Birds Born to be Wild

Some people will go to any lengths.

It's going to get very deep. It's a bit deeper than I thought.

They will push themselves physically in the pursuit of their passion...

You are covered in grot.

They do it for love, not money.

This is the bit that gives me the willies, where you tip yourself over the edge.

They're all British amateur naturalists

whose love of animals has taken them to extremes.

Oooh! He's taking blood.

Four people, four creatures, four inspiring stories.

Once upon a time, there were two young kids,

that decided for some unknown reason, to organise trips out to Sule Skerry.

Sule Skerry is a desolate, fairly featureless rock,

40 miles off the north coast of Scotland.

For Adrian and his good friend Dave, it's a holiday paradise.

It takes six hours by boat to get here,

four hours to unload,

and then...they are camping.

For them, it's worth all this trouble...

to study puffins.

We first came to Sule Skerry in 1975.

And the place was magical. We just couldn't get over the aura of it.

I don't think we went to bed for about two-and-a-half days.

We kept going and going until we virtually dropped, didn't we?

That's right.

We made full use of the options.

Work colleagues will ask me, "what sort of accommodation have you got?"

How many star hotel it's got, and when it's in a tent

with a stream running under the tent because there's that much rain

you have to dig a dyke to let the water through,

they wonder what the hell you're doing that for.

At 5 o'clock in the morning, Dave and Adrian's

12-strong team of volunteers are already up and busy.

By catching the puffins,

the team can keep an eye on how the population is doing.

Ringing them identifies individual birds.

Naughty boy.

A lot of people ask me if the the netting hurts the puffins

but it's usually the other way round.

Puffins make a mess of the nets.

Puffins are not aware that they have a secret weapon.

It's called a claw.

They are trying to attack you all the time with the bill,

but thing that really does the damage is the feet.

I know, it's a rum do.

They were thought, and still are thought, to be indicators of the sea.

The state of the sea and the fish stocks.

If the fish stocks are good, the sea birds tend to be good.

This is a younger bird.

These birds are just essentially none-breeders,

wandering the colonies to see what their options are.

INDISTINCT SPEECH

Well over half the puffins ever ringed in the United Kingdom

have been ringed on this island.

For a long-term survival study,

you get a good number of birds, individuals.

It's the ideal place to do it.

All right, mate.

In 2007, Adrian and Dave were delighted to capture a bird

that they had originally ringed on that first trip in 1975.

That makes it the oldest known British puffin.

With some of the team's tasks, the worst you have to endure

is getting cold, wet and pecked by puffins.

But some tasks are trickier still.

There are thousands of puffins here

but they nest underground, so to see how they are doing down there,

you have to get up to your armpits in mud.

The idea is that you mark out, in a random way,

a circle of a given area.

You don't view your position in advance because that would

tend to cause you to choose a bit that was maybe convenient.

You, in effect, almost shut your eyes and walk the paces.

Once they've staked out their circle,

one of them put their hand down every burrow to see what they find.

They have a name for this.

It's called grotting.

It's descriptive because it leaves you covered in grot.

The soils are sticky and they cling to your skin

when you get in contact with them

so when you've finished, you're grotty.

A single adult here.

Some have got chicks him, some have just got adults in,

non-breeders, as they're just playing at it.

Some, you can't get to the bottom of.

And then from that area, you can scale it to the size of the island

to get a first order estimate of the population.

And how did you two come to be here together?

He owed me some money and he wouldn't pay

so I followed him everywhere!

That's his answer. The proper answer is, it has to be said,

we complement each other because we operate in slightly different manners

and it's good to have two people doing that.

And we sort of complemented each other at getting in there.

It wasn't one person taking the other one along,

we just went into it.

-What we got in that lot?

-Six with adults and nothing else,

eight empty, and seven with chicks.

I only found one little fish, which I reckon is unusual.

'There definitely seems to be a problem now with the fish.

'Certainly, in the last two years,

'they are not doing too well, which is very worrying, really.'

A little chick. How old do you reckon, Dave?

-Two or three weeks.

-We call them pufflings.

Pufflings are in the front line of the fish problem.

The sand eels they need are disappearing,

forcing the parents to choose pike fish instead.

It's thought the sand eels may be moving north due to global-warming.

The nest is strewn with pike fish, look,

which is the issue we are having now.

There's hardly any food value in them, no fat,

and he can't swallow them.

