The China Mail - UK TV comedy star and naturalist Bill Oddie dies at 85

"Bill was a multi-talented celebrity -- wildlife presenter, broadcaster, comedian, writer, songwriter, musician and conservationist," his agent David Foster said in a statement.

"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," Foster added, hailing Oddie as "the country's best loved birder".

Oddie, who grew up in Birmingham, came to fame as one of the trio in "The Goodies", starring with Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor in the comedy sketch show which ran from 1970 to 1982.

The three met as students at Cambridge University, and joined the Footlights Club, where their contemporaries included British comedians John Cleese and Eric Idle, who were later to create "Monty Python's Flying Circus".

Several of the songs written for "The Goodies" were UK chart hits, including "The Funky Gibbon" in 1975.

Oddie was a passionate birdwatcher and conservationist, and presented various shows across the BBC and Channel 4, including the nature programme "Springwatch".

He later led a vocal campaign against a government-backed cull of badgers, blamed for spreading tuberculosis to cattle.

"It's quite clearly a travesty," Oddie told AFP in 2013 as he joined a patrol to save the badgers.

"This is one of the most controversial, unreasonable, damaging, unnecessary conflicts I've ever known."

He spoke movingly of suffering from depression when he was dropped from "Springwatch" in 2008. He was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Oddie also urged people to go out and experience the natural world.

"My plea to people would be to 'go naked' occasionally -- take off those earpieces so you hear nature and, of course, birdsong. You may not realise how precious it is until it's gone," he told the Daily Telegraph.

J.Thompson--ThChM