0:00:06 > 0:00:10The birds of our countryside are amongst the most familiar.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12and iconic of all Britain's birds.
0:00:12 > 0:00:17CUCKOO CALLS
0:00:17 > 0:00:22For centuries, we've celebrated them in music and poetry,
0:00:24 > 0:00:29used them to forecast changes in the weather and the seasons,
0:00:29 > 0:00:32and hunted them
0:00:32 > 0:00:34for food and sport.
0:00:34 > 0:00:38And throughout our long history, these birds have not just shaped
0:00:38 > 0:00:41the appearance of the British countryside,
0:00:41 > 0:00:43but also defined its very nature.
0:00:43 > 0:00:48The countryside birds, in my view, are a constitutive
0:00:48 > 0:00:50part of the countryside.
0:00:50 > 0:00:55You cannot describe the countryside without describing the birds.
0:00:56 > 0:01:01If birds went out of the countryside, it would be
0:01:01 > 0:01:06an emblem of a kind of nuclear post-nuclear deadness.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09This is the story of the deep, age-old connection between the
0:01:09 > 0:01:15birds of the British countryside and the people of these islands.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19It tells of how we have used and abused them,
0:01:19 > 0:01:23celebrated them and cherished them,
0:01:23 > 0:01:27and watched their fortunes rise and fall.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31And how, at the eleventh hour, we have finally come to understand
0:01:31 > 0:01:36what they, and the countryside, really mean to us.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49Wherever you look in the
0:01:49 > 0:01:54British countryside, whatever the time of year, you will find birds.
0:01:54 > 0:02:01Farmland birds such as the Skylark, the Grey Partridge,
0:02:01 > 0:02:04the Lapwing, and the Yellowhammer,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07have lived alongside us for more than 10,000 years - ever
0:02:07 > 0:02:13since we first cleared the forests to prepare the land for agriculture.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17So it's hardly surprising that when our ancestors needed to mark
0:02:17 > 0:02:23the changing of the seasons, they turned to these familiar creatures.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27Birds are very important seasonal markers in Britain and not just for
0:02:27 > 0:02:30birdwatchers but for ordinary people too.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32Everybody still thinks of
0:02:32 > 0:02:36the first swallow, the first Cuckoo, as a way of marking the season.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40You would have to be very dull of
0:02:40 > 0:02:45soul indeed not to be moved by the life of the swallow, for instance.
0:02:45 > 0:02:49The swallow has a very important part in our sort of national
0:02:49 > 0:02:52idea of what it is like to be English, I think.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55We time our seasons by its coming and going
0:02:55 > 0:03:01in an absolutely primitive and ancient in-our-bones kind of way.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04The way swallows come and whistle and sing,
0:03:04 > 0:03:07a joyous arrival, a swallow.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10And the fact it makes its home in your outshed
0:03:10 > 0:03:12in the garage if you leave the door open.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16It is very much a family animal and something that you really
0:03:16 > 0:03:18seriously look forward to each year.
0:03:21 > 0:03:25The coming of spring has also been marked by the annual appearance of
0:03:25 > 0:03:27a letter in the Times newspaper,
0:03:27 > 0:03:32commenting on the arrival of another visitor to our shores.
0:03:32 > 0:03:38"Sir, while gardening this afternoon I heard a faint note which led me to
0:03:38 > 0:03:41"say to my under gardener who was working with me,
0:03:41 > 0:03:43"'Was that the Cuckoo?'"
0:03:45 > 0:03:48CUCKOO CALLS
0:03:48 > 0:03:49We always used to talk
0:03:49 > 0:03:54about hearing the first Cuckoo and should we write to the Times.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57My parents always said, "Should we write to the Times?
0:03:57 > 0:03:59"Oh no, someone got there a week before."
0:03:59 > 0:04:03And it was this lovely tradition.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10But this very British ritual may be coming to an end.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13The Cuckoo is suffering a catastrophic decline because of food
0:04:13 > 0:04:18shortages in Britain, and drought in Africa, where it spends the winter.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22This decline threatens not just the bird itself,
0:04:22 > 0:04:24but its cultural status too.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27There is a whole folk culture across
0:04:27 > 0:04:30the northern hemisphere about the Cuckoo.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33If you have to explain what it was, you have kind have rather lost the
0:04:33 > 0:04:37point of the whole of that cultural aspect to birds.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40It's the way in which a bird like the Cuckoo
0:04:40 > 0:04:46moves from being the birth right of every rural inhabitant of the
0:04:46 > 0:04:50British Isles, even though Cuckoos were never hugely numerous.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54It is such a distinctive sound, so ubiquitous, they are so adapted
0:04:54 > 0:04:57to all sorts of environments, there are now large swathes
0:04:57 > 0:05:02where Cuckoos are never heard and may never be heard again.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06The fate of the Cuckoo has been mirrored
0:05:06 > 0:05:09in the fortunes of many other birds of the British countryside.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12In recent years they have suffered major declines,
0:05:12 > 0:05:16falling victim to the seemingly unstoppable industrialisation
0:05:16 > 0:05:18of our farmed landscape.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23All too often, our interests have taken precedence over theirs.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30BIRDSONG
0:05:30 > 0:05:32But not so very long ago,
0:05:32 > 0:05:36towards the end of the 18th century, the British countryside and its
0:05:36 > 0:05:40birds were still living in a state of rural harmony.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44We know this through the life and writings of one remarkable man,
0:05:44 > 0:05:49the Reverend Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01Since it first appeared, in 1789,
0:06:01 > 0:06:04this modest little book has never been out of print.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09Gilbert White is an extraordinary phenomenon.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12He's said to be the fourth most published author
0:06:12 > 0:06:15in the English language. This is quite extraordinary
0:06:15 > 0:06:21for a country vicar writing what was in effect a series of nature notes.
0:06:21 > 0:06:26"The swift is almost continually on the wing, and, as it never settles
0:06:26 > 0:06:31"on the ground, on trees, or roofs, would seldom find opportunity for
0:06:31 > 0:06:35"amorous rites was it not enabled to indulge them in the air."
0:06:35 > 0:06:38He was remarkable.
0:06:38 > 0:06:43After all, without binoculars, that he saw the mating of the swift
0:06:43 > 0:06:45up in the sky,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49beggars belief really. I'm sure I couldn't possibly have noticed that.
0:06:49 > 0:06:55White wasn't just a good observer, he was also an excellent naturalist,
0:06:55 > 0:06:58at a time when many things we now take for granted about Britain's
0:06:58 > 0:07:01birds had yet to be discovered.
0:07:01 > 0:07:06For example, he was the first person to realise that three different
0:07:06 > 0:07:10kinds of small, green warbler visit Britain each spring.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13Previously it had been assumed there was only one.
0:07:13 > 0:07:19"I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of
0:07:19 > 0:07:25"the Willow Wrens, which constantly and invariably used distinct notes."
0:07:25 > 0:07:29White's enduring appeal may be because he concentrates almost
0:07:29 > 0:07:34entirely on his own little corner of the English countryside.
