Episode 4 Autumnwatch

Hello and welcome to Autumnwatch, and it is our last night in the

Highlands. We have had the woods here bug with cameras and we have

had some brilliant wildlife. have been watching are what life as

they make the most of the mild autumn evenings and prepare for

colder months. We will be tuning into the lives of the animals all

around us right now. It is Yes, hello and welcome. If you were

watching earlier, you will know that the Autumnwatch put in has

camped itself here near Inverness. We have had a great week of

wildlife. All sorts of things have been spotted on our remote cameras

and creatures from all around the country. But it is not over yet.

will bring you some interesting facts, a bit of science, some

cuteness and who knows - something unexpected. But we will definitely

bring you some drama. We will bring you the final instalment of our red

deer epic. And we will catch up with some of the animals around our

coasts at this time of year. And we will get to grips with one of our

most charming creatures, but sadly, one which is in serious decline.

it just me, or is it colder tonight? You have just got the best

clothes on. A but we have noticed a change, even in the short time we

have been here. Winter is creeping in. The days have got shorter, then

might have got longer, the clocks have gone back and we have even had

some snow. This was the beginning of the snow.

And the time we have been here, just in a last week at. The snow

has settled on the hills. That is a sign of tougher months ahead for

our wildlife. And it is bitterly cold in the wind tonight. But let

us do what we are here for. Let's go around with our live cameras and

see what is there. Ooh! A beaver. There it is eating, like they do

most of the time. They are trying to build themselves up, get those

fat reserves ready for the winter. Any idea who that is? Our viewers

on the red button probably no better than we do. They could

recognise the backside of that beaver. Great entertainment this

week. Have we got any more beavers? Any more action? You can just make

it out, swimming. That is quite close to where we are. I think it

is coming towards us. Maybe it is coming across to see what we are

doing. Can we see where it is? are very close. There we are.

about 150 metres away. They are still going about their business.

They are trying to put on fat reserves for the winter. It is not

just because we have been watching. We have been watching pine marten

so. Before we went on air last night, we saw this. This is our

mammal stump, where we have been looking at small mammals. But on

top of it is a large mammal. Just listen. The wood mouse inside is in

trouble. Its nemesis is outside. This is The Hurt Locker for the

wood mouse. All it needs to do is stepped out, and it would be a

goner. But thankfully, the pine marten has a greater interest in

strawberry jam than wood mice, and has headed off to satisfy its sweet

tooth. So there would now survive. Her at least the pine marten can't

go in, like the weasel did the other day. If the weasel had been

around, the wood mouse would have been an ex-wood mouse. The scent of

those small mammals must be prevalent. That is not the only

thing we have seen about feeding station. We have also seen badgers,

and they proved to be quite agile. Look at it climbing the tree. We

have also seen them doing this. A bit of scratching, and then it

leaves a little deposit. It is marking its territory. We have seen

the prompt -- pine Martens doing this. As things get tougher and

resources become more important, you want to protect them, so you

want to maintain your territory. The fact that these animals have

been sent marking does not surprise us. We are still getting your

behaviour. Don't forget, all of the cameras will still be on red button.

You can keep watching an online until 10:30pm, when I'm afraid they

will be switched off. After the show tonight, don't go anywhere,

because it is Unsprung. What is on Unsprung? It is a quiz, and it is a

corker. Sounds like a lot of fun. But if you need a bit of drama, we

had plenty of it with our red deer stags Cassius and Lucius. After

yesterday's a bloody battle, we left the EGM on a cliffhanger. Who

will be victorious? Let's find out. On the island of Rum, 3rd October

proved to be a pivotal day in the red deer rut. Several times had

come into season and some brutal battles broke out. Cassius, the

oldest stag, timed his challenge to perfection and deposed Lucius with

a stab to the side. But remarkably, Lucius continued to fight other

stags despite his injuries. Will you have the strength to take on

Cassius again? This morning, there is a sense of calm over the glen.

And there has been a dramatic reversal of fortune. Cassius is a

loan. The hinds he won yesterday argon, and here is the reason.

