My last dance with Jowita, my dance partner. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster; she’s taught me so much about myself and I grew as a result. I’m more confident, more understanding, more respectful, more attuned with myself and others, more mentally strong. Hamza's new show is a one-off documentary and airs on Sunday, September 24 at 7 pm on BBC One. It will also be available to watch on demand via iPlayer. Hamza: Strictly Birds of Prey premise If his new villagers did perceive him as different, he says, it was positive. “They wanted to show off their culture to me, which I absolutely adore.” He remembers, with a laugh, being invited to a ceilidh dance, and thinking he was going to the house of a woman called Kayleigh. He seems part of this close-knit community now, hosting movie nights at home and talking with love about “my Scottish parents, Chris and Amanda”, and his nextdoor neighbour Gail and another neighbour, Tom, who rings him up – he puts on a great Highland accent – “‘Hello, Hamza, would you like a bit of exercise today?’ Yes, I would, and I know exactly what it is: we’ll spend half a day chopping logs.” Families across the UK will recognise Hamza from his CBeebies show Let's Go For A Walk, which all spurred from his lifelong love of adventure and nature. Born in Sudan, Hamza moved to the UK at the age of eight, and later gained a master's degree in Biological Imaging and Photography, and a bachelor's degree in Zoology with Conservation. He went onto become a published wildlife photographer and a tour guide, and is also a skilled ornithologist aka an expert in birds. Hamza starts his journey at home, on the remote and beautiful Ardnamurchan Peninsula on the west coast of Scotland. The incredible array of wildlife here gives him the opportunity to film many different birds of prey and his first love - eagles. He has been following and filming a family of white-tailed eagles here for years, watching every stage of their life cycle from a hide he built on a steep sea cliff near the nest. It has given him an intimate knowledge of these impressive eagles – the largest bird of prey in the British Isles.

I'd rather face a polar bear than step on the dancefloor': Strictly's Hamza Yassin on salsa, Scotland and singledom". the Guardian. 10 November 2022 . Retrieved 12 November 2022. If humans weren’t on this Earth, the planet would keep on spinning and nature would keep doing its thing. Yes, right now, we are the ones causing this issue – but to be honest, it’s a handful of people.White-tailed eagles were reintroduced to the UK 50 years ago. Along with cameraman John Aitchison, Hamza recently filmed the astonishing spectacle of them hunting geese for Wild Isles. They reminisce about what it took to capture this remarkable and never-before-seen behaviour. His journey takes him from the wilds of Scotland to the heart of Ealing Borough in Greater London. Along the way, he meets a host of old friends, dedicated conservationists and fellow film-makers, whose love for the natural world shines through. His mother, aware of his fascination with birds, started taking him to RSPB reserves. “She’d be sat reading a book in the corner,” he remembers, while Yassin would question the birdwatchers, “just absorbing all their information. They were just amazing men, full of knowledge, that saw this young kid who was interested in birds, and they just kind of took him under their wings, like, ‘Right, son, have you got a pair of binoculars? No? Use these.’” He is still in touch with some of them, he says (Yassin, I suspect, collects friendships like other naturalists collect shells or feathers). “It’s really beautiful that their love of wildlife rubbed off on me. I had that interest already, but it just sparked from there.” Around the same time, he was also given his first camera. In this beautifully illustrated guide, featuring fifty of Hamza's favourite birds, you will learn how to start identifying birds, understand their behaviour and movements, and find even more exciting birds, wherever you are. Starting with the goldfinch in your garden, to tawny owls in woodlands, to the elusive kingfisher near rivers and marshes, you will build your birdwatching confidence and push yourself further afield to find new feathered wonders.

Gaia has acquired Be a Birder from Scottish wildlife cameraman, presenter and “Strictly Come Dancing” star Hamza Yassin. Born in Sudan on 22 February 1990, Yassin moved to Northampton in the UK aged eight, not knowing any English. [2] After being diagnosed as dyslexic as a teenager while a student at Wellingborough School, [3] he was supported throughout the rest of his studies. [4] He went on to achieve a degree in Zoology with Conservation from Bangor University and a Masters in Biological Photography and Imaging from the University of Nottingham. [5] [6] Career [ edit ] Hamza has already dropped a stone since joining the competition (Credit: SplashNews) Strictly weight loss Strictly star Hamza can't wait for Scotland's home crowd roar". BBC News. 2 February 2023 . Retrieved 4 February 2023.

