SURVIVAL expert, and bushcraft presenter Ray Mears returns to the TV screens later this year, with a new programme about the River Wye.

The programme, Wild River With Ray Mears, is a new one hour one-off documentary, following Ray as he travels downstream on the river, from where it rises on Plynlymon, a mountain in mid Wales, down to where it becomes tidal before reaching the reaches the Severn estuary at Chepstow.

The new programme, to be screened by ITV, will include Ray meeting with a coracle maker and trying his hand with the traditional craft on the river.

The programme also investigates the wildlife associated with the river and includes a section on bats, filmed at the Weir Gardens in Herefordshire.

Ray first appeared on television in the early 1990s, and his many productions include Survival, a series in which he tracked bears, wolves, and leopards.