Episode 1 Autumnwatch

We are back. The temperatures dropping, the leaves are on the turn

and there is a mass of brilliant wildlife out there in the UK. It is

a time of dramatic change and our aim is to bring you the beauty, the

drama, and the wildlife as it happens.

All around me in the darkness large animals are gathering. Listen to

this... What on earth is that? It is Autumnwatch, Shhh.

Hello and welcome to Autumnwatch 2016. Coming to you live from the

RSPB Arne Reserve down here in Dorset. We will be live for the next

four nights and our mission is to bring you the best of British

wildlife but also to diagnose the biological symptoms of this season.

Oh yes. You made that sound technical. We are going to enjoy and

revel in this autumn and do that, we have got lots of camera teams around

the reserve and live cameras, so let us go straight to them now. The

first one is our live carcass cam. This is on the beach. It will be

interest seeing what makes the most of it. Our other live camera, we

have a badger camera out. This is near a badger sett. We have had a

lot of action on that which we will show you later on and back by

popular demand, oh yes, the mouse Maze, you know we are in Arne, I

want to call this the Arnold Schwarzenegger Maze. It a mission.

We will bring you any live action as it happens throughout the show on

the live cameras. What is so special about autumn? What is special about

this part of the country? It is very special, look at this.

This year, Autumnwatch comes to you from southern Dorset. An area of

outstanding natural beauty. Stretching from the Jurassic Coast,

to Poole Harbour. A stunning array of habitats.

Home to a wealth of wildlife. Arne and its surrounding area is the

most biodiverse place in Britain. Here, we will follow majestic

mammals and charting the seasonal arrival of migrating birds.

We have got stories from right across the country. And even further

afield. Incredible journeys. And extraordinary science.

We have got the best of British wildlife at the most spectacular

time of year. It looks amazing. It whetted my appetite, has it yours

Chris? Very much so. I like Arne and Dorset very much Arne is a beautiful

place to be based but let us take a close look while we have -- why we

have come here. It's a stunning RSPB reserve, there is a dozen different

habitats, plenty of signs of autumn in the woodland, gorgeous autumn

leaf colour, lots of birds on the Heath and a huge variety of insects,

there is a spectacle of over wintering Waders that can be seen

here, this autumn, the light has been extraordinary on those

wetlands, absolutely glorious and outstanding sunsets in the last few

days, we were in the hide when they filmed that sunset, it was beautiful

wasn't it. Stunning. Gorgeous colours. You are taken by this

place? I love it. I Joan Ied that time when you and I went down into

the hide and we sat and really really took it all in. You are

speaking about it as if it was 100 years ago. It was two days ago. The

thing about autumn is it such a dynamic season. People think it's a

precursor to winter, everything is dying. It is far from that. Massive

amount of species energy moving round. Every autumn is different.

You can't predict it because it is dependent on the previous seasons,

one of the things the cameramen have noticed is that summer has lingered

on a bit. In the cafe, I think they were after the cake, they found

white-tailed bumblebees. Dragonflies still active. Because it has been so

warm this week, then again this is the warmest part of the country, and

that is probably why you get all six species of reptile here, here we

have a slow worm, legless of course, here is the nemesis, a smooth snake,

a species that eats lizards and snakes, to see one of these in the

open at this time of year is a treat. Even finding one in the

summer is a treat. They need to heat up in the sun but they are too

scared to do so so they hide in the Heather and you never see them. They

should be hibernating now? I am sure they will be if it starts to get

colder. We will find out from Nick. There are late signs is of lingering

summer as Chris called it and a mild autumn, I saw swallows the other

day, but we want to get a national picture, so we would like do you

send in your sightings and your reports of where you are, and all

the details of how you can share those with us are on the website,

you can do it by Twitter or Facebook and we will show you some later on.

I feel the need for caring to fib at the moment. Let us have a map. Let

us see where we are. We are in the south of England. Sandwiched between

Weymouth and Southampton at the edge of Poole Harbour, I have this map of

the reserve. Michaela has already said a fantastic place, lots of

diverse habitats. Masses of wildlife. 251 different types of

spider. It is very rich when it comes to wildlife. Let us look where

we are. We are in a barn here on the farm. Where is Martin? Martin has

headed out around there. I was getting there. Around there, he is

looking and listening for a local autumn spectacle. Yes, I am

Michaela, we have to be quite quiet down here. I have been listening out

in the darkness and a very strange sound has been echoes round here,

let us listen again. Again. Again. ANIMAL CRIES That is the sound of

the sika deer. It is a non-native deer. It arrived here from Japan in

1860. Now, they should be all round me here, I am in black-and-white

does a we don't want to disturb them. That is why I look weird.

Normally, during the day, sika deer are solitary, very solitary deer,

they will lie up alone or maybe a mother with a calf. During the night

and now in the rut, they come together. That is what we will try

and watch for, how are we going to do it? Come with me. We have our

hide here, inside the hide, excuse me, right, what do we have here? We

have Pete our cameraman, and we have got this, I will sit down and get

out the way, an extraordinary camera, this is a thermal camera,

what it does is it distinguishes between tiny differences in the, and

creates an image from that. Let us go live to the thermal camera. Let

us see what we have got. They often say all the books say it is very

rare to get more than five or six of these deer together. Look at that.

The books aren't quite right. These are all Hinds. Female deer. Let us

go in closer. One is lying down there. Just a little bit early, we

saw a fox and badger in among them. They have come out into this rich

sward, that one is feeding and feeding. Now, what we expect to

happen, during the night, what I hope will happen, is that a large

stag will come out, we keep seeing him, roving round here, because so

many Hinds together during the rut, can we pan along, we are bought to

bring a stag in, can you see anything there Pete? Have you seen

the stag at all. Has he disappeared off? What is that, we go in a little

bit. That is the badger. This is a remarkable camera. Badger and a fox

there, think. A rabbit. It picks up all these different creatures. OK,

we will keep watching these deer all the way through the evening, and

hopefully the stag will come in, there has been a youngster running

round as well and the big stag, there is one massive stag that keeps

appearing and he will see off that youngster, but we will keep

watching. It is amazing, they are just eating away, I suspect we will

see a bit of action during the night.

Now it is difficult to judge just how big those deer are, I have some

props here. It got stuck under the hide. This is the skull of a sika

deer. It is quite a big magnificent looking animal. They generally have

just four on each antler. Eight tines, points here, compare it to a

red deer that we have often seen on Autumnwatch. A red deer much bigger.

You see the difference there. Here is something for anyone who is

interested in serious ID. Look at that the angle between that brow

tine and the main shaft is less than 90 degrees and on a red deer it is

great for pub facts, the angle is greater than 90 degrees. Let us just

compare it finally, with a roe deer skull. Much, much smaller all

together. These are magnificent animals and I an hoping we can work

out what is happening out there during the rut. They rut in very

different ways. Hopefully we will get an indication of what is going

on. We will watch, if anything dramatic happens we will go straight

back to the live camera. Hang on, what do we have now? We have a

badger, we have a rabbit and a deer in the background. Just an

astonishing bit of kit this camera. They have very very dramatic range

of vocalisation, they are the most vocal of the species of deer. We

will keep watching. Meanwhile, over to Chris. The calls of the deer

really are very spooky, I was out in the woods in the New Forest waiting

to photograph them, and one called right alongside me, I jump out of my

skin, this piercing screamle as Michaela said, we have the place

bugged as usual with lots of cameras and one of the ones we are keen on

is the carcass cam. Let us go live to our carcass cam now.

So this carcass is all the way down on the beach. I better tell you what

animal it is. It's a common dolphin. It was found washed up in the West

Country and with permission we moved it up here to Arne, it might sound

grisly to you moving a dolphin about but this is a massive resource. It

weighings 68 kilograms, that is a lot of meat out there. There is a

chance we will see things at night. We might see crabs on it and plenty

of fox prints Downton shore, so we might see foxes too. During the day

it has been busy, this bird has come down. It doesn't surprise me, this

is one of the buzzards here, you see them circling over the reserve, and

they are doing that to look for things to scavenge, they are using

their eyesight to find them. There are birds of prey in the New World,

things like king vulture, they have keen senses of smell, we don't think

the buzzard has that sense of smell. It is using its eye, up to eight

times Bert than ours in terms of definition. It has found the

carcass, it has it pretty much to itself. It is enjoying a male. Look

at that rich red meat. That muscle it is taking out. I wouldn't be

surprise if we see this bird come back and back to this carcass,

having its fill each day and leaving but we hope that other things will

find it too. But while we are on birds of prey cast your mind back to

Springwatch. What a year it was. For years we had wanted to put a camera

on a golden eagle's nest and this was the year that we succeeded. We

got some fantastic pictures from western Scotland of these birds at

the nest. It was extraordinary to be able to watch this youngster, from

just five days old, being tended by both parents. These delicate scenes

early on with the mother feeding it the food. So carefully.

We watched throughout under the guidance of David Anderson, our

legal expert, and it was a treat to see the youngster growing but it did

not fly the nest because it takes 70 days. By the time Springwatch had

concluded, it was still in the nest and shortly afterwards, I was

afforded an extraordinary treat, to meet the Eagle in person and carry

out an important scientific challenge.

I last visited the Trossachs in south-west Scotland before

Springwatch. Now it is Midsummer and I have returned with David Anderson

to hopefully fit our chick with a satellite tag. What can I say, the

last time we were standing here, it was IFS, buts and maybes and it paid

off. Big time. Thank you, that was a summer of fun watching that eagle

Grove. You will see a big difference today. Eight old and hopefully we

can get the tag fitted and find out its sex. Fulham get around this part

of Scotland will be fantastic. Let's get kitted out -- of following it

around. The Eagle family have built their nest in an imposing spot, an

imposing crack 470 metres above sea level so we have a backbreaking

uphill climb, something Dave and his team is used to ask they monitor

most of the nest in this rugged area. I am too embarrassed to say,

we nearly there yet? Now the chick is eight weeks old, the parents only

visit when they drop of food so that is little chance we will see them

today. After more than one hour, we reached the base of the nest and it

is time to split up. The rope team continue their climb

is the only way to reach the chick is abseiling from above.

To minimise disruption, just one of the experts team enters the nest.

Having worked with raptors for many years, Simon knows to approach the

Czechs slowly and calmly. -- chicks. That is the bag on it. OK? Yes. I

had picked up some old bags in my time, but never won with something

this valuable in it! Dave, here we are. Precious cargo. Not sure no

more bird back. It is not, is it? Dutch it is not your normal. What

they like, not very stressed in these situations? No, they are quite

relaxed because it is a top predator and they do not fear anybody. We

watched this our screens the three weeks and we revelled in it and now

to see it in the flesh, to be able to touch it. Amazing. It is like a

recalcitrant small child! A tatty small child.

To enable it to be identified in the future, Dave put a ring on the

chick. There we are. 207. I don't normally like feet, not human feet.

Eagle's feet, amazing. Look at the size of my hand, it can easily go

straight through it. Yes. Look at the depth of it. The J point one.

The chick point one. These measurements feed into his 30 year

database. -- 30 8.1. 4.0 five. With these measurements, what you reckon?

Male or female? I reckon it is female. The females, they are

interesting, they range over a much bigger distance so hopefully we will

find that out. When we put the tag on. When we fit this on. This tag is

extraordinary. It should last for the next six years, and not only

does it tell us the location of the female, it also gives her altitude

and body temperature. And hopefully, we will be able to follow her until

she has her own chicks, what about that?

That would be amazing! And now it is time to put her back where she

belongs. Our mission to fit a satellite tag

to the chick has been successful. Today, this eagle has our eagle. How

fantastic is that?! -- has become our eagle.

I feel like a proud parent watching our eagle. I mean our eagle, because

the Springwatch viewers watched that eagle growing up from a white fluffy

thing to the beautiful bird it is now. You are very excited about

that. But we are going back to the Eagle in a second but seconds ago,

we saw this on our live by the camera. And we saw a fox, beautiful

looking fox. Is this young, do you reckon? I think it is young. And I

think we might be able to identify it if it returns, it has a mark on

its tail and look at the markings on its face. It has that Delta running

down from its eyes, a lot of black on the face towards its nose. Keep

an eye on those, they are diagnostic in foxes and we should identify it.

Almost like a cheater, those markings. Fabulous. Beautiful!

Stunning! Absolutely stunning. As was the Eagle! Be eagle! You

thoroughly enjoyed that? It was a sweaty slog up the hill carrying

equipment, I carried the tripod and it was heavy and I got to smell it

up there. What did it smell like? Typically like a bird of prey, a bit

musty and dried but it definitely had a different sort of smell to it.

And with the tag on it, it is incredible we followed it from a

couple of days old and we can follow it for six years, is it all right

with the tag? It will be fine, we left the cameras in the nest to

watch the fledgling process and it allowed us to check it was happy

with the tag. These were from the very next day and it settled beneath

the feathers, happily greening away. David has fitted a lot of these with

no problems whatsoever. It is a real privilege. The key thing is,

Michaela, this was an eagle and it has become our eagle and we should

follow it as it matures and may be fined territory for itself and start

to breed and if anything goes wrong, we know exactly what has happened to

that eagle and exactly where it happened. We cannot keep calling it

it, we have to have a name. We know it is a female and we want you to

suggest names for this beautiful golden eagle. Look at its now and

get inspired and sending your suggestions. Either by Facebook by

Twitter. And tomorrow, we will catch up on the fledgling process, all the

way through to the time it fledged. An idea for a name, Martin, what do

you think of broadsword as a name? I think Carly is good because she is

fabulous and she can be quite dangerous as well. In June God.

Let's go live immediately because something interesting is going on --

and in June God. Perhaps the two stags gone? What of

them has run off. Oh, no! There were two young ones and you can see that

and others, they would play fighting. About three years old.

Going a bit closer, earlier, can you see the antlers? That is the end of

the lens, we cannot. Earlier, we saw the big one we have seen kicking

around. Look at this. You cannot see the antlers very clearly. But he is

absolutely huge. In fact, he is one of the biggest sika year they have

seen here, you can see the enormous neck and incredibly powerful muscles

they develop. Very shaggy, I will call him rocky. He has been out and

about. I would expect a big guy like that to the sea of those two

youngsters because at that age, about three, they could mate so he

could come in he could, enjoying the programme and kick them off. We had

been filming these beautiful sika deer during the day as well. Very

delicate and very beautiful. These are the kinds, slight spotting. A

diagnostic feature is the romp. That is called a caudal patch, some

people call it a target. And when they have an alarm, they can flare

the patch, there it is! Exactly right, that is it, bouncing around.

They do that sometimes when they are alarmed, just to show, I have seen

new, don't attack me. Here he is, the big stag, he is magnificent!

Rocky. We have seen him in the last couple of days, this was filmed

yesterday. You can see the size of him. There is another stag, to the

right, he is absolutely enormous. Now, these male deer at this time of

year, though the rest of the year, they are relaxed but now it is a

different matter in the rut and they will fight and we have seen fighting

here. A VC, armed with weapons like that, this is extremely dangerous

for both of them. -- obviously. If they fight head-to-head, it is a

Titanic wrestling match and if one turns and the other drives home and

attack, they can get terrible wounds. Look at that! That has taken

a terrible hit in the side. Horrible. Perhaps the most

interesting thing we have seen about these sika deer is the way they

mate. Fascinating, it is quite unlike mating I have seen in red

deer. The Mail, it is very polite, almost as if the Mail is asking

permission. He sniffs the rear end of the female to check and he mounts

her but he does not mate. He then gets off her. And the female comes

around and there is muscling and mutual grooming. And only then, she

moves forward and she flicks her tail a little bit to spread those

hormones, the pheromones. Like she is saying, all right, you can make

to me now, almost soliciting mating. And then he mates with her and that

was it. That was not a one-off, we have seen that same behaviour,

solicitors behaviour, with three different meetings. If anything else

happens with this camera, we will return. Let's have a quick look

live, what have we got on the Selex Cam? Two badges and a deer, we have

also seen rabbits cavorting around and no stag! Never mind. Over the

last few weeks, Gillian Burke has been out on a safari, scientific

Safari around Dorset. In her first report, she has something quite

shocking the show was. -- the show was. Round the island. A

pocket of wilderness in the heart of Poole Harbour. And a great place to

see rare red squirrels. In autumn, it is a great time to see them, down

on the ground rather than in the canopy, feasting on sweet chestnut

and pine cones, stockpiling to get themselves through the winter.

Britain has lost 95% of its red swirls through habitat loss and a

grey squirrel invasion from North America. I have not seen one of

these since I was a child and I don't think I realised how special

they were. Now the dwindling population faces a

new threat. Leprosy. Two years ago, Professor Adam Meredith discovered

this worrying disease in Scottish red squirrels. Since then, it has

been reported across the UK. Previously found only in humans and

armadillos, there are concerns that it could spell disaster for the

country's red squirrels. This 200 strong colony could hold the key to

understanding this latest danger to one of Britain's most threatened

native mammals. That looks OK, I can't see any

obvious marks on it. They get really Big Ears and a big swollen mudsle so

in its severe stages it is obvious to see, even from a distance away. I

find that really sad, to think those lesions get so big, is that not

uncomfortable for them? We don't know for sure, if it is anything

like human leprosy it attacks the never endings in the skin, so it

makes your skin go numb and you can't feel it, so I am hoping that

is the same in squirrels and they are not suffering too much.

Brownsea makes the perfect study site. Small and contained with a

dense population of easily studied animals.

So this is it. This is the lab. This is where it all happens. Anna and

the team are suited. They have gloves on and they assure me as long

as I don't touch anything, I will be safe.

It is male, adult. Body condition is normal. That is 66.6. All the sixes.

This is a nice well rehearsed routine, it is like clockwork It is

great and my trustty assistant here keeps me right so I don't forget

anything. I have to admit when I first heard about this story, I

realised that my view of leprosy is is stuck in the biblical disease

where bits are falling off. The truth is that leprosy a really

difficult disease to contract and it can be treated. Here on Brownsea

Island there is very little risk to humans. It is the squirrels I am

more worried about. The team hopes to find out how leprosy affecting

the population, how it is transmitted and whether any

individuals are immune We have a lesion of leprosy here. This is

interesting. This one has an active infection? It does appear to. It

tends to start on the ear and we have a swelling here, and the skin

has lost the hair and it has gone shiny. This one doesn't seem to have

any lesions on its feet. It seems to be restricted to the ears. What is

surprising to me, is that although this animal has leprosy, in all

other indicators it is really healthy. It has good body size, good

weight and that is not what I expected.

These squirrels, as you can see with this one, especially round the head,

which is where they get the leprosy lesion, they often have huge numbers

of tick, all these little back dots are tick, so one thing we want to

see, is the bacterium in the ticks as well? What implication that might

have. They could be carriers, the ticks and flees could be carriers?

We don't know, we want to find out. Although leprosy can be cured with a

course of antibiotics it would be unfeasible to treat these wild

animals three times day for six month, once he is revived we release

this one back where he was caught. Come on little guy. Wrong way.

That's it. Wow, I am really amazed how quickly it just shot out, didn't

it. Straight up a tree. He has every chance of a normal

life. Now, the team will follow his progress, and data coming from him

will help to understand this mysterious disease.

The results from Brownsea will be used to help led squirrels across

the country, which makes these squirrels very special indeed.

What an extraordinary story, I think we really must stress that it is

highly unlikely that you will catch leprosy from a red squirrel. Many

reasons for that, one 95% of us are immune to it. And Anna has evidence

it is probably existed in British squirrels for the last 40 years and

there has been no cases of anyone catching leprosy off a squirrel in

all that time. It is not like biblical time, you can treat it with

antibiotics. I have a question, if, this is metaphorical. Imagine you

are on a day out there, and you have the opportunity to snog a squirrel.

Yes. Would you snog a squirrel? No, I definitely would not snog a

squirrel. Would you Metaphorically I might, but I wouldn't go for

tongues, not now I know about leprosy. For goodness sake! I

promise you don't panic it is safe to go areas where there are red

sqirls, in fact we encourage it. Go out to Brownsea Island. I have been

there I am sure you have. Now we showed you it on Springwatch, we

improved it. We brought it back for Winterwatch. It was a rounding

success, it was massive, you asked for more, we listened, we are

bringing it back, what am I talking about? I am talking about this.

In 2015 we brought you The Iron mouse challenge. Where the mice were

put through their paces in an increasingly difficult assault

course. They outmanoeuvred our toughest

water hazard. Next we probed their problem solving brainpower in

Scotland where we created the mouse Maze. Testing the small mammal's

navigational no how. Our mouster-mind rose to the

challenge. Procuring the peanuts everyone in total darkness.

But this autumn, we have come up with a twist. Mouse Maze 2. The

Squeakquel. Will the mice of Arne be up to the challenge.

What about that? It is fabulous. It is a, who of art. It a wonder of the

rodent age. It is beautiful. It is situated in a shed just behind the

hedge here. Just behind the hedge. It is important to say of course

that all of the animals going in there are wild animals. They are

going in through their own choice because we have put food in there.

We have the new mouse Maze, we have it set up. The first thing we need

to do is let them get in there to explore, this would give us an

opportunity to see if the southern mice are any smarter than the

Scottish mice, how long would it take them to learn to find their way

through the Maze? This is what we have seen so far. First tentative,

they need to find their way in. So here is the first mouse. Following a

train of food. Into the maze. Hops on top. You can see, it has a glass

top and a glass bottom. It really is a splendid piece of kit this. Mouse

goes in, and this is the first time it has been into the maze. It

doesn't know where the nuts are and it is making some mistake, if we

speed it up we see it gradually gravitates towards the nuts. Maybe

it is using a sense of smell. Maybe it can smell them through the

tunnels in the maze. It goes all the way through, and

eventually, it gets to the nuts. First attempt, 67 seconds. What we

know is, what we learned in Scotland, is that typically, it

takes them about eight or ten goes, to maximise their time and when they

do maximise that time they simply remember it and they keep going back

straightaway without any errors, this is typical of other experiments

with the mouse. This mouse has been through the maze several times

before. It is not making a single mistake and it gets into the nuts in

eight seconds flat. Pretty impressive. Pretty good. Viewers who

remember Winterwatch, the Scottish mouse terse mindses will say it got

in in six seconds. The maze is more complicated now. The question is,

OK, they have got in there, how are they doing it? Once they have

learned that route, how are they following it it might be a scent

trail. Experiments done with other rodents suggest they are using

markers in the environment outside the mazes, so they are using light

source, trees, in our shed it could be the apex of the shed, and once

they go into the maze, they use these as points of reference to test

their working memory and make a map they remember to get to the nuts. So

let us test that. How do we test it? Very simple. We turn the maze

around. So if the rodent is using any of those external stimuli, it's

a bit squeaky. It is not a mouse. Just we need some lubrication on the

hinge. If those mice are using external stimuli then they are going

to have to flip their map. Now the nuts appear to be down in the bottom

left and the entrance is on the right-hand side not on the left-hand

side. So what we might expect here is they go in, they won't be doing

it in eight seconds, we will have to see, let us go live to the maze now,

we have a live mouse in there. OK. He is on the floor of the shed. He

can't find the entrance because we have moved it. It hasn't taken him

or her to find that. Hold on. Has it given up. I think it has. There is

no spirit in these Dorset mice, is there? We will keep an eye on that

mouse, if it gets in the maze we will cut to it straightaway. You

know, Chris, there are some amazing spectacles that happen in our

country, from early autumn on wards, some of them are very visual and

there for us all to see and enjoy, but others are more mysterious,

extremely difficult to cam charm on film. This year Andy Jackson was

lucky with patience, being in right place, the right time. He managed to

capture on film an extraordinary seasonal event.

Late August, and around our coast, the sea temperature is reaching its

peak. In a sheltered bay off south-west

Wales the stage is set for something truly remarkable.

A spider crab arrives. Normally a AstraZeneca of the deep. And it is

not alone. -- denizen. A cast of thousands is coming together. Two

years old, with shells 15 centimetres across these adolescent

crustaceans have travelled up to 160 kilometres.

All with one common goal. As numt befores grow, testimony performances

fray. Normally solitary males are losing their cool.

-- tempers fray. The smaller camouflaged females stay

clear. I know what you are thinking but they are not here to mate.

One days, tens of thousands cover the bay. A crusty carpet of

carapaces and claws. Both males and females have reached

a critical moment in their lives. They are about to come of age. And

to do so, they must moult. This is why they have come to -- together.

Replacing their ex sow skeleton will leave them vulnerable but there is

safety in numbers. Inside rigid shells a moulting hormone stimulates

the crabs to swell. Their outer casing split, peeling

open like the lid of a can. Soft and exposed, they carefully withdraw.

Delicately ex tracking each intricate limb. It takes 15 minutes

of careful contraction, to shuffle free. Over the next few days, every

single one will moult. 30% bigger. They are now adult

crabs. They may look robust but they are

completely defenceless. It will take several days to harden up.

Not all of them make it. But nothing goes to waste. The survivors Maiken

Caspersen Falla short work of any that fail. They need to fuel up for

one final journey. Bigger. They are now adult crabs.

They may look robust but they are completely defenceless. It will take

several days to harden up. Not all of them make it. But nothing

goes to waste. The survivors Maiken Caspersen Falla short work of any

that fail. They need to fuel up for one final journey. -- the survivors

make short work. They must head back to the dark sea floor where they

will mate in a few month's time. As quickly as they arrived, the

spied ever crabs vanish. -- spider crabs vanish. All that is

left of this seasonal spectacle are hollow reminders littering the bay.

I loved that. That is, that is extraordinary. An amazing thing to

see, I know what a lot of you are thinking, you are thinking how come

the crab comes out of the shell and it is bigger than the shell. It's a

good question, and we are going to demonstrate that with Chris. Trustty

assistant! I am going to come to strait this. You will be familiar

with the Russian doll, where one smaller one comes out from the

larger one, imagine this is the crab, a couple of weeks before the

moult it starts to selectively absorb some of the calcium of the

shell. So that it can reuse it. Then it secretes an enzien that disolves

that body that sticks it to the shell so it becomes separate. Then

it starts to regrow a paper thin shell, inside the original one.

The day before it starts to moult, it enjoys a rise in hormone which

causes it to take on a lot of sea water. It begins to swell up and

that causes the shell to split and slowly the clap forces the shell

away and it emerges from inside like that -- too. And it eases out its

legs gently one by one, leaving the shell behind and also some of its

mouthparts. Indeed, its stomach lining and oesophagus and part of

its intestine and then it emerges like that. It swells up and at this

point, it is very, very soft, and it takes a couple of weeks before it

hardens like the original crab and by that stage, it is much bigger.

That is genius! That is a BAFTA winning demonstration! It is a BAFTA

winning demonstration! I could not have said it better myself even if I

tried! That really is astonishing, watching those spider crabs, you

would be really lucky to experience. But if you come to Arne, there is a

seasonal spectacle anyone can enjoy. Chris got up early a couple of days

ago and he took his binoculars and he went to revel in it.

Poole Harbour is a magnet for migrating birds. Because of the

resource they have come for, you can see in front of me, it is the mod

which is packed full of life, which they are going to harvest. That is

why these birds are here, it is absolutely packed with birds, what a

site that is! Widgeon. Godwit. My goodness me! There is at least 200

avocet which have swept across the silvery mud in front of me.

Potentially one of the best birds in the world, the Audrey Hepburn of

birds. No question. And at this time of year, it is a sense of an event

taking place here. And these birds have come from great distances and

different parts of our planet out there together, using the large

number of security. If you are out in the mud on your own, you are

constantly worried about predators and you cannot concentrate on

feeding. If you have 200, 2,000, you have 4,000 eyes looking for

predators which means you can spend more time feeding.

They have flitted into the water, something... There must be a

predator here, there has got to be. They piled into the water, into one

great mass of birds. Avocet... Hold on, what is that? We have a Harrier

here, that is what it is. No, it is a buzzard, sorry, grotesque error, I

will just have to go outside. There is a fantastic natural masterpiece.

No painter, sculptor, artist could have made it. Just these birds

coming together from all over Europe in this one place, at this one time.

I think of all the places I could have spent the morning in the UK

today, the top of the Shard overlooking the capital -- the

capital, dinosaur museums, natural history museum, fabulous, but

nothing compares to this. This is the best there has to be in Britain

and it was free! That is why we are here! Because it

is so gorgeous name down on the weapons. The avocet, twisting like

that, it was fantastic! And you can see that every day. At this time of

year, there was a mass of birds moving around Europe, any excuse to

get to my touch-screen. One of the birds we saw, stunning, they move

from Iceland and they fly over to the UK. They do not stop in one

place, they move around, and they might go down to Dorset and they

might continue to migrate through France, all the way down to

Portugal. This old idea birds go from A to B and spend the entire

winter in B and go back to A, not the case. Another species we might

see on the move at this time of year is the Goldcrest that only weighs

about six grams, tiny, but it can move great distances. Some of them

from Scandinavia, some from Germany and Poland. And there is the

waxwing, a dandy of a bird, very beautiful and get the bird watchers

out, from Scandinavia. At least 60 have arrived in the UK this week,

some had been seen in Shetland and some as far as Dorset here. What

about this? The Siberian accentor. We have never seen one in the UK

until a couple of days ago and proving like birds, they are like

buses, eight have turned up from Western Russia, from the durables,

to the UK. Eight down the East coast. And our old friend, the

Bewick's swans, from the North, they fly across the land into the low

countries and then they hop over into the UK. Some of them have

already arrived in places like the East of England and we will find a

lot more about these birds and their migration tomorrow.

As Chris said, it has been an extraordinary autumn for rarities

arriving in the UK and if you have got photographs of rare migrants, we

would love to see them so please send them on Facebook or Twitter.

The reason we have so many rare birds coming in is because of them

weather pattern we have had recently. Is it going to stay like

that and remain good for those migrant birds? Only one way to find

out, to get a weather forecast from Nick Miller. Hello, Nick!

Hello, Michaela, stand-by for weather changes on the way and it

will get drier where you are after a wet start to the week. Another will

affect bird migration and we will get to that in a moment. First, a

look back at autumn so far. It got off a really warm start in September

and has cooled down. With high pressure, October has given us try

and quiet and kind weather for wildlife. Because of the woman, some

birds have stayed longer than they would before migrating away for the

winter such as the swallow -- because of the warm weather. And

that's still active, not yet hibernating. With high pressure, we

have had easterly winds which is a good direction for the birds from

Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, those redwings. Easterly, it is

easy, but this is the change and we get a westerly coming back which may

discourage the migration because it becomes a headwind for the birds and

it brings the north-western parts of the UK more unsettled weather than

we saw in October. There may be a shower tomorrow but it is getting

drier and a bit brighter. That is the change of wind direction and it

is mild by day and night. There is nothing in this forecaster cold the

Passion of those sika deer. It is a noisy week so on your marks, get

set, rut! I love it and I love a mild autumn

because we do not like the cold weather. We have said it was a mild

autumn here and around the country we did ask you to send your

sightings and reports of that. These are a couple of photographs. This is

Christian masts in London. It is a grass snake. Still out and about.

That is unusual. Like the smooth snake here, it is not cold so they

do not go down to hibernate. This is a bat from James Miller, Blackheath

in Surrey on October two. Bats keep moving around in the autumn

especially those that do not find the winter roost, that is not

unusual although it is still mild. Good to get a photo. Or, dragonfly.

They will go on for weeks or months in the adult stage. If it emerged

late in the season and it has been mild, plenty of food around, so not

surprising it is still active and about. Talking about active and

about, I wonder if any of the deer Martin getting molested out in the

field? Martin. We are still inside the Autumnwatch deer hide and

interesting things going on. We can go live now to our deer outside.

That is a young male, he has just moved in amongst the hide and they

get in and run away. We had a moment of great excitement. He is just

checking them to see whether they are ready to mate. There is a fox in

the background. This camera is quite extraordinary. Helicopter coming

over! The question is, what type of rotting strategy of these sika deer

using? We had been filming and I think I can answer that. This is the

last couple of nights. That is the wrong one, that is not quite right!

Here we go. Work the stags trying to hold it like that? No, they are not,

the stags were not. Sometimes they establish a deep gash a geographical

territory and they encourage the females to comment by whistling. And

that is not happening. What is happening now is the female deer,

they are on the best feeding area, the lovely grassy area and they

drive the rut because the stags, they are coming to the females. The

females in the lovely, delicious grassy area, that is what is going

on here. We have a helicopter flying around! We will keep filming, very

exciting, and if anything happens again, we will record it and go back

to it later in the week. All right? We will come back in the infrared.

Here we go! That is ours out here and we will keep with Pete watching

and waiting to see if that big stag returns. New like it is not just

birds migrating, moths do as well and sometimes leave a legacy, look

at this, Michaela. That is incredible, that is a huge

Caterpillar. It is, it is a hawk moth, an African species that

migrates through Europe. That is an anti-predator response because it is

on its way to pupate. They start off in Africa like painted Lady

butterflies and an enormous came to the UK in September this year.

Martin Cade, at the Portland Bird Observatory, Sorbus adult one

fluttering in Portland. They have a wingspan of up to 12 centimetres and

they have a long proboscis, tongue, and they stick that deep into the

plants to get the nectar. A soupy year and this one in my hand,

hopefully this will now burrow into the soil and pupate and if we look

after it, it might emerge next year. Hopefully. Have you been listening

and can you hear the sika deer in the background? I can. That is

incredible, that is fantastic to hear. We are nearly at the end of

the show, almost. Yes, we have time to go to a live camera, the carcass

camera just in case. We have seen a lot. There is something on it. These

are signed poppers. I would not be surprised if there were hundreds or

thousands of those doing their small bets the breakdown the carcass. And

hopefully then we get other things coming. Indeed, that is all we have

time for but join us tomorrow when we reveal the truth about edible

dormouse, and it is not that they spread Ebola or anything nasty but

they are up to nefarious things. An update on our golden eagle and send

in your suggestions for names. And we will be using some rather

advanced technology to put this bird among a flock of others on the shore

to see what we can see. Don't forget to check the information on our

website and the Red Button where it is Autumnwatch in a nutshell, but

make a date, eight p.m., on your sofa, BBC Two, you do not want to

miss it. We will be back with more Autumnwatch tomorrow, see you then.

Good night! MUSIC: Hoppipolla

by Sigur Ros