Lucius. He must have taken on Cassius in the night, and now, once

again, he holds the lion's share of behinds. Things might become for

now, but another storm is brewing. This high and has just come into

season. And every stag in the area knows it. Lucius is forced back on

It is an exhausting battle, with no clear winner. If Lucius can just

hold off the other stags, he should get to mate with the kind who is in

season. But there is no time for Lucius even to try. Another stag is

challenging, and yet again, it is Cassius. Once more, this wise old

stag has timed his manoeuvre It is over. Lucius does not really

seem to want to take on the stag who stabbed him in the side. Every

time, Cassius made his move at the critical moment. When a hind is in

season. The hind ones to mate, but she will be the one who chooses her

partner. Cassius may have reclaimed the herd, but the Hindhead so way

towards Lucius. Will he be the lucky one? No. She passes him by,

and cosies up with his neighbour. Even after all the epic fights

between the stags, it is the hinds who gets the final say. After

checking out a few other stags, she makes up her mind and goes back. To

Poor Lucius. He is just not in the game any more. He might be a

powerhouse, but he has been outmanoeuvred again and again by

Cassius. Over the next few days, he repeatedly tried to challenge

Cassius. In vain. Even with an uphill advantage, Lucius backs out

from making a proper challenge. He has lost weight, and has also

started eating again. A sure sign that he has pretty much given up.

His rut is over. Against all the odds, it is the oldest stag,

Cassius, who has proved to be the most successful. He might be past

his physical best, but he has taken power at just the right time. He

mated the most times, more than Lucius. And more than Mozart. On

October the tenth, this veteran stag called it a day. It pays for a

stag to know when to stop fighting, as they have got another massive

challenge to face, the coming winter. Now Cassius has to feed up

and get back in good enough condition to make it through the

tough months ahead. And if he does, he might just be back next year for

one more rut, the ultimate challenge for the red deer.

I thought I was rooted out. I had been in a rut and got out of it,

seen enough, but that was fantastic. Not only the drummer, but

understanding it. Wasn't that interesting? There is very new

science, where they had discovered that the females only leave for one

day. They leave the harem and go off. It is their choice. They will

make another selection of the male they will mate with. And she did

exactly that in the film. We have had a question on Twitter from Bath.

I am sure it is something a lot of people want to ask. Why do the red

stags rut with their willies out? They do. It is totally counter-

intuitive. Why expose such a delicate part of your anatomy? I

asked the researchers from the deer project, and they said nobody

really knows. There are two possibilities. It is very obvious.

The deposit urine as part of their rotting display, so while fighting,

they are continuing to display. But the most likely explanation is that

of those at stags are just a boiling mass of hormones,

testosterone and adrenalin, and they are over stimulated.

Everything is going on. A month before, they are quite calm and

getting on with each other. And then they are mental. They can't

control themselves. How has there been any update on many of the

deer? I spoke to Ali Morris yesterday, and she sent us some

footage. This is Lucius, but it is quite sad. Ali is a researcher. She

film to this after the film crew left on 14th October. He has taken

some serious hits. He could not get away from the greens. He got hit.

We don't know what has happened to him. Hopefully, we will try and

catch up with him. But that is surely not just from that one

injury? And there were other fights. But when he was down, he got hit

Let's see if our animals are on the live cameras. Are the beavers still

there? Can we zoom in a bit? What is he doing - nibbling and gnawing.

Their gut is not good at digesting what is in that plant material, so

they have keep eating and eating and eating. One thing I hoped you

might see them do, is they will practise eating their own toilet,

like rabbits do. They get a double go at getting the celous. The

youngsters will put on plenty of weight. They use their tail as a

weight. They eat 20% of their body weight. Every day!

At least I have tried. We set up our cameras to look for beavers. We

were not surprised to find another animal had to the area where they

are - an otter, of course. We have seen the otters here on several

occasions and they have been actively foraging. Look at this one

- it is rooting around at the bottom of the damn. -- dam.