0:07:34 > 0:07:40He was born and died in the village in which he describes, and
0:07:40 > 0:07:45you get the sense that he knows it so intimately that he would know
0:07:45 > 0:07:48if a bird arrived or if a leaf fell overnight.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53I think another thing that is really quite remarkable about
0:07:53 > 0:07:58Gilbert White's work is the sense in which it is a kind of microcosm
0:07:58 > 0:08:00of English country life.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04It's as if, in a way, you can find the whole of nature within the sort
0:08:04 > 0:08:08of manageable confines of just one English village.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11He redeemed the word "parochial"
0:08:11 > 0:08:14from its sense of narrowness and limitation.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17He exalts the parish
0:08:17 > 0:08:22as a place where all life exists and we can follow in his footsteps.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28It may seem surprising that this diary of natural events
0:08:28 > 0:08:30should have become so popular.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33Maybe it's because it portrays a very comforting image of the
0:08:33 > 0:08:38countryside - a tranquil, unchanging landscape, filled with birdsong.
0:08:40 > 0:08:45Just like another writer from our rural past, much of this appeal
0:08:45 > 0:08:47is pure nostalgia.
0:08:47 > 0:08:52Jane Austen and Gilbert White are more or less contemporary, and why do
0:08:52 > 0:08:56we look at all these charming ladies in bonnets on the television set?
0:08:56 > 0:09:01It's a picture of rural England, 18th century England,
0:09:01 > 0:09:03which we find charming.
0:09:03 > 0:09:09Yet for all the undoubted charm of The Natural History of Selborne, its
0:09:09 > 0:09:13author may have been hiding his fears about changes afoot
0:09:13 > 0:09:15in the wider world.
0:09:15 > 0:09:17Gilbert White's in his Parsonage
0:09:17 > 0:09:21looking at what's going on in his back garden and in the fields beyond.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25Then you say to yourself it was published in 1789, what happened?
0:09:25 > 0:09:28The French revolution is happening on the Continent, the Industrial
0:09:28 > 0:09:31Revolution is happening in England, massive social change.
0:09:31 > 0:09:35No reference to the real world that's going on beside him and
0:09:35 > 0:09:41that kind of obsessiveness sometimes worries me that it's wonderful but
0:09:41 > 0:09:45there's a slight feeling of stop the world, I'd want to get off.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49During Gilbert White's lifetime, some things didn't change.
0:09:49 > 0:09:53The birds of Britain's countryside continued to thrive alongside us,
0:09:53 > 0:09:57as we farmed the land in the age-old ways.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01But in the decades after White's death in 1793, this little world
0:10:01 > 0:10:03was turned upside down.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07The countryside would be transformed forever, and the birds that lived
0:10:07 > 0:10:13there would begin a long decline, from which many have yet to recover.
0:10:13 > 0:10:15One bird, more than any other,
0:10:15 > 0:10:18symbolises the loss of this traditional landscape.
0:10:18 > 0:10:23It's a bizarre, shy and elusive relative of the coot, the Corn Crake.
0:10:23 > 0:10:29It looks like some silly little chicken really, let's face it.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32I remember the first one I had.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36I didn't realise what I was listening to for a while.
0:10:36 > 0:10:38HE MAKES GUTTURAL SOUNDS...
0:10:38 > 0:10:39going.
0:10:39 > 0:10:41It's a Corn Crake!
0:10:41 > 0:10:45Then your problems begin because they can throw their voice.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48It's just over there and you go just over there
0:10:48 > 0:10:51but it isn't and it's still calling.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55You go round and round and round this little field.
0:10:56 > 0:11:01At the start of the 19th century, the strange, repetitive call of
0:11:01 > 0:11:04the Corn Crake could still be heard throughout the British countryside,
0:11:04 > 0:11:06from Scilly to Shetland.
0:11:06 > 0:11:11For one of Gilbert White's disciples, the poet and naturalist
0:11:11 > 0:11:13John Clare, the Corn Crake,
0:11:13 > 0:11:18or as he called it, the landrail, was the classic sound of summer.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25"How sweet and pleasant grows the way through summer time again,
0:11:25 > 0:11:30"when landrails call from day to day amid the grass and grain."
0:11:32 > 0:11:35John Clare, the Northamptonshire farm labourer
0:11:35 > 0:11:40who found fame as a poet, was also a brilliant self-taught naturalist.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42More than any other writer,
0:11:42 > 0:11:47before or since, he celebrated the birds of the British countryside.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54In the minuteness of his attention
0:11:54 > 0:11:57and his faithfulness to things as they actually are,
0:11:57 > 0:12:03he's the best writer about birds that there has ever been in the language.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07Rather than kind of speaking in grand rhetorical terms as many of
0:12:07 > 0:12:12the great romantic poets did, he's really closely attentive
0:12:12 > 0:12:15to the details of nature.
0:12:15 > 0:12:20What he has to a greater degree than anybody else is an eye for detail
0:12:20 > 0:12:25and a relish for the ordinary, which means the ordinary has always
0:12:25 > 0:12:28been turned into the miraculous.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32When we read the poems,
0:12:32 > 0:12:36we really do feel it's like standing in a wood listening to a Nightingale
0:12:36 > 0:12:40or walking through a field and seeing a Corn Crake or whatever it might be.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45But by the start of the 19th century, this young writer's
0:12:45 > 0:12:50whole world, the countryside and its birds, was about to change forever.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53The reason for this change? Enclosure.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03Enclosure was I think in crude
0:13:03 > 0:13:07terms the privatisation of what had been an open and public landscape.
0:13:07 > 0:13:12Enclosure transformed the old, traditional landscape of wide,
0:13:12 > 0:13:17open fields by adding hedges, creating the familiar pattern of
0:13:17 > 0:13:20small fields we know and love today.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26The irony is it's a much more recent landscape
0:13:26 > 0:13:29than we perhaps tend to realise.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32It only dates back about 200, 250
0:13:32 > 0:13:35years because before enclosure, we didn't have this checkerboard
0:13:35 > 0:13:41pattern, we had a much more open landscape with far fewer hedges.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44Enclosure had a devastating effect
0:13:44 > 0:13:49on ordinary country people, forcing them off the land and into poverty.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56And by concentrating ownership in the hands of a few rich landowners,
0:13:56 > 0:14:03enclosure would eventually pave the way towards modern, industrial-scale farming.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08During the following 150 years or so, this would prove disastrous for
0:14:08 > 0:14:12the British countryside and its birds.
0:14:16 > 0:14:22Today, we read Clare's poetry partly as a lament for a lost world,
0:14:22 > 0:14:28but also because it's a very modern, environmentally conscious message.
0:14:28 > 0:14:33Now, he begins to look more like a prophet of
0:14:33 > 0:14:38the kind of environmental movements that call themselves deep ecology.
0:14:38 > 0:14:43He seems to anticipate ideas of the kind that are caught up in
0:14:43 > 0:14:47the Gaia hypothesis, which thinks of the whole world as one organism
0:14:47 > 0:14:52with its own interests and its own self-regulating procedures.
0:14:55 > 0:14:59For a warning of our disconnection from the environment,
0:14:59 > 0:15:02we need look no further than the plight of the Corn Crake.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06Today, this mysterious bird has disappeared from virtually
0:15:06 > 0:15:08the whole of our rural landscape.