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Jowita Przystał and Hamza Yassin performing a tropical salsa during the final. Photograph: Guy Levy/PA He loves dancing, “whenever I get the chance, really”. For the past 12 years, he has lived in a tiny village in Ardnamurchan, a peninsula on Scotland’s west coast. He says his nextdoor neighbour, Gail – “She’s amazing, I call her my Scottish sister” – texts him when she can hear his music blasting to wish him a good morning. “I’m always dancing and playing music. Never in a million years did I think I’d be on Strictly.” Hamza will discuss his life behind the lens at this year’s New Scientist Live on Saturday, October 7

Whether you're spotting common garden birds or hoping to catch sight of the more obscure, Be a Birder invites us all to stop, step outside and listen, and open our eyes to the beauty of these incredible creatures. With Hamza as your guide, you will be able to build your birdwatching confidence and push yourself further afield to find new feathered wonders. Discover the wonderful world of birdwatching with wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin - winner of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing 2022. He expressed how “tough” it gets to keep his energy up for so long, revealing that Jowita has to “pull out all the stops” to motivate him. Yassin is known for the CBeebies shows Let's Go for a Walk, in the role of Ranger Hamza, and he has written a book based on the series. [9] [10] In late 2020, he presented Scotland: My Life in the Wild, a one-off Channel 4 documentary about his life and the wildlife living on the Ardnamurchan peninsula in the Highlands of Scotland. [11] When he was eight, the family moved to the UK – his parents had come six months earlier – but instead of viewing the move from a warm and busy family house, surrounded by other children, to life in Newcastle upon Tyne as an upheaval, Yassin embraced it.I moved from Sudan to the UK when I was eight and the first time my parents turned on the TV I saw David Attenborough talking about birds. Then I watched him in those fantastic gorilla scenes and thought, ‘I want to be him! Or his cameraman’. Steve Irwin inspired me too. I remember him saying, ‘Crikey, that crocodile nearly ripped my arm off - isn’t she a beauty?’! That was it – the passion of Steve and the grace of Attenborough – my two natural history idols. I knew I wanted to work with animals." Why are you focusing on birds of prey for this film?

Birds have been with me my entire life - from the colourful weaver birds on the banks of the Nile in Sudan to the magpies of Newcastle, from the roosting peregrine falcons near my parents' house in Northampton to the white-tailed eagles on the west coast of Scotland. I love them. If you take the time to stop and listen, you'll see the world through different eyes. It's all out there, waiting for you to find it. And it might just bring you as much joy as it's brought me.'Hamza: Strictly Birds of Prey, is available now on BBC iPlayer. His book Be A Birder: The Joy Of Birdwatching And How To Get Started is out now Because they’re the charismatic ones, most likely to get people hooked! If I started talking about the lesser-spotted warbler from Africa, you might go, ‘Boring, next!’– even though they’re just as important in the food chain as eagles. People relate to birds of prey better and they’re everywhere – if you look. You might think you can’t see peregrine falcons in urban areas, but there’s a nest next to Big Ben - slap, bang in the middle of London! You don’t need to be in the remote Scottish Highlands, where I live, to see these phenomenal predators – although they look pretty wonderful there too!" What else will we see in the film? With so much experience in his field, Hamza started working on The One Show as one of their wildlife cameraman, leading him to land his own CBeebies show and Let's Go For A Walk companion book. He can also be spotted on Countryfile and ITV's This Morning, and has filmed and presented Channel 4 shows Scotland: My Life in the Wild and Scotland: Escape to the Wilderness. His journey takes him from the wilds of Scotland to the heart of Ealing Borough in Greater London. Along the way, he meets a host of old friends, dedicated conservationists and fellow filmmakers, whose love for the natural world shines through.