0:00:02 > 0:00:04BIRDS CALL
0:00:06 > 0:00:10Of all Britain's birds, surely the most charismatic,
0:00:10 > 0:00:14beautiful and fascinating are our waterbirds.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16From the jewel-like kingfisher
0:00:16 > 0:00:20to the cryptically camouflaged bittern,
0:00:20 > 0:00:22and from the tiny teal to majestic wild swans,
0:00:22 > 0:00:24geese, and cranes,
0:00:24 > 0:00:28waterbirds have always had a special place in our hearts...
0:00:29 > 0:00:34..and our stomachs. Plump and juicy ducks, geese and swans,
0:00:34 > 0:00:37thin and stringy herons and cranes
0:00:37 > 0:00:42have all featured on the British menu since we learned to shoot,
0:00:42 > 0:00:45catch and cook them many centuries ago.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50But our love of waterbirds is not purely gastronomic.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54We've always had a passion for the wild and lonely places
0:00:54 > 0:00:56where they choose to live.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59Anyone who has really any interest in birds at all
0:00:59 > 0:01:02becomes enthusiastic about waterbirds,
0:01:02 > 0:01:06partly because they come in very big numbers and they're very colourful,
0:01:06 > 0:01:09but also because they tend to come to such wild, wilderness places,
0:01:09 > 0:01:12the sort of places that we all love.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16It was when we started to covet these vast wetlands
0:01:16 > 0:01:18and drain the lifeblood out of them
0:01:18 > 0:01:21that these birds began their long decline.
0:01:23 > 0:01:28One by one, the crane and the avocet,
0:01:28 > 0:01:31the osprey and the white-tailed eagle,
0:01:31 > 0:01:34the bittern and the great crested grebe
0:01:34 > 0:01:37all slid towards extinction.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40But at the 11th hour, the tide turned.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Compassion finally triumphed over greed,
0:01:43 > 0:01:47and instead of exploiting these birds, we chose to
0:01:47 > 0:01:50protect them and their watery homes.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53How we came to do so is the story of Britain's waterbirds.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07The story begins more than 1,000 years ago,
0:02:07 > 0:02:11with a holy man who just wanted to keep warm at night,
0:02:11 > 0:02:15and his relationship with a very special kind of duck.
0:02:16 > 0:02:21The eider is our largest, heaviest and fastest-flying duck,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25with one of the most bizarre sounds of any British bird.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29An eider duck,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32which is a very masculine, butch bird, I always think,
0:02:32 > 0:02:34because they have a big chest,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37you know - they come out with this absurd noise,
0:02:37 > 0:02:42which sounds like a cross between a shocked lady, a posh lady, I always think,
0:02:42 > 0:02:47who's heard something a bit naughty, and Frankie Howerd.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50They sort of sit on the water and go "Ooh! Ooh!"
0:02:50 > 0:02:55DUCKS CALL
0:02:55 > 0:03:01It wasn't the sound which made the eider world-famous, but its plumage.
0:03:01 > 0:03:03To line her nest,
0:03:03 > 0:03:07the female plucks soft feathers from her own breast.
0:03:07 > 0:03:09These are, ounce for ounce,
0:03:09 > 0:03:13the warmest natural material known to man, and gave their name to
0:03:13 > 0:03:17a household object once found in every home in Britain -
0:03:17 > 0:03:19the eiderdown.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23People don't put that together sometimes - an eiderdown,
0:03:23 > 0:03:27thing you put on your bed, yeah, it's eider duck.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30One of the first people to appreciate the benefits
0:03:30 > 0:03:35of getting close to eider ducks was a seventh-century monk, St Cuthbert.
0:03:37 > 0:03:38Cuthbert and his fellow monks
0:03:38 > 0:03:41had chosen a life of devotion and austerity
0:03:41 > 0:03:47in one of the more remote and chilliest places in Britain -
0:03:47 > 0:03:50Holy Island, off the Northumberland coast.
0:03:50 > 0:03:55They shared their home with a large population of nesting eider ducks.
0:03:56 > 0:03:57I think Cuthbert
0:03:57 > 0:04:02gained notoriety for his relationship with the eider duck.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06And people who went to visit him were amazed that these ducks
0:04:06 > 0:04:10followed him around, and it kind of gave him a saintly appearance.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13What they didn't realise was that all ducks have this propensity
0:04:13 > 0:04:18to imprint onto the first thing they see when they hatch out of the egg.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20So he must have had some eider duck eggs,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23and the chick emerged from the shell, saw him,
0:04:23 > 0:04:24and thought, "You must be my mum,"
0:04:24 > 0:04:27because that would be the natural situation.
0:04:27 > 0:04:32Cuthbert was so fond of his eider ducks that he passed strict laws
0:04:32 > 0:04:36forbidding anyone from killing them or stealing their eggs or down.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40This was the very first time any British bird
0:04:40 > 0:04:43had been given official protection.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47But did this saintly man have another, more selfish motive
0:04:47 > 0:04:50for offering sanctuary to the eiders?
0:04:50 > 0:04:53I mean, it's possible that it was
0:04:53 > 0:04:56for his own warmth, basically,
0:04:56 > 0:05:00that "I don't want anybody else taking these eider ducks,
0:05:00 > 0:05:04"because I'm going to... I want a very, very, very big eiderdown."
0:05:04 > 0:05:08I think St Cuthbert was looking after an economic asset,
0:05:08 > 0:05:13but was also, in that classic Christian tradition,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15seen as somehow transcending
0:05:15 > 0:05:21our own ideas of animals being fearful of Man the Hunter.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23Today, the saintly Cuthbert is commemorated
0:05:23 > 0:05:24in the local name for the eider,
0:05:24 > 0:05:28affectionately known as "Cuddy's duck".
0:05:28 > 0:05:31And he deserves to be remembered -
0:05:31 > 0:05:34by protecting the eider ducks, he was way ahead of his time.
0:05:34 > 0:05:40Britain's waterbirds would not be truly safe for another 1,200 years.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55In the centuries following Cuthbert's death,
0:05:55 > 0:05:58Britain's waterbirds continued to thrive.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02And they had plenty of space in which to do so -
0:06:02 > 0:06:06vast areas of the country, from the Somerset Levels in the west
0:06:06 > 0:06:09to the Norfolk Broads in the east, were permanently flooded,
0:06:09 > 0:06:14providing mile after mile of ideal habitat.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18But the greatest wetland of all was that huge, marshy area
0:06:18 > 0:06:22covering much of East Anglia known as the Fens.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24Wild fenland in the past
0:06:24 > 0:06:27would have been a remarkably diverse and busy place.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31It would have been a wonderful place for the modern naturalist to enjoy.
0:06:31 > 0:06:37It would have been full of pools with ducks and other waterfowl,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40there would have been reed beds full of warblers,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44there would have been herons and egrets staking out the edges of pools.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47The water itself would have been full of fish and eels,
0:06:47 > 0:06:53and it would have been just a very dynamic, vibrant, functioning ecosystem.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58It was a vast wilderness, and must have been
0:06:58 > 0:07:02one of the most important wetlands in the whole of Europe.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07For the human inhabitants of this watery wilderness,
0:07:07 > 0:07:12these vast gatherings of waterbirds were like manna falling from heaven.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18They would go out onto the water with these walls of netting,
0:07:18 > 0:07:23and in a single drive, they would catch up to 5,000 mallard.
0:07:23 > 0:07:28I mean, 5,000 mallard caught in a single drive,
0:07:28 > 0:07:33tells you that the overall population was multiples of that,
0:07:33 > 0:07:35was absolutely gargantuan.