0:15:08 > 0:15:12It can now only be found in remote parts of Scotland, where traditional
0:15:12 > 0:15:15farming is still being practised.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27Not all countryside birds suffered the fate of the Corn Crake.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30By the middle of the 19th century, the fortunes of two other species
0:15:30 > 0:15:32were on the rise.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38This would change the face of the British landscape forever.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44With a collective weight of
0:15:44 > 0:15:48more than three million tonnes, the pheasant is, pound for pound,
0:15:48 > 0:15:50the commonest bird in the British countryside.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54Yet ironically it's not really a British bird at all,
0:15:54 > 0:15:59but was brought here from south-west Asia by the Romans.
0:15:59 > 0:16:04The native Red Grouse, by contrast, is a shy, retiring bird,
0:16:04 > 0:16:08found only in the remotest parts of upland Britain.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10But the Grouse and the pheasant
0:16:10 > 0:16:12do have one thing in common.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15They're both very good to eat.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21From the early 19th century, thanks to the invention of
0:16:21 > 0:16:24the breech-loading shotgun, Grouse, pheasants, and their
0:16:24 > 0:16:28smaller relative the partridge, became top targets for Britain's
0:16:28 > 0:16:30gun-toting sportsmen.
0:16:30 > 0:16:35Increasingly we see a development of country estates, landed properties
0:16:35 > 0:16:42being used for sports shooting based on three quarries, three birds,
0:16:42 > 0:16:45Red Grouse, the Grey Partridge and the pheasant.
0:16:45 > 0:16:50They would provide a six-month cycle of recreational activity and travel,
0:16:50 > 0:16:55where people would move from one country house to another pursuing
0:16:55 > 0:16:59the shooting of game birds.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02Pheasant shooting became immensely popular in the 19th century.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05It became one of those key markers of aristocratic identity.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09It was one of the must-have things if you were a landowner.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12You had to have a decent pheasant shoot really.
0:17:12 > 0:17:18But ordinary rural folk took a very dim view of this aristocratic pursuit.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22Actually if you want to pick one bird which brought England
0:17:22 > 0:17:25closer to revolution than anything else, it would be
0:17:25 > 0:17:29the pheasant because it also caused bitter social controversy,
0:17:29 > 0:17:34partly because it had become a symbol of aristocratic identity.
0:17:35 > 0:17:39Shooting pheasants is difficult in many ways and demands quite a level
0:17:39 > 0:17:43of skill but that isn't obvious, so it seemed a clear instance of
0:17:43 > 0:17:48decadence and also fundamental idleness of the aristocracy.
0:17:48 > 0:17:53They didn't have anything better to do with their time other than go out and shoot these birds
0:17:53 > 0:17:56which are only there because the aristocracy have bred them.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00The boom in pheasant shooting was a direct result of the landscape
0:18:00 > 0:18:03changes brought about by enclosure.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05This allowed pheasants to be reared
0:18:05 > 0:18:07on an industrial scale, and then released in
0:18:07 > 0:18:12their thousands to replenish birds shot by the sportsmen.
0:18:12 > 0:18:18Once enclosure had privatised the landscape, then landowners were able
0:18:18 > 0:18:22to a much greater extent, to develop the landscape as they wanted to.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26With things like small little copses which would be very suitable
0:18:26 > 0:18:28for pheasants to roost in or be bred in.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33You have a kind of landscape which was suitable for and then became
0:18:33 > 0:18:38developed for pheasant breeding, pheasant rearing.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40And then of course pheasant shooting.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43This new, more wooded landscape didn't just benefit pheasants,
0:18:43 > 0:18:50it also provided a haven for other woodland wildlife, including birds,
0:18:50 > 0:18:52butterflies and deer.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01Meanwhile, far to the north, on the windswept moors of
0:19:01 > 0:19:05northern England and Scotland, another game bird was also playing
0:19:05 > 0:19:08its part in changing history.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14It may look like a domestic chicken, but the Red Grouse has had a greater
0:19:14 > 0:19:17influence on the landscape and economy of upland Britain
0:19:17 > 0:19:20than any other bird.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23Although most of us will never set eyes on one,
0:19:23 > 0:19:26its image and reputation have spread far and wide.
0:19:29 > 0:19:35# The sun shines on the mountaintop The Grouse go from the moor
0:19:35 > 0:19:40# The guineas are waiting at the door... #
0:19:40 > 0:19:43For two groups of people in Britain,
0:19:43 > 0:19:47aristocrats and the idle rich, the Glorious 12th of August has
0:19:47 > 0:19:50long been the most eagerly awaited date in the calendar.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52GUNSHOTS
0:19:52 > 0:19:56It marks the opening day of the Grouse shooting season,
0:19:56 > 0:19:59an industry worth at least £30 million a year
0:19:59 > 0:20:02to the Scottish economy alone.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05But without the invention of one man, George Stephenson,
0:20:05 > 0:20:08and the passion of one woman, Queen Victoria,
0:20:08 > 0:20:13the Red Grouse might have remained nothing more than an unremarkable moorland bird.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17Previously, the Scottish estates were
0:20:17 > 0:20:23hundreds of miles and a week's journey from London, but by the 1870s
0:20:23 > 0:20:27landowners who had posh houses in Chelsea could
0:20:27 > 0:20:31also own a Scottish landed estate and be there overnight, and that's
0:20:31 > 0:20:35exactly what happened in the run-up to the Glorious 12th of August.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39There were special trains laid on to channel people to the most remote
0:20:39 > 0:20:42parts of our landscape
0:20:42 > 0:20:46so that this kind of sport shooting could take place on Scottish moorland
0:20:46 > 0:20:48and northern English moorlands.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52Grouse shooting received the royal seal of approval, through Queen
0:20:52 > 0:20:57Victoria's regular visits to her Scottish country estate at Balmoral.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00So by the end of the queen's long reign, Grouse shooting was as much
0:21:00 > 0:21:05a part of the social calendar as society balls and Royal Ascot,
0:21:05 > 0:21:08although rather more brutal.
0:21:08 > 0:21:14In some glorious autumns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as many as
0:21:14 > 0:21:18a million-and-a-half Grouse would be shot through the season.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22Today there might be fewer than 250,000 pairs of
0:21:22 > 0:21:23Red Grouse in total in Britain.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28This influx of people and money enabled huge tracts of northern
0:21:28 > 0:21:32Britain to be opened up for Grouse shooting.
0:21:32 > 0:21:34And because the moors had to be carefully managed
0:21:34 > 0:21:38to stop them becoming overgrown with scrub and trees,
0:21:38 > 0:21:40the face of our uplands was changed forever.
0:21:40 > 0:21:46One of our most cherished landscape types remains heather moorland,
0:21:46 > 0:21:48and these moors really have been, to a very
0:21:48 > 0:21:50large extent, maintained for Grouse.
0:21:50 > 0:21:57The fact that these moors have been cyclically burnt in order to
0:21:57 > 0:22:02maintain the young growing shoots for Grouse to feed on
0:22:02 > 0:22:08has been really very important in preserving one of Britain's crucial landscape types.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11But while Grouse and pheasant shooting may have helped create
0:22:11 > 0:22:14new habitats for birds and other wildlife,
0:22:14 > 0:22:18it sounded the death-knell for Britain's birds of prey.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22Anything that naturally included Red Grouse
0:22:22 > 0:22:26or pheasants or partridge in their diet
0:22:26 > 0:22:28became enemy in chief,
0:22:28 > 0:22:31and so the other side of this sophisticated
0:22:31 > 0:22:37gun technology used to kill Grouse was it was also used to knock off
0:22:37 > 0:22:40every single bird red in tooth and claw.
