\n The TV star, who found fame in the 1970s as part of comic trio The Goodies, died on Saturday (July 25), his agent announced.\n<\/p>\n
\n He later became one of the country’s best\u2011known bird enthusiasts and fronted BBC programmes including Birding With Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie Goes Wild, Springwatch and Autumnwatch.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the North East, he had a long\u2011standing relationship with Northumberland Wildlife Trust, where he served as a patron for almost thirty years, opening nature reserves and encouraging volunteers and young people to get outdoors and get involved.\n<\/p>\n
\n Northumberland Wildlife Trust chief executive Mike Pratt said: “Bill was a fantastic inspiration to my generation of young conservationists from the 1970s onwards. To people young and old, he was a wildlife hero.\n<\/p>\n
\n “He made being a naturalist fun and exciting and led me and many of my counterparts into campaigning and taking action to save wildlife, which was a major concern even then.\n<\/p>\n
\n “He had been a Northumberland Wildlife Trust patron for almost thirty years, opening nature reserves and encouraging our volunteers and young people to get outdoors and get involved.\n<\/p>\n
\n “His work on Springwatch made him even more influential, and his Naturewatch series in the early 2000s influenced the next generation of wildlife conservationists.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I was lucky to spend time with Bill on the set of Springwatch on Brownsea Island in the early 2000s.\n<\/p>\n
\n “He was a great birder and naturalist and entertaining both on and off screen. I recall his banter with a birdwatcher about a bird they were looking at: was it a normal redshank or a spotted version? Bill made it into a comedy sketch there and then.\n<\/p>\n
\n “We will miss his support for what he genuinely cared about – life in all its forms.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The TV star, who found fame in the 1970s as part of comic trio The Goodies, died on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-716353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}