SPRINGWATCH presenter Chris Packham has opened up about his bond with stepdaughter Megan McCubbin.
The BBC star split from Megan’s mum Jo McCubbin 13 years ago – but has remained close with the 25-year-old zoologist.
During the first lockdown, Megan’s mum Jo, who is a nurse, felt it would be safer for her daughter to live with Chris at his New Forest home while she worked on the frontline.
While isolating together in Hampshire, the pair started a daily 30-minute Facebook livestream called the Self-Isolating Bird Club.
The impromptu nature stream caught the attention of Winterwatch producers who suggested Megan join the show as a guest presenter.
And now in a new interview with OK! magazine, Chris, 60, discussed Megan’s debut on the BBC nature series and praised her ease infront of the camera.
He said: “She did really well. I said to her: ‘You figure out what you want to say and I’ll fill in around you.’ I don’t need to own anything, I’ve got nothing to prove. I was there as a support mechanism, really, and wasn’t needed.
“She believes in what she’s got to say, she’s excited by the science and committed to the environmental aspects of it.”
Later in his interview, Chris opened up about his blended family now that Megan is working alongside his girlfriend Charlotte Corney at The Wildheart Sanctuary on the Isle of Wight.
He shared: “Megs was into animal when she was younger and when she met Charlotte, she met someone who had tigers and lions rather than owls and snakes like we did at home.
“So she went to work at the zoo and spent a lot of time with Charlotte. Up until that time she’d been studying drama, but being at the sanctuary made her have an epiphany.”
The TV star also said that he hopes Megan, who he has known since she was two, continues to follow in his footsteps and joked he’s been “mentoring her as much as she’ll allow me to”.
The interview comes months after Winterwatch’s first episode in 2021 surpassed the show’s record for viewing figures – boasting an average of 2.6million viewers.
Packham said the rise in viewing figures came amid an increase in interest in the natural world as people seek “solace and respite in the simple perfection of nature”.
Aside from Megan and Chris, Winterwatch is also presented by Gillian Burke and Iolo Williams.