0:22:40 > 0:22:41And even species that posed
0:22:41 > 0:22:46absolutely no threat to the hunters' quarry were ruthlessly persecuted.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51WH Hudson, a wonderful writer at the
0:22:51 > 0:22:56beginning of the 20th century, described estates in southern
0:22:56 > 0:23:01England where the gamekeeper would shoot the Nightingales
0:23:01 > 0:23:06because he didn't want the sound of the birds disturbing his pheasants.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09There are stories of
0:23:09 > 0:23:14gamekeepers shooting any small bird that was in the woodland because they
0:23:14 > 0:23:20would be competitors for the grain laid out for the game birds.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25Just as the fate of our countryside birds was looking bleak,
0:23:25 > 0:23:28history intervened with the coming of the Great War.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32# Keep the home fires burning... #
0:23:32 > 0:23:35Ironically, the shooting skills of both
0:23:35 > 0:23:39the gamekeepers and their masters would prove to be their downfall,
0:23:39 > 0:23:42for they were among the first to join up
0:23:42 > 0:23:45and to be sent to the front line.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49Most of these young men had never been abroad.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52Indeed, some had hardly travelled beyond the borders
0:23:52 > 0:23:54of their own parish.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56So any reminders of home,
0:23:56 > 0:24:00such as the familiar sights and sounds of the British countryside,
0:24:00 > 0:24:04became powerful totems of the land they had left behind.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08One of the most potent of these was the song of the Skylark.
0:24:09 > 0:24:15To pour this amazingly loud, clear, beautiful noise down on us, sometimes
0:24:15 > 0:24:19from a height and from a body so small that you can't actually see
0:24:19 > 0:24:24what the source is, that's what makes it like the voice of God, isn't it?
0:24:24 > 0:24:29It is this... valiant quality that the Skylark has,
0:24:29 > 0:24:32suddenly zooming up in the air,
0:24:32 > 0:24:34and then when it's right up there, I mean
0:24:34 > 0:24:39singing with such vigour and such...
0:24:39 > 0:24:42You'd think it's got enough problems remaining up there,
0:24:42 > 0:24:46flapping the wings, but he's got the energy as well to sing!
0:24:46 > 0:24:49This unique habit of singing high in the sky
0:24:49 > 0:24:53for such long periods of time meant that the Skylark was often the
0:24:53 > 0:24:57only bird soldiers in the trenches could actually see.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03Imagine you are in a trench in Flanders.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05You've been stuck in the ground for three months.
0:25:05 > 0:25:08you're bogged down, and then this creature
0:25:08 > 0:25:12appears in the sky with its song.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15I mean, it must have had a huge impact on people.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19This little creature is everything you want to be.
0:25:19 > 0:25:23"Every morning when I was in the frontline trenches,
0:25:23 > 0:25:27"I used to hear the lark singing soon after we stood to, about dawn.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31"But those wretched larks made me more sad
0:25:31 > 0:25:33"than anything else out here.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36"Their songs are so closely associated in my mind with
0:25:36 > 0:25:41"peaceful summer days and gardens or pleasant landscapes in Blighty."
0:25:45 > 0:25:50Skylarks also appeared in many poems written amidst the horror of war.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54Well, I suppose the Skylark is the sort of default bird
0:25:54 > 0:25:56in First World War poetry
0:25:56 > 0:25:58because it rises above,
0:25:58 > 0:26:00because it sees things from the air.
0:26:00 > 0:26:08There is that sense of escape, but also of going on singing
0:26:08 > 0:26:12when all reasons around you are saying weep,
0:26:12 > 0:26:14is presumably something that would cheer you
0:26:14 > 0:26:18if you thought you were going to get your head blown off any moment.
0:26:20 > 0:26:25One serving soldier who was also a poet, John William Streets,
0:26:25 > 0:26:27wrote of the ironic contrast
0:26:27 > 0:26:32between his own situation and that of the soaring bird.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35Hushed is the shriek of hurtling shells:
0:26:35 > 0:26:40And hark! Somewhere within that bit of soft blue sky -
0:26:40 > 0:26:42Grand in his loneliness, his ecstasy,
0:26:42 > 0:26:47His lyric wild and free-carols a lark.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51I in the trench, He lost in heaven afar.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58Along with 20,000 of his fellow soldiers, John William Streets
0:26:58 > 0:27:04died on July 1st 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08His body lies in a war cemetery close to where he fell,
0:27:08 > 0:27:11where Skylarks still sing today.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14SKYLARK SINGS
0:27:18 > 0:27:21During the four long years of the First World War, Britain's
0:27:21 > 0:27:24Foreign Secretary was Edward Grey.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27Grey had a lifelong interest in birds,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30a passion he shared with another great world statesman,
0:27:30 > 0:27:36the US President, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt.
0:27:36 > 0:27:41Back in June 1910, when Roosevelt was on a state visit to Britain,
0:27:41 > 0:27:45these two great men had gone for a quiet country walk in the New Forest
0:27:45 > 0:27:47in Grey's home county of Hampshire.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53Putting aside global diplomacy
0:27:53 > 0:28:01and talk of military and industrial might, they simply talked birds,
0:28:01 > 0:28:05and President Roosevelt later said that it was the highlight of his entire
0:28:05 > 0:28:09European tour in the summer of 1910.
0:28:09 > 0:28:15They saw and heard no fewer than 40 different species,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18many of which they identified by listening to their song.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21And one element of the story that I
0:28:21 > 0:28:24particularly like is the fact that they did this walk alone.
0:28:24 > 0:28:33These two great men walking through the New Forest, quietly discussing
0:28:33 > 0:28:36nature and wildlife and the countryside.
0:28:37 > 0:28:42Looking back, it is hard to imagine modern political leaders engaging in
0:28:42 > 0:28:45such an innocent pastime.
0:28:45 > 0:28:49Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan had a very strong relationship,
0:28:49 > 0:28:52but that was based around shared political ideals.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55The friendship between Roosevelt
0:28:55 > 0:28:57and Edward Grey
0:28:57 > 0:29:01was based a passion, a love for birds
0:29:01 > 0:29:04and an appreciation of the British countryside.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09After the war, when he had left high office, Grey returned to his
0:29:09 > 0:29:11first love - birds.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18During this period, birdwatching was fast becoming a popular recreational
0:29:18 > 0:29:20activity, with a flood of bird
0:29:20 > 0:29:23books aimed not at experts, but at the general public.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27One of the best-known of these was written by Grey himself,
0:29:27 > 0:29:29"The Charm of Birds".
0:29:30 > 0:29:35Like The Natural History of Selborne, The Charm of Birds
0:29:35 > 0:29:37was aimed squarely at a mass audience.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42"This book will have no scientific value.
0:29:42 > 0:29:47"My observations have been made for recreation, in search of pleasure,
0:29:47 > 0:29:49"not knowledge."
0:29:49 > 0:29:52By the time he wrote this best-selling book,
0:29:52 > 0:29:54Grey's eyesight was failing fast.
