‘I’m strictly for the birds’: Hamza Yassin reveals how winning the glitterball landed him his own show about our feathered friends
- The Strictly winner’s new show, Hamza: Strictly Birds Of Prey, starts on Sunday
- READ MORE: Sir David Attenborough is set to return to BBC screens to present the third season of Planet Earth at the age of 97
Wildlife cameraman and Strictly winner Hamza Yassin has always been happiest deep in nature.
After landing in Britain from the Sudan aged eight, unable to speak English, with his undiagnosed dyslexia leaving him frustrated and his parents’ jobs in healthcare meaning the family had to move every year, it’s no surprise he took solace in wildlife.
When he’s at work filming he has to hide in tiny spaces for 18 hours at a time, wearing compression socks to ensure he doesn’t get blood clots and with tissues stuffed up his nose so that his hay fever doesn’t bring on a sneezing fit that might frighten away the animals he’s trying to film.
But outside the hide he’s hard to miss. With the stocky frame of the rugby player he was at school, dreadlocks long enough to trip over and a beaming smile – as well as the infectious passion for dance that led him to the glitterball last year – Hamza, 33, is the newest star of the natural history world.
Success on Strictly has put him in a position he never dreamed of.
When Hamza is on location he has to hide in tiny spaces for 18 hours at a time. He stuffs tissues up his nose to prevent a sneezing fit that might frighten away the animals he’s trying to film
After falling in love with natural history through David Attenborough and Steve Irwin documentaries, he harboured a wish to one day film something for them.
He’s appeared on shows such as Countryfile and Animal Park but never expected he might present his own shows like they do.
Yet this week sees him front his first BBC nature film, Hamza: Strictly Birds Of Prey. ‘It feels like Strictly has moved my career on by 20 years,’ he admits.
The one-hour show sees him looking at these apex predators across the British Isles, including eagles outside his window in Kilchoan in the Highlands, marsh harriers in Somerset and peregrine falcons in London’s Ealing where there’s a nest on the local hospital.
‘Slap bang in the middle of this huge city there are these apex predators living with us in harmony because we have created these cliffs – also known as skyscrapers – for them,’ he says. ‘All people need to do is look up.’
Hamza knew from a young age that this was the job for him, but was scared to tell his parents he wouldn’t follow the rest of the family into medicine or dentistry.
‘It was a big thing when I told them I wanted to pursue my hobby but they just said, “Why didn’t you say?” They wanted me to follow my dreams.’
After studying zoology at Bangor University and biological photography in Nottingham, he went with a friend up to the west coast of Scotland, and has never really left.
He fell so in love with the area that for the first nine months he slept in his car.
Even when he started earning money as a ghillie he moved into a caravan without electricity or running water for two years because he preferred to invest his money into his cameras.
A hen harrier feeds her chicks in footage from Hamza’s new BBC1 film, Hamza: Strictly Birds Of Prey, which airs on Sunday
‘Because of my dyslexia I couldn’t start in the normal way as a runner on a production, so I needed to show what I could do,’ he says.
He started sending his work off to production companies, and was hired as a wildlife cameraman by The One Show.
This led to a role as Ranger Hamza in CBeebies’ Let’s Go For A Walk and other work for the BBC.
His dyslexia wasn’t diagnosed until he was 15 and while he could see it as something that’s held him back, he insists it’s a ‘superpower’ because it’s meant he’s had to work around it.
‘It’s given me a photographic memory. I remember everything. People ask me how I can spot an eagle from three kilometres away but because I know how it will hold its wings, how it moves, I just know.
‘In the same way some people could spot a family member a mile away, I’m like that with birds – they’re like my family members.’
Some have suggested that the countryside can be racist, but Hamza says that in his experience that couldn’t be more wrong.
‘Some people say, “Oh, black people find it hard to be in the countryside.” Of course lots of work in the countryside is about farming and farms are handed down the generations, but that doesn’t mean people from ethnic backgrounds can’t be farmers,’ he says.
‘I’m black. I love nature. I’ll knock on the door of strangers and say, “Hello! My name is Hamza, I’m a wildlife cameraman and a golden eagle went into that mountain. Do you mind if I have a look around your land and take some photographs?”
‘And they’ll just say, “Of course” and sometimes tell me to come back to show them what I’ve found.
Hamza and his dance partner Jowita Przystal, with whom he’s still close, won Strictly Come Dancing in 2022
‘The countryside isn’t racist. A sheep doesn’t care what colour you are. Everybody should appreciate the beauty of the natural world and I really want people to see that.’
He’s still close to his Strictly partner Jowita Przystal but admits he’ll be a little ‘jealous’ to see her in the arms of another this year.
‘I am going to be jealous but I hope she wins it again,’ he says. ‘We’re still the best of friends. I do love her – not in a romantic way – but if I’m having a tough day I’ll call her and if she’s struggling with something she’ll call me.’
He’s flattered to have received a few marriage offers. ‘People just want to say hello,’ he says bashfully.
‘I think everyone in the public eye gets it – but it’s great that there are admirers and people think I’m cool. I’d like to find someone but life’s too beautifully chaotic at the moment.’
- Hamza: Strictly Birds Of Prey, Sunday, 7pm, BBC1.
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