What is that? The otter's nose is in the water and look... There. I

have studied that. I reckon it is a frog. It definitely hops, doesn't

it? It could be the toad. Toads In your own time! Given we have

otters and beavers in the same space it is obvious they will meet

up. This is something we were looking forward to seeing. An otter

on the left pops up. There is a rum pass to start with. Then, look. The

otter is circling the beaver, they NUSle one and other and then the

beaver turns around and makes its way off. This is typical to what

will happen here. Otters are not a serious predator. If they meet in

the water, there would be aquatic dances. With wolves or lynx it

would be different. In a beaver lodge, near Chicago, in America,

the otters and beavers are sharing the space with their young. What I

do wonder is if a large otter came across a small beaver, then might

it be tempted.... Sharing the lodge. The species are very similar.

have been lucky to get those. They are just glimpses, but that was

unexpected for us and those shots are in the dark. We sent our camera

team to Inverness, half an hour from here and they managed to get

great footage of an otter family and some other local wildlife,

which has made its home on the For centuries people and wildlife

have shared the coastline of the Stealing the catch where they can.

Even the harbours of industrial towns are a relative safe haven for

Here the waters of the sea and the river meet and mingle with the

tides. These shallow waters are feeding

grounds for otters. The pillars of the bridge are

encrusted with muscles and other marine life, which in turn attract

fish. It is a place this female feels is well worth staking her

claim on and she's got two hungry cubs in tow.

cubs in tow. In the past, otters were persecuted

by man, but in recent decades their numbers in this part of the Firth

have been increasing. This family feel comfortable enough to relax

In a few months, this family will split up. The cubs will have to

fend for themselves as their mother prepares to breed again. For now,

in the last days of autumn, food is plentiful and life is good.

Fantastic images of otters. A very rare sight. 40-50 years ago that

would have been incredibly rare in England. Otters were very nearly

extinct. They were rare. As they disappeared, our knowledge about

otters seemed to disappear with them. We have got together and we

are trying to make a Springwatch special on otters and that will be

transmitted towards the end of the year, bringing together everything.

It seems a lot of our animals are very active. There was a pine

marten there live. Let's see if he is still there. Oh, yes, there we

It is very difficult to know which one that is. We have a bottom view

there. We think it is Dice. We cannot tell unless we see that bib

on the front. Are you going to turn around for

us? Oh, yes, there we go! Well, you know we're staying at the

field centre here and we are all in either the house or the lodges

around and Martin's lodge has a -- had a visitor earlier in the

week.... He doesn't get many! An unexpected night-time visitor,

who was apparently scrabbling around. He wanted to prove who or

what it was. This is what he did. There is his cabin and he got a

camera trap, put it underneath, put some bait out. He obviously didn't

think it with us anything other than an animal and waited to see

and prove what this noisy creature was and look what it was - an out

of focus pine marten. But look, look, that marking is identifyable

as Spike. He was underneath my lovely lodge. Is he still there?

There are strange rustlings coming from your end of the lodge. That is

where you leave your smelly old shoes!

He has gone a long way. He has been on the feeding station, that has to

be 600-800 metres to where you are. And through other lodges as well.

He's not shy at all. Maybe he has a route he traces out in the evening

looking for food. More likely. We have wanted to get to grips with

these pine martens and learn more about them. Over the past couple of

days we have been able to do so. We have been able to identify them as

individuals. Here is Spike. This is the same animal now. It is up at

the feeding station - beautiful shots. Look at that - lovely back-

lit pine marten. We have identified three other animals coming for food.

This is unusual. They are said to maintain separate territories. Here

we have four together. It's not that they are laying down reserves

for winter, these animals will be active throughout winter. They

cannot take on enough fat to do that. They are taking advantage of

this food resource and we have seen them marking their territory. We

have enjoyed looking at them. They are in tip-top condition. They are

in their winter coat now. Really fluffed up.

Stunning! The nice thing about the hidden

cameras is we can watch them all the time and gain so much

information about them. If you were going out at night you would not

get those views. A, it is too cold to stay out at night.

We are getting nocturnal views of the pine marten. Occasionally, if

you are lucky, you might get to see one in the day. This has been sent

to us. What has that pine marten got in its mouth? It is definitely

not vegetables. I am afraid to say, as far as we can tell, it is a red

squirrel. Look at him go! He was like Forest Gump - brilliant.

Probably a young squirrel. It was not big. Well, they do take

squirrels. They will take jirls and they have been seen with --

squirrels and they have been seen with reds. Unusual though? They are

a ferocious little predator. If things are tough and they are not

finding enough on the ground, they Is it me? It's you.

Right, so we've looked at these exotic animals around here. There's

another animal that is much, much closer to home to all of us and it

has come to live in amongst our houses. Have a look at this.

I have come here to meet an ancient animal, a survivor from the past.

This creature was around way before woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos,

here before sabre tooth tigers. They are all gone, but it is still

here, living in suburb ya and in particular around here in number

four. It is the hedgehog.

Hedgehogs are now in big trouble. In the last 60 years, it is thought

their numbers have dropped by over 90% in the UK. Scientists are

looking into the exact reason for this. What is becoming clear is

that our gardens are an increasingly important habitat for

hedgehogs. I have come to meet Duncan Richardson, whose garden in

Newport has attracted so many hedgehogs he has even installed

cameras to keep tabs on them. is a bit ofs a tro turf so they can

have a -- of astro-turf, so can have a little drink. How did it

start? We have been here 11 years. We noticed the odd little hedgehog.

Last year I started to weigh them. I found they needed to be a certain

weight to make it through the winter. So, as I was collecting

them to make sure they were heavy enough, I put a little mark on them.

I then gave them names, as you do. You thought there were three and

there turned out to be....? In So how can you tell if you have

hedgehogs in your garden? Footprints. What do they look like?

Here are some. That is a print. It is two-and-a-half to three

centimetres long. The great way to look for them is to put down some

clay or sand near food. The hedgehogs will come in and leave a

nice little trail for you, if you are lucky.

This here is much more like it. This is an actual tunnel, made by

the hedgehogs moving in and out, so you get the general size of it.

Then of course there's poo. And here it is. This is genuine

hedgehog poo. This is the right size. You would expect to see more

beetle in it. I would expect to see shiny bits of beetle. You see that,

the little shiny bits in it - you have hedgehogs in the garden.

As darkness falls, the hedgehogs start to appear.

Autumn is a critical time of year for hedgehogs. They need to fatten

up. Putting on one-third of their normal body weight in order to

successfully high berate. I will help Duncan with his audit.

Hedgehog - looking like that. He looks like a mobile tea cosy.

You can see that there. Should you and I try and go out and get it.

Let's go! Look at that.

She bolted. They have a muscle all over their back and she can

contract the muscle over her head, contract it around her bottom. Here

is the brilliant bit - there is muscle that goes around the size,

like a draw-string and finally she contracts that muscle. In it goes

like a draw-string. The nose and the legs, they all get closed up,

like that. What a brilliant bit of So what weight does a hedgehog need

to be to survive hibernation? grams. So she is way over. Duncan

ways, Marks and photographs every hedgehog to build up a record of

the local population. We have just found another Hedgehog, a small one.

Isn't it odd to have a head of this size at this time of year? They

have their first bruise around May, June, July time. And then often a

second brood around this time of year. You get all these autumn

juvenile so, very unlikely to make it through the winter. She comes in

at 320 grams. She has to double her weight. It is on the cusp. It is

probably better to keep her for now. This head job will be fed by Duncan

for a week or so, and hopefully put on enough weight to be released

before winter. But the bigger hedgehog is already in good shape

for hibernation. So it is time to let him go. I like marking things

with nail varnish. It is lovely. Hornets, pond skaters. Duncan's

wife is very long suffering. He has been through her entire range of

different colours. Lovely bit of research. 18 hedgehogs in a

suburban garden. Our gardens are becoming terribly important

habitats for hedgehogs. That was us filming hedgehogs. But you, once

again, have been out filming things we don't normally see. This was

from John Birt. He sent it to us in the post. We have two hedgehogs on

his patio. The Mail is on the right and the female on the right. When

it comes to making, as you can imagine, hedgehogs are immensely

cautious at all times. They do a strange little dance. They are

gently sniffing each other out. Then comes trouble. It is another

male. What is he going to do? He is the giant haystacks of the head of

world. Short shrift. Terrifically vigorous fighting. More like

wrestling. The other one is not offering any resistance. Our first

little male hunt -- hedgehog is very fired up. She just watches,

and they eventually got back together and consummated. A female

hedgehog has to get into a very particular shape to allow mating to

take place. She has to curb her spine and got all the pretty bits.

What about the sound of hedgehogs? That is very interesting. While we

were in Duncan's garden, we were able to film and record hedgehogs

talking to one another. The hedgehog on the right is making

that noise. It sounds like one of those steam-engine as I had as a

child. This is mild aggression. It is slightly annoyed that the other

one is cheering its way through the food. They can be very vocal.

Duncan told me he has had eight different sounds made by his

hedgehogs. Her they make a terrible screaming racket. You would think

it is an animal far bigger than a hedgehog. This thing was kicking

off, sounding like it was being strangled, really squealing loudly.

Let's look at those spines which characterise this species. They are

highly modified hairs. Look at the way they can control the angle of

the spines. They are about 20 mm long, and they are shed like hares.

You will know this if you mark them with nail varnish. They can be on

for up to 18 months. They are not moulting continuously. They come

off irregularly. The have about 5000 spines in total. When we were

handling them off, they can move bits. They will move them around to

any threat. Now, Martin, did you know that the greatness of a nation

and its moral progress can be measured by the way it treats its

animals? Gandhi said that. Wise words. But we are letting the

hedgehogs down. 170,000 hedgehogs are run over on the UK's roads

every year. This is a species in serious decline, and it needs our

help. You can provide it in the next few days, because it is

Bonfire time. If you have built a bonfire, aid hedgehog could have

moved in. So a top tip is either to disassemble and rebuild the bonfire,

or if you have not got round to it yet, keep your materials in one

place and build the bonfire on the night you ignite it so that snow

small mammals can find residents inside and go up in flames. We have

to look after these creatures. While filming, we have seen

squirrel's doing things. Look at this one. This is a grey squirrel,

busy cashing, digging holes and putting things in it. This led to

an interesting question. Robert was watching this. He says he has

watched grey squirrels hiding food, but he noticed one burying oak

apples. Is that normal? Those are highly modified plant tissue. A

wasp, while laying its eggs, has caused the plant to mutate through

a chemical reaction to form this. There are two purposes. One is to

protect animal inside, and the second is to make the plant more

edible. If we broke this Open, this is what we would see. Inside would

be a tiny capsule like this. Inside the capsule, there is the grubber

of the developing wasp. It could be that the squirrels are thinking

about eating the grubs, but they don't get very large. They don't

make much of a meal. The squirrels might be interested in eating the

core material itself. As a kid, I remember collecting oak apples

which had been chewed up and by voles, and they had eaten the

material as well. Maybe that is the case. Spite peas, which is brooms,

robins' and cushions. You can see them on rose bushes. There is a

whole community of creatures inside them. Where do these names come

from? It might be the French Connection, goals. There is much to

learn in nature. There is something else that is very characteristic of

the season of autumn. If you go out and about, you will see them all

over the place, and that is fungi. Chris and Michaela went on a fungal

foray. This time of year is one of the best times of year to look for

the fruiting bodies of the fungus that live in the UK. There are 3000

species of larger fungus, like these, that you can look out for.

If you look underneath, you can see it has all of those skills. The

reason it has grown like an umbrella is that on each of those

Gills, there are other sports, the scenes out of this thing. How many

sports do you think that might produce? They are tiny, microscopic.

The houses? 10 billion. No way! is because it wants to drop the

spores out of there. They are released through a change in the

electrostatic tissue at the right time. Then they get caught by the

wind and carried away. Most of them are beautiful. You usually find

them more somewhere where there is such a rich texture. That is a

gorgeous picture. It is a beautiful palate of texture and colour. Let

me show you some more. Chris, this one is incredible and totally

different. It is beautiful. Fill the top of it. It is hard. This

does not just last a few days, it will go on for years. Sometimes the

rings equate to a year of its life, so you can age them like you can

trees. This one has pause rather than gilts. All of the spores will

come out through those pores, catching in the air and blowing

away. This is called a horse's who fungus. When people couldn't make

fire, when they wanted to keep it lit, they would take these, hollow

them out, put embers inside and this would enable them to carry the

fire from one place to another inside a hollowed out fungus.

storage. -- story. I enjoyed taking photographs of fungi. But if you

photograph any organism, you have to do it from its height for it to

look any good. It is no good us looking down on these things.

Ideally, you want to lie on the ground or dig a hole on the ground.

But that is hard work. There is a simple solution. And you just

happen to have it? It is a mirror, so simple. Take a small mirror,

rest it there. With your phone, you can take a picture of the Mirror

which makes it look like you have dug a hole in the ground and are

looking from underneath. Put your phone in Nice and close. I have got

your knee in the photo! I will get money out. You have not got the

right angle. The lighting is shocking. That is rubbish. A give

me that phone! Would you hold the mirror? Honestly. We are, you are

the photographer. I have got your arm in that. I and my scarf. It has

added some colour. Can you just keep the Mirror still? Honestly.

disagree with you. I think that is actually a terrible photograph.

What I love about fungi is the texture that they are connected to.

You have got all the different colours. The underneath is more

boring as far as I am concerned. will get my coat. I know you are a

professional photographer, but I think you got it wrong. Afterwards,

I went off to take my own photographs and I was pleased with

the results. Come on, that his art. That was just with my smartphone.

Seven out of ten for Michaela. persevered with the Mirror. This

was what I was trying to show you that could be done. That is quite

good, actually. On account of him being a bit rude about photographs,

seven out of ten for you, to. spent days getting that photograph!

Anyway, I may not have learnt anything about photography from him,

mud but I learnt a lot about fungi. So thank you. We learned a lot of

things about our beavers as well. What have we seen? We have seen an

awful lot of this. Beavers swilling around with branches in their

mouths. That is exactly what they should be doing in the autumn. The

adults tend to pull the bigger branches. Those branches have blast

for about three months. They also need to mend their dams. This was

one of the first times we have seen the whole family together. The

younger ones also do a bit of the nibbling of the branches. But they

tackle much smaller branches. learn from the adults. They are

only six months. They have a lot of learning to do. That was one of the

first time as we saw the family together. We thought the family was

seven beavers. But today, we learnt something exciting. You can see

that there are three of this year's younger ones together. We knew we

already had two of them, Timber and Gnaw. I will call the third one

Daisy. There they are, fighting over a twig. Typical. One of them

is driving Daisy into the water. They are cheering now. Give me the

twig. Much as I jest, this is exciting, because we picked up on

another beaver that we did not know was here. They are shy animals.

Only with intense scrutiny have we been able to learn more about them.

You have been asking questions about the beavers. This is from CH

How do beavers keep access to their lodge clear when the loch freezes.

That is not such a problem, because access will come up under it. This

Loch could have up to eight inches of ice on top of it. They dig holes,

they work upwards. When it is thin, they use their teeth or claws and

they will keep the holes open, keep going up. They will stay inside the

lodge together to conserve heat. We might see that in Winterwatch. Here

is the brilliant thing. Chris has told us they will bury food

underneath the water, for the reserve three months or more. Here

is the wonderful thing - they will come out at this time of year and

half bite through trees, preparing them, so they can knock them down

and get a snack. Preparing - thinking ahead. They are very

intelligent, aren't they? We have a live beaver.

Let's see. It might be our last chance. They have become stars in

this series of Autumnwatch. People have been enjoying our family of

beavers. You can hear them. would be nice if they nailed down

that log in front. A little bit more gnawing needed. Did you say

eight inches of ice. When we come back for Winterwatch. 14Th January.

When we come whack for four more live days here -- come back for

four more live days here it will be chilly. We will lawyer up like

Michelin men. It is not winter, it is autumn. What we love about

autumn are all the colours - all the rich reds, oranges. Our

cameraman uses colour to paint a picture of a landscape which has

changed dramatically in recent I knew these places before colour.

I knew these places when they were black. As black as coal.

The East Kent mines. Before colour, they humed, thrumbed

to the sound of coal and then silence fell and sadness hung.

