Two old friends, a pair of binoculars and a wild goose chase across the north Norfolk marshes: it sounds like the set‑up for a joke. But in Sam & Ade Go Birding it becomes something more affecting. On the surface, the three-part Channel 5 series, featuring actors Samuel West and Adrian Edmondson, is about birds. But ‒ much like Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing ‒ the birds are only half the story. The other half is friendship, grief and the surprising ease with which two middle-aged men can talk about feelings when they are standing side by side, looking out over a marsh.
Adrian and Sam walking through Holkham woods. (Image: Norfolk Wildlife Trust.)
For All Creatures Great and Small star Samuel, the highlight of their ‘wild goose chase’ in north Norfolk was not a tick on his bird list, but a poignant moment in a tiny village. Their journey to spot pink-footed geese first took the pair to Holkham, where the habitat, including dunes and pine woodland, is an ideal location to spot birds, with the pair identifying brent geese and a sparrow hawk. They visited Gun Hill, and at Cley Samuel took Adrian into the church to see a stained‑glass window of a sparrow, a tribute to one of our most familiar birds.
‘We came out, and there were hundreds and hundreds of pink‑footed geese flying over, going to roost,’ says Samuel. ‘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 mix of personal history and big‑sky drama is typical of a series in which stories of childhood, family and mental health are threaded through the practical business of finding birds. Samuel’s enthusiasm for birding runs deep. ‘I inherited a love of the outdoors from my mother,’ he says.
Sam and Adrian on bridge over channel at Cley and Salthouse Marshes. (Image: Norfolk Wildlife Trust.)
‘She was brought up in the country. We always enjoyed walking together and she was a great gardener, but the birding thing was something I got from my uncle. 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. It just became a thing.’
Two decades ago, when Samuel was running The Crucible theatre in Sheffield, birds became a lifeline. ‘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. I lived on the west side of the city, close to the Derbyshire border. I used to get up and drive into the middle of the Derbyshire grouse moors and walk. I have quite a good ear and I would hear these songs that
I couldn’t identify. I got pretty good at bird song. Bird song was my gateway drug. Also, when I was small, I always enjoyed collecting things. I still do. Collecting or cataloguing things is a very good way of making the world seem less confusing.’
Adrian and Sam walking through dunes at Holkham. (Image: Norfolk Wildlife Trust.)
That idea – of birding as a way to make sense of a chaotic world – runs through the series. It is, he says, a simple pastime. ‘It’s a very inexpensive hobby. Binoculars help but all you really need is your eyes and your ears and a bit of curiosity. I sometimes call it the gentle art of noticing. I also find that it’s very good for helping me forget my own human problems.’
The path to Sam & Ade Go Birding was a little indirect. Samuel and Adrian first met in 2019 filming Death in Paradise in Guadeloupe and bonded over their mutual support of lower league football teams.
‘I think I recognised a fellow geek,’ Samuel remembers. ‘Adrian’s a curious person, in both senses. He’s got a lot of depth to him, but he’s also very interested in what’s around him. Neither of us had much to do in Death in Paradise. We were there for 11 days, and we only worked for four of them. He hired a car and drove around Guadeloupe and discovered that there was a bit less of it to see than he thought, and I hired the best bird guide on the island and went out to see a lot of birds.’
‘We ate and drank and discussed the wider world,’ says Adrian. ‘By the time we got back to the UK we were actual friends – we started going to the pub and inviting each other round for a barbecue.’
Sam & Ade on Cley Beach, North Norfolk. (Image: Norfolk Wildlife Trust.)
During the pandemic they would meet up in their virtual pub, the Zoom Arms.
‘Our visits to the Zoom Arms were numerous and good fun, and probably very good for us in a mental health sort of way,’ says Adrian. ‘It’s quite odd when you make a new friend in later life. I’m in the unfortunate – but very common – position of having lost several friends over the years, so it is very welcome.’
Lockdown was also when Adrian’s own birding journey began. ‘I’m lucky enough to live in Devon, and the sun shone brightly, and we had a nice bubble with my daughter and her best friend. It was the first time I’d ever really relaxed. I made a new vegetable patch. And it was while I was making it that I got interested in birds. There seemed to be birds everywhere as I shifted earth and compost. The trouble was I didn’t know what any of them were. I felt rather ashamed to have got to my age and not know all the birds in my garden. After robin and mallard, I was pretty much at a loss… I asked Sam how to go about it and he put me onto an app that will listen to the bird and tell you what it is. My life was transformed!’
From there, birding slotted alongside his other hobbies. ‘I paint watercolours, I brew beer, I play many different stringed instruments. Birding is a new hobby, and I think it’s going to last.’
Sam and Adrian in Hide at Cley and Salthouse Marshes. Norfolk Wildlife Trust. (Image: Norfolk Wildlife Trust.)
When Samuel began talking with Channel 5 and producers Frank Films about a birding series, Adrian was the obvious person to share it with. ‘I asked Ade and he emailed me back 12 minutes later saying yes. I knew it was the right choice.’
Adrian laughs that there is ‘an accepted etiquette in replying to emails like this.
Most people leave it a couple of days before writing back to say: “What an interesting idea…” I replied immediately. Within five seconds.’
Out in the field, the pair fall into a rhythm. There are long walks, stakeouts, jokes and disagreements. Their attitudes to birds also diverge in entertaining ways. Samuel is the classic completist, thrilled by the challenge of ‘tiny things skulking around at the back of bushes’. Adrian is in love with the obvious.
Adrian and Sam in the reeds at Holkham, North Norfolk. (Image: Norfolk Wildlife Trust.)
‘Our two positions probably cover how most people feel about birds, and possibly everything else in life: Sam is keen to see rarities and will travel (quite literally) to the ends of the earth to find them,’ says Adrian. ‘I’m quite happy to appreciate what’s in front of me.
It’s an interesting philosophical divide and gives the programme a wider scope than just identifying birds in a dry and scientific manner. Sam will be looking for the lesser spotted yellow browed Boston strangler (or whatever), while I’m happy with a close‑up robin.’
Samuel has learned from that. ‘Adrian enjoying a robin or a redshank… made me think: “Don’t be so keen to seek out rarities, Sam, just because they increase your list, or you haven’t seen one for a few years.”’
Sam and Adrian at Cley & Salthouse Marshs, North Norfolk. (Image: Channel 5)
Above all, the series shows how birding – especially in landscapes like north Norfolk – can make it easier for men to talk honestly. ‘Straight men can always talk about football,’ Samuel reflects, ‘but we’re less good at talking about losing a parent or losing weight, or loneliness or depression or approaching death. All these things are real. As a society, we’re getting better at discussing them, but I do think there is a place for that around enjoyment of something that you are doing together. The fact that Adrian and I seem to find those conversations quite easy and at least as interesting as watching birds – I find that valuable and I hope we get to do it more.’
Two men in muddy wellies, a pair of binoculars and a big East Anglian sky: it is more than just a wild goose chase. It is, quietly, a way of finding your place in the world..
Sam & Ade Go Birding is available to watch on Channel 5 on demand