0:07:35 > 0:07:40And this bountiful natural harvest was seen as theirs by divine right -
0:07:40 > 0:07:44literally a gift from God.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46It was the general assumption, wasn't it,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50until very, very recently indeed, that the whole of creation,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53apart from us, was put there for our benefit -
0:07:53 > 0:07:58that the plants and animals are separate from people,
0:07:58 > 0:08:03that the relationship is one of subjugation, really.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06If they were hungry, they saw them as something to eat.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13The height of this conspicuous consumption
0:08:13 > 0:08:16came during the 14th and 15th centuries,
0:08:16 > 0:08:21with the mediaeval equivalent of a celebrity wedding - the royal feast.
0:08:23 > 0:08:28These medieval feasts were very much about
0:08:28 > 0:08:32how wealthy the person giving the feast was.
0:08:32 > 0:08:38How many birds I can have on my table tells you how powerful I am.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42And the number and diversity of birds that were eaten
0:08:42 > 0:08:45at these feasts is absolutely incredible.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48The feast which for me is most extraordinary
0:08:48 > 0:08:52is a 1465 feast by Lord Neville,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55when he was enthroned as Archbishop of York.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58And they gathered together I think it was something like,
0:08:58 > 0:09:03something between 14,000 and 16,000 wild birds.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07And that included 200 herons, 200 bitterns.
0:09:07 > 0:09:12I mean, 200 bitterns is the entire British population in one meal.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15There were said to be 200 cranes,
0:09:15 > 0:09:17there would have been huge numbers of swans.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21And all these birds would have been an expression of your ability
0:09:21 > 0:09:23to access wild protein
0:09:23 > 0:09:27in the most exalted kind of feast that you could imagine.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31Yet surprisingly, the killing and eating of these birds
0:09:31 > 0:09:36on this gargantuan scale had very little effect on their numbers.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38So long as there were still large areas of fenland
0:09:38 > 0:09:40where they could live and breed,
0:09:40 > 0:09:43Britain's waterbirds continued to thrive.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49But as the modern age dawned,
0:09:49 > 0:09:52their world was about to be turned upside down.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56In one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in our history,
0:09:56 > 0:10:02this marshy landscape was drained of its very lifeblood - water.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05There were three big attempts to drain the Fens -
0:10:05 > 0:10:08the Romans tried, the monasteries tried,
0:10:08 > 0:10:11there were drainage attempts in the 13th century.
0:10:11 > 0:10:13But it was the 17th century
0:10:13 > 0:10:17that saw what you might describe as the industrial drainage of the Fens.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22We can certainly admire the dedication and ingenuity of the men
0:10:22 > 0:10:27who carried out the Herculean task of turning water into land.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31But from the point of view of the wildlife that lived there,
0:10:31 > 0:10:36especially the waterbirds, the loss of the fens was a total disaster.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49Wild fenland has in the modern era
0:10:49 > 0:10:53been replaced by a much more impoverished landscape,
0:10:53 > 0:10:56a landscape dominated by agriculture and by farming,
0:10:56 > 0:10:59a landscape dominated by profit.
0:10:59 > 0:11:03And what we have now is much bleaker,
0:11:03 > 0:11:06it's much less rich, it's much less complex.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09And most importantly, there are far fewer species of bird
0:11:09 > 0:11:11in that landscape.
0:11:13 > 0:11:18The loss of the Fens is a catastrophic decline,
0:11:18 > 0:11:22which was slow and incremental
0:11:22 > 0:11:26as the intensification of agriculture proceeded, until today,
0:11:26 > 0:11:28when 99% of all the Fens has gone.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34It was an environmental treasure
0:11:34 > 0:11:40of international importance, and we've lost it.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42By the middle of the 19th century,
0:11:42 > 0:11:45200 years after the draining of the Fens began,
0:11:45 > 0:11:49Britain's waterbirds had reached an all-time low.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53The population of once-widespread wetland species
0:11:53 > 0:11:55such as the bittern had plummeted.
0:11:55 > 0:12:00And the most iconic British waterbird of all, the crane,
0:12:00 > 0:12:02had vanished altogether.
0:12:02 > 0:12:08The draining of the Fens started us off on a rather familiar track,
0:12:08 > 0:12:13whereby some of the displaced birds first became local,
0:12:13 > 0:12:15then they became scarce,
0:12:15 > 0:12:18then they became rare, then endangered,
0:12:18 > 0:12:20and finally extinct.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24Because these birds are specialists, they live in these waterlands,
0:12:24 > 0:12:28they can't just relocate to woodland or agricultural land.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31They depend on the Fens and the reed beds
0:12:31 > 0:12:34both for nesting sites and for food.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40For one bird, things were about to get even worse.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45The great crested grebe would be driven to the brink of extinction
0:12:45 > 0:12:50before playing a vital part in the renaissance of Britain's waterbirds.
0:12:52 > 0:12:57It is so beautiful. There is something just astonishing
0:12:57 > 0:13:00about watching a pair of grebes getting together
0:13:00 > 0:13:02at the beginning of the breeding season, and saying,
0:13:02 > 0:13:05"Are you the one for me? Go on, prove it."
0:13:07 > 0:13:09And they'll come up, rise up out of the water,
0:13:09 > 0:13:13going, "Look how magnificent I am, aren't I just beautiful?"
0:13:13 > 0:13:15"Yeah, you're not bad."
0:13:15 > 0:13:17And then just to sort of carry on the courtship -
0:13:17 > 0:13:21"it's OK, I'm going to do a little bit of dance with some weed
0:13:21 > 0:13:24"hung beautifully over my bill, you won't be able to resist me."
0:13:24 > 0:13:28But it doesn't look like slimy old pond weed when they're doing it -
0:13:28 > 0:13:31it could be a tango with a rose between their teeth,
0:13:31 > 0:13:32it's almost that.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39But by the middle of the 19th century,
0:13:39 > 0:13:42the great crested grebe was in big trouble.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46With fewer than 100 breeding pairs in the whole of Britain,
0:13:46 > 0:13:50it was on the verge of following the crane into oblivion.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53Its downfall was due to high society ladies -
0:13:53 > 0:13:56the fashion victims of their day.
0:13:57 > 0:14:02In the streets of London, Paris and New York, the plumage of birds
0:14:02 > 0:14:06was becoming the latest must-have fashion accessory.
0:14:06 > 0:14:08Society women strove to outdo each other
0:14:08 > 0:14:10with the extravagance of their headgear -
0:14:10 > 0:14:14first with birds' feathers, then their skins,
0:14:14 > 0:14:16and eventually the whole bird itself.
0:14:16 > 0:14:21Some women looked like exhibits from the Natural History Museum.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24Vast numbers - tens of thousands of birds -
0:14:24 > 0:14:28were killed every year for their plumage.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31People thought, you know, "I must have feathers in my hat,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34"I must have a feather boa, I must have ruffs, I must have,"
0:14:34 > 0:14:39you know, "things on my cape that basically should be on a bird."
0:14:39 > 0:14:45For the great crested grebe, the way it had evolved to suit its aquatic lifestyle
0:14:45 > 0:14:49turned out to be its Achilles heel.
0:14:49 > 0:14:55Grebes spend their entire lives on water - courting, feeding and even building a floating nest.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00To keep themselves warm, they have developed unusually dense feathering.
0:15:00 > 0:15:05What was known as grebe fur, the kind of really downy, dense feathers
0:15:05 > 0:15:08that were so important to the bird, to keep them waterproof,
0:15:08 > 0:15:13could be made into material for hats, or again used as a sort of edging,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16or, you know, a flourish on some sort of frippery.
