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Springwatch presenter Kate Humble's love of the outdoors is a passion she says she had from the minute she could crawl, but she admits that when she realised Bill Oddie was no longer going to be presenting the series with her last year, she considered stepping aside herself.

Kate says: "I was a little bit worried about doing the series without Bill because he was such an intrinsic part of it. But 20 seconds after sitting next to Chris, I thought 'I really want to work with this man'. The lovely thing about Chris is that he has many of the qualities that Bill had. He has that absolute bubbling over inherent enthusiasm for the subject and a really interesting way of telling people about it, that's very accessible, and he is incredibly brainy.

"The producers knew that I had had doubts and they were very patient with me and very supportive, they let me work it out for myself. In the end I didn't need any persuasion, I ended up having to persuade them that I really did want to come back! It would be like losing a limb not working on Springwatch.

"Lots of my friends who watched Chris on The Really Wild Show were saying 'please give me his number' – so suddenly I became very popular! It was a bit nerve-wracking and I suspect it was the same for him – they were big shoes to fill but I think he did it brilliantly and I think what it proved is that with the right sort of enthusiasm Springwatch could run and run.

"What Chris and I hope is that we have given it the next lease of life in a slightly different way but hopefully as accessible and as enjoyable as it has always has been.

"A highlight for me last year was being in woodland in the Lake District and calling in tawny owls – it was absolutely wonderful. We were trying to establish how many tawny owl territories there were within this piece of woodland. You stand there with your tape recorder and wonder if any are going to call you back and we had this really close encounter with tawny owls in the dark which was quite spooky but a really wonderful way to see those magnificent birds.

"And I got my first really good view of golden eagles in the Cairngorms in November. You suddenly realise why they have the name, because when they are soaring above you on a beautiful crisp sunny day and the sun is glinting off their golden heads, you realise they are just magnificent birds of prey.

"Springwatch is a very important series. It opens the door into the natural world and I really strongly believe that the natural world is for everyone, irrespective of their age, where they live and their level of expertise, and I hope it will continue to give people that.

"The series is the greatest soap opera on earth and none of us know what is going to happen, it is entirely dictated by the wildlife. When we sit down on that sofa on 31 May at 8pm we are not going to know what will happen for the next hour and we are certainly not going to have any inkling what is going to be happening three weeks later.

"Wildlife has this incredible ability to constantly surprise and you would think there wouldn't be any more surprises and yet every single year we see species we had never featured before.

"That unpredictability and never quite knowing what nature is going to throw up next is very compelling viewing.

"I think people have started looking at the wildlife which is right on their doorstep in a way that they didn't really do before and I was just as guilty of that. I went to Africa when I was 18 and it was that that really turned me on to the wonders of wildlife. It is always a joy to go and watch lions and giraffe but actually it can be just as exciting watching grebe going through their courtship ritual or water vole, people were blown away by our footage of the red deer rutting.

"We have some fabulous wildlife here and I think that is what Springwatch has done – it has opened people's eyes to it. I grew up next to a farm and had slightly taken it all for granted. But my time in Africa opened my eyes to wildlife and made me realise that you don't need to go all that way because our wildlife is just as fascinating – if you just take a little time to watch it."

Kate believes that the Springwatch Wild Days Out are a great example of what education should be about.

She says: "Having turned my back on my own education, I now realise how crucial education is – but the right sort. I have got to a point where I feel almost evangelical about it now.

"When I was at school we went out on school trips to the local park to collect leaves to make a collage or to look for insects or to collect tadpoles to put in a tank. These weren't fancy trips. I'm often impressed by how much children know about the environment but kids need to be encouraged to get out there get their finger nails dirty and really revel in the outside world and that's what the Wild Days Out are really all about – encouraging people.

"They may have all the theory at their finger tips, they may be able to get all the information they need on the internet, but you really only ever get to care about something if you have been out there and experienced it."