0:29:54 > 0:29:59So it's not surprising that his writing focuses strongly on birdsong.
0:29:59 > 0:30:03One of his particular favourites was the Nightingale.
0:30:06 > 0:30:11"The Nightingale's song has compass, variety and astonishing power.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13"It arrests attention and compels admiration.
0:30:13 > 0:30:19"It has onset and impact, but it is fitful, broken and restless.
0:30:19 > 0:30:24"It is a song to listen to, but not to live with."
0:30:24 > 0:30:28The Nightingale had of course been celebrated by writers and poets
0:30:28 > 0:30:31from the Greeks and Romans to Keats and Clare, despite its rather
0:30:31 > 0:30:34unprepossessing appearance.
0:30:36 > 0:30:41You don't want to see a Nightingale, because if you do, you'll be disappointed.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44It is just a little brown bird.
0:30:44 > 0:30:47And maybe that helps with the mystique of them as well.
0:30:47 > 0:30:50That you don't see it, it's just a song.
0:30:51 > 0:30:53And it is the Nightingale's
0:30:53 > 0:30:57extraordinary song which has been the key to its fame.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00It's not the only bird to sing by night, but
0:31:00 > 0:31:02it's certainly the most persistent.
0:31:02 > 0:31:04It's fame is all the more remarkable
0:31:04 > 0:31:08given that it has always been a relatively scarce bird in Britain.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15Everybody thinks they know what a Nightingale is and is like, but very
0:31:15 > 0:31:18few people have actually heard one, and even fewer have seen one,
0:31:18 > 0:31:21because the Nightingale is a very mysterious bird.
0:31:21 > 0:31:23The most extraordinary thing is its volume.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27It's extraordinarily loud.
0:31:27 > 0:31:31It's also very rich in its range of notes.
0:31:31 > 0:31:36The idea of something singing at night, a lone voice in the darkness
0:31:36 > 0:31:41is going to set your poetic juices running, I imagine.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43Is it lonely?
0:31:43 > 0:31:47Is it singing to its love that will not reply?
0:31:47 > 0:31:50And the sound fills the night.
0:31:54 > 0:31:57During the years between the two world wars,
0:31:57 > 0:32:02one particular Nightingale achieved unexpected fame.
0:32:02 > 0:32:04This totally wild bird performed
0:32:04 > 0:32:08a spontaneous duet with the cellist Beatrice Harrison, in one of
0:32:08 > 0:32:13the very first live radio outside broadcasts anywhere in the world.
0:32:17 > 0:32:21The day was 19th May, 1924.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24It was a perfect evening for Nightingales.
0:32:24 > 0:32:27There was a full moon, it was a warm, summer evening,
0:32:27 > 0:32:32and Beatrice Harrison put on her best frock and played the cello.
0:32:33 > 0:32:39And played to an estimated audience of over a million people.
0:32:41 > 0:32:47Beatrice Harrison and the bird had created a broadcasting sensation.
0:32:47 > 0:32:51Thousands of listeners wrote to the BBC to praise the programme,
0:32:51 > 0:32:55and the event was restaged every year.
0:32:55 > 0:32:57The story of the final broadcast,
0:32:57 > 0:33:02during the Second World War, is just as enigmatic as the very first one.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06When the time came, the BBC engineer who
0:33:06 > 0:33:10was in charge of the sound equipment, as the Nightingale started up, heard
0:33:10 > 0:33:15the sound of approaching aircraft, and very wisely he stopped the
0:33:15 > 0:33:19broadcast because he thought this might be some kind of security risk,
0:33:19 > 0:33:24but he kept recording it, so we do have the recording, and what you hear
0:33:24 > 0:33:27is this fleet of bombers, English bombers heading for Germany
0:33:27 > 0:33:31gradually getting closer, and as the crescendo of noise builds
0:33:31 > 0:33:36up from the bombers, so the crescendo of noise builds up from the Nightingales.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40It's the most dramatic combination of sounds.
0:33:40 > 0:33:45DRONE OF AIRCRAFT/NIGHTINGALE SONG
0:33:47 > 0:33:53WIRELESS: I have to tell you now that this country is at war with Germany.
0:33:53 > 0:33:57# They'll be bluebirds over
0:33:57 > 0:34:01# The White Cliffs of Dover... #
0:34:01 > 0:34:03Once war with Germany had been declared,
0:34:03 > 0:34:06life for millions of Britons changed overnight.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09Families were separated as men went off to fight,
0:34:09 > 0:34:12and children were evacuated to the countryside.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16And just as during the First World War, Britain's birds would provide
0:34:16 > 0:34:22comfort, support, and hope at this time of national crisis.
0:34:22 > 0:34:27# And a Nightingale sang
0:34:27 > 0:34:32# In Berkeley Square. #
0:34:34 > 0:34:39One young man, James Fisher, did more than anyone else to promote
0:34:39 > 0:34:44the importance of watching birds as part of what it meant to be British.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48Fisher was the David Attenborough of his day - a scientist, writer
0:34:48 > 0:34:52and broadcaster who frequently appeared on radio and television.
0:34:54 > 0:34:59Educated at Eton and Oxford, he was an unlikely man of the people.
0:34:59 > 0:35:01Yet his life's mission was to convert as many
0:35:01 > 0:35:05of his fellow Britons as possible to the pleasures of birdwatching.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10James was a superior person in every real sense.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12He was highly educated,
0:35:12 > 0:35:15very sociable,
0:35:15 > 0:35:19good looking and he ticked all the right boxes, James.
0:35:19 > 0:35:23James himself was erudite.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26He was encyclopaedic in his knowledge of birds,
0:35:26 > 0:35:29in fact he wrote bird encyclopaedias.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33He could tell you every postage stamp that had a bird on it in
0:35:33 > 0:35:39the world, and as such, he left a legacy of books.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42The most successful of Fisher's many bird books,
0:35:42 > 0:35:44was also one of his simplest.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48Published in 1941, during the darkest days of the war,
0:35:48 > 0:35:54Watching Birds was a Pelican paperback, priced at just six old pence.
0:35:54 > 0:35:58The book would go on to sell more than three million copies.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02It was the first serious bird book I'd read, and I found it a wonderful
0:36:02 > 0:36:07book, I think mainly because it was such an inclusive book.
0:36:07 > 0:36:08Here was this eminent scientist
0:36:08 > 0:36:12writing for people like me, telling me that this was a
0:36:12 > 0:36:16legitimate interest, that the sort of records and observations I might make
0:36:16 > 0:36:19were worth making and were part of some larger picture.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25But for Fisher, Watching Birds had an even more important purpose,
0:36:25 > 0:36:27as he made clear in the book's preface.
0:36:27 > 0:36:31"Some people might consider an apology necessary for the
0:36:31 > 0:36:34"appearance of a book about birds at a time when Britain is fighting
0:36:34 > 0:36:37"for its own and many other lives.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40"I make no such apology.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43"Birds are part of the heritage we are fighting for."
0:36:47 > 0:36:50Fisher was not alone in his views.
0:36:50 > 0:36:52A survey carried out in the very same year
0:36:52 > 0:36:57confirmed the British people's passion for their rural heritage.
