Winterwatch BBC2, 9pm

KATE Humble and Michaela Strachan have had the mother of all fistfights to regain the position as Chris Packham's sidekick (the highlights can be seen in Winterwatch Unsprung).

The result of the headlocks, double nelsons, and general wailing being that Kate will present tonight's first ever instalment of Winterwatch.

Yes, we've had Springwatch (lambs, chicks, charming newborn woodlice), and Autumnwatch (death, decay, Bruce Forsyth), and, with them both attracting an army of viewers, now Winterwatch has been added to the format.

The programme asks how plants and animals see out the cold, if our climate is changing, and whether that daft mallard with one leg iced into the Cauldon Canal will survive?

Chris, Kate, and the somewhat over-jolly Martin Hughes-Games are at the Brecon Beacons National Park to reveal just how the UK's wildlife is faring. The mild start to the winter followed by plunging temperatures has, it seems, set a real challenge.

So what can viewers can do to help?

Just how feasible, for instance, is it to give a badger an electric blanket?

The trio also report on a surprising influx of owls, why the ptarmigan could be Britain's toughest bird (Janine from EastEnders, surely?), and show why winter is actually the best time of year to see some of the country's biggest wildlife spectacles.

Meanwhile, a bruised and humiliated Michaela Strachan reports from a swallow roost in South Africa where millions of birds have arrived from the UK and beyond to escape the northern winter altogether.