0:15:16 > 0:15:22As the demand for feathers and plumes grew, so more and more birds were slaughtered
0:15:22 > 0:15:24to supply this grisly trade.
0:15:24 > 0:15:30But not everyone was happy with the exploitation of birds in the name of fashion,
0:15:30 > 0:15:36and one group of women, in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury, decided to take a stand.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40The RSPB initially was a society of fairly posh women,
0:15:40 > 0:15:45the kind of women who otherwise would be wearing the hats.
0:15:45 > 0:15:50It was a small group of women who went, "Hang on a second, there's something not right about this."
0:15:50 > 0:15:52We don't like what's going on.
0:15:52 > 0:15:56It is a hat worth it? No, it's not.
0:15:58 > 0:16:04They were imbued with a humanitarianism that captured and brought along a lot of people,
0:16:04 > 0:16:06and they pointed out the suffering of animals,
0:16:06 > 0:16:09and said that something had to be done about it.
0:16:11 > 0:16:18These "ornithological suffragettes" went about their campaign in an unusual but highly effective way.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22The strategies that these Victorian ladies used
0:16:22 > 0:16:28to campaign against the plumage trade were actually incredibly visionary.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32They held promotional afternoons, they went to church,
0:16:32 > 0:16:37and they noted down the names of ladies who were sitting in pews
0:16:37 > 0:16:40with these feathers in their hats, and then on a Monday,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43these ladies would receive a hectoring letter,
0:16:43 > 0:16:48pointing out the suffering of the bird that had died to simply adorn the lady's hat.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52Imagine receiving a letter that said, you know,
0:16:52 > 0:16:55"Do you realise there are 15 species of bird in your hat,
0:16:55 > 0:16:58"and you have, in effect, killed them?"
0:17:00 > 0:17:03By 1889, they had enough supporters
0:17:03 > 0:17:09to form their own Society for the Protection of Birds, charging tuppence a time for membership.
0:17:09 > 0:17:1415 years later, they received the royal seal of approval
0:17:14 > 0:17:16and became the RSPB.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22But in their concern for the birds' welfare,
0:17:22 > 0:17:27might these women also have been thinking about their own domestic repression?
0:17:27 > 0:17:31A lot of the things they were saying were about the effects on female birds.
0:17:31 > 0:17:33So, for example, the horrible photographs
0:17:33 > 0:17:40of Australian egret colonies being slaughtered during the nesting season,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44the great piles of adults on the ground were always described as female birds
0:17:44 > 0:17:46that had been killed at the nest,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50when in fact it probably would have been almost equal male and female.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54There is a reading of this great desire to protect birds
0:17:54 > 0:17:58from the horrible shooting and depredations of men
0:17:58 > 0:18:01that might point to a displacement of women's own anxieties
0:18:01 > 0:18:04about their inability to control cruelty in the domestic sphere.
0:18:06 > 0:18:12I think it was part of an emancipation of women as adornment.
0:18:12 > 0:18:17Women saw the elaborate hat on their head as in some way
0:18:17 > 0:18:20a metaphor for their own social uselessness,
0:18:20 > 0:18:22and they didn't want to be useless -
0:18:22 > 0:18:25they were incredibly gifted, capable,
0:18:25 > 0:18:28all the things that women are being empowered to achieve today.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32They protested and fought against the exploitation of birds
0:18:32 > 0:18:35before anyone fought against the fact that women didn't have the vote.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37This is astonishing!
0:18:37 > 0:18:43Thanks to the efforts of the pioneering founders of the RSPB,
0:18:43 > 0:18:47the great crested grebe had been saved - just in the nick of time.
0:18:47 > 0:18:53This was a crucial turning point in our relationship with all Britain's birds.
0:18:53 > 0:19:00I think all those of us in the modern era who cherish wild birds
0:19:00 > 0:19:07owe these Victorian radicals who came together to form the RSPB
0:19:07 > 0:19:10an absolutely enormous debt of gratitude.
0:19:10 > 0:19:17During the following century, Britain's waterbirds would still face threats, but from now on,
0:19:17 > 0:19:23our attitudes would shift from exploiting them to offering them protection.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27Before we could do so, however, we needed to learn more about them.
0:19:29 > 0:19:31As the 20th century dawned,
0:19:31 > 0:19:37Britain began to throw off many of the outdated customs of the Victorian era.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40But one area proved stubbornly resistant to change -
0:19:40 > 0:19:42the way we studied birds.
0:19:44 > 0:19:50Professional ornithology at that time was museum ornithology -
0:19:50 > 0:19:53it was understanding the relationships of birds,
0:19:53 > 0:19:57understanding their anatomy, and how that fed into classification.
0:19:57 > 0:20:01So the idea that anybody would go out and study wild birds
0:20:01 > 0:20:03was anathema to these museum people.
0:20:03 > 0:20:09Scientists thought that science was what you did in a laboratory,
0:20:09 > 0:20:11where you could control all the circumstances,
0:20:11 > 0:20:14and you could make worthwhile observations
0:20:14 > 0:20:16because you could control elements,
0:20:16 > 0:20:22and so you could then vary particular ones and see which was significant and so on.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25And science was not going out watching dickie birds -
0:20:25 > 0:20:27I mean, in the scientists' view.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31One young scientist, Julian Huxley, was deeply frustrated
0:20:31 > 0:20:36with the status quo and decided to do something about it.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39So in the spring of 1912, he took a fortnight's holiday
0:20:39 > 0:20:45in the peaceful surroundings of Tring Reservoirs in Hertfordshire.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48His plan was to take a close look at one particular waterbird -
0:20:48 > 0:20:54the great crested grebe, which, thanks to the good ladies of the RSPB,
0:20:54 > 0:20:56had made something of a comeback.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06"A notebook, some patience, and a spare fortnight in the spring.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09"With these I not only managed to discover
0:21:09 > 0:21:11"many unknown facts about the crested grebe,
0:21:11 > 0:21:15"but also had the pleasantest of holidays.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17"Go thou and do likewise."
0:21:17 > 0:21:22I remember as an undergraduate been told that Julian Huxley
0:21:22 > 0:21:24had done this amazing, ground-breaking study
0:21:24 > 0:21:28on the courtship behaviour of great crested grebes,
0:21:28 > 0:21:31simply in his Easter holiday with his brother.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35And the idea that you could do something worthwhile in two weeks
0:21:35 > 0:21:39just by being organised and focused was a tremendous inspiration.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51But just like the women behind the RSPB,
0:21:51 > 0:21:55there may have been a hidden side to Huxley's motives.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57Despite his rigorous scientific training,
0:21:57 > 0:22:04he couldn't help getting deeply involved in the more intimate details of the grebes' behaviour.
0:22:04 > 0:22:11"The hen swam to the nest, leapt on to it, and sank down in the passive attitude once more.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15"Upon this, the cock came up to the nest, jumped on to the hen's back,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18"and they apparently paired successfully -
0:22:18 > 0:22:22"both birds meanwhile uttering a special shrill, screaming cry."
0:22:24 > 0:22:30I think it conformed to his mental image of the way birds ought to be,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32which was monogamous.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35This was very clearly a set of displays between a male and a female
0:22:35 > 0:22:41working together, in what he called a harmonious relationship.
0:22:41 > 0:22:47I find it very bizarre that Huxley's private life was anything but monogamous, anything but harmonious,
0:22:47 > 0:22:51yet he kind of imposed those values on the birds that he studied.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56Julian Huxley went to Eton, where, like most...