0:36:57 > 0:37:01The vast majority said, England is a village green,
0:37:01 > 0:37:06is an old inn sign, is the birds and the creatures of the countryside,
0:37:06 > 0:37:09the water mill, the winding lane.
0:37:09 > 0:37:11That is the image of England
0:37:11 > 0:37:14at a time when urban England is being flattened.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17Observing birds and watching them became this really strong way of
0:37:17 > 0:37:22tying the observer and the nation together very strongly. By watching
0:37:22 > 0:37:25birds you become a trustworthy member of your own culture.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29Birds stood for a kind of rural British identity that was really
0:37:29 > 0:37:33under threat in this wartime arena.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36This new enthusiasm for watching birds
0:37:36 > 0:37:39took hold in some unlikely places.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41It even became a popular
0:37:41 > 0:37:46activity amongst prisoners of war, despite the obvious limitations.
0:37:46 > 0:37:48COLONEL BOGEY MARCH
0:37:48 > 0:37:52The main problem with being in a prisoner-of-war camp was boredom.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56You had hours, days, weeks, months to fill, nothing to do and
0:37:56 > 0:38:00it was described as being an endless Sunday afternoon with no prospect of
0:38:00 > 0:38:02Monday, by one prisoner of war.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06To combat this, they devised all sorts of diversions from
0:38:06 > 0:38:12football tournaments to music hall shows, and, of course, nature study.
0:38:14 > 0:38:19There's some wonderful letters where they talk about how they chose the organism to study.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23At one point they tried studying snails, but apparently this was too
0:38:23 > 0:38:26boring, even for prisoners of war.
0:38:26 > 0:38:32But birds were the obvious choice, being both ubiquitous and abundant.
0:38:32 > 0:38:36One prisoner decided to study one of the most beautiful creatures of all,
0:38:36 > 0:38:38the Redstart.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42Of course, the thing about these birds that they watched is that
0:38:42 > 0:38:44they could leave the camp at any time.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47And John Buxton, who wrote an extraordinary monograph on
0:38:47 > 0:38:51the Redstart using his prison camp notes made a lot of this.
0:38:51 > 0:38:55He said that the birds could leave at any time.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58"My Redstarts,
0:38:58 > 0:38:59"but one of the chief joys
0:38:59 > 0:39:04"of watching them in prison was that they inhabited another world than I.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07"They lived wholly and enviably to themselves,
0:39:07 > 0:39:11"unconcerned in our fatuous politics."
0:39:11 > 0:39:13He also talked about how
0:39:13 > 0:39:19they didn't just represent freedom, but also these invisible barriers. They had their territory.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22So he identified with them in that way as well.
0:39:22 > 0:39:27Buxton and his fellow POWs didn't simply watch birds -
0:39:27 > 0:39:31they studied them more closely than anyone had, ever before.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34If you look at the notebooks, and some of these notebooks do survive,
0:39:34 > 0:39:40they're page after page after page of observations that detail
0:39:40 > 0:39:43what each bird is doing each second of each day.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47They're extraordinary documents, and what they show is a kind of
0:39:47 > 0:39:51massive translation of the kinds of things that go on in a prison camp
0:39:51 > 0:39:56put onto birds, so here you have men who are obsessively watched,
0:39:56 > 0:39:58all day, all night by guards.
0:39:58 > 0:40:02And they are watching birds, all day and all night.
0:40:02 > 0:40:07I think bird-watching in prison camps is partly, obviously, freedom.
0:40:07 > 0:40:09Here is a creature that can hop over the wire.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12But also the slightly obsessional quality, it passes
0:40:12 > 0:40:16the time, it enables you to focus on something and do it well.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19It's the classic
0:40:19 > 0:40:22retreat into collecting mania, retreat into classification.
0:40:22 > 0:40:26You're in this situation which you absolutely can't control,
0:40:26 > 0:40:28here is something you can control.
0:40:33 > 0:40:37Back on the Home Front, the cinema was one way of escaping the horrors
0:40:37 > 0:40:40of war, if only for an hour or two.
0:40:40 > 0:40:45And in one long-forgotten wartime film, the arrival of a pair of rare
0:40:45 > 0:40:47birds in a sleepy English village
0:40:47 > 0:40:51symbolised the defence of the British countryside and its values.
0:40:53 > 0:40:55Let's have another look.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58That's what it is, you know? The Tawny Pipit.
0:40:58 > 0:41:00It does look awfully like the picture.
0:41:00 > 0:41:05Are you sure it's the only one without spots? Let's have a look.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09It can't be. It says it's only nested here once before.
0:41:09 > 0:41:10I'm absolutely certain.
0:41:10 > 0:41:12Let's go and ring Uncle Arthur.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16- We've justified his choice in books, anyway. - Yes, haven't we?!
0:41:16 > 0:41:19The Tawny Pipit is a wonderfully eccentric piece of British film-making.
0:41:19 > 0:41:23It tells the story of a little village in England that discovers
0:41:23 > 0:41:26that a pair of Tawny Pipits are nesting next to the village.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29There are many characters that are very familiar from
0:41:29 > 0:41:33this kind of film, the eccentric bumbling Colonel, the recovering
0:41:33 > 0:41:37soldier, the airman who is charged with protecting them.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39And it's really an allegory about
0:41:39 > 0:41:42looking after refugees, protecting them, involving
0:41:42 > 0:41:47them in village life and basically preserving the kind of status quo.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51You see, we've got two very rare birds nesting just over here.
0:41:51 > 0:41:53Birds? But what's that to do with me?
0:41:53 > 0:41:57Well, they're right in the middle of a field, and all this, I mean...
0:41:57 > 0:41:59Who are you?
0:41:59 > 0:42:00My name's Hazel Broom.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03Well Miss Broom, we shan't disturb your birds.
0:42:03 > 0:42:04But it's a ground-nesting bird.
0:42:04 > 0:42:08It's one of the most wonderful things that's ever happened in England.
0:42:08 > 0:42:10It's rather touching, actually.
0:42:10 > 0:42:17And not just because of the birds, but because of the rural socialism
0:42:17 > 0:42:22of the idea, that all... the elderly colonel, the young corporal,
0:42:22 > 0:42:27who's an ornithologist, the army, the nurse, the recuperating RAF man,
0:42:27 > 0:42:30they're all in this together to support these two creatures
0:42:30 > 0:42:32being able to breed.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35This young lady says they have a rare bird breeding
0:42:35 > 0:42:37in a field here called the Tawny Pipit.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39Anthus campestris? My hat, is this true?
0:42:39 > 0:42:40Yes!
0:42:40 > 0:42:44- Is there such a bird? - Oh, my hat, yes, sir. If this is true, it's absolutely terrific.
0:42:44 > 0:42:47Thank you, corporal. Very well, Miss, I shall proceed by road.
0:42:47 > 0:42:50Oh, you darling!
0:42:50 > 0:42:55Tawny Pipit may not seem like a very revolutionary film - yet its deeper
0:42:55 > 0:43:00message closely reflects the social and political climate of the time.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03Very briefly - '41, '42, '43 - Britain
0:43:03 > 0:43:06almost became a socialist republic.
0:43:06 > 0:43:09That's what happened in the war, everyone helping each other.
