’s death: “We had just been talking about the death of my mum [much-loved actress Prunella Scales] – we did the Norfolk episode about a week after she died. It was just a beautiful thing to happen.”
That timing gives the series a different weight from a standard wildlife outing. West framed the show as a mix of “wild geese, male friendship and conversations about grief, mental health and the healing power of the landscape,” which is also why this north Norfolk episode lands as more than a travelogue with binoculars.
Holkham and Cley details
At Holkham, West and Edmondson identified brent geese and a sparrow hawk. At Cley, West took Edmondson into the church to see a stained-glass window of a sparrow. Those are small, specific moments, but they show how the series balances birding detail with talk that moves beyond the list of species.
The format matters because Sam & Ade Go Birding is being presented in the same broad spirit as Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing: the wildlife is the frame, but the conversation is the draw. For viewers, that means the programme is built less as a guide to birds than as a road map for what two men say when the landscape gives them room to talk.
West’s birding route
West also linked birding to family history and work. “I inherited a love of the outdoors from my mother,” he said, and described his uncle as the person who pushed him toward watching birds rather than shooting them: “He was a soldier. He used to shoot birds but then he stopped shooting them and started watching them, which is the right way round.”
He said bird song became “my gateway drug” while he was running The Crucible in Sheffield, when he lived on the west side of Sheffield close to the Derbyshire border. He also described that period as difficult, saying, “It was the first time I’d lived outside London. It was a really hard job and I wasn’t very good at it, and I couldn’t sleep.”
That leaves the practical takeaway simple: the north Norfolk stretch is one episode of a three-part Channel 5 series, and it is the one that carries the strongest personal charge. The remaining episodes are still part of the package, but this is the sequence that gives the show its reason to be watched as a conversation about loss as much as about birds.
