TV and movie producers and advertisers are fond of tugging at the heartstrings whenever they can to provoke empathy and mood or evoke ideals and character. Everything is dragooned into selling ideas and products and the natural world, like children, beautiful women and cute animals, is no exception.

Dolphins, penguins, sharks and - the latest vogue - polar bears are all employed to sell us stuff as shorthand for ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’. Who doesn’t recoil at a venemous snake or go ‘ahhh’ at a lion cub.

But along with the tiger provoking wild majesty for an oil company or birds of paradise for a dating agency, there are many ads or situations that aren’t quite right.

What historical drama would allow the merest detail of costume or carriage go unchecked? But flora and fauna don’t seem to get the same care. Is it because the producers of the films or adverts don’t care or don’t know any better? Most of the time it just seems sloppy and corner-cutting.

Scene 1: rugged, mountainous country anywhere in the world, preferably with lake surrounded by towering pine trees. A bird of prey calls, adding atmopshere.

Scene 2: a garden full of beautiful flowers. An exotic butterfly flits between blooms.

Scene 3: a woodland at night. Someone is up to no good. A fox calls.

But the same bird of prey call has cropped up on every shot of a mountain or range of hills anywhere in the world for the past 30 years. Couldn’t they find a different one? And the butterfly is a monarch, a native of central and north America and only occasionally is it blown over to this country. Foreign butterflies are more exotic than British ones so their pictures are the ones used. And the fox? It vies with hooting owls for cliche whenever a nocturnal scene is called for.

If that fox or eagle was being paid royalties, it would be very well off indeed by now.

Just as a digital watch sported by a Victorian gentleman grates, using dawn chorus birdsong in the background of a scene with no leaves on the trees is just as bad.

You might be wondering why this matters? Who cares if that animal is on the wrong continent or that plant is flowering at the wrong time of year? But, aside from the point that those who do know about these things will notice it and think less of the programme or ad, it shows up a lack of knowledge of the natural world that is not only worrying but could be damaging to our health and well-being.

For despite the success of programmes like Springwatch and wildlife documentaries, there is a growing lack of naturalists who can identify species and therefore help preserve them and the basic knowledge of flora and fauna among a general public separated from the natural world is chronic.

Maybe it’s part of the ‘it’s not cool to be a birdwatcher or look at flowers’ idea that’s been common among children for years but fewer people are entering the profession or even becoming skilled amateurs. And with climate change threatening dire consequences, knowing what variety a beetle or lichen is could indicate what areas need preserving or what species are being lost.

People, and children especially, should be encouraged to get out and about in the cities, towns and countryside and not just see animals in zoos but get to delight in them around where they live. Local nature reserves and even the smallest bit of wild ground should be set aside so a love of native animals and plants can be fostered and new recruits enlisted in the conservation cause.

Green or Obscene - the mileage counter

Miles by car: -611

Miles being driven: -32

Miles by train: +587

Miles on foot: +168

Miles by bike: +0

Miles by bus: +0

Miles by ferry: +0

Total: +112 (running total: -1825)