0:22:56 > 0:22:59well, not most,
0:22:59 > 0:23:03but a few Eton schoolboys, he would have great crushes on other schoolboys,
0:23:03 > 0:23:07and he used to follow them around at a distance, worshipping them,
0:23:07 > 0:23:09and then he left Eton and came up to Cambridge,
0:23:09 > 0:23:15and at that time was engaged in a kind of engagement with a woman.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19And he was finding it all a little bit weird and strange.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21He was very attracted to this woman,
0:23:21 > 0:23:25but found the actual mechanics of getting to grips with her quite off-putting
0:23:25 > 0:23:30and a little unfortunate, and he...he blamed all this on his Edwardian upbringing.
0:23:30 > 0:23:38So, he went off and hid in reed beds at Tring and watched great crested grebes having sex,
0:23:38 > 0:23:42which he described as being as exciting to the birds as it is to the watcher.
0:23:42 > 0:23:49Huxley's peculiar obsession with the sex life of grebes had far-reaching consequences.
0:23:49 > 0:23:54Without intending to, he had created a whole new branch of science -
0:23:54 > 0:23:58ethology, or the study of animal behaviour.
0:23:58 > 0:24:02What was novel about Julian Huxley's study of great crested grebes
0:24:02 > 0:24:05wasn't anything to do with technology.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10All he had was a pair of binoculars and a notebook.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14But what he had that other bird-watchers didn't have
0:24:14 > 0:24:18was training in zoology and understanding of evolutionary processes.
0:24:18 > 0:24:21"A pair of birds, cock and hen,
0:24:21 > 0:24:24"suddenly approached each other,
0:24:24 > 0:24:27"raising their necks and ruffs as they did so.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30"Then, they both began shaking their heads at each other
0:24:30 > 0:24:33"in a peculiar and formal-looking manner."
0:24:33 > 0:24:36He analyses the behaviour of these waterbirds.
0:24:36 > 0:24:38He doesn't just say, "Isn't that extraordinary?
0:24:38 > 0:24:40"Look at those wonderful movements."
0:24:40 > 0:24:45What he does is, he asks about the origin and evolution of those movements,
0:24:45 > 0:24:49and the significance of each of the actions made by the birds.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53Huxley's eureka moment came when he began to analyse
0:24:53 > 0:24:57exactly what these peculiar movements really meant.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00It was clearly preening
0:25:00 > 0:25:01and cleaning and shaking,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04but they didn't look like ordinary shaking movements -
0:25:04 > 0:25:09they'd become stylised, they'd become modified and they had become display patterns.
0:25:09 > 0:25:16When, at a moment of high stress, you do something which...
0:25:16 > 0:25:21to discharge that stress, which is a normal piece of activity,
0:25:21 > 0:25:26in the same way as I might pull my ear if I'm getting rather nervous about something.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28That was one of the early things that Julian established.
0:25:28 > 0:25:32Julian Huxley would go on to become one of the century's
0:25:32 > 0:25:36leading scientists, statesmen and broadcasters,
0:25:36 > 0:25:39as well as launching Pets' Corner at London Zoo.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43We intend to allow people to get a more intimate contact with animals
0:25:43 > 0:25:46than they can do in the ordinary cages...
0:25:46 > 0:25:48But his greatest legacy
0:25:48 > 0:25:51was that he had found a way of allowing ordinary people
0:25:51 > 0:25:54to take part in genuine scientific study.
0:25:56 > 0:26:02And ultimately, by understanding our birds, we would be better able to protect them.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07He was one of those who turned bird-watching into a science,
0:26:07 > 0:26:13and who recognised that in bird-watchers -
0:26:13 > 0:26:16passionate, dedicated, amateur bird-watchers -
0:26:16 > 0:26:18you had a huge scientific resource,
0:26:18 > 0:26:23that if you could mobilise it and organise it,
0:26:23 > 0:26:26here was a huge source of data.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34By the early 1930s, thanks to Huxley's pioneering work,
0:26:34 > 0:26:38amateur bird-watchers had begun to make a real contribution to science.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42Throughout the spring and summer, they would be out and about
0:26:42 > 0:26:46carrying out detailed surveys of Britain's breeding birds.
0:26:46 > 0:26:52One of the earliest of these was a nationwide count of nesting great crested grebes.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54And for the third time in this story,
0:26:54 > 0:26:58this humble waterbird would make a major contribution to our own history,
0:26:58 > 0:27:02this time in the field of social science.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05One of the people involved was a chap called Tom Harrisson,
0:27:05 > 0:27:09who had an extraordinary career - he makes Lawrence of Arabia look a bit tame.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13And he had enough enemies, because he specialised in making enemies.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16I mean, that was what he really enjoyed doing -
0:27:16 > 0:27:20making a good couple of enemies today, and the day was well spent, I would think!
0:27:20 > 0:27:26But initially, he started off censusing grebes with a friend of his,
0:27:26 > 0:27:32and what's great about their grebe census is that they recruited thousands of people,
0:27:32 > 0:27:34and they did so with a sort of media blitz.
0:27:34 > 0:27:40They put articles in all the newspapers, they wrote to vicars and landowners, and they trespassed.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43They ended up having about 1,300 responses.
0:27:43 > 0:27:50As he travelled around the country counting grebes, Harrisson had a flash of inspiration.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53He would take the methods he used to study birds
0:27:53 > 0:27:58and apply them to investigating the behaviour of another species - his own.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01He called this new approach mass observation.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04A mass observation
0:28:04 > 0:28:08was an attempt to map mass behaviour.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12I mean, the great word for the people in the 1930s - mass, mass culture,
0:28:12 > 0:28:13mass observation.
0:28:13 > 0:28:17So, to observe ordinary people and to understand what makes them tick
0:28:17 > 0:28:21at leisure, at work, at home, in a whole series of categories.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24So it was a kind of live sociological survey,
0:28:24 > 0:28:28not just looking at statistics, but actually going out and observing people.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31One was greatly struck working in these contexts
0:28:31 > 0:28:35in a place like Bolton with the complete discrepancy
0:28:35 > 0:28:38between what all the sort of people I was working with thought
0:28:38 > 0:28:42and talked about and what was being reported in the newspapers,
0:28:42 > 0:28:47and even, if I may say so, in the BBC of those days.
0:28:47 > 0:28:49There were in fact, in those years, two different languages,
0:28:49 > 0:28:53almost, being spoken in England - two different languages of thought.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56At a time when you've got a very stratified society,
0:28:56 > 0:28:58where classes are concerned, and a lot of snobbery,
0:28:58 > 0:29:00it was quite a breakthrough
0:29:00 > 0:29:03to say ordinary people's lives are worth studying in this way.
0:29:03 > 0:29:09It seems now absolutely obvious that you should study human beings
0:29:09 > 0:29:17in that kind of cold, detached, objective way.
0:29:17 > 0:29:22But you try and find someone who did it before.
0:29:22 > 0:29:27Harrisson's pioneering approach to studying human behaviour
0:29:27 > 0:29:32owed a lot to the way he had honed his skills of observation through watching birds.
0:29:33 > 0:29:37The notion that what human beings did,
0:29:37 > 0:29:39in the way they danced - where they put their hands,
0:29:39 > 0:29:42whether it was up between the shoulder blades
0:29:42 > 0:29:45or whether it was lower down on the waist -
0:29:45 > 0:29:48people's patterns of speech, all these things
0:29:48 > 0:29:53were exactly the same curiosity of degree, of detail,
0:29:53 > 0:29:56which he had when he was a boy, and he did birds.
0:29:56 > 0:29:58It's social research as bird-watching.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02You don't talk to them, you don't participate,
0:30:02 > 0:30:04you stand aside and watch it through binoculars.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07So, to some extent, it's interesting that he was a bird watcher,
0:30:07 > 0:30:11because Mass Observation was a bit like that, I think.
0:30:11 > 0:30:17Mass Observation revolutionised the way we look at ourselves for ever.
0:30:17 > 0:30:20Its methods are still being used today,
0:30:20 > 0:30:24in university departments of sociology, in market research,
0:30:24 > 0:30:27and in fly-on-the-wall television documentaries.
0:30:33 > 0:30:36In the years between the two world wars,
0:30:36 > 0:30:40when Harrison and his fellow birdwatchers were counting grebes,
0:30:40 > 0:30:42Britain's waterbirds continued their comeback
0:30:42 > 0:30:46from the low point in their fortunes a century before.
0:30:48 > 0:30:51Every autumn, vast flocks of ducks, geese and swans,
0:30:51 > 0:30:54collectively known as wildfowl,
0:30:54 > 0:30:58arrived in their millions, as they had done for centuries.
0:30:58 > 0:31:03They came here from all over the northern hemisphere for one simple reason -
0:31:03 > 0:31:05food.
0:31:05 > 0:31:10We might not always appreciate it, but Britain has a relatively mild winter climate,
0:31:10 > 0:31:15with ice-free waters allowing birds to feed all season long.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19But although they were no longer persecuted as they once had been,
0:31:19 > 0:31:22they faced a new threat -
0:31:22 > 0:31:27in this increasingly crowded island, would there be enough room for them to survive?
0:31:29 > 0:31:31Fortunately they had a champion,
0:31:31 > 0:31:37in the shape of a truly extraordinary man - Sir Peter Scott.
0:31:37 > 0:31:39Peter Scott was...
0:31:39 > 0:31:43a remarkable man. If the 20th century was to have
0:31:43 > 0:31:47a patron saint of conservation,
0:31:47 > 0:31:49then it would be Sir Peter Scott.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52Peter was urbane,
0:31:52 > 0:31:55highly civilised,
0:31:55 > 0:32:00a delight to be with, always generous.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03Beneath, he had a will of iron,
0:32:03 > 0:32:05a will of steel.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09Scott's iron will owed much to his heritage
0:32:09 > 0:32:11as the only son of Britain's great hero,
0:32:11 > 0:32:14Captain Scott of the Antarctic.
0:32:14 > 0:32:16And it was thanks to his father
0:32:16 > 0:32:20that he became interested in birds in the first place.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24My father really wanted me to be interested in natural history.
0:32:24 > 0:32:29And he wrote a message to my mother in the tent where he died in the Antarctic
0:32:29 > 0:32:32which got found the next spring, when they were there.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35And it was a letter in which he said,
0:32:35 > 0:32:39make the boy interested in natural history -
0:32:39 > 0:32:43it is better than games, they teach it at some schools.
0:32:43 > 0:32:49Peter carried his early life the burden of being Captain Scott's son.
0:32:49 > 0:32:55And also, that knowledge, I think, that his father didn't get there
0:32:55 > 0:33:00made him absolutely extraordinary competitive underneath.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09This competitive spirit was reflected in every aspect of Scott's life.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12Right from the very beginning,
0:33:12 > 0:33:16he was regarded in a sort of heroic mould.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20He was a figure-skating champion in the 1930s.
0:33:20 > 0:33:24He was a dinghy sailing champion. So he was a top-class sailor.
0:33:24 > 0:33:27On top of all that, he did paintings
0:33:27 > 0:33:30which were very successful and very popular.
0:33:30 > 0:33:37Despite this dazzling array of talents, Scott followed his father's dying wish
0:33:37 > 0:33:41and devoted his life to conserving and protecting wild birds.
0:33:41 > 0:33:46Yet before he could begin, he had a journey of his own to make,
0:33:46 > 0:33:52for his early encounters with birds came not with a paintbrush or a pair of binoculars,
0:33:52 > 0:33:56but down the barrel of a gun, shooting and killing the very birds
0:33:56 > 0:33:58he later came to protect.
0:33:58 > 0:34:06But I think that there is an instinct within us which goes back to our forefathers,
0:34:06 > 0:34:12when we had to kill to eat. And I think it's still there.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16And I'm bound to say that I passed through a period, and I don't...
0:34:16 > 0:34:19I mean, I hate remembering it, but I don't want to cover it up,
0:34:19 > 0:34:24because it's true, it was a time when I really took great delight
0:34:24 > 0:34:28in successfully killing.
0:34:28 > 0:34:34And this, I hate to think it was so, but it was so.
0:34:34 > 0:34:39Peter Scott did start as a wildfowler, he was an incredibly keen wildfowler,
0:34:39 > 0:34:42and he shot an awful lot of geese.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45This was a very common upper-class pursuit at the time,
0:34:45 > 0:34:48and there were a lot of stories of people
0:34:48 > 0:34:50who decided for one reason or another
0:34:50 > 0:34:52that they had to stop doing this.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56And Peter Scott's came when he shot a goose one day
0:34:56 > 0:35:00and it landed injured far out of shore, and he couldn't reach it.
0:35:05 > 0:35:10And he saw the bird live, flutter down, crippled.
0:35:10 > 0:35:15And he saw it struggling in the shallows,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18and he couldn't get to it.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21The mud was too deep and too thick and so on.
0:35:21 > 0:35:26So he had to watch this poor beast, poor bird,
0:35:26 > 0:35:28dying a very agonising death.
0:35:28 > 0:35:32Scott, I think powerfully in his life story,
0:35:32 > 0:35:36shows that journey from hunter into conservationist.
0:35:36 > 0:35:40And it's a journey that actually more people than we would ever imagine have actually made.
0:35:40 > 0:35:44To atone for his past life as a wildfowler,
0:35:44 > 0:35:47Scott decided to study ducks, geese and swans
0:35:47 > 0:35:49in order to protect them.
0:35:49 > 0:35:50In 1948,
0:35:50 > 0:35:54he founded his famous collection at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire,
0:35:54 > 0:35:58where the public could for the first time get close to these birds.
0:35:58 > 0:36:03It may not seem so today, but this was a truly revolutionary approach.
0:36:03 > 0:36:08I think Peter pushed the boundary of how close
0:36:08 > 0:36:11human beings and the wild world could be,
0:36:11 > 0:36:15and how they could exist in harmony, absolutely cheek-by-jowl.
0:36:15 > 0:36:20Now, of course, you can't do that, it's not easy to do that with lions,
0:36:20 > 0:36:22but you can do it with wildfowl.
0:36:22 > 0:36:26He built a whole zoo based purely on wildfowl.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30And people said at the time, that won't last,
0:36:30 > 0:36:33you can't expect people just to go and see wild fowl. But they did.
0:36:33 > 0:36:39But Peter Scott did far more than simply establish a collection of waterbirds.
0:36:39 > 0:36:42His lifelong passion had taught him a crucial lesson,
0:36:42 > 0:36:46one which would change the way we regarded the natural world for ever.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50He was one of the very first people to truly appreciate
0:36:50 > 0:36:53the intimate connection between these birds
0:36:53 > 0:36:55and the places where they live.
0:36:55 > 0:36:59Peter learnt very early on that the environment,
0:36:59 > 0:37:03and the animal, were actually indissolubly linked.
