When Hamza Yassin talks about wildlife, his eyes light up in a way no camera can fully capture. The Strictly Come Dancing champion and BBC presenter has never been more open about the journey that led him from a childhood in Sudan to a life filming some of Britain’s rarest creatures — and why he believes the thing that once held him back became his greatest strength.
Now living in the remote Scottish Highlands, Hamza says he still sees the UK as a place of wonder. He arrived here at just eight years old, expecting a distant, mysterious country. What he didn’t expect was the shock of four true seasons.
“Near the equator, seasons don’t really mean anything,” he recalls. “Here, the land changes constantly. That alone made me fall in love with this place.”
Inspired by giants
As a boy, Hamza didn’t dream of fame. He dreamed of following in the footsteps of conservation legends — Sir David Attenborough, Steve Irwin, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey. But it was Sir Peter Scott, founder of the WWF and pioneer of modern wildlife broadcasting, who showed him what was possible.
The idea that someone could bring the natural world into people’s homes, not from a studio but from their own living room, shaped Hamza’s ambitions forever.
Finding home in the Highlands
Today, Hamza lives miles from city life in a small Highland community. For many, it would feel isolated. For him, it’s freedom.
“From my front door I might see a stag, an otter or an eagle,” he says. But it isn’t just the wildlife that keeps him there — it’s the people. In his village, everyone helps where they can. Skills are shared, favours returned, and no one is invisible.
It’s the kind of life he says he never knew he needed.
“My dyslexia taught me how to see”
At school, Hamza struggled with dyslexia. Words slipped away from him. Lessons felt harder than they should. But instead of breaking him, the challenge rewired his thinking.
“I had to look for patterns,” he explains. “Not just in books, but in everything around me.”
That way of thinking now defines his work. When he notices a bird acting strangely, his mind immediately scans for danger — a predator, a shift in the weather, a threat to its young. Where others see chaos, Hamza sees a story about to unfold.
It’s why he’s often ready with the camera seconds before the drama begins.
Nature closer than we think
In his latest book, Homeward Bound: The Joy of Nature and My Life Outdoors, Hamza encourages readers to stop chasing distant safaris and start paying attention to what’s outside their own door.
He points to the Covid lockdowns as a turning point — quieter roads, clearer skies, louder birdsong. A reminder that wonder doesn’t live thousands of miles away.
It lives right here.
And for Hamza Yassin, the boy who once struggled to read but learned to observe instead, that discovery changed everything.