But darkness faded. Colour crept, colour crawled and now autumn

But how has it flourished out on the black, barren coal field

slopes? This is the story I imagine. Brambles reach out across the bare

stones, first one, then many. Silver birch follows. A first-time

tree - a primary colonizer. And in autumn, a primary colour too. Its

lemon-colour leaves dazzle even the greyest day, as the green of summer

gives way. Amongst the birch is autumn acorns,

attracting the new canary of the coal mines.

The jai. -- jay.

Its gaudy pink and electric blue fluems dance colour through the --

plumes dance colour through the trees. Just a tantalising glimpse

and it is off, its laugh all over Autumn colour is truly everywhere.

But, it still disappears on a daily basis. The arrival of night's

embracing black blanket hides it and the vastness of space reflects

industrial memories. As nature's -- as nature gets to work, as men once

Gathering their autumnal bedding for the winter ahead.

Above the sett a sound of autumn cuts the night air. Tawny owls and

their territorial voices claim a stake to their patch.

Colour is of no importance to tawny owls until daybreaks.

And then, they need their camouflage coat to let them sleep

And with that breaking dawn colour's intensity returns.

Autumn's harvest rippens in the sun A colourful breakfast, lunch and

dinner for one of live's most colourful characters.

This is the story of my imagination. It has changed from coal to colour.

From darkness to light and life. And it feels good to say - I know

these places. I know these places It's lovely. Absolutely lovely! It

really is. Poetic, absolutely poetic. Really. Lovely images.

Lovely images - fantastic! Time for migration. The last catch-up on

that. Our cameramen have been out a few miles away from us here to

catch these birds coming in. Don't think it is all about Scotland - it

isn't. You can see these birds around the UK.

The Washes have 2,300 hoper swans there.

Slim bridge, not many, but they have started to arrive, the white-

fronted geese have arrived there. So, all of these wading birds, all

of these wildfowl flocking to our shores. It is a flurry of activity.

This time of the year it can be a flurry of activity, lots of birds

coming, animals cashing for the winter. For other animals it is a

critical time because they are preparing to give birth.

This is a fascinating story, this. This is a story about seals. Most

particularly grey seals. This is in Norfolk and it is a curious tale,

because back in 2001, there were only 25 pups here. They give birth

now. By 2005, there were 175. This year, they are thinking there may

be as many as 1,000 pups. Giving birth to 1,000 pups here. Something

very attractive to the seals here about this place.

I don't know what it is. We will follow this story and it is a great

story, because immediately after they have given birth, the bulls

come in and they fight and sort it out and mate for thext -- next year.

A long way north from there those grey seals have started to pup on

the Northumberland coast. They have had 600 pups. One birth was

interesting. We were sent this photograph from one of the rangers.

It does not look that unusual until I tell you these are twins. Twins

have never been recorded from grey seals, ever in this country. It is

extremely rare. They are now nine days' old. They seem to be healthy.

How do they know they are twins? They are going to do a DNA test.

They are both suckleing from the same female.

Some animals are giving birth, others are slowing down, cashing,

looking for somewhere to shelter. Where we are, in the hills, winter

has already arrived. It is only the hardy Highland animals that choose

this sort of habitat for the winter. Things like red squirrels. We have

seen them do an awful lot of cashing. We'll be following a lot

of these animals in Winterwatch and seeing just how they do cope with

the harsh weather in the Highlands. We will need your help for that.

You have been a great help. The other day, we said, would you get

in contact with the mammal society, who are putting together a new

atlas. Well, look this is the number of reports they had. Then we

made the request for you to contact them and there was a big spike.

They have had 3,000 new reports, which are helping to put together a

clearer mammal atlas of the UK. Help us, for Winterwatch we would

like pictures, videos, any thoughts and observations you have in your

gardens and in cities. So we are interested in the urban context

rather than necessarily the rural one. Do send those to the website

and we will try and feature them after Christmas. We have two live

beavers on the cameras now. Very dark - well we do. They are there.

It is our last chance to see them. They will still be on the red

button. You can stay there until 10.30pm tonight. That is all we

have time for this series. I would like to thank all the people here

at the field centre, to John and Lucy and the staff, especially the

rangers. They have been hospitable. We could not have done it without