0:37:03 > 0:37:07He realised that actually taking a bird
0:37:07 > 0:37:10and putting it out of its environment
0:37:10 > 0:37:12was actually, it wasn't that bird any more,
0:37:12 > 0:37:16and it could only exist, in the real sense of the word,
0:37:16 > 0:37:18in its proper circumstances.
0:37:18 > 0:37:22What that taught people was that actually,
0:37:22 > 0:37:24there was no use protecting just the species -
0:37:24 > 0:37:27you needed to protect the habitat in which the species lived,
0:37:27 > 0:37:32because the habitat and the species were incredibly interlinked.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35Scott put his theory into practice
0:37:35 > 0:37:40by establishing a network of wetland sites all over the UK.
0:37:40 > 0:37:44The last of these, the London Wetland Centre at Barn Elms,
0:37:44 > 0:37:48was only created after his death in 1989.
0:37:48 > 0:37:55Crucially, it brought waterbirds into the lives of a whole new audience - urban Londoners.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58He painted, his last picture - and this is quite poignant -
0:37:58 > 0:38:01was his vision of what Barn Elms could be,
0:38:01 > 0:38:05with the city skyline, with the skyscrapers at the back,
0:38:05 > 0:38:07and at the front, wild fowl.
0:38:07 > 0:38:12And that's come about, and it's come about because of Peter.
0:38:15 > 0:38:22And the most poetic thing which I treasure is that there are birds in Siberia,
0:38:22 > 0:38:25if birds could talk, who will say,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29"Oh, well, it's getting on, you know, getting out of water,
0:38:29 > 0:38:31"I think the place to go is Barn Elms."
0:38:31 > 0:38:35And birds all over the north, in the autumn,
0:38:35 > 0:38:39and the south, in the spring, head for Barn Elms,
0:38:39 > 0:38:44voluntarily go to the middle of the biggest conurbation of human beings in Western Europe,
0:38:44 > 0:38:48and say, that's the place to be. I think that's wonderful.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59To the general public, Peter Scott's greatest fame
0:38:59 > 0:39:02came via the new medium of television,
0:39:02 > 0:39:04with the BBC series Look.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09One episode, broadcast in the late 1950s,
0:39:09 > 0:39:14told the story of how a rare waterbird had come back from the dead.
0:39:14 > 0:39:16The avocet - Avoceto recurvirostra -
0:39:16 > 0:39:22black-and-white wader with a turned-up bill.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26This is a bird which used to breed in Britain,
0:39:26 > 0:39:30and then disappeared as a breeding species for about 100 years,
0:39:30 > 0:39:33and then, quite unexpectedly, returned,
0:39:33 > 0:39:38and has dramatically increased in numbers during the last 10 years.
0:39:39 > 0:39:46The avocet is one of the most beautiful yet bizarre-looking of all our waterbirds.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52They're British birds, but have a touch of the exotic about them,
0:39:52 > 0:39:56which gives them a little something extra, I think.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59They're very public birds, in that you can easily observe their behaviour.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02You can see them on the nest, you can see their courtship.
0:40:02 > 0:40:07But its elegant demeanour conceals some pretty anti-social habits.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11Avocets are another of those birds which appear to be the epitome
0:40:11 > 0:40:15of grace and elegance, and have a really nasty side to them.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18They are so belligerent.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21They will drive away anything else.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25Today, almost 1,000 pairs of avocets breed in Britain,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28with even more wintering on our south-coast estuaries.
0:40:28 > 0:40:35The avocet's success is, without question, the jewel in the RSPB's crown.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39But they might not be here at all had it not been for Adolf Hitler
0:40:39 > 0:40:42and his plans to invade Britain.
0:40:44 > 0:40:49Avocets made a dramatic return to this country.
0:40:49 > 0:40:51It was in the late 1940s,
0:40:51 > 0:40:53in the aftermath of the war,
0:40:53 > 0:40:59when they returned to the habitat of flooded marshlands on the Suffolk coast,
0:40:59 > 0:41:03which ironically had been created as a consequence of the war.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06To counter the threat of a Nazi invasion,
0:41:06 > 0:41:10land had been flooded at a little place called Minsmere.
0:41:10 > 0:41:15Soon afterwards, a wayward bomb from a firing range
0:41:15 > 0:41:18blew a hole in the sea wall at nearby Havergate Island.
0:41:18 > 0:41:24Water from the tidal river flooded in, creating the ideal habitat for avocets.
0:41:24 > 0:41:29In the spring of 1947, they returned to Suffolk
0:41:29 > 0:41:34and began to breed - much to the delight of a war-weary nation.
0:41:35 > 0:41:39# We'll meet again
0:41:39 > 0:41:41# Don't know where
0:41:41 > 0:41:44# Don't know when... #
0:41:44 > 0:41:47Interestingly, the avocet was not seen as a refugee.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51It was seen as a returning Briton.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54And if you think of it in terms of the waves
0:41:54 > 0:41:57of returning servicemen from overseas, British serviceman,
0:41:57 > 0:42:00it was kind of seen in those sorts of terms.
0:42:00 > 0:42:05People would have responded to this return with a great sense of excitement,
0:42:05 > 0:42:12and also, I think, with a sense of restitution of the natural order,
0:42:12 > 0:42:17and at a deeper level, perhaps, the repelling of an invader.
0:42:19 > 0:42:21The RSPB bought the land,
0:42:21 > 0:42:25and turned Minsmere into their showpiece reserve.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28Today, more than 100,000 visitors come here each year
0:42:28 > 0:42:31to enjoy over 100 species of breeding bird,
0:42:31 > 0:42:35including, of course, the avocet.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39So when it came to choosing a logo for the RSPB,
0:42:39 > 0:42:42what could be more appropriate than this beautiful bird,
0:42:42 > 0:42:46which by then had become an icon of the bird protection movement?
0:42:46 > 0:42:50And I'm very proud to be a vice-president of the society.
0:42:50 > 0:42:52In fact, I'm wearing the society's tie here,
0:42:52 > 0:42:55which, appropriately enough,
0:42:55 > 0:42:59has a large number of avocets all over it.
0:42:59 > 0:43:03And I think The RSPB's choice of the avocet as a symbol was very clever.
0:43:03 > 0:43:09It was strange, it was glamorous, it was a bird that most people hadn't seen, but it was a bird
0:43:09 > 0:43:12most people wanted to see. And it was a bird you could really only see
0:43:12 > 0:43:14if you joined the RSPB and went to the reserves.
0:43:14 > 0:43:19And as a logo, the avocet had one other great advantage -
0:43:19 > 0:43:24in the days before colour printing, it was black and white!
0:43:29 > 0:43:31500 miles to the north,
0:43:31 > 0:43:35in the forests of Speyside in the Highlands of Scotland,
0:43:35 > 0:43:39another waterbird was also about to make a dramatic comeback.
0:43:39 > 0:43:45By the early 20th century, the osprey had been driven to the very edge of extinction
0:43:45 > 0:43:46as a British breeding bird.
0:43:46 > 0:43:51And it all came down to its diet of choice - fish.
0:43:53 > 0:43:58The osprey was a problem for fish farmers in the Middle Ages,
0:43:58 > 0:44:03when Britain was a Catholic country, like the near Continent,
0:44:03 > 0:44:06and eating a fish on Fridays was extremely important.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09And every big house or abbey or castle, whatever,
0:44:09 > 0:44:14throughout the whole of England and Wales, would have had a fish pond.
0:44:14 > 0:44:16And if you provide a fish pond,
0:44:16 > 0:44:19whether you did it in the Middle Ages or you do it now,
0:44:19 > 0:44:21all the ospreys go straight to it.
0:44:21 > 0:44:25And so those people had killed out ospreys.
0:44:26 > 0:44:32Later, ospreys went the way of all birds with hooked beaks and sharp claws.
0:44:32 > 0:44:35There were also shot as sporting trophies,
0:44:35 > 0:44:40and they also suffered through the Victorian and later Edwardian fascination
0:44:40 > 0:44:44for collecting eggs, particularly the eggs of rare bird species.
0:44:45 > 0:44:49Then, in 1954, a pair of ospreys
0:44:49 > 0:44:52returned to nest at a secret site in the Highlands.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55These birds were incredibly vulnerable,
0:44:55 > 0:44:59and the RSPB's George Waterston took drastic steps
0:44:59 > 0:45:03to guard against the continued threat of nest-robbers.
0:45:03 > 0:45:08They set up what has become known as Operation Osprey,
0:45:08 > 0:45:13but was in effect, if you like, the militarisation of a natural landscape.
0:45:16 > 0:45:18Waterston had been a prisoner of war,
0:45:18 > 0:45:21and when he was charged to look after the osprey nest in Speyside,
0:45:21 > 0:45:25he spent a lot of time creating a prisoner of war camp around it.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28He had barbed wire, he had watchers
0:45:28 > 0:45:32who would peer down the sights of .22 rifles at the nest,
0:45:32 > 0:45:34just in case anyone came to steal the eggs.
0:45:34 > 0:45:38He recapitulated his wartime experiences in Scotland, protecting these birds.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41He had a point - the nest kept getting robbed.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44Waterston revealed his fears for the ospreys
0:45:44 > 0:45:47in an interview with Peter Scott.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51I suppose there are still the odd egg collectors who go after them?
0:45:51 > 0:45:54Yes, oh, it was a perfectly scandalous thing, Peter.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57At about 2.30 in the morning, under cover of darkness,
0:45:57 > 0:46:00a raider climbed the tree,
0:46:00 > 0:46:04and although our chaps rushed out immediately to intercept him,
0:46:04 > 0:46:07he was able to get up into the tree,
0:46:07 > 0:46:11take out the osprey eggs, and in order to escape our clutches,
0:46:11 > 0:46:13he jumped from the top of the tree
0:46:13 > 0:46:16and made off into the bushes under cover of darkness.
0:46:16 > 0:46:21And what annoyed us - of course, we were furious about the whole thing -
0:46:21 > 0:46:27but I think it was dreadful to think that these birds were halfway through the incubation period.
0:46:27 > 0:46:32It's incredible to think in this day and age that people can do that sort of dreadful act.
0:46:32 > 0:46:37It was then that Waterston made a brave and far-reaching decision.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40Instead of keeping the nest site secret,
0:46:40 > 0:46:43he would not only tell the public where it was,
0:46:43 > 0:46:45but invite them to come and visit.
0:46:46 > 0:46:51There was absolute horror in the mainstream conservation movement at the time.
0:46:51 > 0:46:56The nests of any rare breeding bird had to be kept secret.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59Waterston was essentially saying exactly the opposite.
0:46:59 > 0:47:01People thought he was mad.
0:47:01 > 0:47:03People thought it was just crazy.
0:47:03 > 0:47:06As it turned out, the sceptics were wrong,
0:47:06 > 0:47:09and Waterston absolutely right.
0:47:09 > 0:47:14In that first summer of 1959, no fewer than 14,000 visitors
0:47:14 > 0:47:18made the long trek north to see the birds.
0:47:18 > 0:47:23It was then that the method behind Waterston's apparent madness became clear.
0:47:24 > 0:47:27In a curious way, the public in some sense
0:47:27 > 0:47:31did the job of the nest guardians,
0:47:31 > 0:47:34because they were present day in, day out,
0:47:34 > 0:47:36throughout the breeding season.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40So therefore it was a clever bit of PR.
0:47:40 > 0:47:42On the one hand, the bird became a celebrity,
0:47:42 > 0:47:46and became a means of galvanising interest in birds.
0:47:46 > 0:47:49But it also made it much more difficult
0:47:49 > 0:47:52for those who might want to steal the eggs of the osprey,
0:47:52 > 0:47:55because the public was always on hand.
0:47:55 > 0:47:59It's the house you don't burgle because you know there are going to be people in.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02That was the thinking - we'll tell the public it's there.
0:48:02 > 0:48:07But not everyone was a fan of this new approach.
0:48:07 > 0:48:09I went to see the Loch Garten ospreys
0:48:09 > 0:48:14with a sense of great excitement in the early 1960s.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16I'd never seen an osprey.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20But my experience was probably untypical
0:48:20 > 0:48:22in that I was terribly disappointed.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26When I got near to the site, I walked down the boardwalk,
0:48:26 > 0:48:30I entered a hide that was jammed with people,
0:48:30 > 0:48:33I was pushed in front of a mighty telescope,
0:48:33 > 0:48:38which was trained on a distant tree, that was swathed with barbed wire,
0:48:38 > 0:48:41and all I saw was the top of a head.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44It was rather like going into an armed camp,
0:48:44 > 0:48:49or heavily-fortified zoo, and it was a complete anti-climax.
0:48:49 > 0:48:54Even so, in the 50 years since Operation Osprey began,
0:48:54 > 0:48:58more than 2 million visitors have made the trip to Loch Garten,
0:48:58 > 0:49:03making these ospreys the most famous dynasty of birds anywhere in the world.
0:49:03 > 0:49:09Very quickly, osprey became a trademark, really, an icon.
0:49:09 > 0:49:15And villages would call themselves Osprey village, and Osprey hotels,
0:49:15 > 0:49:18and osprey this and osprey that and osprey holidays...
0:49:18 > 0:49:23In fact, the number of different companies that use ospreys as a logo
0:49:23 > 0:49:27and a kind of trade mark is immense.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30People still go to Loch Garten today,
0:49:30 > 0:49:34despite the fact that there are many, many other pairs of ospreys!
0:49:34 > 0:49:39I think it's for a very good reason, they get a bit of a show there.
0:49:39 > 0:49:41They know they're going to have a video feed,
0:49:41 > 0:49:46there will be people who'll tell them all about it, they can join the RSPB,
0:49:46 > 0:49:50they can buy a fluffy osprey - which are very good, I recommend them,
0:49:50 > 0:49:52you press them and they call -
0:49:52 > 0:49:57you know, it's show business. And it works very, very well.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02And once the RSPB realised just how successful
0:50:02 > 0:50:05bringing birds and people together could be,
0:50:05 > 0:50:07they rolled it out all over the country,
0:50:07 > 0:50:11creating a whole new way of watching birds.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15George opening up Loch Garten so that people could come
0:50:15 > 0:50:19really was the person who invented eco-tourism.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23The model that was born at Loch Garten in 1959,
0:50:23 > 0:50:29and developed over subsequent decades, has been rolled out across Britain very successfully.
0:50:29 > 0:50:33And just as we might identify Loch Garten with osprey tourism,
0:50:33 > 0:50:37so we now look to the Isle of Mull for white-tailed eagle tourism.
0:50:39 > 0:50:41For children all over Britain,
0:50:41 > 0:50:47the Isle of Mull means just one thing - the TV series Balamory.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51But it's also home to another major tourist attraction -
0:50:51 > 0:50:54Britain's biggest bird of prey.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59With a wingspan wider than a man's arms,
0:50:59 > 0:51:01and standing as tall as a large dog,
0:51:01 > 0:51:06the white-tailed sea eagle is the big daddy of British waterbirds.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10The white-tailed eagle is the biggest of our eagles.
0:51:10 > 0:51:12It's rather vulture-like in some ways.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16It's got extremely big, broad wings,
0:51:16 > 0:51:1810ft across, a huge bird.
0:51:18 > 0:51:21When it's adult, it's got a white head,
0:51:21 > 0:51:26brilliant yellow bill, and a pure white tail.
0:51:26 > 0:51:27I can tell you
0:51:27 > 0:51:32that the first time you see one, you will never forget it.
0:51:32 > 0:51:34Probably like your first kiss.
0:51:34 > 0:51:36They have a haughtiness.
0:51:36 > 0:51:37There's something kind of...
0:51:37 > 0:51:41well, kind of terrifying about the look of them, really.
0:51:41 > 0:51:46It's a bird which was breeding throughout the whole of Britain,
0:51:46 > 0:51:50but it was exterminated very early on, and finally
0:51:50 > 0:51:55stopped breeding in the early parts of the 1900s in Britain.
0:51:55 > 0:51:58Unlike the osprey, the white-tailed eagle
0:51:58 > 0:52:01didn't manage to return to Britain on its own.
0:52:01 > 0:52:04So it was given a helping hand by us,
0:52:04 > 0:52:08with birds from Scandinavia released on the west coast of Scotland
0:52:08 > 0:52:10from the 1970s onwards.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14Today, the eagles attract thousands of visitors to Mull,
0:52:14 > 0:52:17bringing more than £1 million a year into the local economy.
0:52:17 > 0:52:21But not everyone is entirely comfortable with these birds
0:52:21 > 0:52:24being turned into a tourist attraction.
0:52:24 > 0:52:29It is still a way of using nature.
0:52:29 > 0:52:33There's no escape from the fact that we are using ospreys to generate money,
0:52:33 > 0:52:37we are using white-tailed eagles to generate money.
0:52:37 > 0:52:42The fact that animals, and in this case birds, have a particular financial value
0:52:42 > 0:52:45is something that sits ill with many people.
0:52:45 > 0:52:50And recent proposals to release the eagles into parts of eastern England
0:52:50 > 0:52:54have also provoked passionate views on both sides of the debate.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57The disappointing thing was,
0:52:57 > 0:53:01I think many people thought that as soon as we had
0:53:01 > 0:53:0620 pairs breeding in the Hebrides, in Skye and Mull,
0:53:06 > 0:53:08the job was done.
0:53:08 > 0:53:12Whereas others of us felt, the job is not done
0:53:12 > 0:53:17until we have them breeding back all the way from the Channel coast to Shetland.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21I think, if we had big birds of prey - white-tailed eagles -
0:53:21 > 0:53:24back in England, rather than just in Scotland,
0:53:24 > 0:53:29it would be something that we could then feel really proud of.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33That we have looked after our countryside well enough
0:53:33 > 0:53:37to support a beast like that.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41The sea eagle did indeed once exist in other parts of England,
0:53:41 > 0:53:47many centuries ago, so there is a case for reintroducing it to those areas.
0:53:47 > 0:53:52The cynical view is that this is done in the name of biodiversity,
0:53:52 > 0:53:56but little attention is played to birds like, say,
0:53:56 > 0:54:03the spotted flycatcher, the corn bunting, tree sparrow, willow tit,
0:54:03 > 0:54:07all of which are equally endangered, but aren't such good box office.
0:54:07 > 0:54:12So, one begins to wonder, are the societies promoting the interests of the sea eagle,
0:54:12 > 0:54:16or is the sea eagle promoting the interests of the societies?
0:54:16 > 0:54:20No doubt the debate over our role in these birds' comeback will continue.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23But one thing can't be denied.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27Just how far the bird protection movement has come
0:54:27 > 0:54:30since the days when women spied on each other in church
0:54:30 > 0:54:33to stop grebes being turned into fashion accessories.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38Today, Britain's waterbirds are thriving.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41From avocets to ospreys,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44white-tailed eagles to bitterns, and great crested grebes,
0:54:44 > 0:54:48their populations are on the rise.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53Now, deep in the West Country,
0:54:53 > 0:54:56another lost waterbird is being brought back from the dead.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59It's one of the rarest
0:54:59 > 0:55:03and most iconic British birds of all - the crane.
0:55:03 > 0:55:06They're incredibly tall - they are our tallest bird.
0:55:06 > 0:55:10They have a greater wingspan than even our eagles.
0:55:10 > 0:55:13If you were trying to personify them, I think
0:55:13 > 0:55:16Jarvis Cocker would be a good analogy -
0:55:16 > 0:55:21kind of tall, rangy, a little bit quirky, elegant,
0:55:21 > 0:55:22with an astonishing voice.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28Yet for most of the past 300 years, since the draining of the Fens,
0:55:28 > 0:55:31cranes have been missing from the British scene.
0:55:34 > 0:55:36Now, they are set to return.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40In an ambitious reintroduction scheme, these young cranes
0:55:40 > 0:55:44are being released onto the Somerset Levels.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47If they survive, they will soon be flying free
0:55:47 > 0:55:52over the home of King Arthur, the ancient land of Avalon.
0:55:54 > 0:55:55If we've got space for a bird
0:55:55 > 0:55:58that stands as tall as many of our children,
0:55:58 > 0:56:03if we've got room for a bird with a wingspan of over three metres,
0:56:03 > 0:56:06in this intensely crowded island,
0:56:06 > 0:56:09it's a symbol of hope for all of us, I think.
0:56:09 > 0:56:14But welcome though the sight of cranes flying over the Somerset Levels will be,
0:56:14 > 0:56:17they won't be the first to return to Britain.
0:56:17 > 0:56:21For in a remote corner of Norfolk, 250 miles to the east,
0:56:21 > 0:56:26the cranes have made their own comeback - without our help.
0:56:26 > 0:56:33In 1980, a tiny nucleus of birds returned
0:56:33 > 0:56:37to exactly the same location
0:56:37 > 0:56:42that the last known wild breeding cranes came from.
0:56:42 > 0:56:44A place in Norfolk called Hickling.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48And from the 1980s, this tiny population has built up.
0:56:49 > 0:56:51I think the wonderful thing about this
0:56:51 > 0:56:54is those cranes did it on their own.
0:56:54 > 0:57:01They surprised us by achieving a restoration in this country without ourselves.
0:57:01 > 0:57:07And I think it's proof that we aren't in charge, necessarily.
0:57:11 > 0:57:13I'm excited to see cranes
0:57:13 > 0:57:15in the places I see them in East Anglia.
0:57:15 > 0:57:20And I'm excited particularly because I know about the history of their return.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23The fact that they found their own way back
0:57:23 > 0:57:24seems to me a very important point.
0:57:30 > 0:57:35The danger of conservation is that it reinforces that older idea
0:57:35 > 0:57:40that we are always the ones that arbitrate what happens in our landscape.
0:57:40 > 0:57:43And what the cranes are a symbol of is that
0:57:43 > 0:57:45sometimes nature can do it without us.
0:57:45 > 0:57:50We aren't really always that in control.
0:57:59 > 0:58:01Next time in Birds Britannia,
0:58:01 > 0:58:04we explore our rise and fall as a seafaring nation,
0:58:04 > 0:58:07through our long and turbulent relationship
0:58:07 > 0:58:13with the most spectacular of all Britain's birds - our seabirds.
0:58:13 > 0:58:17It's a story of exploitation and conflict,
0:58:17 > 0:58:20ranging from the ancient use of seabirds as food
0:58:20 > 0:58:25to their very recent arrival in our modern, urban lives.
0:58:55 > 0:58:58Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:58 > 0:59:00E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk