Farmland 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! Whoa!

So join our campaign.

To save our wonderful wildlife.

For us all to enjoy.

-Oh, look.

-SHE LAUGHS

Ah. Hello to you!

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

The British countryside matters to us all,

whether we live here or just visit.

It's a place that we all cherish and value.

Our countryside has a truly special place in our hearts,

history and culture.

No other habitat evokes a more romantic image

than the rolling hills and dales that make up our rural landscape.

But the countryside isn't simply a place for us to enjoy.

Three quarters of all the land in Britain is farmland, where crops are

grown and livestock is raised to feed more than 60 million people.

Because farmland covers so much of Britain,

it is by far our most important habitat.

This patchwork of fields and meadows, hedgerows and pastures

has long been home to some of our best-known and best-loved wildlife.

For centuries, skylarks have sung in clear blue skies

as hares box in the fields below.

Bumblebees buzz from flower to flower,

as butterflies flit across meadows.

While harvest mice and voles shield themselves

from dangers lurking above.

But maybe not for much longer.

For all is not well in the heart of the British countryside.

For the past few decades, industrial-style farming has turned

much of our land into a food factory,

leaving very little room for wildlife.

Today, populations of many of our best-loved farmland animals

are in jeopardy.

If we don't act now and help reverse this decline,

we risk losing some of our most precious wild creatures.

But our team of wildlife experts is determined not to let this happen.

Adam Henson reveals why our fastest mammal is losing a race to survive.

We need to unite together to help to protect it.

Michaela Strachan champions a gothic creature at death's door.

It is absolutely adorable.

And Mike Dilger wants you to start

a wildlife revolution in your own garden.

Look at that. We actually caught a...

SCREAMS AND LAUGHTER

I was born and brought up in the countryside.

There was a dairy farm at the top of the lane where we lived,

and cows in the fields all around us.

So when I come to a place like this, it feels like coming home.

And if you take a closer look,

our countryside also has an incredibly important story to tell.

Around 5,000 years ago, our prehistoric ancestors

first began to farm this green and pleasant land.

But before they could begin to grow crops or raise animals,

they had to chop down the trees that would have covered these hills.

To help them, they used this stone. If you come and see this.

These grooves were made by some of the first farmers who used them

to sharpen their axes, ready for a hard day's work.

Clearing the trees was just the beginning.

Over the following centuries, these early farmers created

fresh, new places for wildlife to find a home.

Hedgerows and meadows. Rough grassland and chalky hillsides.

Gradually our wildlife adapted to the opportunities

offered by these new habitats and the British countryside was born.

One of our most iconic farmland animals

fared exceptionally well from this open landscape.

But in recent years, its fortunes have changed for the worse,

as Adam Henson discovered hot on its tail in East Anglia.

SIREN WAILS

I'm in the heart of Lincolnshire with a Wildlife Crime Unit

and the police officers here have got the difficult task of protecting

our wildlife from abuse.

And there's one animal that needs extra special attention,

and we need to unite together to help to protect it.

If you look closely in the fields of Britain,

you might just be lucky enough to come across

the UK's fastest land mammal.

Blink and you might miss it.

The brown hare.

Partly due to the growth of intensive farming

destroying its habitat, the hare has all but disappeared

in huge swathes of the British countryside.

Famous for its springtime boxing,

black-tipped ears and powerful hind legs,

it can run almost twice as fast as Usain Bolt.

But reaching speeds of 45mph has unwittingly placed this

threatened creature at the centre of a highly controversial blood sport.

Hare coursing.

DOG BARKS

Releasing dogs to chase down hares was made illegal in 2004.

PC Nick Willey and his team are fighting to stop this crime.

We've been called by farmer Patrick Tomlinson

to the site of a recent incident on his land.

Paddy, is this sort of the area where the hare coursers were?

It says the incident was sort of at the back of the farm,

-Tunbridge Lane.

-Yeah, we had hare coursers here.

It's quite a popular event really at weekends.

-Is it for food or for gambling?

-It's a big gambling thing, really.

It tests the agility of the dog.

There's a lot of money involved in it.

And for you as a farmer, do you see the hare as a pest?

Are there enough to cause a problem?

No, not, not...there's not enough to cause a problem.

They're, you know, they're quite nice to see.

Nick shows me some video footage.

Some are lucky enough to get away

but then may die from the trauma that they've been through.

And those that are caught are killed by the dogs.

Yeah, once that dog's got it, it will rip it, you know, to kill it.

So how can the general public help the police force?

It's just, if people don't ring in and report these incidents,

then we, you know, we don't know that it's happening.

Nick and his team continue to battle against illegal hare coursing

but this isn't the only way the hare population is being threatened.

Rabbits live in burrows in banks or in amongst the woods

but this is the hare's home -

wide open spaces in fields like this.

And this is where the hare will lie. This is almost its bed.

It's a scrape or a form and the hare will go in this way,

dig the soil out and look out across the open country,

ready to spring away if it gets threatened by anything.

The greatest threat to the humble hare has been the loss of habitat.

With the intensification of agriculture

and use of large machinery,

the hare has been squeezed out and declined in numbers.

Many farmers across the country will see hares as a pest because

they eat their crops and it's legal to shoot hares all year round.

And on some farms, they still have organised hare shoots.

Because hares can be shot throughout the year,

there's no protection for them during their spring breeding season.

When their parents are shot,

baby hares may be left orphaned and helpless.

But thanks to the work of volunteers like Susan Sroka,

who's been saving and hand-rearing leverets for almost 20 years,

some of them have a chance to survive.

How old is this one?

Nearly five weeks old now.

An expert from the Hare Preservation Trust, she's successfully

cared for and released nearly 50 leverets back into the wild.

How difficult is it to rear a leveret?

It's the first few days that are the most difficult.

It's getting them to suckle off...

whether it be a bottle or a teat on a syringe.

There we go. Job done. Amazing.

So what would be your advice to people who stumble across hares

when they're out walking?

Initially, totally leave them alone. Because once you've picked them up,

you'll get the human scent onto them.

Mum might not come back.

But however, if you see obvious injuries,

then they would have to make the decision to leave it and let nature

take its course or take it in and try and find some help.

It was really great seeing Susan's passion for the little leverets

and helping to rehabilitate it and get it

back out into the wild. And it's not something that all of us can do.

But we can do our bit to help recreate habitat and look carefully

at the close shooting season and try and help boost the hare numbers.

I'm travelling to Norfolk, where I've heard hares and their young

are being given every chance to survive in their natural habitat.

This tussocky grass is absolutely perfect for leverets to hide in,

and this sort of habitat

is really missing on the big arable farms across the country.

And in hiding in here, they're hidden away from the raptors,

the buzzards, the foxes and all sorts of other creatures

that try and eat them.

And the man who's providing this safe haven - farmer Chris Skinner.

-Morning, Chris.

-Hello.

-Hi, I'm Adam.

-Nice to meet you.

Yeah, and you.

Chris is taking part in a special government scheme,

receiving a grant to put part of his valuable farming land

back into its natural state to encourage wildlife.

Especially the hare.

If you just stop. I've just seen something.

-Ah, Adam.

-Just here.

-Just here.

-That's incredible.

-Look at him there.

-And there he goes.

-There he goes.

-Wow.

As a young farmer, Chris used to shoot hares but now he works to

save them, and he still has his old ways of attracting their attention.

I'll see if I can stop him.

HE MAKES HARE CALL

-There he goes. That's a jack hare.

-You must love it.

Oh, it's the best thing I've ever done in agriculture.

-This has really brought the fun back into farming for me.

-Lovely.

It's a real treat coming here and seeing

so many running around on your farm.

Oh, they're so eccentric. I think that's why I like them.

I'd actually like to be like that.

Because of this scheme that I've done,

we've replanted all the hedge that I took out and more besides.

27,300 hedging plants have gone in on the farm.

And these newly-planted hedges with the un-mown margin around them,

as you can see, it's perfect.

They can get in under there and they're just invisible.

That's what's making the difference here.

Having the leverets survive through the spring. That vulnerable period.

Do you think they can be considered as a pest?

Absolutely not. Certainly, shooting is now a very questionable way.

They don't need controlling.

We're doing so much else to make their lives difficult.

Reversing the decline in wildlife is a real marker of how we could

and should look after our environment.

Because of Chris's hard work,

the population on his farm is thriving once more.

It really is such a treat to sit here and watch them coming so close.

Over time, our ancestors became more and more skilled at farming the land,

using tried and tested methods

that worked in harmony with the landscape and its wildlife.

These are traditional horse-drawn tools that would have been

used for centuries in farming.

But then, at the outbreak of the Second World War, it all changed.

When war broke out in 1939, Britain had a stark choice.

Become self sufficient in food or face starvation.

Ancient meadows and grasslands that had evolved over centuries

were ploughed up and planted with crops.

The decline of our farmland wildlife had begun.

Over time, old methods for working the land were swept aside

in favour of more efficient huge machines.

The bigger the machine, the more land used for farming

and so the destruction of precious wildlife habitats continued.

Since 1945, we've lost 300,000 miles of hedgerows.

That's more than the distance from the Earth to the moon.

98% of traditional wild flower meadows have simply disappeared

and one million farm ponds have been lost for ever.

And if this wasn't enough, nature is also under chemical attack.

Today's demand for low cost food means farmers need to maximise

every square metre of land available to them.

That means using herbicides and insecticides which do their job

but, in the process, annihilate all other wild plants and insects.

Even the beneficial ones.

In the years after the Second World War, agricultural chemicals

were widely used to control pests and increase crop production,

but they had a devastating effect on much of our countryside wildlife.

Farmland birds have been hit particularly hard -

within a single human lifetime, we've lost more than

two million pairs of skylarks, a million pairs of lapwings

and 90% of our grey partridges.

It's easy to point the finger of blame at farmers for all this

but the truth is that we are all part of the problem.

We've demanded cheaper and cheaper food

and so the farmers have just provided it.

So when it came to a battle between cheap food and wildlife,

wildlife was always going to be the loser.

Pesticides continue to cause problems for many of our farmland creatures,

including a nocturnal species you might not expect.

As Michaela Strachan discovered in the wilds of Devon.

Bats have a pretty tough time in Britain.

They don't always get a great PR, but look at this little one.

It is absolutely adorable and they really are fascinating creatures.

But, you know, Britain's bats are in big trouble.

One in three of Britain's native mammals, 18 species, are bats.

Of all these, the most at risk is the greater horseshoe bat.

Named for its distinctive-shaped nose.

It's declined by a shocking 90% in the past century

and there are now only 20 breeding colonies left in England.

I've come to Devon,

one of the few remaining strongholds for this incredible flying mammal.

With rolling hills that provide the perfect landscape for dairy farms,

it's remained a haven for the horseshoe bats.

Now one thing that's really important for bats is,

believe it or not, this. A cowpat.

Now this one has lots of insects on it.

And horseshoe bats in particular are rather partial to dung beetles

that make their homes in cowpats.

However, these days, lots of farmers use a chemical to

de-worm their cows that's so toxic that nothing survives in the cowpat.

However, this is an organic farmer.

And as you can see, this cowpat is thriving. So I'm sure that once

the sun goes down this will provide a nice bat takeaway.

Greater horseshoe bats hibernate for up to six months of the year

and this bat-friendly county has an abundance of winter retreats

to give them protection from predators.

One such hideaway is run by the Vincent Wildlife Trust.

This cave is a really important roost site for greater horseshoe bats.

In fact, it's home to the largest colony of them

in the west of Europe.

Come spring, they migrate all the way over to these barns

and this is where they have their summer roosts.

At the moment, there'll be lots of females

all huddled together in there, sharing warmth.

Because this is where they have their babies.

Once night falls and the bats get ready to forage for food,

Colin Morris can count them

to monitor this vital colony's progress.

Tonight, he's letting me join his team.

As the bats are so sensitive to light,

we have to film using infrared cameras.

-(SOFTLY) Hi, Michaela.

-How are you?

-I'm fine. You?

Yeah, I'm good. Have you seen any yet?

Yeah, they've started coming from the cave over there

and going to the small barn over here.

(Look, look, look. There's quite a few.)

-We just had one above our head.

-Yes, it's a good sign.

I can hear it sort of doing their calling.

Yes, that's because we've got an ultrasonic bat detector

which is picking up their ultrasounds

and converting it into a sound that we can hear.

Colin, this is obviously a very important site

but how many is there?

Well, at the peak of the summer,

the adults number between 1,500 and 1,800 animals.

-That is a big colony, isn't it?

-Very, very impressive.

Colin and his team come out here twice a year to check the numbers.

And anybody can help with that, can't they?

They can give information to the bat monitoring programme.

Yes, they can.

It's great to see volunteers helping Colin out and it's something

we could all get involved in to help save these incredible animals.

Well, I've enjoyed my night out, have you?

I had a fantastic night.

We had about 400 coming out and about 60 going in

but there was so much traffic in and out.

It was incredible. I'm very happy. It's been a good night.

Just down the road at Beer Caves,

scientist Fiona Matthews is trying to find out more

about the greater horseshoe bat's life cycle to help protect them.

She does so by catching and tagging them.

-Hi, Fiona. It looks like you're busy.

-Hi. Yeah.

-These are the nets that you do the survey in?

-That's right.

They're going to fly against these strings

and slither down into the collecting bag.

Do they get stressed out by that?

Well, actually, they're remarkably calm about it.

-Are they?

-Because they don't get tangled up.

They'll end up walking up here and roosting in a little line

across the top and just go, yeah, sometimes even go back asleep.

Bats are at their most active once twilight approaches,

using their amazing navigational skills to hunt for flying insects.

It's not long before the bats are woken from their slumber

and fall into our harmless traps. Well, some of them.

-Oh.

-What have we got?

-A nice big greater horseshoe.

-Oh, he is active that one, isn't he?

-A little horseshoe.

What I need to do, first of all, is put a ring on him.

Fiona, now they have high protection status,

-has that made a difference already?

-Yes, yes.

-Has that helped them?

-Yes.

We've put radio tags on the bats coming out of these caves

and established where the commuting routes are so we can say for sure

we know the bats are coming here and if we can adopt some additional

measures on those farms, that just makes the bats' lives a bit easier.

With information gathered from tagging and tracking, Fiona can

provide evidence of the bats' flight paths and encourage farmers to get

involved in schemes to maintain bat-friendly habitats

such as hedgerows.

With thorough research and simple conservation methods,

we really can save these incredible creatures from extinction.

But what should you do if you find a sick or injured bat?

Well, you make a call to the bat lady.

Lizzie Platt set up a bat hospital in her family home seven years ago.

So, Lizzie, these are the bat cages for the injured bats.

It's not what the average person has in their garage, is it?

No, not really. No, this is a lovely site for injured bats.

They can just get used to moving around a little bit.

A bit of physio for them, really.

-Can we have a look at some?

-Yeah, sure.

-Which ones are in here?

-We've got long-eared bats in here.

Oh, look at them.

These are very sleepy, cold bats at the moment

so I'm going to just wrap a blanket round them.

-Oh, fantastic. How many are there, three?

-Four.

-Four.

-THEY LAUGH

-It's like a ball of bats.

-We've had one fly papered. One has really large...

-Fly papered?

Yes, we get a lot of bats in that have been caught on fly paper.

They go, attracted to the bugs.

And what should people do if they find an injured or sick bat?

Use a gloved hand or a tea towel and gather it up

and put it in something like a shoe box.

So it's got something to hang and a little milk bottle top full of water

and the sooner we get them, the sooner we can treat them.

So what type of bat is in here?

This is Brian. He usually lives upstairs.

Brian is a Bechstein's bat,

and he's one of the rarest bats in the country.

Yes, he was born last year.

-A tree branch had fallen on his bat box.

-Oh, look at him.

And he had...oh, he was starving to death

and he had several breaks and a lot of muscle damage.

Hello, Brian.

MICHAELA LAUGHS

-Lizzie, can I hold this one?

-Yes.

They just seem so delicate, don't they?

I can see why you've fallen in love with them.

You can't help it, can you?

You know, 20 years ago, the greater horseshoe bat's cousin -

the greater mouse-eared bat - became extinct in the UK.

It would be an absolute tragedy if another species became extinct.

And when you look at them like this, you just think

how can we possibly let that happen?

This is one of those classic scenes that spring to my mind

when I think about the British countryside.

A summer meadow humming with insects. Just listen to those birds.

BIRDS TWEET

But believe it or not, this is all part of a working farm

here on the border between Wiltshire and Hampshire.

This place is amazing. It's alive with important animals.

There are butterflies dancing all around me.

There are plants covered with bees. Bumblebees and solitary bees.

And they're all performing this incredibly important job of

pollinating the plants, allowing them to reproduce

so that they can grow again.

If you look at these, they're absolutely covered in aphids.

That sounds bad, but they're food for ladybirds

and other predatory flying insects.

Which are food for all these birds around me.

It's the sort of place our grandparents

and great-grandparents would have known and cherished.

Cholderton Estate is run by father and son Henry and Rory Edmunds.

They farm organically, which helps wildlife thrive on their land.

And you don't do anything to this? You just simply grow it?

Yeah, this is literally just stuck in the ground in the autumn

and then we just leave it.

As you can see, like, we're struggling through the bushes

-because there's no tram lines.

-It's amazing.

The farm dates back 130 years,

when it was started by Rory's great-great-grandfather.

What are your childhood memories of wildlife on the farm when you were growing up?

I don't remember there being anywhere near as much

wildlife as there is today.

I mean, you used to see a few deer, a few hares, a few lapwings.

And then for years, you know, we lost them and we wouldn't see any.

Now the place is lifting with hares. You can go into any field

and you'll see a multitude of hares and they're beautiful.

A lot of corn buntings in sort of various parts of the farm.

A lot more lapwings.

A lot of songbirds. A lot of yellowhammers.

How does organic make a difference for wildlife?

A lot of these chicks are all dependant on insects

so where you're spraying insecticides on these crops,

there are obviously zero insects, so the chicks basically just starve.

As well as not using pesticides, Rory and his father have followed

a traditional approach, which also benefits the farm's wildlife.

Well, we have mixed farming so we've got lots of animals.

We've got sheep, cows, horses

and I think that in itself encourages a lot of wildlife.

Everything's being grazed, you know, at certain times of the year.

The right times for various insects

so all the birds have got stuff to come and eat in the winter.

For instance, with the lapwings,

we fence off where we know they're going to nest.

We cultivate it, put an electric fence round it and then,

when they hatch off, the adults take their chicks into

a field next door where we've got sheep.

And we put the sheep there because that provides the ideal habitat

for lapwing chicks to grow up in.

It sounds like quite a lot of work,

all of the extra measures that you take to support wildlife here.

-Is it worth it?

-Yeah, it's definitely worth it.

I think farming without wildlife would be boring.

I think seeing the lapwings out and amongst the sheep is amazing.

It's a real sort of old-fashioned farming sight.

You probably wouldn't see it anywhere else around here.

Having spent some time here, I am genuinely blown away by the amount

of wildlife that there is.

And I know that not all farms can be organic -

the nation couldn't simply produce enough food that way -

but it does give us some vital lessons in how to farm

in a wildlife-friendly way.

And you don't have to be a farmer to help protect Britain's

threatened wild creatures. We can all play our part.

Wildlife gardener Mike Dilger as lots of useful advice

about how to make the wild species in your garden well-fed and happy.

My aim is to make my own back garden as wildlife-friendly as possible.

And I want to inspire you to do the same.

When it comes to providing food for wildlife,

the obvious choice is putting out bird food.

In a recent survey,

two out of every three households fed their garden birds.

'And why fill up the feeders yourself...'

Hi, guys.

'..when there's an army of budding wildlife gardeners eager to help?'

Who feeds the birds in their garden?

I'm glad to see lots of hands.

To attract as many different types as possible,

what I do is put lots of different types of food in the garden.

This is called niger, goldfinch love eating this food.

You need a specially designed feeder for these small, oil-rich seeds.

But for the conventional feeders, it's hard to beat sunflower seeds.

Does anybody know what birds eat these?

Blue tits?

Boom. Perfect answer. Well done.

So it's mostly blue tits and great tits.

Fat blocks are a favourite for many birds

including starlings, sparrows and robins.

The fat gives them an energy boost

to get through the cold winter nights.

All these different foods will entice

a whole variety of birds into your garden.

The next trick is keeping other creatures away.

There's an animal I don't want to eat all the seed.

I'm thinking about an animal

with a long tail that's grey that lives in the trees.

Yes.

-Is it a squirrel?

-Grey squirrel.

They love munching through all my peanuts

but I have a trick that keeps them away.

-Does anyone know what this spice is?

-Yes.

-What is it?

Chilli.

Chilli powder. Absolutely. Any idea why, Sunny?

Because the squirrels like those types of nuts

-and they don't like that.

-That's right.

Birds don't mind chilli powder on their nuts and squirrels hate it.

That is ten out of ten. Very good.

Fantastic. There we have an anti-squirrel food.

That is perfect chilli-coated peanuts. There you go.

Providing food for wildlife also means creating areas where

animals can naturally find something to eat.

I'm sure it's not just birds dining out

in the wilder areas of my garden.

So I set some traps to find out.

Can everyone see what's inside? They're little tiny mice.

I'm going to squeeze this and let the mice out into the bag.

There we go.

CHILDREN LAUGH

Isn't that brilliant?

Our native wood mice are not that easy to see

as they're mostly nocturnal and hide away deep in the undergrowth.

Does anyone know what wood mice eat?

Wood?

No, they live in a wood.

They eat things like fruit and seeds and nuts.

Wood mice are affected by pesticides on farmland,

so poison-free gardens provide them with a safe home.

They can also breed incredibly quickly.

In summer, there can be well over 30 million wood mice in the UK.

There's the first mouse coming out. There he goes.

That's great news for many farmland birds like kestrels

and owls that rely on them for food.

We caught one more thing in the traps last night.

There we go. Look at that.

I cannot believe that we actually caught a f... Oh!

SQUEALING AND LAUGHTER

I can't believe we actually caught a frog in the trap.

Right, because he's jumping like a little Mexican jumping bean,

I'm going to put him into this bucket.

Because I've got a meadow with lots of nice long grass,

that is a home to lots of insects

and of course insects are food for the frogs.

If you can, leave your grass to grow long.

Even if it's just a small area

as that will attract tiny insects for the frogs.

There we go. Fantastic. Well done, guys.

My wildlife garden is now a couple of years old

and provides some of the food that's missing from the wild.

But over in Essex, there's a more mature garden that does it in style.

Wendy Schmidt lives on the edge of arable farmland.

The vast open fields provide little sustenance

so the animals are flocking to her garden.

A real five-star restaurant for wildlife.

Wendy, I have to say, I am a keen wildlife gardener

but you, madam, have taken it to a different level.

-This is amazing!

-Oh, we're very fortunate.

When we first came to look at it, it was just grass.

Apart from the mature trees down the side, there wasn't a flower, a shrub

or anything and suddenly I thought,

I can achieve a lifetime's ambition. Have my own nature reserve.

We've got the pond. We've got the meadows.

We've got areas with shrubs. A little bit of woodland.

You've packed in all these habitats.

The prime thing was, everything must have beautiful blossom

that is useful for the insects and the majority of them

must have fruits afterwards for the birds.

Food for wildlife all year round.

The burst of insect life in spring will flock to early flowering plants

like primroses, and one of the best early nectar providers is lungwort.

Absolute magnet for the bees and flies.

And it is very pretty for us to look at as well.

Look at that lovely bee fly there. Isn't that gorgeous?

There's lots of news in the press these days about butterflies

and bumblebees disappearing from farmland.

-Gardens, in many ways, are the answer.

-Oh, absolutely.

If we all do our little bit, it can help these poor creatures.

And as we know, bees are so important for pollinating the crops and

if you have them in your garden, then it just helps that little bit extra.

Spring and summer of course is a time of plenty for wildlife

and they can find food easily but it's also really important

to remember autumn and that animals need feeding too.

Absolutely. I mean, the insects have got to build up their strength

to see them through the winter.

A great plant for food during the colder months is ivy.

Its flowers appear after our summer blooms are over

and it produces its berries in winter

when the birds need them the most.

In terms of its wildlife value, what would you give this plant?

A ten out of ten, because it's the only thing that does this

at the time when no-one else is there.

As Wendy's year-round wildlife diner has taken shape,

the animals have arrived in force.

As well as the insects, she attracts declining farmland birds such

as yellowhammers. And then at night, the foxes and badgers turn up.

Once they find there's a reliable food source here, then they come

and somehow they tell their friends, and more and more come.

And, well, it's our pleasure to be host to them.

There's a real shortage of natural food

in many parts of our farmed countryside,

but we can all help keep our wildlife well fed all year round.

With a bit of careful thought and planning,

you too could make your garden much more nature-friendly

throughout the seasons.

If you plant flowers, that'll create a massive

nectar and pollen hit in spring and summer.

And then in the autumn and winter, shrubs and lovely trees like this

provide nuts and berries for all manner of animals.

And with a bit of supplementary feeding in the winter,

you can make your garden wildlife-friendly 365 days a year.

If you want to transform your garden into a top restaurant

for wildlife, Mike has more helpful hints and tips on our website

along with advice on what you can do to help save Britain's

threatened farmland creatures.

Still to come on Britain's Big Wildlife Revival,

vet and naturalist Steve Leonard champions a magical bird

in need of our help to prevent it vanishing for good.

Ah. Hello to you.

And I witness a jewel of the insect world...

There's one over here.

..which has been brought back from the dead.

That really is very gorgeous.

If we're going to reverse the decline of our farmland wildlife,

we can't just rely on the efforts of individual farmers.

We have to start thinking on a much bigger scale.

Here in Wiltshire, on the rolling Marlborough Downs,

a quiet revolution is under way.

When I get to the top of this hill, I can see how the farmers here

are working together to make it happen.

Last year, more than 40 farmers in this area joined forces

to become one of the government's new Nature Improvement Areas.

They're restoring and creating wildlife habitat in an area

covering almost 40 square miles

so that nature can flourish across the whole landscape.

One of the farmers involved in the scheme is David White,

whose family have farmed here for five generations.

David is passionate about wildlife and a keen photographer

of the many birds and mammals that live on his land.

You know when you hear that lovely skylark singing up there,

it's absolutely amazing, isn't it?

Just one little skylark like that can make all that noise.

To have lovely birds about the place like short-eared owls,

or hen harriers passing through, or stone curlews, or lapwings,

or corn buntings, tree sparrows,

all the sort of things that we have here, is a joy.

Not only to see but also if one's got the chance to go

and take a nice photograph. That is the icing on the cake, really.

But unlike in his ancestors' day, David believes that he

and his neighbours have no option but to farm their land intensively.

Could you simply go back to your great-grandfather's ways of farming

in order to help wildlife?

Well, from a wildlife point of view, that would be lovely, wouldn't it?

The trouble is, we live in a hungry world

and so we have to farm in an intensive way.

Despite the pressure to produce food,

David is still able to give over a significant proportion of his land

to wildlife, thanks to funding from the Nature Improvement Area.

We have about 125 acres that we actually devote

entirely to wildlife. We also have a wetland grass meadow

and we put up 50 nest boxes this last year for tree sparrows.

We put up 12 barn owl boxes, and it works really, really well.

Other farmers in the scheme are also helping to transform

this whole landscape into a wildlife-friendly zone.

Replanting hedgerows, digging ponds and linking up patches of habitat

to create corridors along which wild creatures can travel.

This farmer is planting a wild flower seed mix in this wide strip

right next to the crops

so that in a few weeks' time it will be a blaze of different colours.

Wild flower strips grow up into this. A huge variety of plants.

Many of which come into bloom at different times of the year

to extend the season for pollinating insects.

It is plenty thick enough to provide cover for birds,

and it looks amazing.

There we go.

And it's not just arable farmers who are involved.

-He's grumpy.

-Does he give you a hard time?

Katie Guest is a dairy farmer

and one of the new generation who have embraced this pioneering scheme.

What do you do to manage for wildlife?

We're looking to do some grassland work up on the downs.

We also have some grass margins on the fields.

We're also going to be feeding the birds

a little bit more during the winter.

-What do you get here?

-We get all sorts. We get deer here.

And this morning, when I was out moving the electric fence,

I saw a fox and its cub out in the field.

We have tree sparrows, wagtails, all sorts.

Wow. It costs to manage for wildlife, so why bother doing it?

I think it's really important because it's like a big jigsaw puzzle.

And everything forms a place within the system.

And if you lose a place within that puzzle,

you've lost a piece of the wildlife for ever.

It's the time and energy and effort that you put into it

but you also get out of it the same amount of joy from seeing it

and seeing the wildlife.

Katie's family have farmed here for over 150 years

but, until recently, her daily commute was down city streets

rather than amongst these rolling green pastures.

After being in an office and just seeing breeze block walls

and that's my office view, to come back to this

and for this to be my office view was a real big drive for it.

Do you see that you will always be doing it?

Yes, definitely. I think you'd get very insular

if you just looked at your cows all day. And it's those extra things

that you see that really make your days very special.

By thinking big and doing the work on a grand scale, the farmers

here on the Marlborough Downs have found a balance between agriculture

and wildlife and they're making a real difference.

Elsewhere in Britain, local communities are also coming together

to save our farmland creatures,

including one of our best-loved countryside birds.

As TV vet and wildlife enthusiast Steve Leonard has been finding out.

Many people dream of moving out of town.

Far from the madding crowd. An outing to our beautiful countryside.

To get closer to nature.

And what could be better than this?

A lovely old farm building that has been converted into a luxury home.

Unfortunately, our passion for renovation

has resulted in one of our most beautiful birds losing its home.

The barn owl, with a major decline in the last 80 years,

over half of all breeding barn owls have disappeared from Britain.

These beautiful creatures have eyes twice as light-sensitive as humans

and can eat over 1,000 small mammals a year.

But they're struggling to survive because their natural habitat

is being destroyed.

Like most of our farmland species, the barn owl has taken a real hit

when it comes to change of land use.

Modern farming has massively reduced the wild, untamed areas,

and this has really limited opportunities for hunting.

They feed on voles, shrews and mice

and if their prey has nowhere to live,

they have nothing to eat.

There are areas of wild habitat left, unkempt areas like this

where small mammals live and thrive, but for barn owls,

they can be deadly.

It's a big problem for young owls

when they leave the safety of their nest for the first time.

Many die in collisions with cars.

The problem is that the way that barn owls hunt,

swooping low over hedgerows, they drift out onto the tarmac

and because it's dark at night they'll get hit by a car.

Over 5,000 of these beautiful birds

are killed on Britain's roads every year.

The Raptor Foundation rescue centre in Cambridgeshire

provides a much needed lifeline for these casualties,

and for sick and injured owls from around the world.

Simon Dudhill is the man in charge of their recuperation,

rehabilitation, and hopeful return to the wild.

One of his recent patients, an owl that dislocated its wing

when it was hit by a car,

has had successful surgery and is well on the way to recovery.

Right, so this is the one with the elbow injury, isn't it?

It is.

Oh, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. You haven't named this one then?

No. We don't name them. It gets too personal if we name them.

-Yeah. No, I can understand that.

-Most birds with any fracture,

the healing process starts almost immediately, as you know.

And unless you can get them to a vet virtually straightaway,

if the bones are, have become displaced in the fracture,

they will heal out of line.

And the bird then will probably not have the ability to fly.

What sort of advice would you give to somebody about maybe

trying to pick up an injured owl?

If you can go up to a bird of prey and literally put a towel round it

and pick it up, then you know there's something wrong with it.

If you're not able to get it to the vet straightaway,

then what we recommend is that if you've got to keep it overnight,

put it somewhere warm, somewhere dark. Don't try and feed it.

It doesn't need water.

And then get it to a vet as soon as possible the following day.

A lot of them are so severe that we're not able to do anything

with them but others, they are repairable, like this one.

Come on, poppet. Come on.

Oh, look at that. Obviously that elbow's working well.

It is. Considering it's only three weeks or so since she was

brought into the vet and a couple of weeks since she's had

all of her restrainers taken off, she is healing very, very well.

Great.

-HE GASPS

-Hello to you! Aren't you gorgeous?

-Oh, and here's your mate.

-HE CHUCKLES

Two for the price of one, that's fantastic.

Hey up! I know, there's no need to fight. Very good.

Like all owls, they've got this very unique look about them.

This face. This feather pattern. If you put your hand behind your ear,

you'll be able to hear a lot more, and effectively,

that's what the shape around the eyes does.

Because although they've got big beautiful eyes,

they really, really focus on sound for hunting.

And if you look at the feathered back edge,

this sort of frayed edge to the feathers, this enables them

to fly very, very quietly.

So, although they're not particularly fast,

they make no rustling sound at all.

I didn't hear them leave at all there.

Think about when a pigeon takes off and that

clack, clack, clack of its wings.

HE CHUCKLES

Such a rare treat. This is spectacular.

It would be a tragedy

if these stunning creatures disappeared from our countryside.

To help them, we need to change the way we farm,

create more hedgerows and rough grassland, and grow trees

along our roadsides to discourage them from hunting near busy traffic.

But in the short term,

we urgently need to provide them with somewhere to make their nests.

And one man who's done just that is Steve Piotrowski.

He runs the Suffolk Community Barn Owl Project.

A scheme to put a barn owl box in every village in the county.

-Hi, Steve.

-Pleased to meet you.

-Er, it's not what I expected.

-It's big.

-It is. It's huge.

There's a little shelf here for the barn owl to land on,

and then it's going to hop in, and there's a shelf inside.

Now that, we call a baffle, which is very important

because that then stops too much light going in the box.

This doesn't mimic a barn as such?

No. 70% of barn owls, in Suffolk anyway, breed in hollow trees.

So in a way, that's mimicking a hollow tree.

When did you set up the project?

Well, we started the project in 2006.

We said, look, we're going to put 90 boxes up in five years.

And now we've got 1,600.

And a third of those boxes are occupied by barn owls.

It goes to show that there was a real need for this sort of housing.

Steve's taking me to see some of the boxes being used.

He's getting great support across the whole county.

Not least from farmers who are keen to encourage owls

to nest on their land as they kill unwanted pests.

Gill Harper has been helping out the barn owl population

in this area for years, and has several nest boxes on her land.

Well, I can see you like your animals.

-You're absolutely surrounded here.

-I'm afraid so. THEY LAUGH

What is it about the barn owls that really...?

I just find them magical.

Once you've got a box on your property, I suppose then you get...?

Almost instantly they take it, and then sort of follow it through.

Then waiting to see if you're going to get babies, and hoping.

And then seeing the babies out as well.

It is very rewarding. It's lovely.

The good news, similar schemes are running

elsewhere in Britain too.

There are now 25,000 barn owl boxes nationwide.

Which is more than enough for every surviving pair

to nest and raise their chicks.

-There's eggs.

-He's in there with the eggs, yeah.

Six eggs. That's a good haul. Were you expecting that?

No. Never had more than three at a time.

-Oh, OK.

-That's really good.

It's great to see just how enthusiastically people have

got behind this project and made it a real success.

And the beauty of it really is its simplicity.

By taking away the barn owls homes, we really did put them in jeopardy.

But by giving them new places to live, we've hopefully ensured that

that vision of a barn owl swooping low over a hedgerow

is something that we can all enjoy well into the future.

Of all our farmland wildlife, there's one particular group

that has suffered more than most in the past few years.

Wet summers, cold springs and the problems of intensive farming

and pesticides has meant that there are now fewer

butterflies on the wing in Britain than on any time since our

ancestors first started farming this land more than 5,000 years ago.

Amazingly, one farmland butterfly is bucking this trend.

A real jewel of an insect. The large blue.

Today, they're thriving here, but this wasn't always a success story.

Just over 30 years ago,

this beautiful butterfly completely vanished from our shores.

But now this exquisite insect is back, and I've come to this

stunning hillside in Somerset to see if I can find one.

Fortunately, I have some help.

These are exactly the conditions that you see a large blue.

Oh, good.

David Simcox is a scientist who has played a pivotal role

in the partnership to return this precious butterfly

back to the British countryside.

So we're just looking for something blue. There's one over here.

There.

Oh. You've got it. You've got it. You've got it.

That really is very gorgeous.

It seems hilarious that it's called a large blue and it's not that big.

It's not that big. It's not that big.

It depends what you're comparing it to.

I mean, it's the largest of the blue butterflies

that occur in this country.

Oh, wow. Why is it that you love them so much?

It just makes my heart flutter when I see them, you know.

I find it quite difficult to explain why. But it does.

Tell me about their life cycle.

This is a very, very fresh female

that has just come out in the last half-hour or so.

It will be hoping to find a male within the next few minutes.

After they've paired, she will start to lay eggs

on the tight buds of wild thyme.

The caterpillar emits a substance which fools a species of red ant

into thinking it's one of their young.

The ants then carry the caterpillar down into their nest

and look after it.

It returns the favour by eating the ants' grubs.

Eventually, it turns into a pupa and finally, almost a year after it

went underground, it emerges in its full glory as an adult butterfly.

Like this one has this morning looking for a mate.

-That is...

-So it is a bizarre life.

Extraordinary. It really is.

The large blue disappeared from Britain in 1979

because of habitat loss from intensive farming.

But following pioneering science and conservation work,

it was successfully reintroduced back into south west England,

and now it's doing rather well.

Why should people care about the large blue?

Why should people even care about butterflies?

I think they lift people's spirits.

To conserve them is really, really difficult.

I mean, if we could conserve the large blue,

really everything should be possible to conserve.

We are incredibly lucky that it's sat here this long.

People don't get this, do they?

No, no, we're very fortunate that it's been quite cool

and now it's just warming up and that's why.

Oh. Off it goes.

The return of the large blue is one of the few success stories

in our farmed countryside, which makes it all the more remarkable.

It gives us hope, even when so many farmland creatures face oblivion,

that at the 11th hour, we might just be able to bring them back.

All over Britain, people who care about our countryside

are working towards a common goal.

To balance the needs of farmers with those of wildlife.

It won't be easy to make this work

across the whole of the British countryside,

but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try.

Of course farmers have to produce food for us to eat,

but we must also make room for nature.

We simply cannot get away with losing animals like the barn owl,

the brown hare and these magical farmland butterflies.

It would be humiliating to explain to the next generation

why they went extinct in our lifetime.

So let's celebrate what we have already achieved and make a pledge

to continue to save Britain's threatened wild creatures

and the wonderful places where they live.

Next time on Britain's Big Wildlife Revival,

I reveal the rebirth of Britain's wetlands.

It's just so peaceful.

Mike Dilger shows you how to witness the miracle of life

in your own garden.

-This has hatched out this morning.

-Oh.

And our team of experts champion three wetland species

in danger of slipping away for ever.

You handsome boy.

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