Steve Backshall

So you went to see Steve Backshall today for Luke’s birthday – how was he?

Scott: I’ll tell you – 100 per cent of the chances you don’t take, you’re not going to end up with.

What does that mean?

Scott: I mean that Steve saw a brand new type of fake ant and it… And he didn’t take it. And that’s one of the opportunities that he missed that he didn’t take, and it could have been a great discovery.

Why didn’t he take it?

Scott: I don’t know.

What else did he tell you?

Scott: Lots of things. Never to be scared of animals. Here’s one way… If you went into a class of four and five-year-olds and showed them a tarantula, they’d be excited and happy. Then in a class of seven and eight-year-olds, they’d get all scared. It’s better to be in the four and five-year-olds, because they’re not scared.

That’s true. Did he say what the scariest animal he’s met is?

Scott: Well, the scariest thing that’s happened to him… Humpback whales have a very special way of catching fish and they did it all round Steve’s boat. And it was just a little one.

How do they catch fish?

Scott: It’s about a group of 15 humpback whales – one of those humpback whales goes down and blows bubbles the other whales can’t get through, then they all rise above the surface and catch about a dozen fish in one go.

Sounds like you really enjoyed it and you learned a lot too.

Scott: There’s lots of things. For one, people should stop hunting tigers and lots of other endangered species. And people should stop being scared of snakes and sharks – if you’re not, that’s good. Well, snakes don’t actually want to hurt anybody. If you go near it, it likes to say: “Ssssss…” It’s trying to be scary, it doesn’t want to hurt you. It hardly does any harm unless something really, really bad happens. Well, sharks do look scary as you know, but I won’t say that they do actually harm you. If you went down swimming with a shark, it mainly wouldn’t bite you or anything.

I’ve learned so much – thank you!

Helen: Bravo! The amazing shark eater. The amazing broccoli eater, I mean. I like broccoli, do you Scott?

Scott: Yes, I do – now be quiet.

Ant hill

Not the Jubilee – a photo of one of Scott’s ants in his mini ant farm.

So?

Scott: So? Oh yes!

What?

Scott: I thought you were going to say what we’re going to blog about and I thought I knew what it was.

I thought we could talk about the Jubilee?

Scott: Aaargghh! That wasn’t what I was going to say.

What were you going to say?

Scott: How we finished that mini ant hill.

That might be more exciting than the Jubilee…

Scott: Yes – I know. I agree.

We could talk about the Jubilee first…

Scott: I meant to blog about the ant hill…

But what is the Jubilee?

Scott: I meant to blog about the ant hill. I might have said before that.

You really don’t want to talk about the Jubilee, do you?

Scott: No.

Good.

Scott: I’m glad you’re glad, but…

What about the mini ant hill, then?

Scott: Yeah – we just finished it, didn’t we? You need 15, but we only got eight.

Tell people what it is.

Scott: Ants!

A place for ants to live.

Scott: Yes – that’s another way to put it.

And you need to catch your own ants.

Scott: That’s what I just told you. They said it would come with a coupon for 10 to 20 ants…

How many did we catch?

Scott: Eight I said. You might have heard if you had been listening…

Do you think that’ll be enough?

Scott: It’ll have to do…