Episode 4 Autumnwatch

It is our last show, what a shame. It has gone so quickly. It has been

an amazing autumn, full of colour, a cast of characters and a wonderful

collection of creatures. But it's not over yet. So, rather like a

kestrel around your television set because we are about to bring you

the very best of British seasonal wildlife. It's Autumnwatch!

Yes, hello and welcome to the final programme of 2016's Autumnwatch from

the wonderful RSPB reserve here at Arne. A fabulous week and a fabulous

morning as well. We got up early and when the sun came up it was

gorgeous. A bit misty, one of the Stags in the mist. This has been the

week when the fungal fruiting bodies, the toadstools and so on,

have come out in force and there is a tremendous variety. In fact there

are probably 1 million species around the world, 17,000 in the UK.

They come with some fantastic names. This is flyer Garrick, a fairy tale

mushroom and there is another one called the which's egg. Perhaps my

favourite, the Wolf fight Puffball. Presumably it smells like a wolf.

Have you ever eaten a parasol mushroom? I haven't, I like seeing

them standing in the woods but I can't bring myself to eat them. I

used to pick the blue ones and they are one of the only purple coloured

foods that people regularly eat. Do you see a little fairy sitting on

top of one of them? OK, moving on! This week we have been peering into

the darkness with our special thermal camera. Let's go live now.

We have deer here. What's exciting about the camera, you never know

what you are going to see. There is a stag, you can just see the

antlers. If anything particularly exciting happens, we will bring it

to you as it happens. They were meeting last night. Indeed come

Meeting! We will give you the finale of the Mouse Maze. We have been

testing out the Arne mice, they have been challenged and now the tiny

mice are vertically challenged, so to speak. This is the maze live. We

have flipped it to the vertical position. Nothing in there now but

plenty of action and later we will give you the results of whether our

mice managed to crack the vertical maze or not. Also there is about 15

minutes for you to vote on the name of our eagle. In the spring what's

we followed this lovely bird in its nest -- Springwatch. It has been

fitted with a tag and we will follow it for as long as it lasts, maybe up

to six years. You have a chance to name it, we have Hermione, Freya and

Highlander. The details on the 15 minutes left. Our cameramen have

been out and about around Arne and it is one of the most spectacularly

beautiful places we visited. This is the lowland heath, one of the

important habitats here. Low-lying heather. One of the key things is

the water, a lot of water bodies providing food for beautiful birds

like this kingfisher, this hungry kingfisher. He's going to go down. I

think he missed. There are many berries and nuts. We've been

watching animals feasting on these berries and nuts. Of course it is

the water bodies that are the key to Arne. All of the waders come here,

it is a magnet for them. Providing food. Will the kingfisher get

something this time? Yes! He got something at last, a little fish.

You never tire of watching the kingfisher fishing. They are

beautiful. I'm going to go! You are off! To keep this habitat commit

this mosaic, the RSPB must work very hard. Ooh! Live wildlife! The RSPB

must work very hard, volunteers and staff but they have started

employing a brand-new very exciting to to try to keep the mosaic going

and I'm going to go and meet the tool! I've got a feeling he's going

to get down and dirty! All week, Gillian Burke has been exploring the

wildlife around Arne. Red squirrels, reptiles and some beautiful spiders.

But tonight she meets some fabulous flying creatures of the night.

On the eastern reaches of the Jurassic Coast, a wild peninsular.

