Wild Horses, The Rockies And Me (BBC 2)

Rating:

What do you call a horse with a long black fringe over its eyes? Claudia Winklemane... yes, I know that's awful, but it's Christmas cracker season.

Claudia's equine lookalikes had their hoofprints all over cameraman Gordon Buchanan's Wild Horses, The Rockies And Me, as he spent three weeks in the Canadian wilderness with a herd.

These magnificent animals, weighing up to a ton-and-a-half, are descended from the horses first brought to the Americas by conquistadores in the 1500s. And they have flowing locks that any Spanish aristocrat would be proud to sport.

Buchanan made it his mission to get as close as possible, mimicking the horses' body language to put them at their ease. At one point, crouched in the grass, he even gave his own mane a shake.

The 53-year-old Scot has quietly established a unique niche in the BBC's schedules, by developing a low-key, deeply personal style very different to the corporation's traditional, big-budget wildlife epics.

Though he has worked on David Attenborough's hugely ambitious series such as Planet Earth II, Buchanan comes into his own when operating on a smaller scale. 

His deep empathy with wild animals and his exceptional patience enable him to bring us almost within touching distance, creating much more intimate footage than can be obtained with drones or telephoto lenses.

He also puts a lot of emphasis on groups, rather than individual animals — seeing them as members of a family, not mere specimens.

This month has seen repeats on BBC2 of earlier shows including Gorilla Family And Me and his Epic Camel Adventure. 

His back catalogue is broad, featuring bears, wolves, cheetahs, reindeer and tigers, as well as one innovative series called Animals With Cameras where he put miniature video recorders on meerkats, chimps and seals.

Filming big cats and polar bears is undoubtedly dangerous, but if Buchanan's presenting style has a fault, it is that he over-dramatises the risks. 

One sequence had him dropping his cameras and fumbling for his anti-bear spray, because he'd heard something moving in the woods nearby.

'I'm fairly sure this isn't the safest thing to do,' he muttered, as he edged closer to a herd of about 70 wild horses. 

Such big creatures can kill with a single kick, of course. But so far from medical aid in the wilderness, he's probably more likely to die from tripping and breaking his leg, than being flattened in a stampede.

I would have preferred to dispense with the confected tension and simply admire his skill as he won the trust of a small group, with a couple of inquisitive foals he nicknamed Socks and Boots.

By the end of three weeks, these two allowed him to pat their coats, as they investigated his camera gear.

'I've been behaving more horse than human,' he admitted. He might have to let his fringe grow over his eyes.