Episode 4 Autumnwatch

We're here in Lancashire, enjoying the UK's greatest autumn spectacles

and some of the most magnificent creatures. We have new and exciting

revelations from this thermal camera which explains this barn owl hunting

behaviour. I will go down to the wildwoods - the deer are roaring,

the owls are hooting. It can only mean one thing - it's Autumnwatch.

Hello. Welcome to Autumnwatch 2013. We are here in the north-west of

England, along with the express... Now then, we've had a fans ta tick

week -- fantastic week. It was wet earlier in the week. Then last night

there was a wind which almost blew you away. It almost blew my hat off

it was so bad. Nevertheless, today it has cleared

up. We've had a sunny day here and a fantastic evening and that paid

dividends. Look at that! We have been looking every evening at 30,000

starlings over the reed beds here. Tonight they put on this spectacular

show. Look beneath that flock - that

single bird - which think that is a sparrowhawk. It is that that is

leading this flock to behave in such a way. All of those contractions and

tightening - it is like the Battle of Britain up there! Stunning! It

really is a beautiful bird ballet and it is something you can see

every night here. They saved the best until last. Now, we have the

whole reserve covered. I have to say, one of my favourite cameras is

this one - it is our live otter cam. It never seems to fail. Every night

we go to it and there is something there. It is our good old trusty

heron. We have seen rats there even. There is interesting behaviour.

Swimming deer. Now, we've had our cameramen out every night. In the

last couple of days they have been bevering away and they filmed this!

We have seen the lovely deer - our stag. Remember, the colder things

are the whiter they are. There is a fox with his brush. That is nice and

cool for him. Here is the beautiful taunny owl. Look at that -- tawny

owl. Look at that. In fact they have been kicking off around us all

nightlong. Noisy, hooting away. We are trying to get that live camera

on a tawny owl now. Let's see if we have managed it! No, we haven't

managed it! We can hear them all around us. This motivates me.ly

leave you -- I will leave you now. I will go into the wildwood right now

and see what I can find. We keep hearing a train. Is it going back

and forth, do you think? Our theme has been migration. We have

discovered how important Morecambe Bay mud flats are for migrating

birds. Tens of thousands come here every year. We've had new arrivals

this week, including pink-footed geese. What is interesting is they

are arriving at night. Remember this is night-time cameras we are using.

It is very dark there. They are coming in, not to feed on the mud

flats like the other birds, they feed elsewhere, but for the safety

of the mud. That is what they think. Maybe it is not that safe. This is

what we caught on cameras last night. If you look, you can see

something moving in the background and it is a fox. Quite unusual to

see a fox on the mud flats. What is it doing? Well e, we think it has

something in its mouth. Is it enjoying a midnight feast? Good

place to go - plenty of birds. I am not sure it is the killing fields

down there. You have all of those birds - tens of thousands, as you

say, then you have disease, old age. You have natural mortality, so every

night out there you'll get birds dying. There's nothing to hide

behind, no means of sneaking up. It could be savaging. It is opportunity

anies tick, isn't it? If I was a fox I would try my luck, quite frankly.

It is not just boxes and birds we have been -- foxes and birds we have

been enjoying, we have enjoyed the best of British wildlife. What is

the best British mammal for you? Pine marten or fox. I will go fox.

Do you want to know mine? Pygmy shrew.

It is a dolphin. A charming woodland creature that is

struggling to survive in the UK. It is no secret that one of the

animals that sparked my life long passion for wildlife is the red

squirrel. I will never forget my first glimpse of one when I was

seven years old. With a bright coat and bushy tail, I think they are

adorable. These days, however, seeing a red squirrel can be a

challenge. That is not simply because they spend most of their

time up in the trees. There are just not that many around. This is one of

the very few places left in Wales where you will find reds and greys

coexisting. The red is a much smaller animal

than the grey squirrel. It's got this very, very bushy tail

it uses for balance, it uses to keep itself warm.

They spend a lot more time up in the branches. Of course, here we've been

able to entice them out into the open here using hazelnuts.

Here comes a grey squirrel now. When they are together you can see

instantly they are two completely different animals. The grey is

bigger, it is more bulky. The tail is far less bushy and of course the

colour too. Since their introduction to this

country in 1876, the North American greys have not of out competed the

reds for food and territory, but they have brought disease. In doing

so, they have pushed the red squirrel to the brink of extinction.

However, in North Wales, on the Isle of Anglesey, it is the red squirrels

currently on top. That is largely thanks to the efforts of one man.

Craig Shuttleworth. He has used a two-pronged attack, releasing 60 red

squirrels on to the island and removing all of the greys. Today

sees the end of the reintroduction project. As it is close to my heart

I am joining him. How many reds do you have on the island? We easily

have 600 adult red squirrels N the autumn, with the young there could

be thousands lurking around. That is an amazing tale when you consider

where you were 15 years ago, because the island then had a handful. We

had 40 then and thousands of greys. That must be lovely for you, isn't

it? I never tire of seeing them. They are a fantastic creature. They

should be here, back on the island - it is terrific. All of the squirrels

that Craig has released over the years have come from captive

breeding programmes. The three he's releasing today are no exception. In

fact, they are from Norfolk, which was the home of Springwatch a few

years ago. Two weeks ago, Craig moved them into

this enclosure to prepare them for their new life in the wild.

What happens now? Do they fly out? No, nothing happens!

At the moment, they have gone into the nest box in the far corner. When

we leave they will come back out and come on to the platform, which is on

the inside here and be able to hop out. That is it. It is all in their

own time. We don't force them to come out. We know from

radio-collaring animals that that night they are back in the enclosure

asleep in the boxes. It takes a few days for them to start to sleep

elsewhere. We back off to give the squirrels some space.

But, as we wait the wind starts to pick up. It seems increasingly

unlikely that they'll come out today. I really want to see their

first taste of freedom, so I set up a camera trap to try and capture it.

Sure enough, at dawn the following morning something triggers the

camera. Two of the three exploring their new world.

Incredibly, despite being reared in captivity, the wild instincts of

these red squirrels kick in straight away.

And they immediately start collecting food for the winter. The

final red squirrel reintroduction on Anglesey successfully completed.

You know, Chris, I may have to reconsider, because having watched

that film, I mean they are so cute anden entertaining to watch, I may

have to join him and my favourite animal now might be a red squirrel.

It is great to see them reintroduced. Is it the best thing

to do? An interesting one. There's no doubt that red squirrels are a

national treasure. We love them as a national treasure. These grey ones

have this dreadful disease in them and they push them to the

extremities. They survive in the Isle of Wight and Anglesey. There is

a bridge here. It could let greys back on. All the money could be

wasted. When it comes to conservation we need to debate and

discuss, so we can creatively change some policies. I am not saying it

was a bad idea putting them back on there. In the long-term we need a

sustainable solution. There is one on its way. The wildlife arc trust

have investigated a vaccine for red squirrels so they don't get the

dreaded disease from the greys. If we develop that and get it in a

field, then it would make all this redundant. We have to think long

term. If you did not have projects like that that put them back you

would not have the numbers left for when a new vaccine is discovered. I

am not knocking the project. I am saying, let's think what we can best

do with our money. It is not just red squirrels in the woods. If you

go down to the woods tonight you may be in for a big surprise because you

may spot the elusive and intrepid Martin.

Yes, you might and it is spooky here. We keep hearing crashings of

noise. We have heard roarings going on. The deer are around us. Let's

remind ourselves of how beautiful the red deer here are. Here is a

stag and he has the sound of starlings behind him. He is roaring

a little bit. It is all part of the rut. He's sniffing their urine to

see if they are in season. So, where I am here, there's all sorts of

evidence of the deer being down here. Now, look at this. I don't

know if you can see, they have been rubbing their antlers up and down

here. They have been fraying this. And then, if you go to the end here,

you can see they've been sort of bashing away at that with their apt

lers too. -- antlers too. You can see it is all wet here. We

think this is a wallow. So in the rut, the stag will come down, they

will urinate and ebacklate in this wet area, roll around and get

themselves covered in their own scent. That is part of the rut too.

This is a deer highway. A superhighway. There are slots,

footprints everywhere. The deer are moving out of the wood behind me,

across here, down here - are you all right? Down here and across this

little stream. We put a bridge here. And they are getting to... Watch

out! They are getting to this fence. This is very interesting because

they are coming out of the wood and then they got this fence. They want

to get over there into the grass behind me.

Now, you can see where we are. If you look over my shoulder, you can

see that is the studio where Chris and Michaela are.

We are very close here. This is the area that the deer go to. They have

got to jump the fence. We were curious to see what happens when

they do that. We got one of these trap cameras. You have probably seen

these before and we rigged them down here and we watched what the deer

did. They all go over together, over they

go. They get in each other's way. It is quite dangerous and they might

catch themselves in the fence. One of them looks as though they have a

limp on the back leg. I think what happens is that they come to jump

over a fence and occasionally they get a leg caught, and down they go,

and they get trapped. My friend Angus and I went out and found a

deer trapped by the back leg. We put a coat over its head and cut it free

with some wire cutters. Anyway, they are trying to get here into the

grass. Once they get into the grass, there is all sorts of interesting

behaviour going on. You can see the loans stag there in the field. When

they urinate and defecate it is quite obvious in the thermal camera.

He is following the female around and sniffing. She is only in season

for a matter of hours. If she was, he would mate with her, but she is

not on this occasion. I think I just heard one roaring. The deer are

moving from the words and leaping over the fence into the field. There

are lots of other animals who are permanent residents in the words. We

will find out about them later. I just want to clarify something. He

is in the woods in the dark, and that is the exact spot where they

saw the deer, the big stag with the massive antlers. Might he get 's

beard? Unfortunately not! I think the rut is largely over and you

would have to get very close to a stag that would get carried away. We

have missed our chance to have him gored in the words. I am relieved by

that. If you have been out walking in the countryside, you might have

noticed the number of fruits there are. Everything from these

conquers, plenty of berries, and a mass of acorns this year. There has

been an abundance of fruit. It is not just that these fruits, there

have been others as well. Why has this happened? We think that in the

summer of 2012 it was nice, warm and moist. We then had a cold winter

which caused lots of these trees and bushes to produce lots of flowers.

This year we had a warm periods and this has led to an abundance of

fruit, particularly acorns. There are so many acorns on the roads. The

Jays and wood pigeons are having a fantastic time. It has been the best

Autumn Bounty in the last decade. This is great news for birds and

animals. Animals like these... You have a fox here. He is enjoying

those blackberries. This is a relief for many animals because last year

was not a good year. There is the squirrel with his nuts. He will be

collecting those for the winter. There are hazelnuts and acorns as

well. It has been great for apples and that is what this badger is

eating. It is really good news for hibernating animals that really fuel

up and it gets them through the winter. My dog nipples blackberries.

Your dog is not a fox! Yes, I know. This will all go to good use. All of

the birds will take advantage of these. We have embarked upon an

exciting project with the University of Brighton. We have these radio

collars and we have looked at foxes in the city of Brighton. Now we will

move to the suburbs but before we go there let's meet the cast. First of

all, we have this large fox. This photo was taken when he was having

his collar fitted. This is a full adult male. Then we have this cup,

-- cub. I went out with a professor to see how the suburban foxes were

getting on. You might think that the suburban foxes have an easier life

than their inner-city cousins. Armed with the latest tracking data, Dawn

Scott is taking me to discover the key components. She knows they spend

most of their days somewhere behind these houses. Now we hope to

pinpoint exactly where they are hiding. Barbara and Irvin have

confirmed that the foxes are regular visitors. You can see their

footprints and they run all around the swimming pool. She quickly get a

fix on their whereabouts. We are getting a strong signal just there.

What you think? A few metres? A bit further than that. He is within 50

metres of us. Her garden has ever think that the foxes could need.

Barbara is not a fox fan. They come down to our vegetable patch and this

year we planted carrots. They pulled all of the carrots up that they did

not eat them. They threw them around. They are very naughty! They

do make a lot of mess in the garden, and that is the biggest

problem. She hasn't worked out that the foxes use a smaller range than

their inner-city cousins. They move between far fewer hotspots. There

was one garden that they visit every night. It is just across the road.

The owners welcome the foxes with open arms. And a steady supply of

food. Dorner suspects that the foxes are father and son but she needs

visual proof and that is where our infrared camera comes in helpful. --

Dawn. Once they are set, we get an update from the satellite collars.

We know where they have been deceiving. They started off here

where we picked them up with the receiver earlier. They have come

down past this road. They have been in the garden tries. Have they? Yes.

At the moment they are very close to us. I am envious of this data. It is

absolutely fantastic. All of that collected in the last six hours,

very precisely. I am confident if we leave quietly that our cameras will

properly catch them. Hopefully, they will also get the data and the

interaction between them, that would be brilliant to see. Hot chocolate

for me! Maybe a biscuit! Knowing the foxes are close, we retreat into the

House. Using an access point, the first box arrives in the garden. It

is the young male. -- fox. Throughout the summer, he would have

followed his father's every move, but now, around eight months old, he

is foraging for himself. Autumn is the critical time for young foxes to

bulk up. For this one to become a big and successful adult, he must

eat as much as he can in the next few weeks. He needs to put on over a

kilo to catch up with the adult foxes. This garden feast is a real

boost to his chances. He cannot see and is operating in near darkness so

his senses are working overtime to find food and avoids danger. The

arrival of a second fox could spell trouble, but the submissive body

language and a newcomer's nonchalance suggests that this is

his father. He is clearly the top dog around here. The midnight feast

is over. At this time of year, most cubs are chased out of their

parents' territories. The best chance of survival is to keep his

head down and stay as close to his father as possible. Only time will

tell what will happen to our foxes. Thanks to our cameras and these

tracking devices, we will be able to follow them every step of the way.

tracking devices, we will be able to Dawn, it is a brilliant project and

we are so excited about this. My first question is how are our foxes

doing? I am pleased to say they are still alive and doing well. The two

boxes you saw there are still together. I do not know what will

happen in the next few months. The inner-city foxes, what is happening

with those is that some of them have split off. They are looking at

different territories. One of them is on his own. It will be

interesting to see what happens in the next month if they all move

about and whether they settle in territories. We have seen them being

fed by people. I do not think we can stop that but what can we ask people

to do more responsibly? If you do feed foxes then feed them small

amounts and do not encourage them near the House. Feed them at the end

of the garden. Do not feed them by hand. If you feed them by hand then

they are becoming too tame and the likely to go out to people who do

not foxes. Yes, they associate hands with food. If they see another hand

then they might eat that. Do not feed by hand. When you hear of

people being attacked by foxes, do you think that is foxes just

nibbling hands because they think it is food? They are very

opportunistic. If there is anything there then they will try with their

mouth to see whether it is food. Your neighbours might not like

foxes. If you love your foxes and want to protect them then they will

get into trouble if they go and look for food in people's hands. The them

sensibly. Top advice. We are coming back in winter, what are we likely

to see with our foxes then? It will be exciting, we do not know. That is

the interesting thing. We do not know who will be then who will not.

There should be some breeding. We will have to wait and see what

happens. I cannot wait. Dawn, thank you for coming in. We have been

enjoying flocks of starlings here but it seems we are not the only

ones. This is what we have seen in the daytime. On our thermal camera

we were quite surprised to see so many flying at night. We thought

maybe it was the fault of this barn owl. We saw it catching one of the

starlings and then it dropped it. We wondered whether it would eat it.

There is new evidence that solves that mystery. We know that the barn

owl lives in the barn behind me and we know that because we have cameras

in there. Those cameras, last night, captured this. Now, there is the

nest box. The barn owl comes in. It clearly has something in its beak.

It is not a mouse, it is a starlings. It has clearly caught a

starlings. It then goes into the nest box. It was in there for over a

minute. It pokes its head out and it has clearly eaten the birds because

it is cleaning its beak. We wondered whether that was one thing because

it would be unusual for a barn owl to eat birds like a starlings.

Usually, they eat mammals like mice. We had a look in the nest box and we

found the remains of lots of other birds. Clearly this is something

that that barn owl is doing regularly. He has learned that

behaviour. You can hardly blame him. There are 30,000 starlings in

that roost so it is likely that that barn owl will continue to do that

throughout the autumn and winter. One minute we are enjoying the

spectacle, the next, the barn owl is eating some of it but it is all the

cycle of life and that is exactly what Martin is looking at.

It is spooky down here in the woods. Let's go from one predator to

another. Let's talk about foxes. As Chris was saying, foxes didn't

really come into our cities until the 1930s. Until then they were

living in the wild. Rural foxes - country cousins. Of course that's

what we have here in Leighton Moss. We have rural foxes. We have been

filming them. Here is the fox, out at night, hunting. Again, you can

see the tail surprisingly cold. He'll be looking, what will he be

looking for? They have this wonderful way of hunting, foxes,

looking, sniffing - there he is - bounce - going for his prey. Amazing

pictures to see the fox hunting in the pitch black. The question is -

what will the fox be looking for? Well, probably small rodents and

there are lots and lots of small rodents here. We have been finding

mice. There are voles. This looks like a wild mouse. Of course they

are not always on the ground. They do go up quite high and this here

looks like a rat. Curiously the rat's tail is cold. We

notice that the mouse coming up now, the mouse's tail is warm. I don't

know what that means! But, of course, these little rodents

are like fast food for a host of predators, things like kestrels, the

Harrier would have a go at them. And particularly they are food foor

owls. And we -- food for owls. And we keep... Oh, there was one just

then. I don't know if you heard that - a tawny owl is calling. They keep

calling all around us. We have the camera set up - that live camera and

we are hoping we might be able to see it. Let's have a look.

No, there's nothing there. Nothing there now.

Frustrating, because we can hear them all around us.

We have been recording them here at Leighton Moss. Let's look at the

tawn owl. A beautiful, beautiful -- tawn owl. A beautiful, beautiful

colour - autumn colours. Fantastic eyes. Their eyesight is about the

same as ours. What they have got is fantastic sense of hearing. Ten

times better than ours. You can hear them at this time of

year. They are calling all the time. You

probably have heard them at home. There is another one.

The pair, the male and female pair for life and they will defend a

territory very, very hard this time of year, by calling. There they are

again. So, that's what they are doing. Two

things are happening this time of year - they are defending the

territory against other owls and young owls, at this time of year,

are starting to pair up. Here is an amazing fact - owls can tell each

other's voices. Those hoots sound the same to us, but to an owl they

know the individuals. Fascinating! Right, we have managed to film the

owls hunting as well down here. Now, if you look there's a rabbit,

taking its life in its hands because just before it is a tawny owl. But

actually the adult rabbit is probably too big for the owl to

take. A young rabbit would be prey. Owls have to listen to hunt, as I

say. On a rainy night, it makes it impossible for them to hunt. If the

rain is hitting leaves, they cannot hunt. Seems to have something there.

Watch those talons. Great feathers all over its legs. It has gone down

for something there. Not sure what it was. Takes off. Takes off and it

drops something. I think it was going for a worm. It has just fed

there. You can always tell if it has fed because it is just cleaning its

beak. I am being told we might have a live owl. Threat's go to our live

camera. Hats off to Lindsey! There is a live owl.

Oh, live owl, with calling! You can't get better than that!

That's exactly what we came down for. So, that it - other owls will

be listening and they will be calling back to each other. I will

go out of the woods now and head back to the studios. See you later.

That's fantastic to get a live tawny owl. So many of you are hearing

them. I have to tell you, it's not been a great year for them,

especially compared to last year. Now, they haven't had a great

breeding season, according to the BTO survey. It is thought it could

be a much better year, next year in the spring. As we have been saying,

there's been a bounty in the autumn of fruits and berries. It will be a

good year for mammals. The tawny owls will catch them and fatten up

before their breeding season starts in March. We know there are 20,000

pairs in the UK. They are repeatedly surveyed. If you were watching

Springwatch this year, you will know that we launched, in conjektion with

the hark trust, our kestrel survey. I am pleased to show you some of the

results here today. 40,000 people sent in their sightings of kestrels.

They came from postmen and women. Fire men, maybe even fire women.

This is the bird they were looking out for. It is very characteristic.

Seen hovering alongside the road. When I was a kid it with us the most

common rapture in the UK. We have not analysed all of the data yet,

but we have processed some of it. This has produced a heat map. So,

this is showing the concentration of the sightings. Clearly red is the

greatest concentration and green. I want you to do something

unconventional now. Squint at the map. There are very clear lines

across it here. That is where kestrels are being spotted on the

road. 57% of all of our sightings came from people driving their cars

or passengers in their cars. This leads to a question. Does this mean

we are spotting more when we are driving simply because we are

looking for them? Does it mean there are more by roads because it is

suitable habitat? Perhaps foraging - that requires a greater degree of

investigation, of course. More work to be done. It is only by studying

these animals and understanding what is leading to those reductions that

we can do anything about it. Thank you for taking part in our survey.

40,000 people, top result. Autumn provides us with fantastic

spectacles and one is the red dear rut. The autumn rut has -- deer rut.

The autumn rut has unexpected consequences. I met a man who is

passionate about British deer. In fact he has studied them for the

past 30 years. In the last ten he has focussed on a problem which

affects not just the deer but us as well.

I have come to Epping Forest, home to a large population of fallow

deer. Well known to this doctor T they are a stunning herd. Very black

in colour, aren'ted they? Yes. They certainly seem to be getting a

little frisky. Certainly as the rut progresses they move into the female

areas to try and establish territories where they can sort of

dominate a group of females so. The big master buck will try and defend

that. The younger bucks will keep moving around to see if they can

actually get in on the act. Because of that, they move across a lot of

the roads at this time of the year. These rutting deer present a serious

hazard. That's what he has been studying.

Surprisingly, he's found that even our busiest roads are magnets for

deer. So, this to me does not look like

ideal deer habitat. It looks like a noisy, horrible place. It does. If

you look at this verge it is overgrown. It is lovely undergrowth

for them to feed on. They are very undisturbed. Nobody goes in there.

It is a surprisingly good place to hang out, particularly when you have

an apple tree with all the fallen apples. Would they try and cross

this road? This is the M 25! The busiest road in Europe! Once a

female is on one side and females on the other -- -- and males on the

other they will attempt to cross. Fld I guess this is the time of day.

Look at that beautiful sunset. This is exactly when those accidents

might happen. It is the worst time of day, just as it turns to dusk,

early evening. The deer are at their most active. He has been gathering

data and accident reports from across the country. In an attempt to

understand the route of the problem. -- root of the problem. I just want

to show you where they have caused a collision. That is shocking! That is

really surprising! Over how many years is that? This is over the past

five years. The south of England is intense. It is. How many accidents

are there? Over all, we are estimating up to 74,000 deer hit

every year. Those accidents will on average cause around 500 human

injury accidents. Including 10-15 fatal accidents.

He has found that the number of incidents is highest at this time of

year, as the deer rut reaches its peek. Now that the -- peak. Now that

the clocks have gone back the evening rush hour coincides with

dusk. He believes the solution to this problem lies in identifying the

hot spots and places where deer have natural highways.

Green bridges such as this one already exist on the M 25.

In the future, we could build more in the crucial areas, like the ones

that have been successful in Europe. A more affordable solution involves

erecting fencing to funnel deer through the existing bridges or

through underpasses. So, do you think those measures were

put into place you could solve the problem? Never be able to get rid of

all deer accidents - 70,000 a year. I am sure we could possibly half

them, but most of all it is making sure we do something and it is

including raising public awareness, which is an important part of it.

Well, I was completely shocked by those statistics. I had no idea

there were that many accidents. If you think deer numbers are at their

highest probably for the past 300 years. There's more traffic on the

road than ever. But we can do our bit to help. If you see one of these

signs, this warning sign with a deer on it, pay attention - slow down. We

will save so many accidents and we will save so many deer. The biggest

red deer in this country weigh up to 220kgs. If you hit that at 60 miles

per hour, that will make a big dent in the car and maybe in you. It is

sound advice for you and the deer of course. We have been talking about

migration. A few odd birds have turned up here, things we didn't

expect. Things like this glossy is by, which flew in over the reserve.

Dropping in like one of the Dambusters. It is glossy, it is an

ibis and rare. This is a long-tailed duck. Typically we would expect to

find these on the north-east coast at this time of year. I don't think

we get so many here on the north-west. That is a good spot,

actually. It is to do with the wind? We will get a few like that. They

have started to breed in this country. There seem to be a lot of

them hanging around. It has gone blue now. Bad torch

management! You saw the tawny owl. I said I'm

proud - I mean I am proud of the team!

Good job! I have some rather sad, bad news for you tonight. I have

been rather busy going out and about. That means I am unable to

host Unsprung. However, the good news is, somebody

else whats agreed to take on this taxing job and here he is. Nick,

come on! We have everything on the show tonight. We have a live fox. We

have models made out of plastic bricks. I have made some migration

notes as well. There is a humpback whale that has been cited off the

coast. That has been found in the North Sea. We are expecting a

goose, a barnacle goose. They have quite a few geese up there. It is

quite a new thing. The good news is that the one that went missing has

turned up in Spain, 900 miles off course. Loan off course? Possibly.

Given a choice between the UK and Spain, I know where I would be

going! Migration is our theme and it turns out that one of our greatest

UK migrator is is something quite unusual, a creature that you might

not expect. In terms of actual numbers, these silver moth is by far

Britain's biggest migrator. They set off on an astonishing journey, a

thousand kilometres down to the Mediterranean. How can an insect

with an average life span of two weeks and weighing less than a 10th

of a gram, manage that? That is exactly the question that the

scientists here have been trying to answer. This Doctor is a leading

entomologist who has been studying the silver moth for the last ten

years. It is only recently that he has been able to unravel the

mysteries surrounding their migration. I joined him to take a

closer look at this globetrotting insect. There it is. That is the

magical Silver Y. How many of them come to the UK and then go away

every year? Shore. -- yes, that is right. We can have 1500 individuals

arriving in the UK. They will breed over the summer and is we may get

half a billion, even up to 700 million moths. 800 million of these!

Why do they need to migrate? There are two strategies that the insect

can take to deal with the cold winters. They can tough it out or

they can leave and migrates to a warmer part of the world. How can it

make such an epic journey, 1000 kilometres? As you know, studying

insect migration is a challenge and in order for us to answer those

questions we have two invent new technology. This radar has

revolutionised the study of moth migration and has enabled this team

to unravel the mystery of how the Silver Y achieve the impossible.

Here it actually is. It is like something from Doctor Who. It works

by sending a beam of radar vertically up into the sky. As the

insects fly through the beam, signals are sent back to earth and

are analysed in the laboratory. So this is the actual output, is it?

This fuzzy line is the background noise. We are looking for a peek.

There it is! That is an insect travelling through the beam. You

will see a peak rise and then a fall. We will capture that signal

and then analyse it in great detail. That signal will tell us the shape

and size of the target that has flown overhead. It will allow us to

distinguish whether it was an insect or not, and what type of insect it

was. How did this system enable you to start to understand what was

going on with Silver Y? We found the targets that we thought were

representing the moths and then we looked at how migration intensity

was changing. In the autumn, the surprising result we found was that

the moths only migrated on nights when winds blew from the North which

would give them the greatest assistance in their flight. How can

they know where they are? They have a compass which determines which

direction they can travel in. They can also assess the wind direction

as well. They have a sensory mechanism. How fast can they go?

Their average speed is 50 kilometres an hour. They can reach 80

kilometres an hour. They are like little bullets! Yes. A typical moth

will fly for eight hours during the night. Therefore, they can fly 300

kilometres in a single night. They can do the whole trip in maybe three

nights. Yes, that will get them to the Mediterranean if they have

favourable wind direction. This is very well but how can you be certain

that you are seeing the Silver Y up there? Like you, I need to be

convinced as well and to answer the question we have a balloon which is

up there and can sample items. It is not just any old blue. Essentially,

it is a fishing net. -- any old balloon. You will actually be able

to collect the Silver Y? Yes, if they are abundant enough to stop

that will be the final confirmation that they are up there. Absolutely.

I am going to let this out slowly and when it gets to an altitude of

300 meter then we can knock it off and see what we catch. Moth

trapping, coupled with a sophisticated radar, and a balloon,

has solved a another migration mystery. I love science, me! Look at

that! Did you catch any from the balloon? We did not. He does not

need that many, it is only to confirm what the radar is showing.

That radar, not only can it tell how long the object is but it can tell

how wide it is and the frequency of the week. Amazing, but not as

amazing as the moth itself. I cannot believe that the moth uses the wind

to fly 1000 kilometres. I am going to celebrate that moth! It is a long

distance legend. We have a leaderboard here and for me, the

Silver Y is going at the top. You say that but earlier in the week we

met the Shearwater. They were flying all that way and then they were not

fed. I think your moth can migrate over there because this is up there.

It has wings, though. That makes it easy. The eel only has-beens and it

goes 3000 miles so that is going the top. Was about 64,000 kilometres?

This ghost in the Arctic to the Antarctic. It is the longest

migration in the world. When it gets down there, it goes through the

South Atlantic and then goes around Antarctica and back then. To get all

the way back round the other side is an amazing achievement. I have to

take my hat off to that. Fair enough. Well, we have had some

fantastic views of the authors. We have shared their lives. -- otter.

Let's catch up with the otters one more time. This was last night, I

think. This is a big dog otter. Look at that close up. I would not like

to swim around in the freezing water all night, but he is dealt for it.

We are calling this otter Scarface. He has a scar on his nose, problem

from fighting. They will defend their territory from all comers. We

have heard something. He has heard something with -- someone with a

machine gun! He will take to the water and all of the fur goes down

and makes a lovely waterproof coat, like a wet suit. He disappears like

a goose. He goes into the dark water. You are getting poetic, are

you not? That is beautiful! That camera has definitely delivered. We

have talked about migration and we know how important the weather is

for migration, especially wind. Let's talk about the weather

forecast for the next few days. Hello. The figures are in and it

looks like the UK has experienced one of it top ten warmest October is

on record. Those leaves are coming under threat again in the coming

days from strong winds, predominantly from the Atlantic.

That will favour Atlantic migration rather than Scandinavian migration.

There will be strong headwinds. It is not particularly cold,

temperature wise. Monday will be one of the sunniest. We will start with

a touch of frost on Monday and Tuesday. The frost will bring down

some leaves and they will come under threat again as we head into Monday

and Tuesday as the rain heads in. That summarises the weather as we go

deeper into next week. It will often be windy, predominantly from the

Atlantic. There will be spells of rain and some sunshine. It will feel

cool in the wind had not particularly called for the time of

year. I like it when the meteorologist gets ornithology

goaled two. Top marks! What will this mean? They said that what they

thought might happen was there might be a fourth. All of these brushes

will build up in Scandinavia and then take advantage of weather

window, perhaps on Monday, and they will come over to East Coast. We may

get a few tomorrow. A few will have the bravery in the wings but we will

get more later. Thank you for reporting the hen Harriers. The

hotline had already got 65 reports this morning. Keep those coming in.

The details are on our website. Are you going to do the map? Where is

the map? We launched migration watch earlier this week and we asked you

to spot the Red Wings. We had 633. Squadrons of these birds have been

coming in. Absolute squadrons! We have come to the end of Autumnwatch

2013 but we will be back and we will pad up for winter watch. We would

bring you more from the urban foxes. We would like to thank the staff of

the RSPB at Leighton Moss for welcoming us. Especially the ladies

who work in the cafe! We will leave you with the highlights of

Autumnwatch. Watch these and enjoy them but stay tuned for Unsprung

which is coming next. See you then. Goodbye. Goodbye.