This is such a dramatic place. The real drama happens after dark. This

clifftop quarry, and used by humans, was discovered to be one of the most

important sites for bats in all of the UK. Incredibly, 15 of our 18

resident species have been found here in the last five years. I'm

joining Nick Tomlinson, who would like to know why it is such a hot

spot, especially in autumn. We are going to put up this net at the top

of the poles into the bottom and it acts like a barrier, so they come

around the corner, this is in a corner and we have a net around the

corner that they fly into. This is like a dummy net? Yes. Perfect, like

a professional. Nick and his team of licensed researchers and enthusiasts

must record which bats are here and why. To find out we have all sorts

of technology at our disposal. Now we just have two weight. -- now we

must wait. The first thing that the thermal imaging camera picks up is a

roosting bat coming out of one of the caves. Sally soon picks up some

calls on her high-tech bat detector. What are we hearing? It is a

confusing picture. It sounds like a frog, it is actually a cricket in

the background. What was that? That was the little pipistrelle, the

smallest bat. It is calling. Each time you hear that it is catching

its prey? It is catching its prey. It is a great sound. What's amazing

is that we can't hear this, this piece of kit is converting it to

help us, what would otherwise be inaudible. Exactly. The pipistrelles

Zunes and ends -- pipistrelle soon ends up in the net and then the team

takes down its vital statistics. 30.4. Once in the hand we can see it

is an adult female who hasn't read this year. -- hasn't bred. Gorgeous

little animal. That is a beauty. This is a long eared bat. They come

down here to meet the opposite sex, it is basically a dating site. Speed

dating! Pretty much! Like most British species, long eared bats

make in the autumn. Gathering in a single place makes it easier to

select the best partner -- mate in the autumn. Would you like to have a

go with this one? Yes. Very gentle. My gosh, look at his ears! Isn't a

fantastic, great little creature. So beautiful to see the ears. The

entire time he was being processed, his ears were curled down but at the

last moment they opened and he went into the darkness. Beautiful. The

thermal imaging camera is picking up more and more activity. There are

four bats coming into view. Chasing each other. It's incredible

aerobatics. One third of British bats exhibit this behaviour, when

the males show off their flying skills. We won't know which species

this is until one goes into the net. It is the most numerous catch, the

Natterer's bat. They can catch a spider out of the middle of a spider

's web without hitting the web. The species tally increases. This is a

Bechstein's bat. Population around 2500 across the UK. There are more

hot for this species. A woodland specialist. If it is a woodland

species, is it a surprise to find it in the cave overlooking the sea? The

fact it is here shows the power of sex because these things are

probably not travelling more than one kilometre the whole summer but

in the autumn they will travel over 15 kilometres of countryside to get

to places like this. There he goes. Off into the darkness. In just one

night we have caught 27 bats, five different species. Some of them are

using the quarry to roost or fatten up for the winter. But it appears

that most are coming here from far and wide to find a mate. This quarry

is the biggest pick-up joint in town and one of the most important places

for bats in Britain. How fantastic to see so many bats.

It is a bit like speed dating at a supermarket. Getting your groceries

and everything at the same time. Have you tried it? Speed dating at

the supermarket? I'm only putting things straight on shelves, that's

as far as I can go, I can pull a trolley but not much else. You saw

that the bats were short distance migrants but at this time of year

there are some long distance migrants, called Matthews years

pipistrelle, and some come from Latvia and Lithuania. Some of them

go 4000 kilometres. -- called Nathusius' pipistrelle. They have

been found in Kent and other parts of the south-east. At this time of

year, these tiny bats, they weigh around six grams, moving from that

part of Europe to this to spend their winter. Incredible. Tiny

animal like that. We've just been seeing some bats about 200 metres

down here across the field where our thermal camera is. They are there

now, look at that. Now you're going to ask me which species it is. Yeah,

what species is that, Chris? The small, white distant bat! What we

can do in situations like this, we can postulate what species it is

determined by its behaviour, this bat is going up and down, taking

insects close to the ground. It isn't a long eared bat, they can

hunt in the trees, it isn't a horseshoe bat. This is a smaller

species, it may be a pipistrelle, it is unlikely to be a Daubenton's bat.

I'm going for a pipistrelle or Natterer's bat. If you are a bat

expert and you are certain what it is, let us know. Happy to be

corrected. It flew past the deer and when we arrived there was a deer

right behind us. It was a snag. It was warning itself by the fire. We

have a lot of live cameras around -- it was a snag. There is nothing on

this camera at the moment but we have learned a lot from the Badger

Camara. There two badgers around. It is near eight set. You may expect

for there to be more of them but he flagged is not rich in Atlanta so

you wouldn't expect many badgers around. This fox readily comes, it

is a young one, from this year. It hasn't been on its own, it has a

sibling too. We've seen a lot of interaction between the Badger and

the Fox and the two foxes. Look at that. That is a palmay newt. It was!

It is great to see this, at night they looked like white foxes but of

course that is their colouring and this is a very healthy looking fox.

These guys are doing very well at Arne and it is lovely to see them. I

think we should rename the camera at the Fox camera because we have seen

more foxes than badgers. Not a great place for badgers, though. This acid

soil, not many earthworms. We have seen the badgers out in the fields

where the deer are. Not the only live camera we have, we have rowboat

spoony, a artificial spoonbill out there on the edges of Poole Harbour.

There it is. We cannot see too much at the

moment. On the wader cam... Having given me the challenge to identify a

small bat from a distance, what is out there? Widgeon? Teal? I cannot

see it, I am afraid. We have seen plenty more, I have to say. Here we

are, this was our success, a spoonbill that has come to forage in

front of our robotic spoonbill camera. Up to 60 of these will

gather at Poole Harbour, the largest roost in the UK. They have started

breeding again recently. With the summer we have better views and

there was a host of wages. The numbers are building all the time as

we move to winter, coming from various parts of Europe. They might

not all stay in Poole Harbour, they might move on to other parts of the

UK or Europe. It is nice to see a curlew. And a snipe. This is a

fantastic thing. Becoming rarer in the UK. An extremely sensitive tip,

touching the surface of the mud. It can detect pressures and it will

tell it if there is any pray and it will seize it. We will be here for

Winterwatch and it should be bursting at the seams with birds.

Martin is finding out sometimes you need more than a tractor and digger

to manage a reserve. Very true. Some get agitated when

people chop down trees. I am not going to really. That is quite

right, you get agitated, but habitat management is having the right trees

in the right place and sadly this is the wrong tree in the wrong place.

It is a pine tree and these were planted all over the reserve just

after the war because we needed softwood to make pit props down

coalmines. This is no good on the heath. When the trees grow up, they

suffocate everything else. Down here there is nothing growing. It is

completely covered in needles, debris from the trees. This should

be Heather, Lola and Heather. Chopping the trees down is not so

bad -- low land. To remove this, you need a lot of heavy machinery. It is

difficult to get up here, very expensive and so the RSPB came up

with a novel solution. Come with me. Here is the novel solution. These

are pigs. They do not look like pigs because they have curly further. It

is snuffling with the snout. They like a banana. Here, mate, do you

want a banana? # Have a banana. That does not work.

I went out to see the effect these can have on the habitat under the

pine trees. It was astonishing. Look at this. That is how the whole

area looked. A lot of conifer and scrub underground. That is almost a

monoculture, not good for wildlife generally. Now look at this,

completely ploughed up. Hello. That is what the pigs have been able to

do, they have cleared the area completely. They will now go away

and new plants, things that we want here such as heather will grow up.

Look at this, the poodles of the pig world!

This is my favourite, this golden pig. They are busy, they never stop.

You would think the snout would be sensitive but it is unstoppable.

When it has cleared, heather will grow in the cleared area and that is

perfect for the lowland heathland specialities, things like the

Dartford warbler. 50 years ago there were only two pairs here and now

there are 60. This is Britain's rarest snake. The smooth snake. And

this is a lovely sand lizard. And on acid water you get specialist

animals such as the raft spider. An enormous spider. The pigs are doing

a wonderful job and it says the RSPB money and the pigs are getting a lot

of lovely food. I will give this one a little bit of a massage and see if

we can get more friendly. He looks very at home with the pigs. I like

the idea of animals doing conservation work. Do you know why?

Why? You do not have too pay them. You have to feed them and look after

them. Volunteer pigs are like that. The live cameras have got a lot of

action tonight and we saw this on the badger cam a couple of hours ago

and these are the foxes we were talking about. They are siblings and

doing exactly what you would expect young puppies to do, playing,

testing each other out. I have a puppy and it does a lot of biting

and that is what they are doing. One is mail the other is female and the

male will disperse, the female will probably stick around but it is

lovely to see. It is. I take umbrage with playing, I think they are

sorting out the hierarchy. They are playing, like we do. A little bit of

biting. Moving on. We have been watching the sika deer and the Stags

can be spectacular. They are not as big as red Stags, nor as small as

the roe deer, they are in between. They have been growing their antlers

since the summer. This is the rutting season and they are

vocalising a lot. Among the species they are perhaps the most vocal,

producing a range of grunting and groans and bleats. These are the

hinds, we have been watching these each night. This stag we have been

following. He is moving towards the Highness, because he has one idea on

his mind and that is mating. -- towards the hinds. They only have

one opportunity a year to do this and they are only in season for 24

hours. We have had cameras on the hyenas and it is this time of year

they come together in a herd. There is one of last year's Young. The

tale is beautifully flared. Still trying to suckle. It will probably

stay with its mother until its third year and that is the time it will

successfully breed. They are tender with their young. This is the time

of year you see them in a herd. After the rutting season they tend

to only come together for grazing. We have watched them at night. They

are very vocal. SQUEAKING SOUND. That is an alarm call. The mother

will make it and her young will copy it, almost do it back to each other.

They start breeding in their third year and they continue to breed

until they are about 15 and so they are very productive. They can be

very productive. When we think of dear rutting there are classic

models with fallow deer, which establishes a rotting stand from

which he will bellow. The classic red deer where the males move to an

arena to compete with fighting and they manage a harem of females. The

sika deer behave differently, because it is a different set of

resources and habitats and animals. When they are in the woodland in the

daytime there is not much to eat. They have to come out at night and

the females go to the best foraging areas. These are the grassy fields

where we have watched them. The male deer followed them to the grassy

fields and patrol around behind the females, seeing if one of them will

come into season. There are other male deer about and occasionally

jostles, but not as much fighting as with the red deer. A lot of young

males will turn up, sniff about, see if there's a chance to sneak in.

Throughout the course of the day the biggest male deer will stick as

close as they can to the females and if there is an opportunity they will

mate. What leads to this difference in behaviour is the degree of

competition, the density of the male deer and distribution of the females

relative to their food. It is an unusual rut then you see another

species of deer in the UK. They are less studied the sika deer in the UK

than red deer and there is still stuff we need to learn about them.

One way of learning about animal behaviour is to use infrared cameras

and tracking technology. We have investigated how tracking technology

is helping us to understand the behaviour of badgers. I am a

journalist who has always had a passion for British wildlife. An

invitation to join scientist Rosie, who has just published a new study

into the movements of countryside badgers was something I could not

refuse. This is one of this year's Cubs. I will release it. By tracking

them closely raise dash-macro is the is investigating how bovine TB is

spread. They are a source of TB in cattle. It has never been there and

how they transmit it. The tracking work has examined how often and how

closely badgers and cattle interact with each other.

You can see the difference. This one is wearing a GPS collar. Rosie has

fitted collars on 50 badgers and their secret lives are being

revealed. You hope to tag more badgers? We hope to be able to do

more. We try to get at least one macro in each social groups so we

get a picture of where they are going across the whole farm. This

valuable location data is stored on the collars and can be downloaded

remotely. Now, onto a nearby sett. This is the sort of place badgers

and cattle have an opportunity to come into contact. We have a field

with cattle and a sett in the hedge. We will try to track it down and try

to download data. The beeping means it is nearby. There it is. Now that

we have located the badger, remarkably we can dramatically

download the data. Despite the badger being underground. We get a

location every 20 minutes. It like some fields, like this one, and

others not so much. Mrs one badger, incredible how far he has travel. --

this is one badger. People think they come a short distance but in

this landscape, it is divided into territories. In the farmland site,

they love to be on the cattle pasture, because it is a rich source

of earthworms, their preferred food. They also put collars on cows in the

same area to find out where they spend their time. If I switch on,

you can overlay locations of cattle on the same farm. And from this data

you collate it to work out the behaviour pattern. We put the

collars on 54 badgers. The big question you try to answer is if

they come together. The short answer is no. We found badgers and cattle

use the same fields but they seldom use them at the same time. With

badgers mostly active at night, when cows are normally asleep, it is

thought they are selectively avoiding fields with cows and so

they rarely meet. To be sure of this, Rosie has taken the technology

one step further. The GPS collars are not a good way of looking at

meeting because they take the location every 20 minutes. A better

way is this technology. This is a radio transmitter on a collar and it

can be detected by this cam Carla at distances of two metres or less.

After that, the badgers, the cows, did they meet?

The short answer is, no. We had these on 421 cattle on four

different farms but we never detected contact between a collar

that was on a Badger and one that was on a cow. So the TB isn't coming

from the badgers and cows meeting, where is it coming from? Why

elimination it must be happening through the environment, the ground,

so we must find out where. We are sampling the soil, the Badger faeces

and water sources, trying to locate where in the environment the

bacteria are hiding. Rosie is continuing to work out how TB is

transmitted between animals in fields which will be invaluable

information in the ongoing debate into the control of this disease.

Rosie's investigations into badgers and cattle will continue and we will

bring you her results as they are published. If you want the latest on

badgers and bovine TB you can check out the BBC News website because

they have constant updates. I have just heard, talking of badgers, we

have them on the infrared camera. Is that two? It is the thermal camera,

and just behind the tree! Hopefully he comes out the other side. He is

playing peekaboo. Is that his tail? I don't think we'll wait. On Tuesday

we introduced you to a remarkable woman, brave and intrepid, called

Sasha Dench and she is doing a crazy mission of trying to follow the

migratory root of swans from the tundra in Russia all the way to the

UK. The film we showed you on Tuesday, she went from here, the

first leg of the journey, getting her to there. The update is that

unfortunately she had an accident, she has dislocated her knee. Was

that going to stop her? Of course not! This woman is on a mission, so

she modified her parrot motor -- para motor, it looks like a flying

tricycle and she did this so there was no pressure on her knee on

take-off and there it goes, precariously taking off and she is

continuing her mission to follow the buick swans. Over the last four

weeks she has been flying food Northern Europe and she has gone

here, to Estonia, where she landed a couple of days ago and she's been

grounded because of the weather. There is a lot of snow around but

the good news is that she isn't alone, she's with a lot the buick

swans, 3000 out of the 18,000 that are migrating have decided to stay

there. It is their staging post where they refuel. Some of them have

flown down to the Netherlands, they have seen 100 of them there. Some of

them will stay there, some of them will carry on to the UK and in fact

in Welney they've already had 20, more arriving and they will keep

arriving until February. She's going to carry on, hopefully the weather

will change and she will continue her journey. She has learned a lot

already but the most brilliant thing is that she has raised awareness for

the plight of Bewick's swans because their numbers have dropped

dramatically by one third over the last 15 years. When she has done

that journey, she hopes to understand the threats that they

face. But it is an incredible thing that she's taken on. To get that far

is amazing, she is two weeks behind schedule but we wish her luck and if

you would like to continue following her journey you can do that online,

details on our website. At the moment she is stuck in the snow in

Estonia so I bet she wants to know what the weather has in store for

us. One man may be able to give her good news, it is Nick Miller. There

may be a brief window of opportunity for Sacha and the swans at the end

of the weekend. It is low pressure in Estonia, it is rain and snow, a

headwind for much of the distance between there and here but if we

follow the wind and how they develop over the weekend, at the end of the

weekend the arrows will disappear for a brief time, high pressure and

then the wind will pick up on Tuesday and then we are back to

square one, another area of low pressure, rain and snow. Not just

difficult for Sacha and the swans but other birds that are trying to

migrate from Scandinavia. They have had an easy ride so far. For us next

week, hints of something coming from the north, cooling things down from

the mild levels at the moment. And we will look further ahead for

autumn into November. Something cooler, that would make sense but

perhaps temperatures falling below average, looking less likely than

usual for the time of year, strong storms with big winds, which is good

news for the very young, those seal pups we saw yesterday, they don't

want so many big waves crashing onto the shore line. It is good for us

too. What do you want to do after Autumnwatch, you want to see autumn

for yourself and if the weather is like this it won't get in your way.

Thank you, Nick, that is just the message. If you have kids, take them

out into the countryside to meet some wildlife. A few minutes ago out

in the fields behind me here we got this on our thermal camera. This is

one of the Sikas bags and it is you're innate in, nothing unusual

about that apart from the fact that it is covering itself in the you're

in Ammar because it uses it to identify itself, to tell other deer

about it age. Some of the liquid coming from the deer like that is

unique to the individual at this time of year so when he engages with

females and other males, they will know from sniffing him all of his

background biology. It is like a business card. Like his Internet

dating page. So this liquid which is packed with chemicals is very

important. If there are any more sites we will go to them. Back at

Easter we lost the BBC do something great campaign, we wanted to do

something great for nature and we have continued to do that in

Springwatch, encouraging people to volunteer to look after British

wildlife. We formed a partnership with the Royal Horticultural

Society. Martin dug deep into his wardrobe to find some smart clothes

and find out who had done well. I have come to the prestigious Royal

Horticultural Society Britain in Bloom awards. In this room are the

72 finalists. A lot of different categories but they have been

entered for the wildlife and conservation award. In a moment we

will find out who has won and why. Those who made the cut have created

wildlife havens all over the country. One of the most remarkable

green spaces isn't what you'd expect. Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park

is unrivalled and we are in woodland in zone two of Britain, a sense of

the countryside in the City where people can see butterflies and birds

and flowers and have a sense of escapism. Volunteers help to

maintain this site in the heart of London and thousands of people are

visiting through the year. In autumn, people come here to seek the

season change, the blackberries appearing, the rowan berries, the

seeds on the plants and the trees changing colour. That's really

powerful. You know, we have rare spiders and beetles and those that

are uncommon in the urban context because we want people to enjoy a

bit of the countryside in the City. But the award isn't just about

individual spaces. The Birmingham Ranger service has been commended

for their work across the City. We offer a range of different

programmes so people can come to our events. We have 200 year. Pupils

will come here and spend the day with a Ranger. The Ranger service

looks after 186 wildlife designated parks all over the City, from small

green spaces up to Sutton Park, the largest urban nature reserve in

Europe. They collaborate with many organisations do inspire the people

of Birmingham to get involved. We offer a volunteer programme, over

2500 individuals gave us 13,000 hours last year, helping us to get a

lot of work done that we wouldn't be able to do as a single team and it

engenders ownership of these sites. The parks are very well used and

valued and an important part in the life of the City and the people who

live here. The ranger service harnesses the power of the people on

a large scale. But you don't need to be in a major City to do your bit

for wildlife. Farnham, Surrey, where it small-scale people power is being

very effective too. We started in 2007, really a special place with a

mix of habitats. We are an entirely voluntary group, we have about 30

active volunteers. The Bourne conservation group have created an

oasis for wildlife all year round with a variety of different

features. We have the wildlife pond which has frogs and newts, Aquatics

males and dragonflies. -- aquatic snails. We are keen to support the

bottom edge along of wildlife, beetles for example and for them we

put in a number of artificial habitats, log piles and we have stag

beetles in the area. 70% of all stag beetle sightings come from our own

gardens and bonds are home to over half of our frogs -- ponds. So

reserves and gardens are now crucial habitats for British wildlife and

the Britain in Bloom award is one way of encouraging this important

work. This is a hard-fought competition between the best of the

best and I have the pleasure of announcing the winner of the

wildlife and conservation award. OK, the judges were looking for three

things, horticulture, environment and community. Tower Hamlets

Cemetery Park are deserving and is the race and the winners of this

award. With over 30 acres of woodland, extensive wild flower

Meadows, the cemetery brings wildlife to people in the middle of

London. The Tower Hamlets project is incredible. So are the other

contestants. Here is the thing, you don't have to have 30 acres to play

with. My sister has sunk a Belfast sink into her back garden in the

middle of Bristol and now it is full of frogs. Even small things can make

a serious difference. Wise words! It's true, isn't it, we

can all do something to help wildlife. What have you done? It has

to be ponds. What about you? I am still waiting for some residents in

my bat box. Time for the finale of the Mouse Maze, we have been

challenging our mice here at Arne, we have a maze which is like a

Crystal Maze, we have changed it one way and then the other and then we

moved it vertically. How have they got on? Let's watch. Here they come.

This is a serious challenge, they need brainpower and athleticism too.

Mental and physical. I was concerned, I wondered if they would

crack this at all. This one certainly isn't doing a brilliant

job so far. Staying quite close to the entrance and it almost looks

like it's going to give up. Perhaps it isn't looking for food, it is

full ready, Michaela, it is just exploring! It is like an assault

course. It is exploring, really. That looks almost impossible, look

where the food is now, it's never going to get there. You can see that

they have to go over things, they must climb up things. That's an

interesting manoeuvre. Jackie Bruce Lee! Is it going to give up? --

Jackie Chan. It is giving up. Coming back now. Let's see how long it

takes to actually solve this puzzle. Because it is eventually going to do

it. This is speeded up, obviously. Here it comes. It nearly popped out.

Look at those eyes. The whiskers working all the time. This is the

first time it solves the maze and it does it in 93 seconds. Off it goes

with a nut. And it decides to settle down in the maze. Why not? It is

interesting. When they meet there is often a great deal of aggression and

handbags. Remember, this is in the dark. It is probably a surprise when

they bump into each other. It is fascinating because when they meet,

these two, there is no aggression and I suspect they are probably

related. They know each other. We can see them greet each other.

Fascinating. I did not think they would crack that. I thought they

would. It did take a greater number of attempts to first find it in 93

seconds. They have normally done it in eight, ten goes, but this time

many more. Once they cracked it, how quickly could they get to the nuts?

After a hit of refreshment the mouse enters the maze. Look at it go.

17 seconds. Amazing. What a mouse. I think it is brilliant. Fantastic.

Behind the fun we have done some science. What have we learned? They

are using maps. They are firstly using a visual map and we learned

this when we twisted the maze. They use external stimuli they can see

through the glass. They use the whiskers, constantly feeling the

sides. Maybe they can remember turn left, turn right, who knows? They

use a smell map stop they are you're relating constantly in the maze and

they can actively choose -- urinating. They are developing a

working memory, that once you have learnt it you can repeat it. After

14 days the mice will forget that. Why do they do it? At this time of

year, going into winter, every second counts. You cannot afford to

waste time when finding food because in nature, it is not tolerant of the

wastage. They have to shop efficiently and that is what they

are doing. Brilliant. It has been really great. We have something even

more exciting than the mouse maze. Surely not. It is time to get the

result of the naming of the golden eagle, the chick we were watching on

Springwatch. What an amazing little chick. We watched it when it was

tiny, we have watched it grow up, it it has fledged. We asked you to come

up with suggestions of names. Thousands of you did and there was a

huge variety. We whittled it down to three. We chose the ones we wanted

to back. I went for Hermione, a great Harry Potter name. No

surprises, head girl. I went for Freya. A goddess. I went for

Highlander, because there can be only one. 10,000 view voted. I can

tell you the votes are in. We have the results. Personally delivered by

a passing bird. You do not know the result. In third place, with 18%

was... Highlander. In second place with 27% was Hermione. In first

place with 55% of the votes was... Freya. That is what our golden eagle

chick will be named and I think it is a beautiful name and probably the

best name of the three. Thanks everybody for getting involved. We

have tagged the chick and can bring queue up on Winterwatch when

hopefully she will have spread her and fledged further. We are lucky we

have a selection of brilliant camera men and women filming. Robin Smith

is about to take us to one of his favourite places.

I first went canoeing on the River Wye when I was 15 years old. As a

boy from the East End of London coming to this part of the current

tree for the first time was a pretty big deal. I have had a love affair

with it ever since. Autumn is a special time of the year to be on

the river. It is very steep valleys and woodland on most of the banks

for the majority of the lower sections of the river and this time

of year, I don't think there is anywhere like it in the country.

Historically going back hundreds of years people have used all over the

world to get close to wildlife. The birds see more tolerant, I can get

closer as I travel through, from that boat. Because you are moving at

the same rate as the current, it is almost like you are part of the

environment, it is taking you where it wants to go.

The canoe is an excellent way to put camera traps on the river and it

gives me access to places I would not normally be able to get to by

foot or by car. If I get regular hits on camera trap I know it is a

good place to spend time my main camera. I have had pretty good hits

so far with a mix of things. The most exciting is we have had otters,

a mother with two Cubs and possibly a dog otter on his own, four all

visiting the same spot and it looks like they use it as a scent marking

place, by leaving a spray, like an oily substance, it almost has a

sweet smell. Some people say it smells like jasmine tea. At this

time of year it is a time of plenty and the last stop for a lot of

animals before winter hits. They try to do everything to store food for

the winter and fill their system with food.

Good long days paddling along the river and you often feel like you

have done some exercise and it is really nice when you find a spot to

set up camp and settle for the evening and you have that warm

tiredness that only comes from work, really. All you can hear is the

running water, just the sound of the wildlife around you.

Autumn seems to give the perfect combination of weather conditions to

give the most amazing mist on the river. They just hang in the

valleys, low down to the water. The snake of mist hugging the river

along the valley bottom, whereas on the hillside, it is clear. It is

never as good as it is in the autumn.

I managed to find a deeper who was frantically foraging in the

shallows, catching snails and grubs. I watched him for a couple of hours,

he let to be get really close. It is a really healthy sign because it

means right down to that microscopic level, the fish and insects life is

abundant. To me, it is a sign the river is in good condition, really

healthy. There is nothing like being able to pack your boat in minutes

and you are gone, you are part of the river again. If somebody told me

as that 15-year-old boy that one day I would be living a stone's throw

from this river, I would not leave it and I still have to pinch myself

now, really. -- I would not have believed it.

That looked tranquil. As Robin was saying, camera traps are a great way

of finding out what wildlife you have around you. There have been

some magic moments. The spider crabs, fantastic, what a spectacle.

Thousands appearing off the beaches south Wales. Coming out, finding

their way out of their old shells. Awesome. I am going to go for the

sand hoppers. We have to champion the underdog look at every aspect of

ecology and sometimes the little things mean more because many birds

come to feed on the sand hoppers through the course of the winter. I

will go for something emotional, the gorgeous golden eagle chick that is

now named Freya, fledging. This was the moment she left the nest, spread

her wings and flew through the beauty of the Scottish Highlands.

Fantastic. It will be exciting to follow the eagle. Sadly we have

almost run out of time but join me for a Facebook chat immediately

after the show. Ask me some questions and I will do my best to

answer. We will be back at RSPB Arne in the winter. This series may have

come to an end but you can stay in touch online with a lot going on on

social media and the website. We will see you for Winterwatch. We

will say goodbye, but we will leave you with some highlights from

Autumnwatch 2016. Goodbye. That is why we are here because it

is so gorgeous being down on the wetlands.

That is a strong look. She is absolutely adorable.

Pigs! Our eagle. I am in love.