Woodland Britain's Big Wildlife Revival

Britain's wildlife needs your help.

Many of our favourite wild creatures are under threat.

From persecution...

..from pollution...

..and alien predators.

Others are losing their homes...

..suffering from injury or disease...

..or just struggling to survive in the modern world.

Some could be extinct within our lifetime if we don't act now.

There's nothing in the sky or even in the trees there, is there?

But you can help bring them back from the brink.

Together, we can fight their enemies...

..restore the places where they live...

..and stop their decline in its tracks.

Release.

Whoa!

So join our campaign...

..to save our wonderful wildlife...

..for us all to enjoy.

-Oh, look!

-SHE CHUCKLES

Oh! Hello to you!

I mean, how can you not just fall in love with that?

Throughout Britain there are enchanting places.

Somewhere to go to escape the worries of everyday life,

and to reconnect with the natural world.

Our nation is bursting with life.

A phenomenal force of nature is all around us,

and Britain's woodlands are the jewel in this glittering crown.

Ancient trees, vast woods and forests

and wild creatures that remind us of our place in the natural world.

Our woods take time to give up their secrets.

You have to be patient, watching, waiting and listening.

But if you just know where to look,

our woodlands are the richest habitat for wildlife in Britain.

From badgers to bluebells...

butterflies to beetles...

woodpeckers to wrens...

and trees that may be over a thousand years old.

But now Britain's woodland wildlife is in big trouble.

Centuries of loss followed by decades of neglect

has meant that our woods and their precious wildlife

are in serious decline.

Our team will be championing three woodland animals that face

major threats to their survival.

Nick Baker goes in search of the UK's most venomous creature.

Oh, there, there, look, look, look!

Day by day they get rarer and rarer. We are in real risk of losing them.

Iolo Williams takes on a fight

to protect one of our best-loved animals.

Well, in my view, it's time to strike back against the grey menace.

And Gordon Buchanan finds out

if it's too late for Britain's rarest predator.

This is one of the most endangered mammals in the entire world.

I'm in the middle of a magnificent woodland in the heart of Britain,

and it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

What I love about woodlands is as soon as you walk into them,

you immediately shrink.

It's like being dropped into a big, green, ecological bowl.

And when you feel small in the natural world,

that's when your everyday problems just drop into perspective.

But the sad fact is,

there are very few woods as good as this left in Britain.

Britain was once an island of trees,

covered in a dense layer of woods and forests.

These vast woodlands are as complex and intricate as any city.

Their trees are the equivalent of ancient cathedrals

or modern skyscrapers.

But now, just a fraction of our ancient woodlands remain.

And it would be a tragedy if we lost them.

The destruction of our nation's woodlands began

over 5,000 years ago, when the first farmers began clearing

forests to create farmland.

Today, only 2% of Britain's ancient woodlands remain,

and our wildlife is suffering,

with many of our best-loved species struggling to survive.

One of the biggest problems here and for conservation at large,

has been the arrival of alien species,

some of which have wreaked havoc with our home-grown wildlife.

Naturalist Iolo Williams has been in Wales

to see one of his favourite animals,

now threatened by an unwelcome cousin from abroad.

It's the bushy-tailed star of children's stories,

the king of our woodlands and an icon of British conservation.

But if you're under 40,

you've probably never even caught a glimpse of one.

The red squirrel.

If you want to see one for yourself, you'd better hurry.

The red squirrel is predicted to become extinct

on mainland Britain within 20 years.

That's right, in just 20 years.

For me, and for anyone else who loves our native wildlife,

that is truly devastating.

I want you to join my campaign to save the red squirrel.

Just look at him. Those big, brown eyes, that thick bushy tail.

It's the animal that inspired me to get into nature.

One of my earliest memories is going out on a family picnic

and looking up into the tallest branches of a Sitka spruce

and seeing a red squirrel looking back down at me.

Unfortunately, they've all gone from around here,

not a single one left.

And the reason for that is another furry creature,

one that I hate with an absolute passion.

The American grey squirrel.

Numbers have rocketed

since it first arrived in Britain more than a century ago.

And just wait till you hear the story of how they got here.

It all started in 1876, when a pair of grey squirrels

was brought over from North America by Thomas Brocklehurst.

He let them escape from his home in Cheshire,

and they multiplied, spreading a disease lethal to the red squirrel.

Today, there are at least three million greys,

and they're driving red squirrels to the brink of extinction.

So, how do I get red squirrels back to my home village?

And how do we get them to recolonise the whole of Britain?

Well, in my view, it's time to strike back against the grey menace.

Red squirrels have almost been driven out of mainland Wales,

so I'm heading north to the island of Anglesey to try to get

a glimpse of one once more.

In 1997 there were just 40 red squirrels

left in the whole of Anglesey, and this growing tide of greys

was threatening to wipe them out altogether.

But today the grey has been eradicated from the island,

and I'm delighted to say the reds have returned.

To see them, it helps to have a trick up your sleeve.

Now, if you're lucky to have red squirrels around you,

what they love, apparently, are hazelnuts.

So, I'm going to fill up this feeder in the hope...

..that this will draw them out.

I thought I was in for a long wait.

But after only 15 minutes, they started to appear.

