Chris Packham is on a mission. The wildlife expert and BBC Two Springwatch presenter is attempting to “glamorise”

the humble blue tit.

In preparation for a new tour which sees him sharing his favourite wildlife snaps, he reveals how he spent hours photographing the birds that visit his New Forest garden, devising elaborate sets for shoots and employing a range of special effects in the hope we will look at them in a new light. “People are going to leave thinking I’m barking mad,” he concludes happily. “But I hope at least they will take a second look at blue tits, because they’re quite striking little creatures really.”

As a passionate conservationist, Packham’s concerns are often for the less immediately appealing species. Besides blue tits, the 50-year-old hopes to use the tour to promote Antarctic animals such as the albatross.

“They’re very difficult to conserve because they’re at the other end of the planet and there’s an element of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, which is very risky when it comes to conservation.

I want to talk about what we don’t know about them as much as what we do.”

Packham may not give a hoot about being fashionable, but he’s concerned that our limited conservation resources are channelled wisely.

Hence his controversial 2009 diatribe against pandas, which he suggested should be allowed to die out because the species had gone down “an evolutionary cul-de-sac”

and were too costly to keep supporting. “I’d eat the last panda if I could have the money we’ve spent on panda conservation back on the table for me to do more sensible things with,” he was quoted as having said.

“I’ve got nothing against pandas,” he explains now, “but the reason for making those comments was to get people to think about conducting an audit in terms of conservation spending.

My problem is the vast amount of money we’re spending on the species when we could be spending the money on species that are easier to conserve and where we might have a greater degree of success.

“We’ve been brought up to think we must save everything at all costs and, while it may have been a fabulous dream some time ago, it’s not a realistic one. We have to make some tough decisions.”

More recently, Packham has inflamed the emotions of cat owners by suggesting we needed a “benign dictatorship” when it comes to stopping moggies preying on songbirds. He even suggested China’s “one child per family” policy might not be such a bad model to employ in tackling UK overpopulation, which he says is the biggest threat to the planet alongside climate change. He really knows how to pick a hot potato, doesn’t he?

“People say I court controversy but I don’t see any of those things as controversial, I see them as common sense.

I realise other people may have a different perspective but my vocation is to get people talking about these things and evolve a better understanding. I’m not saying my ideas are right necessarily, but I do know some of the current ideas in conservation are stale and old-fashioned and need to be approached more creatively.”

Since his days as a shockhaired peroxide blond on 1980s kids’ TV show The Really Wild Show, the punk rock-loving Packham has gained a reputation as something of a maverick.

Perhaps it’s a prerequisite for Springwatch presenters: he took over from the eccentric Bill Oddie, who, viewers may recall, got himself into hot water with his “smutty”

commentary on mating birds. Oddie has been a great mentor, Packham says, and is a good mate, despite their clashing tastes in music.

“Bill hates the music I listen to, old punk and indie mainly, and loves jazz. I hate jazz.

That’s pain to me.”

Springwatch viewers will be well aware of Packham’s tastes – his habit of inserting lyrics of songs by The Smiths and the Manic Street Preachers into his commentaries has not gone unnoticed. He hasn’t yet decided (or isn’t telling) which band he will pick for the next series, due to return later this year. “It would have to be a band I know really, really well because I do it all spontaneously. I’d have to be pretty familiar with their records.”

Packham never intended to go into television; after completing a zoology degree at Southampton, he had pictured a career in academia but then cancelled his PhD to train as a wildlife cameraman, before “drifting into”

a gig presenting The Really Wild Show alongside Michaela Strachan and Terry Nutkins. For a 25-year-old who had been “fixated” on animals since he was a boy, it was a dream job.

Despite their very different backgrounds (“She’d been dancing; I had my head down a badger set”), Packham struck up a friendship with Strachan that has continued to the present day. There was more than a little excitement on both sides when they were professionally reunited for Autumnwatch last year. “She’s a consummate professional who reads her notes, reads the script – all those things I never do – and is just a pleasure to work with. I guess maybe ours was an unlikely friendship, but she’s a very nice, down-to-earth person so it wasn’t that surprising we’d get on.”

He’s rarely been out of work since those days; after this tour, he’s off overseas to lead birding tours and do more photography, before heading to a house he rents in France to write for a while. He’ll then return to the UK to start filming Springwatch. “I always say sleep when you’re dead, eat just before,” he laughs. “It’s one of my favourite tedious maxims.”

He will always find time to fit in daily woodland expeditions with his two poodles Itchy and Scratchy, however. “Being outdoors every day is really important to me.” The poodles remain his only pets; plans to keep a crocodile were shelved when he realised the demands of housing them and, more frustratingly, the paperwork required to get a dangerous wild animals licence.

“It’s a lot more about keeping people out than anything else. If you get burgled, you have to make sure the burglar can’t get near the crocodile.

I can’t think of anything worse! The first thing I’d want is for the burglar to step straight into its jaws! Anyway, it’s probably for the best – the poodles are immensely jealous.”

* Chris Packham Goes Totally Wild comes to Worthing Pavilion Theatre on Wednesday. For tickets, call 01903 206206