Oddie’s agent paid tribute to the ‘Springwatch’ presenter’s ‘intelligence’ and ‘wit’
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Wildlife presenter and Goodies star Bill Oddie has died at the age of 85, his agent has said.
The TV star and conservationist who found fame in the 1970s as a member of comic trio The Goodies alongside Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden, died on Saturday.
He went on to host wildlife programmes for the BBC, including Birding with Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie Goes Wild, Springwatch and Autumnwatch.
A statement from his friend and agent David Foster said: “It is with deep sadness that I announce the passing of Bill Oddie, the country’s best-loved birder.
“Bill was a multi-talented celebrity – wildlife presenter, broadcaster, comedian, writer, songwriter, musician and conservationist.
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“Yet it was never fame that he valued. Instead he encouraged us to respect and protect the environment.
“He taught us the wonder of it. He protested, lobbied and campaigned for it. He led the way and people of all ages and backgrounds responded to his call. And such a massive contribution to conservation will never be forgotten.
“As Bill’s agent I witnessed close hand his intelligence and wit. He was my friend and it was an honour and a privilege to represent him for so many years. I will miss him terribly.
“My thoughts and love are with Bill’s wife, Laura, and his daughters Bonnie, Kate and Rosie, who have asked not to be contacted at this sad time. Please respect their wishes.”
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A birdwatcher since his childhood in Birmingham, Oddie was a respected ornithologist. He was a council member of the RSPB, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and The Worldwide Fund for Nature. He was also president of The Northumberland Wildlife Trust and represented many other nature organisations. In addition, he wrote a number of books on birds and other wildlife topics.
Oddie admitted in 2017 that he never had any intention of building a career in the entertainment industry. “I think if my younger self had known how my life would turn out, he’d have been surprised,” he told The Telegraph. “If you’d asked my friends towards the end of school what they’d expected me to end up as, they might have introduced a showbizzy sort of element, because I wrote songs and revues and that sort of thing. I never for one second thought of it as work.”
His comic career began in the Cambridge Footlights, when he started writing for shows including That Was the Week That Was. He went on to write and appear on numerous programmes including I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, which featured many of his comic songs.
He first found fame, alongside Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor (who died in 2020), as a member of The Goodies and the trio earned household name status in Australia and New Zealand, while their self-titled television comedy show attracted millions of viewers in its heyday. His songs led the Goodies to several major chart hits, most notably “The Funky Gibbon”, which reached number four in the UK charts in 1975. The trio performed it on Top of the Pops; four years later, it was re-released and the profits were given to a campaign to preserve the primate’s habitat.
“The mid-Seventies were ridiculous,” Oddie told Radio Times in 2018. “Hit records, top 10 books in paper and hardback. I, particularly, was a bit schizophrenic about crowds. The adulation was rather nice, but sometimes it got too claustrophobic. The crowd was so big at the Arndale Centre in Manchester the police stopped the event!”
He continued to work with his fellow Goodies on programmes including Bananaman, before turning his attention to nature shows. Birding was always a passion for Oddie, who’d take time out to explore nature whenever he was not working. “I was doing bits and pieces and some journalist found out about my hobby, wrote a little article and fortunately it just escalated from there,” he told Varsity in 2012.
Away from music and nature presenting, Oddie was open about his life-long experiences with depression, and he received a formal diagnosis of bipolar disorder in 2009, shortly after being dropped from Springwatch in 2008. The BBC said that Oddie was replaced on the show due to his “health problems”, but Oddie himself said that he was given a “waffly statement” in regards to his exit. He described the period as the worst of his life, admitting that he attempted suicide twice and was under hospital care for more than a year.
Oddie later speculated that his mother, too, experienced bipolar disorder but went undiagnosed in her lifetime. She spent much of Oddie’s childhood in and out of hospitals due to mental illness. “My mother’s mental health deteriorated when I was a toddler,” he told The Guardian in 2015. “She probably suffered from postnatal depression and, in those days, the treatment was to lock up patients and administer electroconvulsive therapy.” He continued: “It’s clear that I’ve inherited the same genetic flaw. When it was suggested to me that she might have been bipolar, a million bells rang in my head because I was heading the same way.”
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Oddie credited his wife Laura with supporting him through the worst of his depression. “There must have been times when she wondered what she had done to deserve it,” he told The Guardian. “Self-help books tend to focus on the patient, but it’s often the partner who has the toughest time. I’m so grateful she stuck by me.”
Oddie is survived by his wife, Laura, and his three daughters – Rosie, from his marriage to Laura, and Kate and Bonnie from his first marriage to the jazz musician Jean Hart.
DATE . 27/July/2026