They finish up being left in the nest.

The birds are effectively starving, they are not getting enough

of the normal fish species, which is the sand eel.

To say I'm quite worried about the population

is probably an underestimation.

The long-term nature of their puffin work means they can spot changes.

We've got so much data that it's very difficult to analyse it physically,

so we are seeking help with computer buffs to help us to do it.

When we finish, which can't be too far away from the horizon. I mean,

I've got to be honest about it, we can't keep coming for ever and ever,

the years go on,

but I would like to think that the project that we started

keeps going well into the future.

And maybe we'll read about it

when we're just about getting around on a stick.

Dave and Adrian's work has produced a valuable picture

of the island's puffins over the last 30 years.

Finding the oldest British puffin is a great high.

But worries about sand eels echo a wider concern

about the effects of global-warming on our seabirds.

For Adrian and Dave, the lure of puffins

draws them inexorably back to Sule Skerry.

For another amateur naturalist, the twists and turns of his beloved bird

have led him a merry dance of thousands of miles.

The peregrine falcon going full tilt,

which is about 170 miles an hour,

didn't see me and came past my ear about nine inches away,

like an express train going past your ear.

That's one of those experiences in life you can never repeat

and it's worth it all.

Jim Wells has been studying peregrines

since he was 17 years old.

Going after peregrine's takes you

to the most dramatic and beautiful scenery in Northern Ireland,

so even if you see nothing, in terms of birds,

you go to some fascinating places.

Jim knows the location of every peregrine nest in Northern Ireland.

This is by far and away

one of our most successful sites in Northern Ireland.

I have been coming here, every year,

31 years, and it has only failed once to produce young.

Believe it or not, there's a nest with three chicks up there.

The problem is, the mist has come down.

Not even using this telescope can I see what is going on.

I can't see a thing.

It's a bit unfortunate.

One day, I came home and the police were waiting for me

and said that I'd been seen in Fermanagh with a rocket launcher.

I had to explain to them, no, it was an expensive lens.

HE SINGS

Jim is used having to explain himself.

He leads a double life.

THEY SHOUT

He's been involved in Northern Irish politics

since he was a student, and he is now a DUP politician.

If you want to make a politician go quiet,

ask him what his interests are outside of politics,

and he will stare at his toes, but I don't.

I have this fascinating interest which is all-consuming at times.

When I'm up the mountains, I switch off

of all the hassle and bother of being a politician.

Jim is not alone in his passion for peregrines.

His accomplice, Mark, often joins him in the field.

Mark is much younger than I am

so it is a good combination of youth and experience, I think.

You can see we've got a female coming in.

-I don't like the look of this.

-They're ready to go, Jim.

-Mummy doesn't like us here.

-No, she's obviously not too happy.

Move away.

What's kept me hooked has been the ebbs and flows of the population.

There's always been a twist keeping me interested in the species.

When Jim first started studying peregrines,

they were in a terrible state.

Pesticides like DDT had devastated the population.

No sooner had they started to recover from this,

than they began to be persecuted by pigeon fanciers.

Luckily, there are some positive trends, as well.

One of the interesting things is, over the 31 years,

there's been a move into quarries.

I found the first quarry-nesting pair in Northern Ireland in 1978.

We now had 62 separate quarries occupied.

The rock's not too bad. Maybe they are getting relatively sheltered.

There she goes. My favourite noise.

They are both present, no problem at all.

This is where things get really extreme.

Jim and Mark are going to try and ring the chicks,

and this means abseiling over the edge of the cliff to get to them.

The drop is 200 feet.

But this time, it's not at all straightforward.

It's quite badly overhung, the cliff.

While Mark prepares, Jim takes up position at the base of the cliff.

He's gonna have to swing himself out, come back in off the cliff

and grab it and see if he can get a foothold.

You need to bring the rope a bit more this way.

That's as far as it's gonna go,

-otherwise I'm running over three edges that'll slice the rope.

-Right.

-It's gonna be dictated by what I can stand on, then.

-Yeah.

This is the bit that gives me the willies.

It's not the going down, it's where you tip yourself over the edge.

He is the action man figure, the bionic man,

who will go down some huge cliff on a rope.

I would only attempt the very smallest of cliffs.

I used to when I was much younger, but I'm past that stage in life.

BIRDS SQUAWK

Three big females, Jim.

Right.

It only maybe a foot wide, so it's actually, for four chicks,

it's quite a small ledge. A small ledge for four chicks and a climber!

This is when they draw blood.

-This is going to be G five.

-Sounds a good name for a pop group.

There's a G4, I think, isn't there?!

Oooh!

-Ooh...

-A little shot.

And the other one, quick, he's taking blood.

Argh!

-Bother.

-Hey, you're all right! Look at me!

1,200g, minus the bag.

-1,200g, minus the bag. And it's a female?

-It's female.

Bit by bit, we're putting the jigsaw pieces together,

to the extent we probably know more about the peregrine falcon

in Northern Ireland than any other single species. It's very rewarding.

If you only knew, we are the best mates you have in this country.

And you can treat us with such disdain!

My friends in the Raptor Group would say that the reason I do field work

is that I know when I stop the field work, I'll have to write this up,

and I'm so scared about writing it up I just keep doing the field work.

Jim's had his hands torn to bits by unappreciative chicks.

But it's all worth it.

Long-term research like this is really valuable

in understanding what's going on with populations.

His passion for this iconic falcon is easy to understand.

But deep in the Cheshire countryside,

another volunteer has a more surprising addiction -

an obscure bird that few of us will ever see.

Malcolm Calvert is 63.

He works as a financial adviser and lives near Wilmslow, in Cheshire.

But there's more than one Malcolm Calvert.

The real me is the one who wears waders

and goes in the reed beds, and very often gets very wet.

There's nothing more exciting than finding a reed warbler nest

and studying what's happening with the birds.

The first recollection I have was when I was about six,

and I was being taken to see some relatives,

and being chastised by my mother

for not watching properly as I crossed the road.

I was more interested in the rooks nesting in the trees.

When Malcolm was a schoolboy of 15,

his passion for birds led him to Rostherne Mere,

which he found enchanting.

I was amazed at the beauty of the place.

It's in a very nice setting, with trees and fields around it.

It's a very beautiful spot.

Little did Malcolm know then that this place

would become his second home.

34 years ago, he set out to study the reed warblers here,

and he has been coming ever since.

The lake is huge,

but the birds are tiny and virtually impossible to see.

To find them, he has to push his way through acres of reed beds

up to twice his height.

It's nothing special to look at.

It's just a little brown bird, really.

It's not one of the gaudy, plumaged birds.

It's quite obscure, in some ways.

But they do come all the way from Africa

and they do return year by year to the reserve,

and I always look forward, in the winter,

to the first birds arriving back from Africa.

Before the birds nest, I like to be able to catch the adults

to identify who they are.

I'm going to set a net with the hope of catching several reed warblers.

I'll start from the far end and work back.

They're set a bit like goal posts.

Birds fly into it, and I'm specially trained to extract them

with no injury to the birds.

Very often, the first birds back

are birds I've ringed on the reserve in previous seasons.

This bird was ringed by me five years ago, at the same site.

It's been to Africa and back five times.

Reed warblers are doing well in the UK,

but they're global travellers that could hit a hitch at any time.

If they do, Malcolm will be here to notice.

By the end of May, the idea is to find nests

and to record the laying of eggs and the hatching of young,

and to ring nestlings.

The lake is a kilometre long and 600 metres wide.

There are acres of reed beds.

And Malcolm knows where each nest is.

This is private land.

Malcolm is here alone.

If anything happened, it could take the emergency services

hours to find him.

It's going to get very deep. It's a bit deeper than I thought.

With 2007 being the wettest summer for 400 years,

it's a worrying time for Malcolm.

He never knows what he will find at each nest.

The nest is here but the younger fledge, they've already gone.

The tell-tale signs of droppings on the reeds show that the birds

have successfully left the nest.

Saturday's the main day.

I can be there for 8 to 10 hours on a Saturday.

On a Wednesday or Tuesday, I might be down for three or four hours.

Oh, dear.

It's bad news.

There's two dead young and one egg.

They've just got soaked in the rain.

Very recent as well.

They were making good progress.

63-year-old Malcolm makes this look easy,

but the reeds grab at your legs, making it really tough.

We have a nest of young here, which I can ring.

Almost ready to fledge.

Starting from 1973, I've ringed over 4,000 nesting reed warblers.

12% of the national total have been birds at Rostherne Mere.

It's been very rewarding.

There have been so many highlights over the years of doing this study.

In particular, it's always rewarding to catch birds ringed as nestlings

when they first appear as juveniles weeks later.

Recently, for example, I caught all four birds from a particular brood.

And it's nice to know that all four have survived,

and are thriving in the reed beds.

When I've just got soaked and I've sort of looked back and thought,

"What have I achieved today?",

there's always the urge to go back the next day and to do better.

Malcolm Calvert has written a book chronicling his 35 years of research

and knows more about this species at Rostherne Mere

than anyone who's ever lived.

Malcolm, Adrian, Dave and Jim all go to extremes

to study birds in their spare time.

And each has carried out a unique long-term study.

But you don't have to go to these lengths

or be involved with birds for 30 years to really make a difference.

Ah, marvellous!

There's a barn owl just along the edge of the field over there.

Just quartering along.

Almost like a big flying head, you know.

Actually, I think it's amazing.

I never get tired of seeing birds such as barn owls.

ALARM BEEPS

A typical day will mean probably getting up around 5am,

getting onto the farm for around 5.45am.

Mark spends a couple of hours surveying a local farm for birds.

Then he rushes back to the city

for an eight-hour shift in a noisy factory.

Working in the factory in the week, it's nice just to get out

in the open air with birds singing round you. You can't beat that.

It's very therapeutic.

Mark's early morning jaunts are more than just a peaceful escape.

He's part of an RSPB scheme to partner farmers with volunteers.

Yorkshire and the East Riding is an intensive area of agriculture.

When you're looking at vast fields of single crops,

it can be quite depressing to survey, actually.

Very little birdlife, very few insects, just nothing in there.

Almost barren deserts, really.

Farmland birds across Britain have declined

by nearly 50% since the 1980s.

The once-common corn bunting has plummeted by a massive 98%.

Yorkshire and East Riding have been the worst-hit areas.

Basically, what I'm doing is recording all the birds

that I can hear, and trying to plot them on the map.

That's the programme's main aim, to get as many of these species

down on the map so the farmer can then be informed

of what important areas there are, and which habitats he can work on.

Jangling keys is the corn bunting.

This is a bird I've missed in recent years, actually.

Quite a dumpy little brown, boring bird.

I think the old Yorkshire thing is calling them the corn blob,

but it's the call that you actually miss.

This jangling keys.

Just try and listen for it now.

SILENCE

Not performing! I thought you might get one to order.

I think the most rewarding part for me

is actually seeing farmers a few years down the line

making changes that are really helping birds.

Mark surveyed Tamara Hall's pea farm three years ago,

and, as a result, Tamara has made some big changes to help birds.

Lovely. I see you've put a few nest boxes up.

-Yes, and they were used last year, which is good.

-Brilliant.

There were loads of tree sparrows.

Beautiful little dumpy birds.

They almost look like the Yorkshire pensioner, with his flat cap on.

That's what they remind me of. I love them to bits. Great to see 'em.

Over at the bottom of this field, we've put a ten-acre scrape,

a series of shallow connected ponds for waders and things.

-My father nearly had a heart attack when he saw this!

-I can believe that!

Quite a mess!

-Yeah. It looks a lot better now.

-Yeah.

We've also got the wood next to it,

which is an 18-acre wood we planted with public access.

The public will be able to watch the scrape from there. Hopefully.

Very good.

It's great to meet farmers who are like minded

and wanting to get involved and do things.

They'd be really sad places if these birds were extinct in a few years.

I think my personal hope is that one day, you know,

I might be looking at a career change, getting out of the factory

and actually doing something to help birds.

Compared to Adrian, Dave, Jim and Malcolm, Mark is just a fledgling.

But he's already making a difference.

Our volunteers hike, climb, wade

and even give blood to help their prized birds.

Ooh!

Though their efforts, we've learned entirely new things about the lives,

loves and troubles of British bird species.

It's only by knowing what we've got and how it's doing

that we can know when to step in and help.

It would be an impossible task without the help

of our British wild heroes.

If you want to find out about getting involved with birds,

log on to...

Next time on Born To Be Wild, a stroll with a mission...

This is beginning to look good.

..grow-your-own butterflies...

One's emerged from the chrysalis.

..a passion for moths...

and a close encounter.

There she goes.

Join our amateur naturalists

as they keep an eye on Britain's butterflies.

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