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For me, watching wildlife is one of life's greatest pleasures. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
And my favourite place to do it is right here in my beloved West Country. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:12 | |
This captivating corner of the British Isles... | 0:00:14 | 0:00:16 | |
There's six right underneath us. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:18 | |
..has a cast of creatures that's as awe-inspiring, | 0:00:18 | 0:00:22 | |
extraordinary and magical as any. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
Oh, come on! No way! | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
I'm hoping to get as close as I can to as many as I can... | 0:00:29 | 0:00:33 | |
Right, I'm ready. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:35 | |
This is great. This is measuring an eel. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:37 | |
Off, off, off! | 0:00:37 | 0:00:39 | |
There's one inside my...oh! | 0:00:39 | 0:00:41 | |
..with the help of a band of dedicated nature lovers. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:44 | |
Some of the patterns on the feathers, they're beautiful. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:48 | |
Good spot. Look, look, look! | 0:00:50 | 0:00:51 | |
-Wonderful. -So cool. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:53 | |
There's one in my hair now. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
I'll share the thrill of the chase... | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
-Do you hear them? -I heard something. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
Yeah, they're in there. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:01 | |
Yes. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:03 | |
..the sheer joy of the encounter... | 0:01:03 | 0:01:06 | |
-She's so golden. -She is fast asleep. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
That's amazing. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
..and I'll pitch in to help these local heroes | 0:01:12 | 0:01:16 | |
safeguard the future of our precious animals. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:19 | |
Bye-bye. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
There she goes. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:22 | |
I can't believe that I've been living in the West Country | 0:01:25 | 0:01:29 | |
for so many years and I've never done this before. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
This will be a year-round adventure... | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
Straight ahead! | 0:01:34 | 0:01:35 | |
..as we explore the natural wonders of the UK's very own Wild West. | 0:01:35 | 0:01:41 | |
Today I'm in a part of south-west England that I should know pretty well. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:58 | |
I'm right on my home patch, the Devon/Dorset border. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:05 | |
I've lived around here for almost 20 years. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
But getting to know the local wildlife is a never-ending process... | 0:02:09 | 0:02:13 | |
..and this area of the south-west is home to an enthralling cast of creatures, | 0:02:15 | 0:02:20 | |
some of which I now think of as old friends, | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
but some of the more elusive ones I still haven't met. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
This stretch of coast straddling Devon and Dorset is best known for | 0:02:28 | 0:02:33 | |
the fossil beaches and beauty spots around Lyme Regis and Lulworth Cove, | 0:02:33 | 0:02:38 | |
but there's plenty of interest just back from the sea | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
along a ribbon of land that runs from the pretty river valleys | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
above Exmouth and Sidmouth, past Lyme Regis | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
to the tidal waterways of the Fleet near Weymouth. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:50 | |
This is the River Otter. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:54 | |
As you might expect, there are indeed otters here, | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
and plenty more besides. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
What is truly surprising is that here, just a few miles from home, | 0:03:01 | 0:03:06 | |
I have a chance to encounter a creature of the river | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
that to me has always seemed exotic and far-flung. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:12 | |
As a child I loved reading books about wild animals from far-off | 0:03:13 | 0:03:16 | |
lands and dreaming that maybe one day I'd get to see them for myself. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:21 | |
One creature that particularly fascinated me, with its toothy face, | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
its leathery tail and its amazing ability to chop down trees, | 0:03:25 | 0:03:29 | |
was the beaver. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:31 | |
When I was a boy, beavers hadn't been seen in England | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
for over 400 years. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
They were once widespread in the UK, | 0:03:38 | 0:03:40 | |
but they were hunted to extinction for their fur, | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
their meat and their powerful scent glands, | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
which were used in perfumes and medicines. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:48 | |
But in 2011, | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
local wildlife watchers were amazed to find that beavers | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
had made a surprise return right here in Devon. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
It's suspected they'd been accidentally released from captivity. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:06 | |
However it happened, within a few years, they were seen to have young, | 0:04:06 | 0:04:10 | |
known as kits. It soon became clear | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
that these unlikely and unexpected arrivals | 0:04:13 | 0:04:17 | |
had the potential to start a genuine beaver revival. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
I've still never actually seen one in the wild, | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
which makes it incredibly exciting to know that there's | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
a real possibility of seeing one right here on this river, | 0:04:28 | 0:04:33 | |
on my home patch on the Devon/Dorset border. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
Of course, I'm not the only one who finds the idea of spotting a beaver | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
in the wild very exciting. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
They're still not easy to see, | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
but when the word gets around that beavers are out and about, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
it can attract quite a crowd, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:53 | |
hoping to train their lenses on the River Otter's new celebrities. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
In my personal experience the furthest anybody's come | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
was Western Australia, Perth and New Zealand, | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
and people on holiday in Europe | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
come in via Budleigh to see our beavers. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
I could not believe it, | 0:05:14 | 0:05:15 | |
but that's fact. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
David White was one of the first to get the beaver bug. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
I retired to the area some eight years ago, | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
and one day when I was down here I came across a very funny footprint. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
And I could think of everything it wasn't. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
A few months later, I'm walking along another part of the river | 0:05:33 | 0:05:37 | |
and I hear a huge splash. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:39 | |
A bit like I'd expect somebody who had thrown a pebble the size of | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
a bag of sugar into the water. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
I thought, "What on earth made that?" | 0:05:45 | 0:05:47 | |
Then, two and two together, it was a beaver's tail splashing. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
That is how I got interested in the beavers in the first place. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
Typically they may be nearly as large as a sack of potatoes. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
They whizz around so fast and they dive up and down, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
and pop up two yards away, ten yards away, | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
and you really don't know whether you're looking at the same one or a different one. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
Having the only wild beavers in England right on his doorstep | 0:06:07 | 0:06:10 | |
has made Dave | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
something of an authority | 0:06:12 | 0:06:13 | |
on how to get the best view. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:15 | |
When I see them, the first thing really is to try and let it | 0:06:23 | 0:06:26 | |
relax and settle down a bit. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:29 | |
Some people tend to, "Oh, oh! Look, there's a beaver!" | 0:06:29 | 0:06:32 | |
Point, lean forward. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
Hold back, ease away | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
and the beaver relaxes a bit and it'll actually come closer to you, | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
and you get a better look at it to see what it is doing. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
For one amateur wildlife photographer these newcomers | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
on the river presented an opportunity not to be missed. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
German-born Sylvie Meller is building up a library of footage | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
of the parents and their kits. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:57 | |
But she'll never forget the first time she saw them. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:02 | |
We were just sitting next to the river | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
and it was the female swimming past us. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
There she was, and it was just goose bumps immediately. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
I was just hooked on them. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
-Straight away? -Completely addicted. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:12 | |
And I just had to come there now most weekends and see them | 0:07:12 | 0:07:16 | |
and take pictures and film them. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:18 | |
Sylvie's intimate footage of this tight-knit unit | 0:07:20 | 0:07:23 | |
gives us an insight into beaver family life. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
Beavers mate for life, having up to four kits a year. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:30 | |
The young then stay with the family until they're around two years old. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:34 | |
So the beaver family is the nicest thing to watch, I guess? | 0:07:37 | 0:07:39 | |
It is lovely to watch them. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:41 | |
And of course when the kits are out the first time, | 0:07:41 | 0:07:44 | |
to see the tiny little kits | 0:07:44 | 0:07:45 | |
swimming around and playing with | 0:07:45 | 0:07:47 | |
the parents and swimming on the back of the mother and the dad, | 0:07:47 | 0:07:50 | |
that's just one of the most amazing moments. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
It's a beaver soap opera? | 0:07:53 | 0:07:55 | |
It is, yeah. Each and every time it's something different. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
My parents always say, "Oh, you are going back to the river again, | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
"isn't it always the same?" | 0:08:01 | 0:08:03 | |
No, every time it's different. Every | 0:08:03 | 0:08:05 | |
time something new's happening. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:06 | |
I would absolutely love to see one, | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
just being in the river and hanging out and doing beavery things. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:14 | |
At the moment the best thing is to come early in the morning, | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
just after sunrise, when it's just about getting light, | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
to see them coming, swimming back to the lodge. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
-Thank you, Sylvie. -You're welcome. -I hope I have a bit of your luck. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
Yeah. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:28 | |
It's still dark when I head back down to the river | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
for my early-morning beaver stakeout. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
It's just before dawn and I'm back on the bridge where Sylvie says | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
I've got the best chance of seeing the beavers on the move. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
It's still pretty dark, so I've got an infrared light here | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
and a camera that picks that up. | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
So even though I can't really see what's happening on the river yet, | 0:08:59 | 0:09:03 | |
I can see here through the viewfinder. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
So if they do come down the river before it gets light, | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
I should still be able to pick them up. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
It feels almost absurd to think a beaver might suddenly appear here | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
on this Devon river, but that's probably what everyone | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
who's seen one was thinking just before it happened. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:22 | |
Just a glimpse would be a thrill. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:31 | |
But wildlife watching is about putting in the hours, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:36 | |
and being here on the river as the sun rises is a pleasure in itself. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:40 | |
Having said that, I would like to see one. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
It has been a lovely morning, | 0:09:53 | 0:09:55 | |
but sadly beaverless. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:56 | |
So that's it for today. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
But I'm definitely coming back as soon as I can because | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
I've definitely got beaver fever. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
I may not have seen one this time, but hearing from people who have, | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
and seeing in their eyes the excitement that goes with it, | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
I'm not giving up just yet. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
The past plight of our beavers is a good reminder of why | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
our wildlife needs protection today. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:25 | |
But conservation isn't a new idea, | 0:10:25 | 0:10:27 | |
even if historically it's tended to favour only a select few species. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:32 | |
One of those has been the subject of what must be the oldest | 0:10:34 | 0:10:37 | |
continuous conservation project in the UK. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:40 | |
I'm full of admiration for anyone who devotes the whole of their | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
working lives to protecting the interests of our wildlife. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
But when that job comes with a heritage that is almost 1,000 years old, | 0:10:47 | 0:10:53 | |
that's got to command some serious respect. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
This is the Fleet, | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
a 13km-long saltwater lagoon | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
created by the pebble bank of Chesil Beach. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:06 | |
For centuries, this geographical anomaly has been a safe haven | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
for a graceful resident with privileged royal connections. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:14 | |
Abbotsbury Swannery is home to hundreds of these majestic birds. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:19 | |
This is the world's one and only managed colony of mute swans. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:33 | |
The job of looking after them goes back to the 14th century... | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
..as does the title that goes with it - | 0:11:39 | 0:11:41 | |
the Swanherd. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
The current incumbent is Swanherd Dave Wheeler. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:48 | |
Let me see. Come on, girl. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:50 | |
Good. One, two, three, four, five, six eggs for nest 29. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:54 | |
The Fleet provides masses of food for waterfowl, | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
and that's the attraction. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
The shallow lagoon has over 150 species of plant life, | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
25 species of fish and plentiful molluscs, | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
all of which contribute to this rich feeding ground | 0:12:09 | 0:12:12 | |
for the omnivorous swans. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:14 | |
In the winter, top count in recent years was very close to 1,400 swans. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:20 | |
OK, OK. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:24 | |
It's hard to explain why I love this place. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
I think there is a magic to it. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
It's not just swans, it's THE Swannery at Abbotsbury. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
There are so many different aspects to it, the job is so varied, | 0:12:34 | 0:12:39 | |
we don't know what we'll be doing from one day to the next. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
That's good, that's good. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:45 | |
I do remember one particular day that made me think, | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
when my first job of the day happened to be to lift sewage pumps, | 0:12:51 | 0:12:57 | |
clean them and reset them, | 0:12:57 | 0:12:59 | |
my very next job was to pose with children, | 0:12:59 | 0:13:03 | |
ballerinas in tutus, on the nesting site. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
There can't be any jobs with that kind of variety. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:09 | |
The swannery was established here by Benedictine monks whose reasons | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
for protecting these birds were somewhat different from ours today. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:17 | |
We know that Benedictine monks founded a monastery in Abbotsbury | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
as far back as the 1040s, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
and we know that they had a great interest in this place because, | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
of course, they wanted to eat swan. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:28 | |
And obviously, if they could increase survival rates | 0:13:28 | 0:13:31 | |
there'd be more swan meat. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:33 | |
Whatever the motive, the responsibilities of the Swanherd - | 0:13:35 | 0:13:39 | |
to protect these birds and help their young to reach maturity | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
on this beautiful piece of water - are the same as they've always been. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:47 | |
It's a story of historical continuity | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
that's surprising and somehow comforting. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
When we look in the archives, | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
there are many mentions of keepers of swans here and swanherds, | 0:13:55 | 0:14:00 | |
so the title may have changed a little over the years, but certainly | 0:14:00 | 0:14:04 | |
they've been managed for many hundreds of years. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
It's almost as if these powerful birds sense the advantage | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
to their young of this age-old human intervention. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
We have a colony of nesting swans, which is rather unusual, | 0:14:13 | 0:14:16 | |
and they don't make good neighbours. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
They all want more territory, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:20 | |
there's aggressive interaction between some pairs, | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
and without our help, survival would not be so good. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
The swan colony is tended daily by Dave and his team | 0:14:29 | 0:14:33 | |
but these are truly wild animals, free to come and go as they please. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
Clearly at nesting time, there's nowhere they'd rather be than here. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
I think the situation here, | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
the swans and the swannery are extremely important. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:48 | |
I think it's right and good that it's sustained. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
Scientifically it's unique. There is nowhere in the world | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
where we can gain so much information about swans. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:00 | |
It's May and the height of the hatching season. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
To gather the data they need on the year's new brood, | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
Dave and his team must inspect each newly hatched cygnet. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
And with protective parent swans to contend with, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
this is the most dangerous job of the year. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
We sex and tag their cygnets when they're just a day old, | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
so we're really asking to be thumped! | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
Risky it may be, but it's all part of the job for Dave's deputy Swanherd, Steve Groves. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:32 | |
My dad worked in a factory all his life on a lathe, so this is, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
you know, a job like this, yeah... | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
..you do get a big kick out of it. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:41 | |
Ready? | 0:15:41 | 0:15:42 | |
One Swanherd did have his radius broken, | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
and there has been one case, I believe, of cracked ribs here. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:49 | |
One of my colleagues I did see knocked unconscious | 0:15:49 | 0:15:53 | |
on the nesting site. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
A swan struck him on the head. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:56 | |
It's a male. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
Cygnets are among the largest hatchlings of any British bird, | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
but like all chicks they're vulnerable. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:04 | |
Every year in the UK only about a third of all cygnets hatched anywhere | 0:16:04 | 0:16:08 | |
make it to their first autumn, let alone get through their first winter. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:12 | |
And usually we're on par with that. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:14 | |
In this crowded colony the big risk to the cygnets is from other swans, | 0:16:15 | 0:16:20 | |
protecting their patch, both on land and on water. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:23 | |
It's a threat that all these cygnets will have to face pretty soon. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
They're almost ready to leave the nest. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:31 | |
They usually leave the nest on... | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
..sometimes day two, usually day three. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:35 | |
So they may stay in there until tomorrow and then the parents | 0:16:35 | 0:16:39 | |
will take them down to the nearest available water, | 0:16:39 | 0:16:41 | |
which, if they're a really good pair, they've already got | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
a bit of water in their territory. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:46 | |
But I don't think this pair have. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:49 | |
So they've got a journey now down to the Fleet Lagoon | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
which means going through other swans' territory, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
and there's more chances that the cygnets will get predated | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
or attacked by another swan, | 0:16:57 | 0:16:59 | |
so they haven't got the best start in life, | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
but obviously we're always around to look after them. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:05 | |
Even in a 1,000-year-old colony, | 0:17:06 | 0:17:07 | |
life is never easy for the swans of Abbotsbury. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:11 | |
Last year we had a very good survival rate. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
It was nearly 50% that survived their first...up to autumn. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:17 | |
But unfortunately, of course, last winter | 0:17:17 | 0:17:20 | |
we had a bird flu outbreak and unfortunately a lot of | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
those cygnets that made it didn't make it through the bird flu, | 0:17:23 | 0:17:26 | |
so nature, like I say, | 0:17:26 | 0:17:28 | |
just always makes sure that only the strongest survive. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
The cygnets have many trials ahead and Swanherd Dave has | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
his biggest challenge of the year coming up too. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:40 | |
In midsummer he'll oversee one of the country's most bizarre annual wildlife surveys. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:46 | |
The rich tidal waters of the largely unchanging Fleet | 0:17:50 | 0:17:54 | |
have always been an ideal home for the swans. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
But back from the sea, even the most | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
idyllic landscapes of the West Country are shaped by man... | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
And when that puts a species in decline, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:07 | |
there's a good case to be made that it's down to us | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
to offer a helping hand. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:12 | |
If you can give them a secure place to live and breed, | 0:18:13 | 0:18:17 | |
you can make a real difference. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:18 | |
And if that place happens to be man-made and even centrally heated, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:23 | |
well, some animals are just not going to have a problem with that. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
The stately homes of England attract visitors from all over the world. | 0:18:32 | 0:18:36 | |
Some have been opened to the public | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
or been converted into swanky hotels. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
But here in Dorset one former dwelling of the landed gentry | 0:18:41 | 0:18:45 | |
has found a very different destiny. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
This rather forbidding structure was once the bustling kitchen block | 0:18:48 | 0:18:53 | |
of Bryanston's 18th-century manor house. | 0:18:53 | 0:18:56 | |
But since it was abandoned some new residents have taken over the place, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
and they only come out at night. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
For 30 years Colin Morris has been tending to their every need. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
Bats, including the rare greater horseshoe, | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
were found to be in residence here in the 1950s, | 0:19:19 | 0:19:23 | |
and since then the accommodation has had a number of upgrades. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
This roost has been studied by bat scientists since the 1950s. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:32 | |
And over the years it had so many improvements here, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
just for the bats. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:37 | |
It was one of the first places to have central heating put in | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
for them, to keep them nice and warm and help the babies grow. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
We also had it reroofed just for the bats. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
They had all this money. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:48 | |
It's probably the most expensive bat roost in the UK. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
So it's been known since then as the Horseshoe Hilton. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
The greater horseshoe bat is the largest of Britain's | 0:19:57 | 0:20:00 | |
18 species of bats, but also one of the rarest. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:04 | |
Its diet consists of moths and insects that it catches on the wing, | 0:20:04 | 0:20:09 | |
but numbers have been hit by the double whammy of habitat loss | 0:20:09 | 0:20:13 | |
and the widespread use of agricultural insecticides. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
It's estimated that numbers have declined over 90% in the last 100 years. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:23 | |
It's disappeared completely from over half its former range | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
in the UK, and is now confined to south-west England and South Wales. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:32 | |
But projects like this are helping the horseshoes hang on in there, | 0:20:33 | 0:20:37 | |
and nowadays they can stay here all year round, | 0:20:37 | 0:20:41 | |
thanks to some major recent renovations. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
So here we have the world's first cave ever dug in solid rock | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
for hibernating bats. We took out the back wall | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
of an internal fireplace and we dug a tunnel | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
approximately 12 metres long, twisted at the end, | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
so you get a pocket of warm air at the top | 0:21:00 | 0:21:03 | |
and a pocket of warm air at the bottom, | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
because bats roost at different temperatures throughout the winter. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:09 | |
And over one weekend we excavated nearly 40 tonnes of rock. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:13 | |
Prior to its excavation we only had perhaps 15 or 20 bats | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
hibernating here throughout the winter. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
This winter, we had nearly 300 bats hibernating in there, | 0:21:21 | 0:21:24 | |
so a very successful site indeed. | 0:21:24 | 0:21:26 | |
Colin's purpose-built bat cave, or hibernaculum, | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
has clearly been a massive boost for the greater horseshoes, | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
providing them with a cosy place to sit out the worst of the winter chill. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:39 | |
In the spring, the pregnant females move back upstairs. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:43 | |
This is their maternity roost, a special mother-and-baby unit | 0:21:43 | 0:21:47 | |
where bats rear their young over the summer. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
By July the mothers have given birth and must now leave their pups | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
to hunt for a few hours every evening. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
Did I bring my camera? | 0:21:56 | 0:21:57 | |
For Colin and his team, it's the perfect time for a bat count. | 0:21:57 | 0:22:00 | |
Now, have we all got tally counters? | 0:22:01 | 0:22:03 | |
-I have. -Bat detectors? | 0:22:03 | 0:22:05 | |
-Yeah. -OK, well... | 0:22:05 | 0:22:07 | |
..the bats will be out in about ten minutes. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
-If we settle down now and wait for the emergence, OK? -That's fine. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:14 | |
Any problems, let me know. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:16 | |
The volunteers are equipped with some handy technology. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
This is an ultrasonic bat detector. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:21 | |
It's one of the simplest bat detectors on the market. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:23 | |
This clever box of tricks allows them to hear the ultrasonic calls | 0:22:24 | 0:22:28 | |
made by each bat. These clicks are the echolocation | 0:22:28 | 0:22:32 | |
by which they navigate and hunt their prey. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:36 | |
-Okey dokey. -You're sitting on the bat detector. -I am. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:39 | |
-That's painful! -Ooh! | 0:22:39 | 0:22:43 | |
Made my day, that did. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
In the gloom of dusk, the bats begin to emerge. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
And the team get busy with their bat detectors, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
counting them click by click. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
But click counting bats is trickier than you might think. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
Some evenings are more difficult than others, because | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
these bats have a tendency to go in and out several times | 0:23:07 | 0:23:11 | |
before they go off to forage totally. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
And what you've got to do is, if a bat goes back into the building... | 0:23:17 | 0:23:20 | |
..remember one bat's gone back in | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
and, when the next bat comes out, | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
you don't click it. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:27 | |
If I get 250 to 300 adults | 0:23:27 | 0:23:32 | |
and 150 to 170 babies, | 0:23:32 | 0:23:35 | |
I'll be very happy. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
When the bats are all out, the team can compare their counts. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
-344, good count. -349. 349. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
And the result is even better than Colin was expecting... | 0:23:44 | 0:23:47 | |
-350. -Ooh, really? Really? -Yeah. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
..which raises hopes of an impressive brood inside. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:54 | |
Right, OK. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:56 | |
-Let's go and see how many babies we have. -Yeah. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:58 | |
With all the mums now out hunting, | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
Colin quickly scrambles up to the attic to count the pups. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:05 | |
Oh, look. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:07 | |
There's a bat that's been born in the last day or two. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:09 | |
Greater horseshoe bats have been known to live for 30 years, | 0:24:10 | 0:24:14 | |
but they breed very, very slowly. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:16 | |
They might not give birth until they're three or four years old, | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
and perhaps they'll only have one baby every two years, which is why | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
they're sort of living on a knife-edge in this part of Europe. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
They don't breed very fast. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:27 | |
Their survival rate isn't always as good as we'd hoped. | 0:24:27 | 0:24:31 | |
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten... | 0:24:34 | 0:24:36 | |
There's some very tiny bats up there, | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
which have been born in the last week, | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
so I'd estimate perhaps we'd have 170 babies in total this year. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:45 | |
For the horseshoe bat, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:48 | |
there's still a long way to go before they're out of danger, | 0:24:48 | 0:24:51 | |
but it's good to know that it's packed to the rafters | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
here at the Horseshoe Hilton. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:55 | |
I'm back on the River Otter on my continuing quest | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
to catch up with Devon's wild beavers. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:14 | |
Today, I'm joining Mark Elliott from Devon Wildlife Trust. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
-You can see there's signs of... -Yeah, another one down there. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:22 | |
Last year, a new pair of beavers were introduced | 0:25:22 | 0:25:25 | |
to prevent inbreeding, and Mark's been keeping a close watch | 0:25:25 | 0:25:29 | |
on their progress ever since. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:31 | |
I'm excited, and already the trail is pretty warm. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:35 | |
There's a tree down here, Mark. That's not beavers, is it? | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
-Yes, this is beavers. -Is it? Oh! That is massive! | 0:25:38 | 0:25:41 | |
That's a Devon beaver? | 0:25:42 | 0:25:44 | |
-Yeah, yeah, absolutely. -I've never seen anything like it! | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
You can see all the teeth marks all the way across here. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
Oh, that's extraordinary! | 0:25:49 | 0:25:51 | |
A resident mammal felling trees here in Devon just seems really odd, | 0:25:51 | 0:25:56 | |
but wherever they are, beavers will be beavers. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:59 | |
And he wants this tree to come down. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:01 | |
Yeah, primarily so that he can reach the top branches. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
So he's feeding on the top branches, or using the sticks | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
for lodge building, that sort of thing, but also, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:11 | |
because it's a willow tree, this will re-sprout, | 0:26:11 | 0:26:13 | |
so there will be lots of fresh, young growth come from this tree | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
next year, and that will then be food for beavers in future years. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
A beaver's teeth are unusual, | 0:26:26 | 0:26:28 | |
as they'd need to be to gnaw through this much wood. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:31 | |
Unlike our teeth, they never stop growing. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
What keeps them in check is all that chewing. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:38 | |
The front of the tooth is made from hard enamel, | 0:26:38 | 0:26:40 | |
backed by a slightly softer substance called dentine, | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
which is more easily worn away. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
It's an ingenious arrangement | 0:26:46 | 0:26:48 | |
that makes a beaver's teeth self-sharpening. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:51 | |
The front layer of enamel | 0:26:51 | 0:26:52 | |
is especially tough because | 0:26:52 | 0:26:54 | |
it's so rich in iron, | 0:26:54 | 0:26:55 | |
which is very practical for wood chewing | 0:26:55 | 0:26:58 | |
but does lead to one rather striking | 0:26:58 | 0:26:59 | |
visual feature of mature beavers - | 0:26:59 | 0:27:03 | |
orange teeth. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:04 | |
So having felled a tree, they're going down the whole length of it. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:08 | |
-Yeah, all the way down. -Whittling away, nibbling every stem. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:11 | |
And then this is bark stripping, | 0:27:11 | 0:27:13 | |
so they are feeding on the bark particularly. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
You can see all the way, and this is fresh here, | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
so this is in the last few nights. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:20 | |
That wood, that is food. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:21 | |
There's some goodness in there that's being extracted. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:24 | |
The smaller stuff, so they're not really eating the wood. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:27 | |
They are feeding on the bark, particularly on the smaller twigs, | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
but then the branches, like these, will probably be in the lodge. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
-It's astonishing that's going on in Devon. -Yeah. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
It's brilliant. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:37 | |
Sights like this haven't been seen here for centuries, | 0:27:37 | 0:27:41 | |
so a major part of Mark's work is to try and assess | 0:27:41 | 0:27:44 | |
what it could mean for the ecology of the area. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
Looking at a tree like this down, it's absolutely unambiguous | 0:27:47 | 0:27:51 | |
that beavers are making an impact on the river. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:54 | |
They're changing things here. Is that a problem? | 0:27:54 | 0:27:56 | |
No, I don't think so. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:58 | |
These are all riverside willow trees. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:00 | |
They grow very quickly. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:02 | |
To be honest, they grow in response to this sort of activity. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
This is a really natural process. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
There will be lots of species that benefit from this sort of woody material. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:11 | |
But I think the other real benefits are going to be | 0:28:11 | 0:28:14 | |
where beavers are building dams. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:16 | |
And so you start to see flood risk benefits, | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
so the beavers are storing water up in the headwaters | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
and that reduces the speed of flow coming downstream. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:24 | |
But those ponds are also really important for amphibians | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
and for fish and a whole range of other wetland species. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:30 | |
So that's where the real benefits are, | 0:28:30 | 0:28:32 | |
it's when they start damming. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:33 | |
So they're doing all the other wildlife a favour here? | 0:28:33 | 0:28:36 | |
They're creating habitats for a whole range of species. | 0:28:36 | 0:28:38 | |
We call them keystone species because they create habitats for other things. | 0:28:38 | 0:28:42 | |
To keep track of this pilot population of beaver, | 0:28:45 | 0:28:48 | |
Mark and his team try to tag and microchip all new arrivals. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:52 | |
This could be my best chance to see a Devon beaver in the flesh. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:57 | |
But first, we have to catch one. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:00 | |
See how the traps are just through here. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:03 | |
Oh, yeah, I can see something the other side of that scrubby bit of willow. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:07 | |
It's quite an out-of-the-way place, this. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:11 | |
Yeah. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:13 | |
Do we bait first or set the trap first? | 0:29:14 | 0:29:15 | |
We'll bait first. Otherwise there's the risk of injury when you | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
-put the bait in. -Oh, yeah, of course. -So, yeah, what we're doing | 0:29:18 | 0:29:21 | |
is putting apples inside. And the plate in the middle | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
is what the beavers have to stand on. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:25 | |
So what we then do is bring the doors down onto those | 0:29:25 | 0:29:29 | |
-metal bars there. -That's it. | 0:29:29 | 0:29:31 | |
That should hold it in place. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
-OK. -OK, so now that's set. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:36 | |
So if the beaver touches the plate... | 0:29:36 | 0:29:38 | |
-..that's what happens. -Yeah. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
You got me there! Is this trap | 0:29:41 | 0:29:43 | |
specifically designed for beavers or can it catch other critters? | 0:29:43 | 0:29:46 | |
This is specifically designed for beavers, yeah. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:48 | |
So the size and everything means that the beaver's tail is clear of | 0:29:48 | 0:29:51 | |
the falling door, it's been carefully worked out? | 0:29:51 | 0:29:54 | |
-Yeah. -And that's set. | 0:29:54 | 0:29:55 | |
-That's now set. -Great. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:57 | |
OK, so that's them set. | 0:29:57 | 0:29:59 | |
-When do you check them? -First thing. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:01 | |
-Early doors. -Yeah, we don't want to leave them too late. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:03 | |
So, first thing in the morning. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:05 | |
So far, Devon's beavers have eluded me, | 0:30:09 | 0:30:12 | |
but footage taken by dedicated local enthusiasts suggests that | 0:30:12 | 0:30:17 | |
the River Otter is very much to their liking. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:20 | |
Beavers are most active and most relaxed at night | 0:30:23 | 0:30:27 | |
when they leave their lodge to feed. | 0:30:27 | 0:30:29 | |
And there's plenty of family time, too. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:33 | |
The following morning, Mark and I are back to check the trap. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:43 | |
Do you think we'll be able to see whether the trap's been triggered | 0:30:47 | 0:30:49 | |
-from here, Mark? -Yeah, it should be possible to see | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
-whether the door's down. It does look like... -It's down. | 0:30:52 | 0:30:54 | |
Shall we see if we can see an animal in there? | 0:30:54 | 0:30:57 | |
There's something in the bottom right-hand corner? | 0:30:58 | 0:31:01 | |
Yes. Yes, I can see it! | 0:31:01 | 0:31:03 | |
-Yep. -That's incredible. There's a beaver in there. | 0:31:03 | 0:31:06 | |
-These rhododendrons at least give you something to grab on to. -Yeah. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:10 | |
It looks like I'm finally on my way to meeting one of the first beavers | 0:31:10 | 0:31:14 | |
living wild in England for four centuries... | 0:31:14 | 0:31:17 | |
Whoa! That's me. | 0:31:18 | 0:31:19 | |
..if I don't come a cropper first. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:21 | |
More brittle than I thought. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:23 | |
-You can see his tail. -It's quite a long tail, isn't it? | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
Yeah, it's quite a small animal, though. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
-It's... -I think it's probably... | 0:31:38 | 0:31:39 | |
-That's a small animal? -That's a small animal, yeah. | 0:31:39 | 0:31:42 | |
Looked pretty big to me, but then I've never seen a beaver before. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:44 | |
This is, I'd say, it's probably one of the youngsters from last year. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:48 | |
Handling the beaver is the job of zoologist Roisin and her assistant, Ed. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:52 | |
-Hi. Hugh. How are you? -Hi. Roisin. | 0:31:54 | 0:31:56 | |
-Hi. -Ed. -Hi, Ed. | 0:31:56 | 0:31:58 | |
All right. You look like you've got what it takes to deal with a beaver. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:01 | |
-Hopefully. -OK, show us how it's done. | 0:32:01 | 0:32:03 | |
Through her work with a similar project in Scotland, | 0:32:03 | 0:32:06 | |
Roisin has been handling British beavers for nearly ten years. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:10 | |
The job today is to assess the animal's condition, | 0:32:12 | 0:32:15 | |
take DNA samples and tag it for easy identification in the future. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:20 | |
To keep the beaver calm while all this is happening, | 0:32:22 | 0:32:24 | |
it's wrapped snugly in a bag. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
This is a young animal, Mark. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:28 | |
Yeah, so this is probably one of last year's kits, by the looks | 0:32:28 | 0:32:32 | |
of it, so still it's a reasonable size, but it's not an adult. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
My introduction to this beaver starts with a rear-end view. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:39 | |
An older animal will often have a scar or a cut in the tail | 0:32:39 | 0:32:42 | |
from fights, and that can be a really useful way | 0:32:42 | 0:32:44 | |
of identifying individuals if you haven't got ear tags in. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:47 | |
This is a lovely, perfect tail on a youngster. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
-Yeah, it's really good condition. -We've got a nice exit. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
-Anything I can do to help? -You could lift the tail. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:55 | |
That would be great. So, we don't want to bend it too far back. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:57 | |
-Sure. -So about there. -How's that? -Yeah. | 0:32:57 | 0:32:59 | |
It feels a bit surreal to be handling this beaver before | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
I've even had a proper look at it. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:04 | |
Right, see, if you look at the very end of the anal gland... | 0:33:04 | 0:33:06 | |
-Yeah. -..you'll see like a white... -Slightly paler. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:09 | |
Yeah, and it's quite... | 0:33:09 | 0:33:11 | |
It's quite thick. So this is a female. | 0:33:11 | 0:33:14 | |
So that little white paste at the end of the anal glands, | 0:33:14 | 0:33:17 | |
-that tells you... -So not this, but, yeah, that. | 0:33:17 | 0:33:19 | |
A tiny dot of white right on its... Almost like a pyramid, | 0:33:19 | 0:33:22 | |
-like a pointy nipple, that tells you it's a female. -Yeah. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:25 | |
That's pretty good news, isn't it? | 0:33:25 | 0:33:27 | |
From the point of view of a growing population, | 0:33:27 | 0:33:29 | |
having another female in the tribe is good. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
Yeah, so we know there were five kits born last year, | 0:33:32 | 0:33:35 | |
and we've caught two of them, so that's two females so far. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
That smell is really lingering. It's really intense and, actually, | 0:33:40 | 0:33:43 | |
that smell is part of the reason for the beaver's downfall, isn't it, | 0:33:43 | 0:33:46 | |
because that was used for the scent industry? | 0:33:46 | 0:33:49 | |
Yeah, and it was believed to have medicinal properties as well, so you | 0:33:49 | 0:33:52 | |
-can smell it. It's quite pungent, it's very unique to beavers. -Musky, really intense. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:56 | |
-Yeah. -And it is something you kind of almost recognise | 0:33:56 | 0:33:59 | |
from the world of perfume, like sort of ambery stuff. | 0:33:59 | 0:34:03 | |
So that was probably the most intense part of this process. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
Bit more gory part, yeah, yeah. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:08 | |
So now we know what sex it is, so we'll record that. | 0:34:08 | 0:34:12 | |
We want to microchip it and we want to put ear tags in as well. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:16 | |
-How's she doing there, Ed? -She's lovely and calm, isn't she? | 0:34:16 | 0:34:19 | |
Yeah, she seems to be. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:21 | |
She's probably glad that the anal examination is over. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:23 | |
So really, I mean, this animal looks in good body condition. | 0:34:25 | 0:34:28 | |
As you can feel here, I mean, there's a good layer of fat on it. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:32 | |
-Oh, yeah. -Yeah, and it's energetic. | 0:34:32 | 0:34:35 | |
-There's a lot of body there. -Yeah. | 0:34:35 | 0:34:36 | |
-So beavers are largely stomach. -Feels really well. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:39 | |
There's a lot of guts in there, | 0:34:39 | 0:34:40 | |
but there's a good layer of fat on the back. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:42 | |
Just feels super strong, a real powerhouse. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:44 | |
-And lift? -And lift. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:48 | |
-What have you got? -So that's ten kilos. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:53 | |
Ten kilos, bang on. | 0:34:53 | 0:34:54 | |
-Good size. -Well done, girl. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
We'll put her down. | 0:34:57 | 0:34:58 | |
And that's, what, about half full size? | 0:34:58 | 0:35:00 | |
We got her mum earlier on in the season last year and | 0:35:00 | 0:35:04 | |
-she was a good 25 kilos. -Really? -She's a big animal, so this is... | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
She's got a long way to go to be as big as Mum. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:11 | |
-It's a good, healthy size. -Now she's getting very keen to get back. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:14 | |
We'll take her down, just near to the water, | 0:35:14 | 0:35:16 | |
and then we'll let her go. | 0:35:16 | 0:35:18 | |
-How does this look as a release spot, Roisin? -Yeah, this is great. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:20 | |
She'll probably naturally go straight into the water. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:23 | |
If you just hold the bag corner... | 0:35:23 | 0:35:24 | |
-That's definitely the... -Hopefully not the head. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
-There's the head. -Yeah. -OK. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:29 | |
And she should sort herself out. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:31 | |
Come on, then. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:33 | |
Oh, here she goes. There she goes! | 0:35:33 | 0:35:36 | |
Wow. You get full sight of her now. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:38 | |
Wow! She didn't hang around. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:41 | |
How amazing. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:42 | |
My guess is that you won't catch her again. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
-Maybe not, no. -After everything she's been through. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:47 | |
-She'll have her night off. -Albeit for very good reasons. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:49 | |
At last, I've met a Devon beaver, | 0:35:49 | 0:35:52 | |
and maybe one day I'll get to see her cruising down the river | 0:35:52 | 0:35:56 | |
with some kits of her own. | 0:35:56 | 0:35:58 | |
At Abbotsbury Swannery the breeding season is drawing to a close. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:07 | |
The young swans' perilous journey from their nest site | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
to the water's edge is behind them now. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:14 | |
Only half the cygnets have survived, | 0:36:14 | 0:36:17 | |
but those that did are well looked after by their parents | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
and have a good chance of making it through the winter. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:24 | |
Now it's time for Swanherd Dave to gear up for | 0:36:26 | 0:36:29 | |
the biggest day in the swannery calendar. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:31 | |
We don't want to hesitate. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
We're going to go hand-in-hand. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:34 | |
When I say we, I mean you. | 0:36:34 | 0:36:36 | |
He's taking on a task that would be impossible without serious reinforcements. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:42 | |
But there are always plenty of volunteers willing to help. | 0:36:45 | 0:36:48 | |
Every two years, we have a mass round-up of the swans | 0:36:48 | 0:36:52 | |
that are not breeding. We always do it late July. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:56 | |
The idea is to catch them and check them | 0:36:56 | 0:36:59 | |
and make absolutely sure that they are well. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:02 | |
We have a team of vets present, | 0:37:02 | 0:37:05 | |
and every swan is carefully checked by vets. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:07 | |
The call for assistance with the biannual round-up | 0:37:09 | 0:37:11 | |
has produced a large crowd of eager amateur swanherds, | 0:37:11 | 0:37:15 | |
many of whom are regulars, | 0:37:15 | 0:37:16 | |
but Dave can't assume that they all know quite how this works. | 0:37:16 | 0:37:20 | |
So we're going to line up and we're going to be fairly quiet. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
We're going to make a long line... | 0:37:23 | 0:37:25 | |
The round-up will provide important data for Dave. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
We can take blood samples, we can weigh them, we can measure them, | 0:37:28 | 0:37:32 | |
we can ring them, and being able to identify each and every swan | 0:37:32 | 0:37:36 | |
enables us to study their nesting performance etc. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:41 | |
After a final pep talk... | 0:37:41 | 0:37:43 | |
It's not easy to wade in water with a little bit of silt underneath... | 0:37:43 | 0:37:48 | |
..it's time to get cracking. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:49 | |
..but we've got to go for it. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:51 | |
The wading and paddling human chain steadily herds the swans into a pen. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:02 | |
Timing this round-up for the swans' annual moult is critical. | 0:38:07 | 0:38:11 | |
There's a period of about six weeks while new feathers are growing | 0:38:11 | 0:38:15 | |
when the swans are effectively flightless. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:18 | |
And since an aerial escape is not an option, | 0:38:19 | 0:38:22 | |
the swans become surprisingly compliant to the amateur herders. | 0:38:22 | 0:38:26 | |
That's it, hold it there. | 0:38:31 | 0:38:34 | |
It might have looked pretty easy so far, but that was only the warm-up. | 0:38:34 | 0:38:38 | |
Now for phase two, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:40 | |
where the volunteers get hands-on with one of the world's largest waterfowl. | 0:38:40 | 0:38:45 | |
Deputy Swanherd Steve explains the rudiments of the procedure. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:49 | |
Well, the plan of action now is I'm going to start catching the swans. | 0:38:49 | 0:38:52 | |
They'll be given to carriers. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
They'll go through the initial checkers, | 0:38:54 | 0:38:56 | |
which I'm going to be one of, | 0:38:56 | 0:38:58 | |
then there's some that's going to go through the stations with the vets, | 0:38:58 | 0:39:02 | |
and then they'll go through and be ringed and weighed | 0:39:02 | 0:39:05 | |
and then released, basically. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:08 | |
Sounds simple enough, | 0:39:09 | 0:39:11 | |
except for the small matter of carrying a bird that can weigh up | 0:39:11 | 0:39:14 | |
to 12 kilos and has a wingspan of over two metres. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
If you hug a swan with the tummy pointing out, | 0:39:17 | 0:39:21 | |
the swan is helpless, the wings can't move, | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
and the feet stick out the front, | 0:39:24 | 0:39:26 | |
which is very convenient for any ringing. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:28 | |
But it's not just the feet that are worrying them, | 0:39:28 | 0:39:31 | |
and Dave can read their minds. | 0:39:31 | 0:39:32 | |
The head will be up there and, out of all those swans, | 0:39:32 | 0:39:36 | |
there's probably just one that might peck. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:38 | |
Under stormy summer skies, | 0:39:41 | 0:39:43 | |
the amateur swan wranglers queue up to take part | 0:39:43 | 0:39:46 | |
in what must be one of the most curious wildlife experiences | 0:39:46 | 0:39:49 | |
that Britain has to offer. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:51 | |
Y6203. | 0:39:53 | 0:39:57 | |
Yeah, so just came down for this. | 0:39:57 | 0:39:59 | |
But I live in Scotland now, so it's a long way to come. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:02 | |
It's just a great opportunity. | 0:40:06 | 0:40:07 | |
It's not something you get to do that much, obviously, | 0:40:07 | 0:40:10 | |
if you want to hold a swan. And it's a great community atmosphere. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:12 | |
Everybody comes down, you see the same faces every couple of years, | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
and it's a great place to bring friends as well. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:17 | |
I've just brought some friends for the first time. So, yeah. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:20 | |
Everyone seems to have taken to the task well but, amongst them all, | 0:40:20 | 0:40:25 | |
there's someone who I could only assume is a natural-born swan whisperer. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:29 | |
I went to a Women's Institute meeting in Weymouth, | 0:40:29 | 0:40:34 | |
where we lived at the time. | 0:40:34 | 0:40:35 | |
Sh-sh-sh-sh. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:37 | |
And Dave Wheeler, the Swanherd, came to give a talk, | 0:40:37 | 0:40:42 | |
and he mentioned volunteering, and I asked him about it then, | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
and he said, "Get in touch," so we did. | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
And they've closed the list now. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:50 | |
There's so many people want to volunteer that they've closed it. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:54 | |
So we were one of the last ones to get in, and I'm really pleased. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:58 | |
We love it. | 0:40:58 | 0:40:59 | |
Oh, well, I'll wait for some... | 0:40:59 | 0:41:01 | |
Ssh. OK, OK. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:03 | |
Ssh. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:04 | |
8.2. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:05 | |
About 75% of the way through. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:08 | |
Yeah, it's going pretty well. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:10 | |
No real problems. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:11 | |
A lot of scratches. | 0:41:11 | 0:41:13 | |
Yeah, arms are a bit knackered now. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:15 | |
But it's not too bad. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:17 | |
You're sort of used to it. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:18 | |
But thanks to all these lovely people helping out today, | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
they've made it a lot, lot easier. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:23 | |
In colonies of this size, any disease could be devastating, | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
so this regular checkup is vital. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:30 | |
The whole team work very hard to get this going and, if we do it right, | 0:41:30 | 0:41:34 | |
then it works smoothly and, yes, I'm really pleased. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:38 | |
When each swan has come through all of its checks, | 0:41:38 | 0:41:41 | |
it's handed to a volunteer with perhaps the best job of all. | 0:41:41 | 0:41:45 | |
I love to release them. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
Yeah, it's great to see them go back out. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:51 | |
I do this every time. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:53 | |
Thank you. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:55 | |
Finally, the last swan reaches the weigh-in. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:12 | |
It's been a good day. It's been a good round-up. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:14 | |
This is our 19th round-up and it has been very successful. | 0:42:14 | 0:42:17 | |
Today, we processed 727, which is a good result. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:22 | |
The system works. | 0:42:22 | 0:42:23 | |
Well done. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:25 | |
-Thanks, Bethan. That's the last bird. -Oh, thank you. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
That's the last one. | 0:42:31 | 0:42:32 | |
It's been a far from average day at Abbotsbury, | 0:42:40 | 0:42:44 | |
for people and swans alike, but as evening draws in | 0:42:44 | 0:42:48 | |
everyone can start to get back to the regular routine. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:51 | |
I think, by tomorrow morning, they'll be here for breakfast | 0:42:51 | 0:42:54 | |
at 8:30 and no-one would ever believe that | 0:42:54 | 0:42:56 | |
we've rounded them all up and been handling every single one of them. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:00 | |
It's late summer on the River Otter. | 0:43:11 | 0:43:13 | |
And I'm ever hopeful for a sighting of a beaver. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
But right now, something else has my attention. | 0:43:24 | 0:43:27 | |
This is absolutely fascinating. | 0:43:27 | 0:43:28 | |
There's half a dozen trout in there in this very shallow stretch | 0:43:28 | 0:43:32 | |
of the river, and I think we're seeing mating behaviour here. | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
One of the fish has rolled on its side, | 0:43:36 | 0:43:38 | |
and some of the fish are then flapping their tails | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
really quite vigorously, | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
as if they're just stirring up the bottom of the river. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:48 | |
They've dropped back here now. They're just here, | 0:43:48 | 0:43:51 | |
in the shadow, under the shadow of that tree. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:54 | |
One thing I've learned watching wildlife | 0:43:54 | 0:43:57 | |
is that what you think you see isn't always what's actually there. | 0:43:57 | 0:44:00 | |
Aha! | 0:44:00 | 0:44:01 | |
You can scratch everything I've just said, | 0:44:01 | 0:44:03 | |
because these are not trout, | 0:44:03 | 0:44:05 | |
they're mullets. | 0:44:05 | 0:44:07 | |
These are mullets. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:09 | |
I've been hallucinating trout, but now I can see | 0:44:09 | 0:44:12 | |
broad head, grey back, | 0:44:12 | 0:44:14 | |
silver sides, they're grey mullet... | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
..which I wasn't expecting to see, | 0:44:17 | 0:44:19 | |
because this is obviously fresh water, and mullet are sea fish. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:23 | |
Grey mullet spend most of their lives at sea and in estuaries, | 0:44:24 | 0:44:27 | |
but they are one of a few species happy to come upstream | 0:44:27 | 0:44:31 | |
on the high tide to feed in fresh water. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
All that stuff I was saying about trout breeding behaviour, | 0:44:34 | 0:44:37 | |
total nonsense. | 0:44:37 | 0:44:38 | |
It's actually mullet feeding behaviour, | 0:44:38 | 0:44:40 | |
and that little sideways shimmy... | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
..is them just trying to... | 0:44:44 | 0:44:45 | |
..nuzzle that wide mouth into this riverbed | 0:44:46 | 0:44:50 | |
and find little crustaceans and things. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:52 | |
Beautiful fish. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:55 | |
And I wasn't expecting to see that today. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:58 | |
It's all happening here. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:00 | |
West Country rivers and streams come in many forms, | 0:45:02 | 0:45:06 | |
but the most distinctive must be the chalk streams. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:08 | |
These are typically wide and shallow, with beautiful, | 0:45:10 | 0:45:12 | |
clear water that rises from springs in the chalk hills. | 0:45:12 | 0:45:17 | |
There are only about 200 chalk streams in the whole world, | 0:45:17 | 0:45:21 | |
and England has more than three quarters of them. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:23 | |
One of the finest, in my not unbiased opinion, | 0:45:24 | 0:45:27 | |
is the River Frome in Dorset. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:29 | |
I've spent quite a bit of time in my life hanging around by rivers, | 0:45:29 | 0:45:32 | |
or even in them, and one thing I've found is that, | 0:45:32 | 0:45:35 | |
when you look really closely, the little stuff, | 0:45:35 | 0:45:38 | |
the tiny creatures, are every bit as fascinating as the fish, | 0:45:38 | 0:45:41 | |
the birds and mammals. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:43 | |
So it is absolutely no surprise to me that for some people | 0:45:43 | 0:45:47 | |
the invertebrate life of rivers can become a complete obsession. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:51 | |
Ewan Jones has managed to turn that obsession into a living. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:57 | |
As a river ecologist, based on the Frome, | 0:45:57 | 0:45:59 | |
he's in and out of the water almost every day. | 0:45:59 | 0:46:02 | |
I grew up next to a river. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:04 | |
I used to spend all my time paddling, | 0:46:04 | 0:46:06 | |
chasing fish, getting into trouble, | 0:46:06 | 0:46:09 | |
getting my shorts and shoes soaking wet. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
I just found it really interesting. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:15 | |
I'm just a little boy at heart and I just enjoy mucking around in rivers | 0:46:15 | 0:46:19 | |
and finding the bugs to play with. | 0:46:19 | 0:46:21 | |
My wife calls me a professional pond dipper. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
It's brilliant. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:26 | |
For all the boyish glee, Ewan's river dipping has a serious purpose. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:34 | |
From his riverside laboratory, he studies how life in the river | 0:46:34 | 0:46:38 | |
responds to changes in the environment. | 0:46:38 | 0:46:41 | |
I work with all kinds of rivers all across the country, | 0:46:42 | 0:46:46 | |
but I particularly like chalk rivers. | 0:46:46 | 0:46:48 | |
Because chalk rivers are fed by ground water, | 0:46:48 | 0:46:51 | |
they're much more stable than other rivers which are fed by rainwater. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:55 | |
They're very productive as well, | 0:46:55 | 0:46:57 | |
because the water's clear and also has nutrients in it as well. | 0:46:57 | 0:47:01 | |
There's lots of life going in, things growing in there, | 0:47:01 | 0:47:03 | |
the plants are really important and so are the algae, | 0:47:03 | 0:47:06 | |
and they are so diverse and unique. | 0:47:06 | 0:47:10 | |
At the heart of the precious chalk stream habitat | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
is all the small stuff that lives in the riverbed. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:17 | |
I'm doing what is known as a kick sample. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:19 | |
This is just where you kick the bed of the river just enough to | 0:47:19 | 0:47:22 | |
disturb it so that the animals drift down into the net. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:26 | |
I just want all the different types of invertebrate, the mayflies, | 0:47:26 | 0:47:31 | |
that emerge in the springtime, also the snails, the worms, | 0:47:31 | 0:47:35 | |
the other insects, everything, | 0:47:35 | 0:47:37 | |
just a sample of them so I can find out what's living in this river. | 0:47:37 | 0:47:40 | |
Freshwater invertebrates are vital food | 0:47:46 | 0:47:49 | |
for the river's fish and birdlife, but they also play a key role | 0:47:49 | 0:47:53 | |
in maintaining the quality of the water. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:56 | |
These caddisfly larvae help to break down organic matter | 0:47:56 | 0:48:00 | |
in the stream, like a living filter mechanism. | 0:48:00 | 0:48:03 | |
Well, this is just some of the animals | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
that we've caught in the river. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:13 | |
There's lots of shrimps jumping around. | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
I can see saucer bugs, | 0:48:16 | 0:48:18 | |
and there's a leech | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
and some caddisflies. | 0:48:21 | 0:48:23 | |
Ewan always keeps an eye out for one very special character | 0:48:23 | 0:48:27 | |
among the river's tinier residents. | 0:48:27 | 0:48:29 | |
Just looking through now, seeing if I can find a mayfly. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
There we are. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:35 | |
That's the... | 0:48:37 | 0:48:38 | |
..a nymph of the mayfly. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
He's an ugly-looking brute compared to the adult, | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
but an important stage in their life. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
The mayfly nymph spends up to two years on the riverbed, | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
feeding on algae and plant life, before finally emerging | 0:48:53 | 0:48:57 | |
out of the water to spread its wings as an adult mayfly. | 0:48:57 | 0:49:02 | |
For Ewan, the mayfly provides important scientific data. | 0:49:04 | 0:49:08 | |
By acting as a tiny living time capsule, | 0:49:08 | 0:49:11 | |
the nymphs reveal information on the health of the river. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:14 | |
Mayflies are important because, along with all the other organisms, | 0:49:14 | 0:49:19 | |
they can tell us what's going on. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:20 | |
They kind of hold a bit of a memory. | 0:49:20 | 0:49:23 | |
Water moves through rivers so, if there's a problem, | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
so something ends up in the river that shouldn't be there, | 0:49:26 | 0:49:30 | |
as it moves downstream, if you were trying to detect it with chemistry, | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
you'd have to be there when that chunk of water passed by. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:37 | |
But by just looking at the invertebrates, | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
you can tell an awful lot of what's wrong with the site. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:43 | |
Ewan's lab work on the nymphs yields vital data for managing chalk streams. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:49 | |
But you have to get back to the river to witness | 0:49:50 | 0:49:52 | |
the culmination of the mayfly's amazing life cycle. | 0:49:52 | 0:49:56 | |
On a sunny day in late May, | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
there's a sense of anticipation here on the Frome. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
The birds are ready and waiting... | 0:50:02 | 0:50:04 | |
..as the adult mayfly emerge and take to the wing... | 0:50:06 | 0:50:09 | |
..in their hundreds... | 0:50:12 | 0:50:14 | |
..and thousands. | 0:50:16 | 0:50:18 | |
For every one of them, today is their day in the sun. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:23 | |
The reason that the mayflies all come at once is partly because | 0:50:23 | 0:50:27 | |
they've not got long to live and they have to breed quickly, | 0:50:27 | 0:50:31 | |
and partly it's to swamp the predators. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:34 | |
So many things are coming to eat them, | 0:50:34 | 0:50:36 | |
they can't possibly eat all of them, so a few get through. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
The threat comes from above... | 0:50:41 | 0:50:43 | |
..and below... | 0:50:46 | 0:50:47 | |
..but the mayfly just keep on coming. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:52 | |
On the water, there'll be insects all over it, and every time | 0:50:53 | 0:50:56 | |
you look in the air, there'll be something trying to eat them. | 0:50:56 | 0:51:00 | |
But whatever the risks that lie in wait, they have to seize the day. | 0:51:00 | 0:51:05 | |
This will be their only one as an adult. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:08 | |
And once on the wing, they have only hours to find a mate. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:26 | |
The males move to places where they can do a little dance | 0:51:28 | 0:51:31 | |
to try and attract the female in to reproduce, | 0:51:31 | 0:51:35 | |
because that's what it's all about for them. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:37 | |
For the mayfly of the Frome, love is in the air, literally, | 0:51:44 | 0:51:49 | |
as they mate in flight. | 0:51:49 | 0:51:51 | |
Every square metre must have a couple of hundred individuals | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
which all come popping out, and they just... | 0:52:06 | 0:52:10 | |
..constant supply of these beautiful insects coming out of the water. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:16 | |
But reproduction on the wing is a fleeting affair. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:23 | |
The males die soon after mating, | 0:52:23 | 0:52:25 | |
and the females after they've laid their eggs. | 0:52:25 | 0:52:28 | |
Every year, I make an effort to come and watch the mayflies emerging, | 0:52:30 | 0:52:33 | |
but just to get that opportunity to get down and sit somewhere quiet | 0:52:33 | 0:52:37 | |
by the river and watch it all going on. | 0:52:37 | 0:52:39 | |
It's amazing. Just so much life all happening at the same time. | 0:52:39 | 0:52:44 | |
The mayfly hatch is one of our great natural spectacles, | 0:52:45 | 0:52:49 | |
the definition of a day well spent. | 0:52:49 | 0:52:51 | |
Leaving Dorset and heading into Devon, | 0:52:54 | 0:52:56 | |
I'm returning to the River Otter, | 0:52:56 | 0:52:58 | |
the domain of the new bosses of the river, the beavers. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:02 | |
Despite several visits, | 0:53:03 | 0:53:05 | |
I haven't seen a beaver on the river since we tagged a young female | 0:53:05 | 0:53:09 | |
a few months back. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:11 | |
But our lucky cameraman did catch up with them early one summer morning, | 0:53:11 | 0:53:15 | |
looking as relaxed as ever. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:17 | |
I'm sure my moment will come but, for now, | 0:53:24 | 0:53:27 | |
I'm back with Mark for an update on our tagged young female. | 0:53:27 | 0:53:30 | |
And it seems he is determined to tease me | 0:53:31 | 0:53:34 | |
with fresh telltale signs of beaver activity. | 0:53:34 | 0:53:38 | |
-What's happening here, Mark? -Well, we're looking at a scent mound here, | 0:53:38 | 0:53:41 | |
-this area here. -That muddy patch? | 0:53:41 | 0:53:44 | |
-Yeah. -With a few kind of grassy stalks matted into it? | 0:53:44 | 0:53:47 | |
Not quite as exciting as seeing a live beaver, | 0:53:49 | 0:53:52 | |
but I guess the whole point of a scent mound | 0:53:52 | 0:53:54 | |
is to be sniffed at, not necessarily seen. | 0:53:54 | 0:53:57 | |
That's beaver-made. I mean, I would never have spotted that. | 0:53:58 | 0:54:01 | |
That's something that... The beavers actually pushed that mud there. | 0:54:01 | 0:54:05 | |
It's been pushed up and it will be really strong-smelling. | 0:54:05 | 0:54:08 | |
Well, you've got an eye for detail that I don't have, | 0:54:08 | 0:54:11 | |
and obviously a bundle of knowledge. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:13 | |
This site, we think, is the boundary between two territories, | 0:54:13 | 0:54:17 | |
so we think what's going on is that this is marking behaviour | 0:54:17 | 0:54:21 | |
by the animals that live in the main river, and they're basically | 0:54:21 | 0:54:25 | |
saying to a pair of beavers that live up here that this is... | 0:54:25 | 0:54:28 | |
.."You come no further, this is the edge of our territory." | 0:54:28 | 0:54:31 | |
Oh, OK, just right here, under the bridge. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:33 | |
-Pretty much. -So they've chosen an intersection to say, "That's it." | 0:54:33 | 0:54:36 | |
-Yeah. -And the pair who've got the territory over here, | 0:54:36 | 0:54:39 | |
are they getting quite busy in this area? Are they making changes? | 0:54:39 | 0:54:42 | |
They're having quite a big impact. Let's have a look. | 0:54:42 | 0:54:44 | |
Ah! | 0:54:49 | 0:54:51 | |
So there's a little beaver dam. | 0:54:51 | 0:54:52 | |
Yeah. So it's only really sprung up in the last few weeks, really. | 0:54:52 | 0:54:56 | |
-You can see it's already impounding all this water here. -Yeah. | 0:54:56 | 0:54:59 | |
And there is a regular trackway going across there into | 0:54:59 | 0:55:01 | |
that pond as well, so they're just creating this deeper water, | 0:55:01 | 0:55:05 | |
which means they can move up through here in relative safety. | 0:55:05 | 0:55:09 | |
So it's for the ease of movement that they like these | 0:55:09 | 0:55:12 | |
-long pools of slow water. -And it's safety as well, | 0:55:12 | 0:55:14 | |
so they're really...they're looking for deeper water where they can | 0:55:14 | 0:55:17 | |
-escape if they feel threatened. -They can hide under the water. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:20 | |
Yeah, get under the water and just disappear. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:22 | |
-Quite a nice piece of work, that, isn't it? -Yeah, it is. | 0:55:22 | 0:55:25 | |
There's a lot of sediment in there as well so, as well as the sticks, | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
there's a lot of silt and mud that's being used to sort of bind all | 0:55:28 | 0:55:31 | |
-that together. -And they pushed the mud and silt in there themselves? | 0:55:31 | 0:55:35 | |
They don't just put the sticks down and wait for the water to | 0:55:35 | 0:55:37 | |
-sort of jam it up with mud? -No, they really do. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:40 | |
They dredge it up from the bottom and place it there. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:42 | |
It's just great that a creature that was engineering our rivers and | 0:55:43 | 0:55:47 | |
shaping our landscape centuries ago is back at work here in Devon. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:51 | |
By creating slow pools, | 0:55:52 | 0:55:54 | |
helping to control water levels and reducing the risk of floods, | 0:55:54 | 0:55:58 | |
the beavers are benefiting all kinds of aquatic wildlife, | 0:55:58 | 0:56:02 | |
from otters and water voles to fish and birds. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
So do you know where you are? | 0:56:07 | 0:56:09 | |
Bend on the river. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:11 | |
-Is this where we trapped the beaver earlier in the year? -Yeah. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:17 | |
And we then saw her again down in the estuary, a few weeks later. | 0:56:17 | 0:56:21 | |
Oh, really? So almost at the sea. | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
So, yeah, about three miles down from here. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:26 | |
OK. And what's she been doing over the summer? Do we know? | 0:56:26 | 0:56:29 | |
Well, we've got this amazing video that somebody sent in | 0:56:29 | 0:56:33 | |
of her 46km upstream... | 0:56:33 | 0:56:36 | |
-No! -..at the top of the river. | 0:56:36 | 0:56:39 | |
So she'd obviously gone all the way up the main channel, | 0:56:39 | 0:56:42 | |
right up on the Somerset border... | 0:56:42 | 0:56:44 | |
So that's definitely her? | 0:56:44 | 0:56:46 | |
Definitely her. We gave her those bright orange ear tags. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
The same one that... | 0:56:49 | 0:56:51 | |
The same one that I held and we released just here? | 0:56:51 | 0:56:53 | |
-Yeah. -She's been 46km upriver. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
Does that feel like it would have been a sort of solo adventure for her? | 0:56:58 | 0:57:02 | |
Was she seen with any other beavers? | 0:57:02 | 0:57:04 | |
She was on her own, and... | 0:57:04 | 0:57:06 | |
Seeing her all the way up there definitely indicates that | 0:57:06 | 0:57:09 | |
they're really exploring all of the river. | 0:57:09 | 0:57:11 | |
Populations are really doing well. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:16 | |
We think we've probably got about six territories on the river, | 0:57:16 | 0:57:20 | |
so maybe about 27 animals in total. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:23 | |
So they are really thriving, they are really doing very well. | 0:57:23 | 0:57:26 | |
That feels like a proper population of wild beavers here in Devon, | 0:57:26 | 0:57:31 | |
and like they're here to stay. | 0:57:31 | 0:57:33 | |
They're certainly getting... | 0:57:33 | 0:57:34 | |
They're showing that this river is really suitable for them. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:37 | |
-They are loving it, basically? -They are, they're loving it. | 0:57:37 | 0:57:39 | |
-They really are loving it. -Having a great time. | 0:57:39 | 0:57:41 | |
-So they should, it's a lovely river. -It's perfect for them, it really is. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:44 | |
I've had a tantalising time trying to track these bashful beavers, | 0:57:44 | 0:57:49 | |
but the biggest thrill of all is just knowing that they are here. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:52 | |
And since I'm here too from time to time, | 0:57:53 | 0:57:56 | |
I'm sure that one of these days I'm bound to bump into one. | 0:57:56 | 0:57:59 | |
If you'd like to explore Britain's diverse landscapes in more detail | 0:58:04 | 0:58:08 | |
and find out how to create your own wildlife habitat, | 0:58:08 | 0:58:12 | |
the Open University has produced a free booklet with bookmarks. | 0:58:12 | 0:58:16 | |
Order your copy by calling... | 0:58:17 | 0:58:18 | |
Or go to the website and follow the links to the Open University. | 0:58:24 | 0:58:30 |