0:43:09 > 0:43:11And you get a strong sense of that.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14It's a bit Ealing comedy, there is a corner of the English
0:43:14 > 0:43:17mind that is forever Ambridge.
0:43:19 > 0:43:23The film's plot relies on the fact that the Tawny Pipit
0:43:23 > 0:43:26is a very rare visitor to Britain.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30For the man commissioned to film the birds this was a major problem.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33It was filmed by the wonderful bird
0:43:33 > 0:43:36photographer Eric Hosking who had serious problems, of course,
0:43:36 > 0:43:40because there aren't any Tawny Pipits in Britain.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43So what he had to try and do was to film similar birds
0:43:43 > 0:43:45and pretend they were Tawny Pipits.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49So he filmed Meadow Pipits, but from behind, because from in
0:43:49 > 0:43:53front they would show their very characteristic streaked breast.
0:43:53 > 0:43:56So he really tore his hair out over this movie, and it's quite
0:43:56 > 0:43:59fun watching it as a bird watcher, because you raise one eyebrow and
0:43:59 > 0:44:04think to yourself, that's not a Tawny Pipit, it's a Meadow Pipit.
0:44:04 > 0:44:06But like all great British
0:44:06 > 0:44:09propaganda films, it all turns out fine in the end.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16Tawny Pipit portrays an idealised vision of the English countryside,
0:44:16 > 0:44:20unchanging, and steeped in old-fashioned values.
0:44:20 > 0:44:24In reality, things were rather different.
0:44:26 > 0:44:30A short while ago this was the 6,000-acre wilderness of Feltwell
0:44:30 > 0:44:34fen in south-west Norfolk, where nothing grew, save reeds and weeds.
0:44:34 > 0:44:38Scrubland of peat and bog, where floods, more frequently than not,
0:44:38 > 0:44:40turned it into a vast morass.
0:44:40 > 0:44:42But it has taken a war to turn that
0:44:42 > 0:44:45same wasteland into an agricultural gold mine.
0:44:45 > 0:44:51The Ministry of Agriculture has sent to work an army of men reclaiming the idle acres.
0:44:51 > 0:44:54As the war dragged on, with national food shortages and the
0:44:54 > 0:45:00prospect of widespread starvation, desperate measures had to be taken.
0:45:00 > 0:45:05So huge swathes of our countryside were ploughed up for agriculture.
0:45:05 > 0:45:10The entire emphasis was on maximising production.
0:45:10 > 0:45:16And you can only do that by taking out what you call, the waste land,
0:45:16 > 0:45:22and the waste land included half of all our ancient woodlands,
0:45:22 > 0:45:2470% of our heath lands.
0:45:24 > 0:45:29I think we've now lost 99% of our flower-rich meadows.
0:45:29 > 0:45:35Any habitat that wasn't yielding agricultural produce was converted to
0:45:35 > 0:45:38arable or to farming in some way.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41The irony was that the more we planned
0:45:41 > 0:45:47and organised and structured the future of the British countryside,
0:45:47 > 0:45:51the more we lost sight of some of these
0:45:51 > 0:45:54ascetic and romantic impulses that
0:45:54 > 0:45:58people had for the landscape and for the birds that live within it.
0:46:00 > 0:46:04During the post-war years, the juggernaut of the agricultural
0:46:04 > 0:46:10revolution was unstoppable, fuelled by subsidies and new technology.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13It was goodbye to the old-fashioned values of Tawny Pipit,
0:46:13 > 0:46:17and welcome to the brave new world of men in white coats.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21And the boffins came up with what appeared to be the perfect solution
0:46:21 > 0:46:23to improving productivity.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29There was a bright new future for Britain, not only for industry,
0:46:29 > 0:46:31but also for the countryside,
0:46:31 > 0:46:37and so in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, we sought to get rid of
0:46:37 > 0:46:41inefficient farming methods and systems and replace them
0:46:41 > 0:46:44with cutting-edge new technologies of the time.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48And one of those technologies was the application of pesticides,
0:46:48 > 0:46:51and the birth of what we now know as chemical farming.
0:46:56 > 0:47:01So you suddenly have this interesting combination of a bunch of chemicals
0:47:01 > 0:47:03that could kill pests
0:47:03 > 0:47:06and a need to increase food production.
0:47:07 > 0:47:12And, at face value, it must have seemed very straightforward.
0:47:12 > 0:47:13You know, you get more of a crop
0:47:13 > 0:47:18if you remove the weeds, because the crop gets all the food from the soil.
0:47:18 > 0:47:22But these revolutionary new farming methods were having terrible effects
0:47:22 > 0:47:26on our countryside birds. The two main problems
0:47:26 > 0:47:31were the destruction of habitat and the widespread use of pesticides.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35One, it was degrading the whole landscape.
0:47:35 > 0:47:39A lot of the wild life depended on the wild plants,
0:47:39 > 0:47:43the rough bits of the countryside, the wet bits and so on and so forth.
0:47:43 > 0:47:47And if you've spent lots of time and effort wiping out
0:47:47 > 0:47:50the so-called pests, when you kill the moths,
0:47:50 > 0:47:53you kill the butterflies, and caterpillars,
0:47:53 > 0:47:55then you remove that element of the food chain.
0:48:04 > 0:48:09As a result, the populations of many farmland birds went into freefall.
0:48:10 > 0:48:15Eventually, environmentalists woke up to what was happening,
0:48:15 > 0:48:19and began to warn against the catastrophe of a silent spring.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25But when it came to a choice between farming and birds,
0:48:25 > 0:48:28there could only be one winner.
0:48:28 > 0:48:30There was a kind of
0:48:30 > 0:48:35illusion, I think, in government and actually in society more widely,
0:48:35 > 0:48:39that what was good for agriculture was good for the countryside.
0:48:39 > 0:48:41People believed that the countryside
0:48:41 > 0:48:47was safe in the hands of farmers, but I think no one really had grasped
0:48:47 > 0:48:52the fact that actually there was a difficult choice to be made between
0:48:52 > 0:48:57maximising agricultural production and attempting to maintain
0:48:57 > 0:49:01a kind of rich, diverse wildlife in the countryside.
0:49:05 > 0:49:10One man who witnessed the calamity in the countryside at first hand was
0:49:10 > 0:49:14the author Henry Williamson, whose books, including Tarka the Otter,
0:49:14 > 0:49:16had made him a household name.
0:49:24 > 0:49:28"After the Hitlerian war when I had sold my farm
0:49:28 > 0:49:31"and returned to North Devon and my writing,
0:49:31 > 0:49:36the general use of other sprays on arable and grasslands caused the deaths of great numbers of
0:49:36 > 0:49:41birds including such predators as sparrowhawks, owls and buzzards.
0:49:41 > 0:49:45Williamson, a farmer himself, recalled finding
0:49:45 > 0:49:50a family of Grey Partridges, all poisoned by chemicals.
0:49:50 > 0:49:55I came across the two birds crouched side-by-side in death
0:49:55 > 0:49:58with their chicks slightly larger than humble bees
0:49:58 > 0:50:02cold between the protecting feathers.
0:50:04 > 0:50:08Even the largest and most powerful birds weren't immune to the effects
0:50:08 > 0:50:12of what turned out to be a chemical time-bomb.