Oh, wow.

What a little beauty.

Bright red.

That has got to be the cutest animal in the whole of Britain.

That's really made my day. It's made my week, to be honest with you.

I get quite a few people asking me

what I've got against grey squirrels, and what I would tell those people

is, "Go out there and go and have a look at the red squirrels,

"cos there just is no comparison."

These are just beautiful creatures.

The grey squirrel is an alien, American species.

And compared to the red squirrels, they are just...

They're tree rats, basically.

They really are.

The red squirrel evolved over thousands of years

to live in harmony with the creatures of the British woodland.

The American grey lives in much higher densities here,

throwing this delicate ecosystem out of balance.

The red squirrel's comeback on Anglesey shows that

something can be done.

It's a project run by an old friend of mine.

Dr Craig Shuttleworth.

So, Craig, why are grey squirrels so bad for red squirrels?

Well, they're doing two things, Iolo.

The first is, they're out-competing them for resources.

They eat exactly the same sorts of foods,

tree seeds and buds and flowers.

But the other thing is, they carry this virus - squirrel pox virus.

It doesn't harm the grey squirrel,

but if they give it to red squirrels it's fatal within a few weeks,

and it causes horrendous rates of mortality.

So, once you get greys in amongst reds, that's it - the reds disappear.

Absolutely. You can't have the two together.

We've got to have reds

that are in areas where no grey squirrels are present.

You, then, are in favour of a grey squirrel cull, are you?

Absolutely.

But not everyone on Anglesey supported the cull.

One local woman, Gwen, did not at first take kindly

when asked permission to trap and kill grey squirrels on her land.

I was really shocked, absolutely shocked.

The answer, I'm sure, was no, was it?

Yeah, the answer was a very certain, very determined no.

And... "Get lost"!

But no, it was an aberration, really,

because now, having seen the reds, I absolutely realise that there is...

It's a wonderful thing to do.

Gwen has taken to videoing her red squirrels,

and her favourite, Hazel, even sneaks into her home from time to time.

Back on the mainland, the grey is much harder to control,

and the front line is 200 miles north, in the Lake District.

This is the border country.

The thin red line where red squirrels still hold the upper hand.

But the greys are invading from the south, and they have to be stopped.

I'm joining Nick Mason on a hunt for grey squirrels.

What's Mike doing here, Nick?

This morning he's in this woodland, which has red squirrels in it,

but it also has greys.

And what he's attempting to do is make sure

we remove greys trying to get a foothold in this woodland.

Shooting and trapping them as they try and do so.

But some people would accuse you

of just replacing one furry animal with another one.

Continuing to have red squirrels here means killing another animal.

And obviously there are moral issues

with this kind of conservation work.

We've got to meet that head-on, but undoubtedly,

people who've got red squirrels in their gardens,

around them in the woodlands next to which they live,

they want to hang onto those red squirrels,

and we've got an obligation to work with them, to make that happen.

-GROUP SINGS HARMONY:

-# Red squirrel in the morning

# Red squirrel in the evening

# Red squirrel... #

The good news is that red squirrels are increasing in places

like Grasmere, where the hard work of local volunteers

has brought them back to the home of Wordsworth.

I'm meeting Jackie,

who coordinates hundreds of volunteers right across Cumbria.

Look, can you see them up there?

They're up there on that tree on the left.

Playing around, running round and round.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I can see one.

So, how did you get involved as a volunteer

in the first place, then, Jackie?

Oh, about 20 years ago this wonderful old man came along

and asked me if I would do some grey control,

and everybody in the area thought he was absolutely crazy.

But in fact we went along with it,

and it's because of that that we still have red squirrels in Cumbria.

Without controlling the greys, you just wouldn't have reds.

We wouldn't have reds.

Reds don't need anything - they don't need special habitat,

they don't need special food, they just need to be free of the greys

and they can survive very happily, and they can thrive.

It means a lot to me personally

because I don't want to see another British mammal become extinct

when there is something that I can do about it,

and there is something that we can do about this.

If we had done nothing over the last 20 years,

there would be very few reds left, and the greys would just take over.

Mm-hm. And, I mean, when you see one you just realise how beautiful it is.

Yes, absolutely. It's absolutely exquisite.

It's not the grey squirrel's fault, it's just not supposed to be here.

It's a non-native species, and it's creating havoc with our own wildlife.

And culling - it's not an easy or a pleasant option, but it does work.

And I think these are the tough decisions we have to make

if we're going to save the native red squirrel from extinction.

The red squirrel problem isn't new,

but it represents how bad things can be

when animals move to parts of the world they don't come from.

When alien animals move in, natives just don't have the time

to evolve ways of coping to live alongside their new neighbours.

But it's not just single species that are vulnerable

from alien invaders.

Our precious woodlands are under threat too,

from another non-native species running wild through our forests.

I've just seen a muntjac deer over there.

It's always quite exciting seeing a deer, but they're not actually

that welcome round here, because they do a fair amount of damage.

They eat a lot of these woodland plants,

and a lot of the new coppice shoots.

In fact, they've been nicknamed "ASBO Bambi."

Muntjacs were first brought to Britain from Asia

in the 19th century,

when they were released at Woburn Abbey in Buckinghamshire.

But in the 1920s they escaped, and began breeding wild.

Since then they've spread across much of the UK,

devouring woodland plants at a horrifying rate,

and destroying habitats for breeding birds.

They're not that tall, so they often evade being hunted,

because there's tall vegetation around.

The muntjac is one of over 3,000 non-native animals

and plants in Britain, many of which upset the natural

balance of our precious wildlife habitats.

We spend £1.7 billion a year

trying to control our non-native species.

So that will give you a real sense of how serious this problem is.

And even one of our best-loved woodland wild flowers

is also in big trouble.

Of all the awesome sights of spring,

this one is hard to beat, this vivid carpet of blue.

It's so welcome after such a drab winter.

In fact, bluebells regularly top the list

of Britain's favourite wild flower.

But they're not just eye candy, they're also ecologically important,

because over half the world's population of bluebells

grow right here in our woods.

But now the very future of these beautiful flowers is under threat

from another alien invader, this time from Spain.

Spanish bluebells look similar to our native variety,

but can be told apart by the way the flowers just stick out

from the stems instead of drooping and nodding like the British ones.

Both of them are pretty flowers,

but Spanish bluebells live in our parks and gardens

and sometimes hop over the fence to hybridise with the British ones.

Now, if this keeps happening, this classic springtime spectacle

could be changed for ever.

The fact that one of our most iconic native species, the bluebell,

is in danger shows how resolute we need to be in tackling

the threats to our woodland wildlife.

One other iconic woodland creature is also under threat,

but it is managing to survive in a rather unusual location,

as lifelong reptile fan Nick Baker discovered.

SHOUTING

Greenham Common.

This is where the United States Air Force kept their cruise missiles,

each armed with a nuclear warhead powerful enough

to kill millions of people and plunge us into World War III.

The apocalypse.

A generation of women fought the authorities for two decades

to stop the American nuclear presence in Britain.

But while battle raged at the fences,

one creature was staking its claim to the land within.

The adder.

Surviving in the protected confines of Greenham Common,

Britain's most venomous creature

is disappearing from the rest of the country.

Adders only breed every two or three years,

and, unlike most reptiles, they give birth to live young,

which go straight into hibernation

and don't feed until they are over a year old.

Like all boys, I was obsessed with snakes.

There's something mechanical about them.

Every scale fits together so beautifully.

So, one day the inevitable happens.

I had to touch one, and I got bitten.

Now, here's the thing.

Adder bites aren't as dangerous as they're cracked up to be.

In fact, although their venom can be powerful enough to kill a human,

you're more likely to die from a lightning strike

or a stray golf ball.

Sure, it hurt a lot.

I was a bit worried at the time,

but the point is, I'm still here to tell the tale.

After the Americans left Greenham Common, it became a nature reserve -

which was good news for the resident adders.

This mixture of ancient woodland, woodland edge

and heathland is perfect for adders and the population

here is estimated to be in the hundreds.

With adders declining in the rest of the country,

the Greenham Common Trust is working

to keep their population here healthy.

Faye Willman is as obsessed by snakes as I am.

She has 30 of them at home.

She's devoted her time to help at Greenham Common,

building up the first genetic database of adders across Britain.

What does this genetic information really tell us about the adder?

How structured their populations are, and in what way.

We can infer measurements about inbreeding and outbreeding.

We should an idea of how isolated or not they might be,

make more educated decisions about how we manage them.

We've got one here.

How do you get that genetic information for each snake?

So, we're going to take a cloacal swab.

Right, so we've got to try and get his head in there...

-Look at that!

-Yeah, lovely!

-An obliging male.

SHE LAUGHS

-I'm going to ask you to grab that swab...

-OK.

'The adder has one multi-purpose opening

'for all of its bodily functions,

'from which DNA can be extracted quickly and painlessly.'

-And that is it.

-So, he's done his bit for adder-kind.

-Yeah.

-And he'll just go back exactly where you got him from.

In there... And then we'll pop him back exactly where we found him.

It's great to see healthy adders on Greenham Common,

but that alone can't save them.

Because the rest of the UK's colonies

are becoming more and more fragmented,

genetic diversity will drop

and inbreeding could eventually wipe them out.

Their populations are becoming increasingly separated,

isolated from one another, and divided up by our roads

and building projects.

And if you do get a brave individual that wants to make a break for it,

the chances are he'll end up as roadkill.

Nigel Hand is a conservationist turned adder-detective.

He's on a mission to find out how adders move across the Malvern Hills

using the latest radio-tracking technology.

Adders are declining throughout their range, they're in big trouble.

-Is the same the case here?

-Oh, yes. It's definitely so.

Over the years we've seen a decline in numbers.

Even on a site like this, that looks really rather splendid for adders?

Well, just walking across here, Nick,

-you've got this wide open path, that's an obstacle for them.

-Right.

And if you go into the wider countryside,

they've got fragmented fields, you know, sort of arable fields

and very grey, short grassland which they can't cross.

In the past there would have been

what they call satellite populations, meta-populations,

so they would have linked up the healthier genes of those animals.

But now they're all concentrated in one area, and

-if something catastrophic happens there, they're all lost.

-Yeah.

'Nigel's taking me to one of his adder hotspots

'so that we can catch one and tag it with a transmitter.'

-Right at the back.

-You're kidding me.

-No.

-Very calm, the way you introduced that to conversation.

-Yeah.

Up there, look, look, look.

Look at that.

This is what I love about adders,

if you want an animal that is so matched to its environment,

you don't get much better.

It looks like the bracken. Any bit of this bracken kind of...

..mirrors the patterns,

or the adder mirrors the patterns of its environment.

And this nice, crisp bed of bracken is warming up,

it's picking up those tiny little bits of heat from the sun,

and this is what the adder is making the most of.

If you find an adder, don't pick it up.

Leave that to the experts.

Look at that. Now you're looking at the face of the adder.

It's the only one of our snakes that has that catlike eye.

As very few people get close enough to see these particular details.

And his permanent frown, which is

created by a ridge of scales over the eye.

This is the animal we are all so fearful of.

And all he wants to do is get away from me.

'Now, we can't tag this male,

'because it will soon be shedding its skin,

'as it's just come out of hibernation.

'But a few metres away we're lucky enough to find a female we can tag.'

Oh, that's 49, at least.

That's a good-sized breeding animal, isn't it?

'This doesn't do the snake any harm, so while I carefully hold it,

'Nigel can attach a transmitter.'

So, what is this tag going to be doing?

It's going to be giving a signal, Nick, on a regular basis.

We'll be up here every two days or so,

just tracking the movements and GPS-monitoring where the

snake's positions are at every time we're finding the snake.

We just see that tiny little window into their world,

and it gives us insight, I think that's really important.

Insight into how this animal lives, how it moves about.

And that is the whole point, because without that information,

you can't even begin to understand it and look after it.

There she goes. One lithe lovely.

Ready to divulge her secrets to the scientific community.

If you are lucky enough to come across an adder,

report it to your local wildlife trust,

and ask if you can get involved as a volunteer.

Now, hopefully, by now, you're beginning to, I guess,

understand why I get so excited by adders.

It's that same feeling I've got ever since I first saw one as a small boy.

I guess what's really sad for me,

what's really poignant about this animal,

is that we are in real risk of losing them.

Day by day they get rarer and rarer,

and it's thanks to the dedication of some pretty committed individuals

that this beautiful creature has any hope in our future at all.

What I love about our woodland wildlife

is it always has the capacity to surprise.

I want to show you a world we often ignore. Nature's secret language.

It is five o'clock in the morning on a hopefully bright but chilly day.

And I'm about to experience

one of the greatest free sound shows on Earth.

The dawn chorus.

BIRDSONG

The dawn chorus is a natural symphony,

a wall of sound created by birds as they do battle

to defend their territory, find a mate and start a family.

-Can I listen to your headphones, Gaz?

-Yeah, course you can.

What are you hearing, then?

'I'm joining our soundman and keen birder Gary Moore

'to try to decode the mystery of this daily ritual.'

-Go on, have a go.

-How does it work?

Well, basically, what it does, it just gathers all the sound

and reflects it into the centre,

where there's a microphone, in the centre.

-It's like a giant...

-Giant ear.

-..giant ear, yeah.

-Yeah!

-Basically.

-WOOD PIGEON COOS

-That's amazing.

-Any bird you want.

-That's a wood pigeon there, as you can hear.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Wow.

-Yeah. Chirr of, I think, a great tit there, as well.

All birds call, but it's really only males that sing,

and what the male's saying is, you know, they've got territory,

so they're advertising to the other males to stay away,

and they want the females to come to them, basically.

-There you go, I'll give you that one back.

-Thank you.

So, it sounds gorgeous, but it's kind of sex and violence,

-isn't it, really?

-Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

For me, it's a symbol of spring. It's regeneration, it's growth.

You know, it's something that's primeval, really.

And how often do we just sit and listen, nowadays?

I know the therapeutic effects of birdsong.

I think it should be prescribed by the NHS.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Because there's been experiments

carried out in hospitals where they've played children birdsong

before they go into an operation,

and it's physically lowered the heart rate

-and made them more relaxed.

-Wow.

So we know that, you know,

it definitely has a soothing effect on people.

And if you get a bit of birdsong in before you get to work,

-the whole day will be much, much better.

-Wow.

-You must be a very calm man, then, Gaz.

-Well, it's a bit like...

It's a bit like audio yoga, basically.

Brilliant!

This natural soap opera is played out every morning,

and it's something we can all easily experience.

You just need to get up early enough.

If we take the time to listen,

we gain an insight into the lives of the creatures

that live all around us, and which all too often we take for granted.

For birds, and all our woodland wildlife,

this is nature's answer to a city, and a tree is a single tower block.

If you look up there, is where birds nest

and roost just as we do in our apartments.

It gives them shelter, it's where they eat, just as we have our shops.

And, incredibly,

a single tree can host 250 different species of plants and animals.

But with all the problems we have in our woodlands,

they face a housing shortage, and we need to do everything

we can to provide them with places to live.

Our wildlife gardening man, Mike Dilger,

has been with a group of schoolchildren

who are doing just that.

One place that's transformed its grounds into a wildlife haven

is Warren Park Primary School in Hampshire.

This school used to be situated in seven acres of playing field,

and whilst they've kept the football pitch,

the rest has been converted into an amazing woodland.

And believe me, if one tree represents a tower block,

then a whole forest is a bustling city.

Every year, the school is extending this wooden metropolis

with native trees.

And sure enough,

the animals are moving in and taking up residence.

-We have actually had lizards here before.

-Oh, really?

-We've had a fox and, um...a snake that came over.

-A snake?

-An adder.

-An adder.

-Adder?!

You can create places for birds to nest in your garden

with plants like hawthorn, blackthorn and holly.

And an even quicker way to provide a home is to put up a bird-box.

Hey! Look at these!

Fantastic.

Any idea what kind of birds might be in those boxes?

Um, blue tits, great tits, wrens...

There's quite a few birds that might be able to go in there.

Very good - particularly blue tits and great tits.

And if you look at the top there, the holes have been widened.

That means a greater spotted woodpecker

has been trying to make a home in there.

-I have seen a woodpecker, actually.

-What colour was that woodpecker?

It kind of had a red head.

That's probably a young greater spotted woodpecker,

and that's the one that's going "drrrrr",

drumming into the trees, this time of year.

Wildlife will very quickly find a new home, and for kids,

having animals living close by is a fantastic learning experience.

Working with the children in this outdoor classroom

is teacher Les Terry.

It's to get that initial love of nature,

a love of being outside,

not playing on the computer games day in, day out.

They're using their senses all the time and it sharpens them.

There's only so much we can learn inside a classroom.

But outside the classroom, we can learn a whole lot more.

This woodland also provides homes for nocturnal wildlife,

and I want to try and capture what comes out at night.

That'll do...

We set up motion-sensitive camera traps

to film which animals are active once the kids have gone home.

We managed to film a very, very rare mammal.

Do you want to see it?

Can we have the first clip, Les?

LAUGHTER

-Who's that? CHILDREN:

-Mr Terry!

Lovely. Shall we see what else we've got?

Shout out when you know what this animal is.

-CHILDREN:

-Squirrel!

It's a squirrel. What's this?

-CHILDREN:

-A wolf!

-It's like a wolf.

-CHILDREN:

-Fox.

-A fox. Absolutely.

It's a fox that's eating out in your woodland.

But let's face it -

few of us can transform half our garden into a woodland.

Yet there is a way to massively increase vital wildlife housing,

even in the smallest space, and that's to build a bug hotel.

So what we've got there at the moment is an empty hotel,

and nothing's going to really live in there, is it?

So all this jumble of stuff,

we're going to turn that into the furnishings for the bugs.

Everybody ready to start doing some sawing, some chopping, some drilling?

-CHILDREN:

-Yeah!

-Come on, let's do it!

Invertebrates love small, dark spaces.

The more you can create in your garden,

with whatever you have to hand, the more that will move in.

Guys, you're creating the most enormous pile of spaghetti.

Any idea what might live in here?

Maybe some spiders might get some eggs inside?

-They might do their web inside as well.

-Absolutely.

This is a perfect place for a spider to produce its web inside, yes.

Centipedes and millipedes?

Centipedes and millipedes will love it in here.

So you'll get lots and lots of animals.

Keep sawing, all right?

Invertebrates are at the bottom of the food chain,

so more bugs will bring in the bigger creatures.

But they're also the maintenance crew for the garden plants -

solitary bees, for example, are brilliant pollinators.

Bamboo is the most amazing stuff, because it's hollow inside

and that's where the creatures are going to live,

particularly mason bees, which are amazing creatures.

They like it really sunny,

so all these will be facing out, south-facing,

so the whole of the front of the bug hotel gets loads of sun

and that means the larvae inside will be all nice and warm and mature.

In spring, they'll pop out, one after the next.

In it goes. One...two...

Push, push, push!

Brilliant.

If you don't have bamboo to hand, drilling holes in wood

also makes a perfect home for those solitary bees.

And rolled-up cardboard becomes a home for lacewings,

that love to eat the aphids attacking your garden plants.

Do you know what? If I was a lacewing,

that would be the perfect home for me.

Ten out of ten, well done.

Keep the insect houses dry with any plastic tubes or piping.

Our grand four-storey bug hotel is really taking shape.

I found a spider.

LAUGHING You have indeed!

You can see, on his head end,

he's got two little tiny things that we call pedipalps,

and they look like two little legs, like boxing gloves, on the end,

and that means if they've got these little boxing gloves, he's a male.

You've got a little, tiny male spider.

And I think we should save this for the first resident in our bug hotel

-and release it when it's finished - what do you say?

-Yeah.

Rotting wood for the beetles

is one of the most important ingredients in our hotel.

Brilliant - look at that for a big twig!

If you don't have space for such high-rise accommodation

in your garden, a pile of leaves and rotting branches in a dark corner

will work just as well.

Keep going, guys. Keep filling up.

Increasing the amount of housing for wildlife really can be done

in any outdoor space.

Right - we need one more thing.

We need some turf to put on the top, because we need to make sure

it's nice and dry inside for all the creepy crawlies.

There we go - have you got that? Good...

Right then, go on, on you go.

Roll it out. That looks brilliant.

That is the most amazing bug hotel I've ever seen -

that's going to be a home for thousands of woodlice,

bumblebees and beetles...

-And worms! And slugs!

-And worms!

-And hands!

-And dirty hands.

And we're not forgetting to set free Siobhan's spider,

our first hotel resident, who moves in straightaway.

Is this bug hotel OK?

Or is it good?

Or is it brilliant?

-CHILDREN:

-Brilliant!

THEY CHEER

Get in there!

If you want to make a home in your garden

for birds, bees and beetles,

Mike has more advice on our website,

along with tips on how you can help bring back

Britain's endangered creatures

and what's happening where you live in the BBC Summer of Wildlife.

Still to come on Britain's Big Wildlife Revival,

Gordon Buchanan goes on a quest

to find Britain's most elusive and endangered mammal.

I mean, it could be that there's less than 50 left.

And I go flying

with one of the world's most acrobatic birds -

one of our greatest wildlife comebacks.

That's...amazing!

Our woodlands have always played a central part in our lives,

be it for food, fuel or shelter.

And it's no different for our wildlife.

But after decades of neglect, it's only in the last few years

we've taken steps to protect our precious woods and forests.

So, what is the future for our woodland and its wildlife?

We might think the answer is just to plant trees

or leave the landscape to revert back to woodland -

which it does, if left to its own devices.

But the answer's not actually that simple.

It seems ironic,

but planting more trees can actually do more harm than good for wildlife.

Dense conifer plantations block natural light

and inhibit the growth of wild flowers and native trees,

while we can also been overly tidy in our ancient woodlands.

If we do too much and clear up all the dead wood and fallen branches,

with risk losing a resource like this -

decomposers like slugs, worms and millipedes will thrive here,

and they in turn will be fed on by centipedes, beetles, spiders,

and then on up through the food chain.

Finding a natural balance

that protects both our woodland and its wild inhabitants

is a delicate juggling act.

The wrong decision can prove catastrophic.

So what do we do?

Rob Penn is a born-again woodsman with a solution.

-Hey, Rob. How are you doing?

-Ellie. Good to meet you.

-You too.

He has successfully breathed new life into an abandoned woodland

here in Wales.

So, what's the problem with just leaving a woodland to manage itself?

Well, over a long period of time,

our woodlands have got used to being managed by us

and here, you've got a classic example

of a piece of unmanaged woodland -

there's hazel, oak and ash standards, and birch.

And because it hasn't been touched for 60 years,

it's dark and dank and in summer, the leaf canopy stitches itself up

and there's very little light

and very insect life, very little bird life in here.

And that is, I think, a very poor alternative to a managed woodland,

which you have here, which is a place which is full of light,

full of wild flowers, insects and birds.

You bring energy and life back to the wood.

Managing woodland involves cutting back trees to near ground level

to produce sunlit glades.

Over time, new shoots emerge and the trees grow back,

allowing the woodland to renew itself

and create a more diverse habitat.

It seems kind of counter-intuitive to go,

"Woodland management means clearing it all out."

Yeah, but that goes to the heart of British woodland management,

it's the fact that all of our native trees coppice.

Now, that means you cut them down and they grow again.

And it'll carry on doing that for several centuries

if you continue to cut it down and coppice it.

If you just let it grow old, like that, the tree will die.

This is coming back with sufficient vigour

for me to feel sure that in eight years' time,

there will be all sorts of products you can take out of this -

beanpoles, mainly, probably some pea sticks as well.

By using these resources, by making them a commodity,

you actually protect them in the long term.

I think you do.

British woodlands would have a better chance

if we were in closer contact with them.

You use British charcoal in your woodland

and you heat your home with firewood.

I think if we start doing that, maybe the next generation

are more in touch with our woodlands again.

How do you feel,

putting so much time and energy into this amazing place,

and you won't necessarily get to reap the rewards,

that's for generations to come?

Yes. It's a curious one.

You plant trees now

and maybe someone will walk in that wood in 100 years, 150 years

and think well of you, even though they don't know your name.

But I think that in itself is a reward.

There aren't many things in life which afford such an opportunity.

What I love about Rob is that he's dedicated so much of his energy

to regenerating this woodland, and yet the rewards come so slowly.

But time is a luxury that many of our woodland animals

just do not have.

Over in the western Highlands of Scotland,

Gordon Buchanan travelled to see one of our most endangered predators.

In all my years as a wildlife cameraman,

there is one animal that I have never been able to capture on film.

In fact, I've never even seen one.

Yet it lives practically on my doorstep,

here in the Highlands of Scotland.

The reason this animal is so hard to see

is because it is on the very brink of extinction.

This isn't just one of the rarest mammals in Scotland -

this is one of the most endangered mammals in the entire world.

The Scottish wildcat.

It's half as big again as a domestic cat,

and sightings are incredibly rare.

I'm exploring the western edge of Scotland,

in search of this Highland tiger.

It's thought there may be fewer than 50 left in the wild.

You think about how this land would've looked

a few thousand years ago,

it would have been entirely covered in woodland -

there would've been bears roaming, there would've been wolves,

there would've been lynx.

All these big animals have fallen by the wayside, they've gone,

because of our presence, our activity.

And it would be the greatest shame of all

that the one predator that did remain, the Scottish wildcat,

if we were to let that go the same way and become extinct.

That's what's going to happen unless we actually do something now.

The biggest threat to the wildcat comes from their domestic cousin,

the household moggie.

It's thought as many as 100,000 feral cats

are now living wild in the Highlands,

having escaped from our homes and bred.

The problem is that these feral cats

are also breeding with true, pure wildcats, creating hybrids.

I'm heading to the Cairngorms

to take a look at some captive-bred wildcats,

to find out what to look for.

David Barclay is the senior keeper at the Highland Wildlife Park.

GORDON LAUGHS

Look at the size of him! He's a big, big boy.

If you're looking for wildcat markings,

what is it you're going for?

If there's really one marking

that we would advise people to look out for,

if they're in an area where wildcats may live,

it's really that big, bushy tail.

It should be nice, big, bushy, black rings, blunt-ended,

about four or five rings on it,

and there is a black dorsal stripe that runs down,

that should stop at the base of the tail.

You can see quite a definite black stripe there,

and on an ideal-looking wildcat,

we would expect that just to end very bluntly at the top of the tail.

But what we're unsure of is the degree of hybridisation.

Could he still be a pure wildcat

and have that dorsal stripe that continues on to the tail?

Some people say no, some people say it may not be an issue,

but what is important is that we find out a lot more information

about the degree of hybridisation.

He's looking at us very indignantly, questioning his authenticity.

If we care about protecting the Scottish wildcat in the wild,

it has to be the real McCoy.

I don't believe you can let every single cat

that's living in the wild exist, because over time,

if they continue to interbreed with the wild population,

the pure population, in a couple of generations,

the pure wildcat is completely gone, and that's why we have to act now.

I'm here to help a pioneering new wildcat project.

It's led by Paul O' Donoghue, who hopes to catch a wildcat

and genetically test it for the very first time.

Our first job is to search the woodland for signs.

See if you can see any fur samples or scat.

-Oh, here we go. That's a cat hair.

-Yeah.

-Is it?

-Let's see.

Certainly looks like it.

It's paler at the bottom and it's got the brown tip.

Yeah, I love that - you just start looking for these signs

when you come to a likely place.

You walk through the forest,

you think, "How on earth are we going to find these animals

"or find any signs of them?"

The signs are there, you just have to look in detail.

Maybe we should think about setting up a camera trap.

Yeah, that'd be great.

-Maybe even baiting up this area a little bit.

-Yeah.

I'm installing a remote camera trap to see if we can get a sighting.

This is one of many set up across the Highlands.

Now, we'll see - within the next six to eight weeks,

a cat will come and sit on this exact spot.

And if the batteries hold out, we'll capture it on camera.

OK.

I think that's good to go.

Best of luck.

Your project is about finding out

if there are still purebred wildcats living in Scotland.

This is the ultimate aim of the project -

to prove beyond doubt there are genetically pure Scottish wildcats.

I think once we can show that,

that will greatly move forward wildcat conservation.

-At the moment, there's a doubt.

-Yeah.

The urgency of the situation can't really be stressed enough.

I mean, it could be that there's less than 50 left.

And how can we in the United Kingdom go to another country and say,

"You must protect your wild animals, save the tiger, the rhino,

"the elephant"?

I mean, it's almost laughable.

Our last major carnivore is on the brink of extinction.

It's far more endangered than the Siberian tiger.

The next day, I return to check my camera trap.

You never know...

No.

It's not a cat. It looks like a cat, but it's a pine marten.

A pine marten, just there.

You can hear how windy it was last night.

An area like this is fantastic for a cat,

but generally, where's good for a cat is also good for pine martens.

Local sightings also help to build up the picture.

-Morning!

-Morning.

There was a kerfuffle outside the lounge window there,

round on the little bit of rockery, and there was this monster of...

Well, I thought it was a wildcat, I'm convinced it was,

by its markings, its tail.

It used to frequent the garden and it pounced on the cat.

-Gosh.

-That was a hefty vet's bill.

So how much bigger than your domestic cat was this wildcat?

Easily half as big again. It was a big cat.

But what a privilege, if we have. That's the way I look at it.

OK, you carry on...

Following this sighting and others in the area,

Paul decides to set up cage traps.

There's absolutely no way an animal would go into a cage like this,

a trap, without a little enticement.

So what we want to do is tie this on here

and basically make this trap disappear.

Trapping the animals is the only way to take the blood samples

needed to genetically identify a pure wildcat.

We'll leave it locked up at the moment.

Yeah, we'll come back tonight, we'll set that.

We'll check it first thing in the morning, see what we get.

Looking good.

The hope is that by finding a pure wildcat in the western Highlands,

they can be isolated and protected from cross-breeding in the future.

The next morning, it's time to check the traps.

We check all seven of them.

But no joy yet.

They're automatically suspicious.

-Even a cat knows there's no such thing as a free meal.

-Exactly.

-Is that fur, or...?

-Yeah.

It's something, innit?

This is the trap that we set out yesterday,

but you see the door's still up.

The bait's still at the back.

I'd say the figures of maybe 50 wildcats remaining,

they're probably true.

And that's why you can't stress enough the urgency.

It's getting people to realise that it's direct action now

that will save the wildcat.

But without any doubt, if nothing is done,

the wildcat is doomed.

100%, the wildcat will be extinct in the next two or three years

if nothing's done.

There's no argument about that.

This is the last trap of the morning, there's no wildcat here.

The reason these animals are so hard to trap, so hard to film,

so hard to see, is because there's possibly fewer than 50 of them

left in Scotland.

There's still a long way to go,

but hopefully, the setting up of a breeding programme

in a protected area such as this

will mean that the wildcat can thrive once again

in its remote Highland home.

There is a long journey ahead to help protect the wildcat,

but history has shown us that we can bring endangered species

back from the brink.

To prove it, I've come to mid-Wales

to witness one of the most triumphant

conservation achievements ever.

Oh!

The amount of meat I'm shovelling just goes to show

how successful this has been.

The red kite.

Wow...wow, look at this!

With a wingspan of almost two metres,

the red kite is one of our most successful birds of prey.

Look at that!

SHE LAUGHS

But just a century ago,

this magnificent bird was virtually lost from Britain.

But to see this many red kites,

just wheeling and interacting above your head...

It's close to mind-blowing.

Birder and historian Rob Lambert is passionate about red kites

and has followed their extraordinary story for many years.

I was a young birder in Bolton

and I begged my dad to drive me over here to central Wales.

And I remember we stood for hours and hours,

waiting to see a red kite.

And finally, we saw one, this incredible bird.

And I remember vividly - a moment that lives with me for ever -

Dad slapped me on the back and said, "Red kite, son - what a bird!"

That's how it goes down in the records.

Why have we had such a disastrous history with the red kite?

The story in medieval London was one of usefulness -

the kites were of value to us.

They cleaned up our refuse, they cleaned up the pavements -

they ate our poo.

-Lovely(!)

-They were municipal dustmen.

Then in rural Britain, they became more and more of a pest.

For the next 400 years, we persecuted the kite ruthlessly.

We developed better ways to shoot them,

better ways to trap them,

and that plunged them into a catastrophic situation

at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century,

where there were maybe ten kites left

in these remote valleys of Wales.

The red kite just managed to hang on,

but even by the late-20th century,

the species was still confined to this part of Wales,

so a reintroduction programme was begun to bring the bird back

to England and Scotland.

Within a few years, numbers rocketed,

and the red kite went from being one of Britain's rarest birds

to a common sight for more and more people.

Wales can no longer claim, if you like,

that this is their national bird.

They're now not just a woodland bird -

we're seeing them on motorways and in gardens.

I love the fact that in the Home Counties,

people walk into their gardens

with a peanut feeder in one hand for the blue tits

and a cooked chicken in the other hand to put out for the red kites.

I think all those of us who come here to central Wales,

where once there were four or five red kites,

and there are now 400 kites in the air,

owe an enormous debt of gratitude

to those early pioneers who protected this bird.

And really, if you were to think of a conservation success story

in 20th century Britain, the red kite would be that bird.

Thanks to the efforts

of those pioneering conservationists,

today, the UK has around 2,000 breeding pairs of kites -

close to one-tenth of the whole world population.

This is Mr Black.

He's a captive-bred red kite,

so he's happy enough to sit in my hand

and give me this beautiful close-up look.

It's a really lovely opportunity to showboat

about what a gorgeous bird it is

and how tragic it would've been had we lost them.

They're quite big, as birds of prey go,

but in spite of its size,

they don't necessarily catch large prey items,

and that's because of these weapons down here, these talons.

They're not the biggest, and neither is that bill,

so they tend to be more scavengers in the countryside,

although they can catch smaller birds and smaller mammals.

What a beauty.

This is an incredible success story,

and one that could also work with other endangered species.

So where better to end my woodland journey than in the sky,

up close and personal with this majestic creature

for a bird's-eye view

of the red kite in all its glory.

Wa-ha-ha!

SHE LAUGHS

Oh, my word!

That's...amazing!

They're right underneath us! Oh, wow!

A topside view of a red kite.

Oh, on that side!

Yeah!

Oh-ho-ho! Woo-hoo!

Red kites have got 2½ times the visual acuity of humans,

which doesn't sound like a lot,

but that's because humans have got really good vision.

It's actually 140 times better than a rat,

which is very useful if you're a red kite

and you want to eat a rat.

Wow. This is amazing.

The wild creatures that share our space

help us to feel connected to the world,

reminding us of our place in the natural order.

What a landscape.

Britain has a wonderful natural legacy

and we should strive to protect it.

We all live near places as beautiful as this.

And the important part of conserving them is using them,

falling in love with them, being part of them,

to start reaping the rewards of being out in the natural world.

Next time on Britain's Big Wildlife Revival,

we take a journey to the British coastline,

where some of our best-loved animals are under threat.

These birds still face dangers, and it makes my blood boil.

Mike Dilger shows us how creating shelter

brings wildlife flocking to your garden.

CHEERING

And I'm up in Northumberland

for some very close encounters with wildlife.

Wow! Absolutely incredible.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd