Episode 2 Autumnwatch

Each year as summer fades and creeps timidly towards winter it dances

briefly with autumn. What's this autumn like? Colourful leaves, a

taste sensation of autumn nal berries and a marvellous medley of

migrating birds. And one of the strangest looking migrants of all is

out there somewhere, and we're looking for it. Welcome to

Autumnwatch! Hello! Welcome to Autumnwatch 2016.

Coming to you from the beautiful and wonderful RSPB Arne Reserve in

Dorset. We are live tonight and for the rest of the week. If you were

watching last night you will know our mission remains the same, to

bring you the best of British wildlife and to reflect this unique

season. We are bringing you up to date with our live cameras. We have

had lots of action on our badger-cam and we have seen, guess what, a

badger! It's not the only mammal that made an appearance so we will

show you more later. We will also cut back to our mouse maze. Remember

testing the capabilities, will they succeed in their task? We will find

out about a different mouse t may look cute but it's causing havoc and

Lucy Cook will tell us more about that. What about today? It's been a

wonderful day here. It's been so mild at Arne. It's been very mild.

Hope you have been enjoying it. But how did it start this morning? It

started of course with the sunrise over a fresh misty, slightly damp

start to the day but our stars were out there, the sika deer and the

wonderful wildlife that we see all around Arne. The waders flying in to

overwinter on the wetlands. It's a gorgeous place, it's been a gorgeous

day. It's a season of mist and mellow fruitfulness. Did you just

say the season of misand mellow fruitfulness? I quite like that.

It's poetic. You had that absurd tough about the richness of the

season and the berries! Goodness knows what I will come out with the

rest of the show! Let's hope we never find out! Listen, it's an

bountiful season this year. There were lots of fruits out there and

lots of berries and nuts. It is the case down here, although there is

some geographical variation. Nationwide there is lots of berries

and Hawthorne and Holly and BlackBerries like the one this

blackbird is enjoying. In some places acorns are doing well. Not

here in the south it seems. But, you know, here all of these animals are

taking advantage of this harvest, but the plants are doing their best

to fight back. These chestnuts are losing the battle with the grey

squirrel. Look at this. It gingerly but effectively peels back the

prickly cover, the plant failing there, to remove the sweet chestnut

inside. Then, turns it around and around until it can lift off the

outer casing. And begin to nibble that tasty sweet chestnut. Obviously

this is one it's going to eat, not one it will cash now it's stripped

of that covering. With all of these fruits and these

berries what is going on? Well, it is an intricate and

essential ecological relationship here with plants and birds. How does

it work? Well the first thing is those berries are advertising

themselves to the birds, just look at this. Here are holy berries,

bright red. Birds can see the red. They can note

the contrast between it and the green leaves. We typically find red

berries on plants with evergreen leaves or plants that retain leaves

late in the season. There are lots of BlackBerries about, as well.

If I can pick them up. These typically form on plants that lose

their leaves, or where the leaves fade to brown and then the black

shows up. Strong contrast means the birds can

find them. Why do they want the birds to find them? I can

demonstrate is that by pretending to be a bird myself. Let me just hover

around here, taking some of these little damsons off here. The benefit

for the bird is that it gets a meal. The soft fleshy bit around the seed

is undoubtedly very tasty. Sweet in the case of these and in the case of

Rowan too. The birds eating that gets nutritional sweet reward, but

inside of that is the seed. Of course, this is the essential part.

I have spat it out but the birds don't spit it out. They keep it.

They digest it. They fly around and they move from one place to another.

After a couple of hours of digesting the seed it passes down through

their gut and then they make a small deposit somewhere.

The seed passes through them. In some cases that is a necessary

process, in juniper there is a better germation rate if the seed

has been through the bird. This is a way that plants move. They only have

two ways of moving. Pollen and then they are seeds. They are using the

birds to get from A to B. So there is a benefit for the berries and a

benefit for the birds. It's a rather beautiful combination, a beautiful

piece of co-evolution. I have a question, it was a good impression

of a bird, but what were you? Constipated actually! We would like

you to send in pictures of birds eating berries wherever you are.

Send them in the usual way. Now, I wonder where Martin's deposited his

seed, where has he planted himself tonight?

Michaela, I am down here on the shore. Where my exactly? On the edge

of the sea here. Over there is Poole. Can you see it there?

Over on this side is a huge marshy area and it's one of the best places

to come bird-watching here at Arne. I will tell you a little story.

About ten years ago I was bird-watching at my local patch, it

was near Bristol. I finished bird-watching and rode off on my

motorbike and up in the sky and there, ladies and gentlemen, was an

apparition. It was a big white bird with those enormous beaks. Let me

show you something. Here is one of those beaks or bills. I think you

will agree it's pretty weird. I thought this animal must have

escaped from somewhere. Well, I was wrong. It was a spoonbill. Focus,

they're back. After a time of about 400 years they were hunted to

extinction, sadly. But now they've come back. They're from probably

populations over in the Netherlands and they come over here in quite

large numbers. Now, we heard reports that they come

to roost over there about 300 metres from where I am standing now. We

want to try to get ipt mat views of these spoonbills at night. How are

we going to do that? Well, we have a secret weapon.

Here it is. It is the spoonbill camera. Here we are putting it out

on the land. This camera is going in about 300 metres from me. Nice and

firmly down. We got the angle right. Look at those electronics inside it.

In front there is a camera and a light source, infrared light source.

Also one at its bottom, as well. So we covered it up. It will act as a

decoy, we hope. Maybe it will bring in spoonbills that we can film and

get those intimate views of this really extraordinarily rare bird.

Now it's got gears inside it. The spoonbill can rotate. Look at that!

Perfect! OK. Now we hope we have other

cameras looking down here, as well, but we hope that the camera is

working now. Let's try and go to it live.

There is the camera. Another camera is looking at it. Is there anything?

Let's look at the pictures from the camera.

That is fascinating. That isn't a mistake. Those are sandHoppers,

thousands of them jumping in front of the camera. But where are the

wading birds? They're not there. I can tell you why they're not there.

Because we saw this just before we came on air. A fox!

Obviously there is lots of wading birds there and that fox is being

opportunistic and has come down and is hoping to get an easy meal in the

dark. So, that slightly spoilt it for us

tonight. The prize is a spoonbill. We hope they'll fly in and we will

be able to see them. Other wading birds may turn up, as well. If they

do, we will record them. Meanwhile, back to Chris and Michaela.

Not great to see a predator there. I know, I love foxes but not there

tonight. That's a shame. Hopefully it will move away and the birds will

come back. Yesterday we unveiled our new mouse maze in a shed behind the

barn back there. It's a complicated maze. Let's see what happened

yesterday. This is the maze. Our mouse managed

to crack the maze by doing it eight times to get it down from about 67

seconds to eight seconds. Then it did it time and time again. We

wanted to test our mice so we turned the maze. What we want to find out

is how the mice learn the maze. Are they using visual cues, smell, is it

memory or is it all about the whiskers? Let's see how they got on

last night with the turned maze. This is the first mouse that came

in. You can see he is much slower. He is obviously confused. He has a

little look around. A little sniff. Then very quickly, in 12 seconds,

gives up. Is he a man or a mouse? He is a mouse, he came back! That was

good for you that one. He took quite sometime to explore the whole maze.

He doesn't get to the nuts. He gives up in 134 seconds. He comes back

with renewed determination and energy.

He knows the maze a little bit now because he has been in a couple of

times before. He looks around. Is he going to solve the maze? It's his

third attempt? He is almost there. Is he going to make it? It's a dead

end. He comes out and yes he cracks it in 46 seconds. He now knows where

the nuts are. Look at this, it's absolutely incredible, isn't it,

Chris? He comes straight in this time. He gets it in nine seconds. He

comes back. I say he, I don't know whether it's he or she. Comes back

time and time again. So what's going on? It's not rigorous science, we

have to admit that but we do have a graph. Here is the graph showing the

number of attempts here against time on the side.

This is the mouse when they first learned it, before we turned it

around. You can see that initially it takes a long time to get there.

After, they get it down to about eight seconds.

But, when we twist the maze around the mice have to relearn it. Look,

initially they're completely confused so it's taking longer. Even

when they perfect it it still is taking them longer after that number

of trials. What's going on there? Basically, they're confused. It does

appear they might have been using visual signals, something in the

shed, maybe the apex, a crack of light or something, to orientate

themselves as they entered the maze. Because it has a glass top and

bottom perhaps they were looking through it and remembered that and

that's how they were finding it. That's how they were probably doing

it. But we have another trick up our sleeves. Now they've learned that

with the maze twisted around we will do something more devious. We are

going to flip the maze. It's got a glass bottom and a glass top. What

this means is that previously the food... It's so squeaky! The food

was in the bottom left. It's now in the top left corner. What this means

is that the floor has become the roof. Left has become right, top has

become bottom. The mice should have to learn the thing again, unless

they're using a different method. We haven't cleaned it out this time. It

might well be they're using scent to find their way back. I think we

might have a mouse live, is there a mouse there now? It's gone!

We have a live fox. Let's look at a fox instead then. This is on our

badger camera. Look at what a gorgeous fox. This is a young fox,

isn't it? It is, yeah. Licking its lips, it's just eaten the mouse!

That's fantastic. We will have more from the fox later on. Yesterday we

caught up with our golden eagle chick we were privileged enough to

watch on Springwatch go from five days old, and we watched it develop.

Yesterday, we saw Chris go up to Scotland where he helped put on a

hi-tech satellite tag. At that stage it was eight weeks old. It hadn't

fledged. That's what we were all rooting for.

It's been 58 days since our eagle chick hatched.

The previous afternoon, she was fitted with a satellite tag and she

already seems accustomed to a new backpack. Even if she is a little

unsteady on her feet. I want for the female is left alone most of the

time. -- our fluffy female. Any adult feathers of growing from the

same sockets as the original baby down. As they emerge, they push

these out, leaving our chick covered in that fluffy coating. Just like a

toddler, the chick is discovering the world for the first time.

Everything is new. Everything is interesting. And the wagtail seems

just as curious. It is a moment of entertainment, to

break the monotony of the day. Dawn is not too bright and a 59 in

the eagle nest. -- one day 59. Dad and mum had a welcome visit.

Cleaning duties go to dad. Whilst mum sorts out dinner.

Although this chick is capable of feeding itself, it is nice to be

looked after, she has tripled her weight since hatching and continues

to eat 20% of her body weight every day.

This protein rich diet is certainly doing her good. With each meal, she

gets closer to fledging. Ten days later, the eagle nest is

empty. Has our female decided to spread her

wings? Well, not quite. But she is getting bolder. And

looking increasingly like an adult. Only remnants of her original fluffy

down feathers remain. At ten weeks old, her muscles still

not quite strong enough for flight, but it will not be long.

Today, her parents have left a freshly killed fox cub. Although she

has mastered feeding herself, she will soon have to learn to hunt for

herself as well. The next morning, any thoughts of

fledging have been put off by the weather. At least her new feathers

provide some protection from the downpour.

Just over a week later, 78 days after hatching, our check has taken

the plunge. She has at last left the safety of the nest -- chick. But she

has not gone far. And dad is nearby with some food.

Over the next couple of months, she will learn to hunt and rely less and

less upon her parents. We have been extraordinarily privileged to watch

this female since she was just five days old. Over the past three

months, she has transformed into a young adolescent.

And finally, she takes to the air. The efforts and hard work of her

parents have paid off. She is fully fledged.

What about that? It is fantastic and that satellite should last about

five, six years and we can give you updates. We certainly hope so and it

is giving us a lot of data already and tells us the position of the

bird, the time and altitude of the bird and the temperature. The

question is, what has it been doing since it has fledged? We have been

following it, David Anderson. If Mike assisted holds this, I will

demonstrate what it has been up to. All right, this is not a 1960s quiz.

This is the nest, the young bird has been going out from the nest and

coming back always. Sometimes short journeys and sometimes much longer,

in all sorts of directions. David thinks this is because it does not

want to leave that nest area and it never really goes Out of Sight. It

can cover a great distance because it has got altitude and it can still

see that area it was fledged from. A couple of exceptions, one time, it

took a journey eastwards and went back against some distance. On

another occasion, it went all over here to be used, travelling a few

kilometres, and it went South and West and came back making a strange

rectangular shape. When it moved out of its territory here, it was

meeting other eagles, but what is it doing hanging around the house like

some teenager, refusing to clear off out? It is taking advantage of the

food. And what we think is there is plenty of food and the parents have

got enough and they are tolerating the youngster staying. By winter,

things could be very difficult and do things run short, they will

certainly drive this bird out of their territory. We will watch

closely as we move now towards winter and we will give you updates

on its progress. Yesterday, we did ask for

suggestions of names for this worry is golden eagle and we have been

inundated and we have really good suggestions. Rona, meaning powerful.

A good Scottish name. John said, the Gay liquefy radiant. Alistair,

goddess of the skies. And Roman ward, he is aged eight, he said

Hermione, meaning well-born. I like that. What about a normal name,

Bernadette, Silvia? Or beaky big face? No, no! Keep the names coming

in and we will pin one onto that word -- onto that bird by the end of

the week. On the budget camera, we have a fox. The same animal we

looked at a while ago -- badger. This year's cub, it looks like a

female. And a very attractive young fox. We have seen a lot of activity

on this camera, not just boxes, sometimes they turn up and they find

the food, this is another of the pair that we have seen, we have seen

them together at some stage and the years go up because it is hearing

something behind it. In the corner of the screen, you can see it is the

badger. Interesting that they can obviously see each other and they

know about each other but they do not investigate each other. No, they

look fairly comfortable, these foxes might have not close to the badger

sett, the badger is always dominant to the fox, far more robust, but it

leaves the fox to dig down towards the camera. And it here's something

else and it is looking around, is it the badger coming back? No, it is

another fox. You can see they are very comfortable with each other. So

we presume this is a sibling. These are from this year, these cubs, they

know each other well, both very curious. Interesting behaviour. Very

interested in that soil, doing some digging. In good condition. Yes, a

bit of friction here. This week, they are in the same social group

and likely to be siblings, but there is always a dominant hierarchy and

it looks like the animal on the left is top fox. On the right, this is

clearly more nervous, the other is arching its back, the years have

gone back, the signals that give out, I am boss. As the years. They

look so much like dogs. I have a poppy and you have a poodle and we

have seen that behaviour, the years go down and they did and they do

that dog kind of stuff. Indeed, those behaviours replicated and you

can see that with a dog bickering over a bone with another in the

garden. We will bring you that and also regular updates online and we

have plenty of ways to stay involved. It has never been easier

to follow Autumnwatch wherever you are. By going to the Autumnwatch

website on your laptop, phone, tablets, you can get the latest news

at any time of day. On CBBC, that is quizzes and things to do and more.

And you can join in the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and the

Springwatch group. So much to do and see, but just to

remind you, I am down here on the shoreline because we have got

reports of spoonbills roosting over there. And we have got a robotic

spoonbill camera and we can go to it live, that is the robotic camera,

can we see anything? No. Let's have a look on our Selex Cam. The fox

came earlier and it frightened away the wildfowl and they are beginning

to return. But have we got that Spoonbill? We have not, not yet. If

you come here during the day, it is a great place to come bird watching

because it is teeming with wildfowl. Loads of them. That is the camera

again and it is completely surrounded with birds. Dublin. Black

godwit in the background, oystercatchers. Lots of those here.

Obviously, there is lots and lots because this seems to be a perfect

place for them to, and feature during the day. Enormous numbers of

them. -- to feed during the day. But why? What is so special about this

place here? If we go up into the air during the day, you can see. Look at

that. Enormous number of invention nations, the water goes into a lot

of tiny channels. When the water goes in and out, that reveals a huge

amount of mudflats as the tide goes in and out and it constantly

changes. If you imagine if you stretched out those little bit into

one long line, it would be a huge coastline. The tide also has a part

to play because, because of those inmates, it does not come in once

and out again, it is in and up and down and round things and that

reveals the mod and it covers it over so there is constant food

supply for the birds. The birds themselves, the different species

can occupy the same space and they can all be feeding, how does that

work? We are about to do the Great British beak off. This is how it

works, it is to do with their beaks. Let me get my tools. First, let's

look at a grape love. This bird jumps around one the beach pinking

of sandhoppers, how? Look at the tiny beak, like my tweezers here.

Can you see my tweezers? Let's go down. They are going along picking

of sandhoppers like this, nipping around like that. Now let's look at

a red shack. A much longer bill and it is probing down into the sand,

into the mud, looking for crustaceans, worms. How does that

beak work? Like this, but much longer so it plunges down deeply

looking for things. So the two of those, they can eat together. What

about the kill you? It has got that long beak and it feeds on a

completely different way, dipping it into the water. This is my Turkey

-based, how on Earth does that relate to the curlew? In it goes, it

dips in the bill. Hang on. And then it sucks up the fluid. I am not

doing it right. Got it there. It sucks it up into

its bill. Finally, the one we are most interested in, the spoonbill.

Let's look at the spoonbill. Look at the way it is shaking its head. That

huge bizarre bill, side-to-side. How does it work? It works like a

hydrofoil. Imagine that's the bill, as it passes over the water, let's

do it, it actually disturbs the sand underneath. As it goes across it

disturns it and up will come any little grubs. It comes back with the

bill open, whack, grabs them! That's how it works.

It's one of the only ones that's ever been discovered, that hydrofoil

bill. We will keep looking. Let's go live again to see if anything has

turned up. Across the water we have deer coming down here.

Actually I have seen lots and lots of deer footprints here in the sand,

there's loads of activity on the water's edge.

A couple of weeks ago we sent Lucy Cook out, I have to read this and

get it right, to the Royal ForestRy Society's wood in the Chilterns,

it's home to a mysterious mammal. Can you hear that?

This forest is full of animals that we know very little about.

And I can hear them calling all around.

I am watching them leap around, they look like squirrels, but they're

not. They're edible dormice. It looks like what we have here is a

family. The youngsters are just having a lot of fun running around

in the tree. But they've got a hole they keep running in and out of,

whether that's somewhere they plan on spending the winter or whether

it's a nest or now, but I think I have seen them taking what looks

like bedding in. What's really thrilling is no one's

really seen them behave like this in the wild in the dark before.

In fact, these secretive nocturnal mammals are full of surprises.

They're the subject of a rather important long-term study. Roger

leads a team of volunteers monitoring 230 nest boxes twice a

month in this small Buckinghamshire wood.

It's half-asleep. Its eyes open. Isn't that amazing.

Today, I am part of Team Edible Dormice and I am determined to do my

bit. I am going to do it. Goodness me! So you screw it in, rather than

push it. That's right. Screw the soft toy into the hole. That's

right. OK. Then lift gently from one side

and down it comes. We have to catch, identify and weigh every dormouse we

find. OK. So there is your first little

edible dor mice. Aren't they gorgeous? No, unfortunately they're

a non-native species and they're actually a problem in the woodlands

as well as in houses. In 1902, several edible dormice

escaped. Now they're perfectly at home here in the Chilterns. Look at

the way they can hang on. That makes them such fantastic arborial

animals. They produce a sticky substance out of their feet that

makes them grip even better. They were eaten by the Romans as a

delicacy, a prize for their ability to put on lots of body fat.

There you are. That's a good sized one. It's big! Hardly gets in one

hand. This one has already been fitted with a microchip so Roger can

monitor its life history and work out the dynamics of the population.

While mum goes back in the box, Roger let's me get a closer look at

one of the youngsters. He is getting ready for his first

winter. The adults will put on two to three times their body weight in

fat. It's amazing, but they're they do sleep for seven months.

But they can only achieve this fantastic physicallogical feat in

certain years. What makes a good year and a bad year? It's simply the

amount of tree flowering and if all goes well you get a lot of seeds.

Oak is one of their favourites. The animals we are seeing now are

getting large. How does this year compare with other years? Last year,

2015, not a single baby was born on site. This year, we have had at

least 650 babies born on site that we know of. The numbers are going up

all the time. Nest box after nest box is full of edible dormice. How

many are there in this wood? In this wood it's going to be thousands. Can

you work out how many there are in the Chilterns? We are working in one

part of one wood. The Chilterns, it's going to be towards the

million, if it's not past that already. Gosh! We really don't know,

we have evidence from one wood. That's... That's a lot more than I

thought there would be! As well as nuts and acorns they also

eat birds and their eggs. Roger's study has shown they destroy up to

50% of the nests he is monitoring in this wood and there is mounting

evidence that it's not just the birds they're after.

The native hazeldormice numbers are down and they've even found them

displacing bats. It's clear they're having a major impact on the local

wildlife. I have learned a lot in the last 24 hours. But I am still to

prove myself a fully fledged edible dormouse researcher.

It's escaped almost! I think I failed as a member of the team. I

think that was the moment I failed. It's laughing at me from that tree!

They may look cute, but as Roger's data proves, they're having a huge

impact in this wood. I am pleased to say that Lucy is

able to join us. Thank you for coming in. My pleasure. You met an

undeniably attractive animal but one in the wrong place. Yes, absolutely.

They're cute but they can have a significant impact on our native

birds, especially ones that nest in holes in trees. Roger told me that

the pied flycatcher and our native tits are being hard hit in the

Chilterns. They have been there a time but haven't spread that far,

about 350 metres a year which is not far. It's not far. I have brought a

map, I know you like a graphic. Ten points, Lucy! This is the main

population here, it's reasonably well contained because of the extent

of the beech wood and roads that encircle it. These small satellite

populations only exist because we have moved them there. We have moved

them, which is an ecological disaster. It is and basically it's

happened by accident because they don't just nest in trees, they also

trick to take up residence in our homes. They also get moved

deliberately because they make for irritating neighbours. If you have

them in your attic they make a lot of noise and gnaw through cables.

They're too cute to exterminate. I had them in my attic in France and

they're noisy. If you are not like myself you wouldn't want to put up

with them. If you are living in this area and you get them in your roof,

what is the plan? We should note five the mammal society, I presume?

Exactly, let them deal with it, don't deal with it problem yourself,

you might do something wrong. Don't spread these animals around, try and

contain them. It's too late to get rid of these animals now, nearly a

million of them, we have to live with them but don't want them to

spread too widely. Exactly. Unlike another animal you met in France.

This is less cute. It's the Asian hornet. I actually visited them in

France. They're considered to be a menace there because they attack

bees. We can see them doing that. I saw this in action. It's really

quite impressive. The hornets hang outside the hives where they hover

like helicopters and then swoop down and grab the poor bee as it is on

the way back from a hard day foraging and they rip their heads

off, fly them back to the nest and they chew them and feed them to

their larvae. It's every bee's nightmare. I shouldn't laugh really.

It's not funny if you are a bee. Is there evidence they are predating

bees more frequently than our native Hornets. I watched them do pretty

much the same thing? There's been a lot of alarmist headlines for sure.

We do know that they are more aggressive than our native European

Hornets. But we don't know to what extent they're actually more of a

threat to the native bees than the European Hornets are. The thing is

at the moment there's still a chance we can slow their spread to the UK.

Exactly and whatever happens, the British bees will be better off if

they weren't here. So this is actually a way that viewers can be

helpful because they can be vigilant and know their Hornets. Know your

Hornets! Here we go. They're actually really easy to tell them

apart. The European is a souped up wasp. Then the Asian hornet which is

browner and it's got this one orange band and it's smaller. If you see

one of these guys, let the national bee unit know. All the details are

on the website. Exactly. Look, we must not demonise

Hornets. No, because... They're brilliant. They do a good ecological

job and are an important part of the system. Evenly a few hours ago in

Arne we filmed this. Extraordinary, European Hornets taking that, that

is... Harlequin ladybird. One of the most invasive species on the planet.

They're custodians of our native wildlife and are doing a good job.

You know, you have to admire the European hornet. I have to say they

form relatively small colonies, European Hornets. They're more

passive than the wasp that might be annoy -- annoying you. I live with

them happily. I rarely get stung. I am a champion of the hornet. Thank

you very much for coming in. Hope to see you again soon. Michaela. From

unwelcome visitors to ones that we welcome with open arms, migrant

birds. Autumn is a great siem to see loads of migrants coming to the UK.

Some are difficult to spot, others you can't miss like these swans,

large white birds. Having said that they're the smallest of the three

swans we get in the UK, they're fantastic, long-lived birds, live up

to 30 years animate for life. Some of them come back to the same

wetlands year after year. Where are they coming from? Chris showed us

briefly yesterday they're coming from the Arctic Tundra in Russia.

They make their way through Europe, some stop in the Netherlands, some

carry on to the UK. Sadly, what we are noticing is fewer of them are

arriving here and that's because numbers have dropped dramatically in

the last 15 years. They've dropped by a third across Europe. More than

59% in the UK. Some of the threats we know about, some we don't fully

understand. One way that would really help us to understand the

problems that they face on that migration would be to fly with the

swans as they migrate through Europe. But surely that would be

impossible? Surely that would be really dangerous and slightly

foolish? Well, there's one remarkable woman that thinks she can

do it. Sasha from the Wildfowl and wetland

trust cares so much about the swans she's decided to take on an

extraordinary personal voyage. She wants to understand the challenges

the swans face and draw attention to their problems. So, she hopes to be

the first person ever to follow the swans on their epic migration.

Head across here... So experience the journey like the swans do, Sasha

is going to fly in a paramotor. A paramoat certificate one of the

most vulnerable and fragile of all aircraft. The pilot is exposed to

the elements. It was a ridiculous project that most paramotorists I

mention it to, all bar one said ridiculous, you can't do it. But

local pilot Vlad is sure it can be done and he agrees to support Sasha

in her attempt. He knows the Tundra almost as well as the swans.

Unlike the Swans, a migrating human needs 24 hour back-up on the ground.

It is hard to predict where swash will land but the support he must

keep up. It is September and Bewick swans are leaving the tundra before

the Arctic winter sets in. They are long haul flight specialists, able

to fly 48 hours at a stretch. But Sasha can fly a maximum of three

hours at a time. As the swans can fly faster than Sasha, she will not

actually be able to fly amongst them, she will fly in their wake.

As soon as you get airborne, it is totally awe-inspiring.

Although the swans fly on ahead, Sasha can experience the world as

they do. We basically just flew 60 kilometres across some of the most

beautiful landscape, nothing like I have seen before. That was great!

For the first leg of the expedition, that was fantastic!

But Sasha's look is short lived. Her engine fails. And Vlad and his

helicopter have to take the paramotor away to be fixed.

Really disheartened, we got to this point on day one. But while she

waits, Sasha enjoys the local cuisine. Wild mushroom venison

students. Thanks to some friendly reindeer herders.

-- students. Bewick swans face many threats, power lines, loss of

habitat and a third of them arriving in the UK have been shot at. By

following their roots personally, Sasha is hoping to find out why.

Next morning, Sasha has found a new way of flying. And Vlad has got the

engine fixed. Thank God.

Vlad's hard work has saved Sasha's mission and she makes it back into

the air! She can now follow the Swans Westwood, towards the coast of

the Baltic Sea. -- Westwood. Swans, they are beautifully aerodynamically

adapted and they can cope with the cold and wind much better than a

human can. This is what in a couple of days

across flying -- of flying across the tundra is doing to my face, I

have put the eyes, hydration, so perhaps I have not been drinking

enough in flight. After five gruelling days, Sasha makes it to

the Southern edge of the tundra, she has completed the first stage of the

journey of the swans but she has to say goodbye to her Arctic hero Vlad

and carry on without him. He has gone all the way. From being

the first person to stop, just asking me who is the pilot of the

paramotor going to be? Assuming it could not be me, and saying it was

impossible to cross, Vlad said first of all, yes, it is.

I think she can do it. As Sasha takes to the air again, the scale of

the next stage of her journey is revealed. The dense tiger forest.

This is the world's greatest expanse of trees. It has very few places to

land. I have found this quite physically

challenging, to be honest. Sasha still has 4,000 miles to go.

Through her eyes, we get an unprecedented view from the swans of

the most challenging migrations in the world.

What an incredible and brave lady, she has taken on such a challenge

and already faced so many problems. If I show you on the map, in those

first seven days, she went from here, she has just reached that

point in Russia. If I go to a different colour here, some of the

birds have already crossed Europe. They have crossed over here and

arrived here. I know what you're going to say, I

think I did really well, that is the first time he has allowed me to go

on the touch-screen, we will have to share it in future! I think I was

really rather good! Was at one hour or two that you spent this afternoon

messing around practising on that? All afternoon! It was not bad. It

really was not bad. Martin, any spooning out there? No,

Chris, not yet. Sorry about this, I know I look like WSDL Bromwich!

Strap has gone on that side, apologies. -- was all gone each. We

are trying to get live pictures of the exotic Eurasian Spoonbill and it

should be out in the dark. We can have another look and see if it is

there, anything there? Nothing at all, any other cameras? What else is

out there? Anything at all? No, that is our special heat sensitive

camera. I am afraid the appearance of the fox has scuppered the

spoonbills tonight. Sadly, but that is natural history for you. We have

heard that there are spoonbills moving around and over on Brownsea,

we have heard them. So we sent one of our top wildlife cameraman over

there to see if he could film them. And of course, he could! He went to

the National Trust Brownsea reserve and this is where they are, look at

all those spoonbills. They look like an egret but they are bigger and

they do not talk in their necks. 43 of them, they tend to stick together

in groups like this, in a big flop. Nobody knows what the collective

name is for a flock of spoonbills. Some say a canteen. I prefer a

canteen, others say it is a ball. That is a very exotic site.

Beautiful. I'm going to show you the bar chart of optimism. There it is,

look at that! This is the numbers of spoonbills that have appeared here

in Brownsea over the years. 2005, gradually, the numbers go distinctly

up and up. Until last year and this year, 60 spoonbills. They do not

stay here all winter, some of them just stop over and feed and move to

France or Portugal. Some do stay here all winter. We are going to

keep that camera going so that we hope we can get intimate views of

spoonbills sometime during this run of Autumnwatch.

Gillian Burke has been out and about looking at the animals around us

here in Arne and she took advantage of the Indian summer to go out on a

reptile hunt. Because Arne is this incredible

mosaic of heathland and scrub and woodlands, it is one of the best

places in the country to see all six of the British reptiles. The RSPB

undertake monthly reptile surveys here. This year for the first time,

the survey has been expanded right across the reserve. This will help

to assess the health of the reptile population on Arne. Robert

Barrington is leading the study and I am joining him on the last day of

data collection before the end of the season.

So this is much more conducive to your classic habitat of adders so I

am using my stick to lift it. That is a grass snake. There we go. Not

the adder, a young grass snake. Look at that. Yes, please! I don't know

if you can see that creamy coloured collar behind the neck. That is one

way to tell if you have the rest snake.

A surprise is that Rob has found grass snakes and they are in a lot

of different habitats, especially as they mostly hunt amphibians. I think

we can let this little fellow back. But the biggest surprise result is

from the last two species of snake. You would expect to find the adders

across most of Arne but they were missing from one key site, the

heats. Instead, Rob has found a lot of smooth snakes here. Oh, yes, well

seen, that is a smooth snake. Smooth snakes freeze when observed,

making themselves almost invisible. Yes.

That is a beauty! These snakes do not have scales like a grass snake

or the adders, they really do feel super and polished.

This is a male and this is a very large male. Pretty much as long as a

smooth snake would get. Impressive, I am so happy. The

rarest snake in Britain and a big specimen as well. What is

interesting is the head shape because normally, they have bullet

shaped heads. That is right, this guy is doing

something you more often seen with grass snakes, flattening his head.

Probably to try and trick us into thinking he has venom glands like an

adder which they do not, they are constricted and Thomas. Look at that

now, it is looking really adder like. Take his weight. There we go.

Time for your close-up. Perfect. You will take that photo back and check

if this is an individual you have come across before? Yes, but I am

confident it is not. This is the first time I think we have recorded

smooth snakes on this bank here, which is fantastic.

So why does rob think they do not find smooth snakes and adders

together? It could be smooth snakes, they are reptile Hunters and they

could be eating big young adders. They specialise on hunting snakes

and lizards? The other reptiles do not? I find that neat. You have got

the grass snake which is the biggest reptile. You have got the adder,

Britain's only venomous. But it is the smooth snake that is running

around terrorising a lot of them. So as well as the twist in the tail

of the smooth snake's surprising dominance in heathland, this year's

biggest ever survey showing city pub -- shows that city's reptiles will

thrive if the right mix of habitats become available.

-- Arne. Interesting that the smooth snakes might have eaten the adders

but the adder is in big trouble in the UK, declining here on Arne and

all over. A couple of thoughts, some people think it could be pheasants.

They eat a lot of snakes, young snakes in particular, and also the

buzzard, think -- the population has increased and they will take adders

as well. At the beginning of the show, we did

ask for pictures of birds on the autumn bounty of berries. You sound

great pictures and I love best. This is a robin on hawthorn berries. A

difficult jigsaw, a 5,000 piece jigsaw at Christmas, keep you busy

until Easter! This is on rowan berries from David

in Dartmoor. That is nice. It has caught it in its mouth. Finally, a

blackbird and hawthorn berries from Paul Johnson. That is in

Lincolnshire. That looks like it might choke. They are used to

swallowing them whole, they like that with the seeds inside.

Tomorrow, we are on later at night p.m., it is to do with soggy bottoms

and a lot of fans like Bake Off and wildlife. Enjoy the Bake Off and

switch over at nine o'clock to BBC Two.

Do not miss our programme tomorrow, we have one of the sexiest animals

in Britain, ladybird spider, that is phenomenal!

We will be following the action of the sika deer and meeting this

handsome chap. Michaela heads to Somerset to catch

up on these rescued grey seals. Don't forget, you can catch up the

latest updates online. Enjoy your cakes! Make the most of them! We

will be on at the later time of nine o'clock, BBC Two, be on your sofas,

see you then. I buy! The night! -- goodbye! Good