0:50:14 > 0:50:20Birds of prey that struggled through the 19th century surviving
0:50:20 > 0:50:26the persecution from gamekeepers to protect landowning interests,
0:50:28 > 0:50:31had bounced back a little during both the World Wars when many of
0:50:31 > 0:50:36the gamekeepers were posted overseas, were hit
0:50:36 > 0:50:42tremendously hard by the chemical farming revolution of the 1960s.
0:50:42 > 0:50:47The poison that we put onto the crops was concentrated up the food
0:50:47 > 0:50:51chain in the bodies of smaller birds which were then taken as prey items
0:50:51 > 0:50:55by birds of prey and they were producing infertile eggs or indeed
0:50:55 > 0:51:00eggshells that were so thin they cracked under the incubating bird.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05One species, the kestrel, did manage to escape the worst
0:51:05 > 0:51:08effects of the chemical revolution.
0:51:08 > 0:51:11But ironically, it did so by taking advantage
0:51:11 > 0:51:14of a new habitat created by us.
0:51:14 > 0:51:16So we went through a period where
0:51:16 > 0:51:19the only place you saw kestrels, for instance,
0:51:19 > 0:51:21was along the motorway verges.
0:51:21 > 0:51:23Because they were long corridors that were
0:51:23 > 0:51:26excused agricultural improvement, nobody was spraying the road verges.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30So you hadn't got that kind of damage and the birds of prey that
0:51:30 > 0:51:34survived were the ones that learned to feed along the roads
0:51:34 > 0:51:36and you didn't see them over the fields.
0:51:36 > 0:51:40But for some species, it was almost the end.
0:51:45 > 0:51:50DDT, the main culprit amongst these agricultural chemicals, was finally
0:51:50 > 0:51:57banned in 1984, more than 40 years after the destruction of our countryside and its birds had begun.
0:51:59 > 0:52:04Since then, different groups of birds have experienced very different fortunes.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10Birds of prey have been the fastest to make a comeback, not only because
0:52:10 > 0:52:14of the banning of DDT, but also because in many parts of the country
0:52:14 > 0:52:19they are no longer persecuted as ruthlessly as they were in the past.
0:52:21 > 0:52:23Golden eagles, buzzards and red kites are now
0:52:23 > 0:52:27a far more regular sight in our skies.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32But the fate of many of our rural birds
0:52:32 > 0:52:33could hardly be more different.
0:52:33 > 0:52:37The continuing drive to make agriculture more productive
0:52:37 > 0:52:41has been a disaster for birds that depend on farmland.
0:52:41 > 0:52:46Many species continue to decline, and have vanished from their former haunts.
0:52:48 > 0:52:52These dramatic changes have happened not over centuries,
0:52:52 > 0:52:55but during our own brief lifetimes.
0:52:55 > 0:53:01I can remember as a kid, as a teenager, you know, in the
0:53:01 > 0:53:06'50s certainly, walking across what I wouldn't regard as anything
0:53:06 > 0:53:12except just normal farmland and Lapwings coming up,
0:53:12 > 0:53:14Skylarks were nesting there.
0:53:14 > 0:53:19In winter there would be a wintering flock of maybe 100, 200 Yellowhammers
0:53:19 > 0:53:25and a few other finches with them and Buntings and that sort of thing.
0:53:25 > 0:53:26In other words, more birds.
0:53:26 > 0:53:32There was absolutely no question about that whatsoever.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36And I remember riding around the headlines of fields
0:53:36 > 0:53:41and clouds of lapwings. I mean,
0:53:41 > 0:53:45pretty much blacking out the sky rising up out of the newly-ploughed ground.
0:53:45 > 0:53:51Add masses and masses of Skylarks, and masses and masses of Finches.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55And that was only 45 years ago.
0:53:56 > 0:54:03And when I see a Lapwing now, I take my hat off to it, you know, it feels like a rarity.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05Although they are waders,
0:54:05 > 0:54:09Lapwings spend much of their lives on farmland, wintering in large
0:54:09 > 0:54:13flocks on open fields, and nesting on rough grassland.
0:54:16 > 0:54:21Since 1960 their numbers have fallen by 80%.
0:54:21 > 0:54:25For me, the fate of the Lapwing is a kind of personal tragedy.
0:54:25 > 0:54:27It's almost autobiographical.
0:54:27 > 0:54:28They're beautiful,
0:54:28 > 0:54:34they sound fantastic, they remind me of my childhood, they remind me of
0:54:34 > 0:54:40the landscape, they are somehow synonymous with a diverse landscape.
0:54:42 > 0:54:46The loss of these familiar birds is a timely warning about the state
0:54:46 > 0:54:48of the British countryside.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51But its significance goes far deeper than that.
0:54:51 > 0:54:55Their fate, and the fate of all our wildlife,
0:54:55 > 0:55:01is inextricably linked with our own emotional and spiritual well-being.
0:55:01 > 0:55:07Human beings have suddenly, in my lifetime, begun to understand
0:55:07 > 0:55:12that the presence of a healthy community of animals and mammals
0:55:12 > 0:55:14and birds and reptiles and insects
0:55:14 > 0:55:19is absolutely of huge importance to the health of the human spirit.
0:55:23 > 0:55:27And the landscape with diversity in it is central
0:55:27 > 0:55:29to being a human being and I think
0:55:29 > 0:55:35as we destroy other species, we destroy something about ourselves.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40The loss of these birds matters because it is, in the end,
0:55:40 > 0:55:43an impoverishment.
0:55:43 > 0:55:44It happens quite gradually
0:55:44 > 0:55:47so you don't notice it, like you don't notice your hair
0:55:47 > 0:55:52going grey but it happens and when it's happened, you then notice it.
0:55:55 > 0:55:56And if these birds were to vanish
0:55:56 > 0:56:02altogether, our very concept of countryside would be under threat.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08If birds went out of the countryside,
0:56:08 > 0:56:11the sedges withered from the lake and no birds sing,
0:56:11 > 0:56:14to bring John Keats back into this,
0:56:14 > 0:56:16it would be
0:56:16 > 0:56:20an emblem of a kind of nuclear, post-nuclear deadness.
0:56:20 > 0:56:24If birds disappeared from the countryside,
0:56:24 > 0:56:28it wouldn't mean the same, to call it the countryside.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31It would be the non-urban spaces.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34To live in a silent world would be...
0:56:34 > 0:56:37a really dreadful thing, dreadful thing.
0:56:53 > 0:56:56The story of our nation's relationship with birds
0:56:56 > 0:56:58has been a long and eventful one,
0:56:58 > 0:57:05a journey from exploitation, through appreciation, to delight.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09For centuries, we regarded birds purely as objects
0:57:09 > 0:57:15to be used for our benefit, for food and fuel, sport and recreation.
0:57:18 > 0:57:21But gradually, over time, we came to value them, cherish them,
0:57:21 > 0:57:27and finally to understand what they truly mean to us.
0:57:27 > 0:57:33MUSIC: Variation IX (Adagio) "Nimrod" from Enigma Variations by Elgar
0:57:33 > 0:57:36MUSIC INTERSPERSED WITH BIRDSONG
0:58:18 > 0:58:23Subtitles by Red Bee Media
0:58:23 > 0:58:27E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk