Episode 2 Springwatch Unsprung

head is flicking from side to side. Odd behaviour. Louise asks, why was

the adder moving her head really quickly from side to side? Adders

live in a cloud of pheromones, so they can sense things we can't.

There's all sorts of things going on. They are flicking out their

tongue and bringing back fence from other adders or other creatures.

What it was probably doing was transferring all these little

chemical cues into its Jacobson 's organ in the roof of its mouth, and

that processes the adder's world. It is a beast of sense. It wasn't

flicking its tongue out, was it? I've made some enquiries and Sidney

Sheldon, a friend of this programme, she has studied adders

for years on the borders of Shropshire and Worcestershire. She

thinks it could also be practising for slapping. We haven't seen milky

eyes on this particular one. Shedding its skin. Their eyes go

milky and then they clear. If this adder cleared its allies, it may

just be loosening the skin in preparation. We don't know. It could

be pheromones. What about the fact it hasn't got forward facing eyes?

It can't judge distance between the distance between its two eyes. Maybe

if it's got eyes on the side of its head, it's moving them from side to

side like that, and that movement allows some parallax so would can

judge distance by using only one eye at a time. Was all the herring doing

that as well. It was on its way to each of and it was just practising!

Nick, this is for you. These photographs were sent in by Dominic

Greves. Can you see them? Wow, look at that! It's a spider and a wasp.

Oh! What's going on? That is one of the spider hunting wasps. It is the

dark banded spider hunting wasps. They hunt spiders. It's not very

nice if you are a spider and you meet one of these things, because

they paralyse the spider. The spider is alive but it can't do anything

about it. I've watched these things, it's hours and hours of fun on the

heath. They will then drag the spider paralysed, just twitching a

little bit. Then, it's one of the wasps which doesn't dig a burrow

first, it actually has to hang the spider up somewhere, in grasses or

tufts of vegetation, then dig the Burrow, which is exciting enough.

While they are digging the baroque, because they want to get the spider

in the Burrow and lay an egg on it, but while they are doing that, other

wasps will come in often and try and make the spider. You have a

tug-of-war over spiders. There's all sorts of dastardly tactics.

Eventually one of the wasps get fit and shoves it down into the Burrow.

They did ten to 15 centimetres under the ground, lay an egg on the

spider. You are lying there as a spider, paralysed, and something has

laid an egg on your chest and then you are buried alive. You are in the

dark and you have this thing eating you alive. Isn't that just perfect?

The first-ever job I had for the BBC as a cameraman was to film that

extraordinary like circle. It was on the south coast. I arrived, found

the wasp and then found out it was a nudist beach. It was only populated

by one sex. I spent two weeks there. Which sex was it? The male sex.

didn't need to spend two weeks, though, did you? I met some

interesting characters! A quick one for you. A fantastic photograph of a

kestrel from Andy Astbury. Chris, take us through it. It's got these

extraordinary bumps on the top of its wing. They must be there for a

reason. What is going on? These feathers here were formally

called... They are fixed to the birds thumb. There are two, three or

four. The bird has the capacity to lift them up like this. It is

lifting them so it can change the airflow over the top of the wing as

the bird lands, or the wing is held at a steep angle. It prevents the

bird from stalling. You will see these on some jets when you take

off, certainly more vintage aircraft. Here is one.On the front

of the wing is a panel which moves. It is an aviation alveolar. When it

comes into land, you will see these out of the window, this thing will

come up like this and this will enable the rake of the wing to be at

a steep angle without it stalling. Birds use them all the time, you

particularly see raptors doing it. All birds have them. Nature got it

first. We have been sent some very interesting film from John Dollard.

This is a video he took in the garden a few days ago of a wild

duck. Look at this. Here comes a hen pheasant. It is not going to end

happily. I wonder why the hen pheasant is coming in. Oh, deer.

John says the duck is sitting on 12 eggs. 11 of the eggs were duck eggs

and one was a small brown egg. Watch what the pheasant is doing. Did you

see that? Yes!She's laid an egg. The incredible thing was that John

says that egg was picked up by the duck and put back into the nest.

What is that all about? I don't know. It's a natural instinct. The

duck is thinking one of its own eggs has fallen out of the nest and it is

retrieving it. Why the pheasant is laying the egg next to the duck is

more of a mystery. She laid two.The pheasant has gone back to try and

integrate it egg and got into a bit of a fracas with the duck. Why on

earth wouldn't the pheasant just leave the dock as soon as it's being

tacked? The reason is it needs to go and integrate its own eggs. Why

don't they just share? Sit side-by-side! Now we are going to

have a little visitor. Could we please bring in younger. Hello.

Isn't she gorgeous? She is a little owl. Brett Westwood is going to tell

us a little bit about the history. They are not indigenous, are they?

No, they are not. There are various ways they've come in. I think you

knew why they were introduced. guy who did it, he said, I wanted to

bring them in to get rid of bats in Belfry 's. They were just sanitation

devices for churches. But they did more than that because they then

spread throughout most of the country. They are very rare in

Scotland, but they've spread right through England and most of Wales.

They've done very well. It's one of those introduced birds that we've

taken to very well. It's a bird which everybody likes because it is

rather fierce looking, it's got the glaring, yellow eyes. It will bob up

and down at you. I'm going to tell you a story now. My neighbour,

Denise, came up to me and said, Martin, I've seen an absolutely

enormous burden on my back garden. I'm very frightened for all my

animals. I thought, no, it must have been a buzzard. She said it wasn't a

buzzard. She then came to me a couple of weeks ago and said, I've

seen that bird. I went to a wildlife park and I know what it was. We've

got one here. Please come in, Malcolm. Steady, steady. He's

getting a bit excited. Once I realised what this was, I knew my

neighbour was right. It is possible. This is an eagle owl full

stop incredibly, the RSPB reckon that 63 escape every year from

collections in the UK. They are now actually breeding in the UK. But

we're doomed they come from? Is it possible they were here? Is it

possible we had eagle owls here in the past? It's a big question. When

you say 63, they obviously can't them. They are kept as pets and do

get out very often, and they breed well in captivity. You will find

people release them or they get away. Can breed in the wild in the

UK and there are breeding pairs out there. What nobody has ever proved

is that eagle owls have ever reached us from the continent. I think

they've found bones or remains of them thousands of years ago, but

there's no, as far as I know, definite records of eagle owls

coming across the continent, because they don't like flying over water.

If one did turn up here, it would be welcomed by hordes of twitchers.

Tell us a bit about him. The female would be considerably bigger.

We've got a female a lot bigger. How old is he? Between ten to 15.

Anyway, it is possible you might just see in the UK and eagle owl. It

could be even bigger than this one here. Michaela, can you introduce us

to the film? This is from Finn Strong from Devon, one of our

Strong from Devon, one of our younger viewers. Yoda would like to

say, show the film, we will my name is thin, and I am seven, but when I

made the film, I was six. I really like wildlife, so I decided to try

to film some in the field near where I live. I thought I would go down

and see if there was any wildlife around, and there was lots of birds.

My favourite shot was when this swan them to think that they should care

a lot about wildlife full top did he choose that music for the film?

was his choice, yes. A budding cameraman. We have had a lot of

questions about marine issues. Everyone is going to the seaside

soon if we have a son. Here is our you. The first one is a picture of a

blog. This is from Sue Chase Lee, and she found it in Mark Judge on a

sheltered beach in Orkney. There were quite a few of them at

intervals along the shore. They seemed to be attached into the sand.

She has never seen them before or since. It looks like she might have

had a cold and sneezed! Children often call these snotty balls. But

they are a lovely green leaf worm. They tend to lay in the springtime.

What will hatch out of that? Lots of little tiny worms. And we have this

photo on twitter. This was from the beach in Kintyre. This is a rag

worm. It is really interesting, because it does many incredible

things. In polluted harbours, it takes heavy metals and puts them in

capsules under its skin. That is a rapid evolution that has happened to

cope with pollutants. The colour is lovely under a microscope. It is

iridescent. Amazing what you can find. This is the next one. This was

sent in by Louis being aged to sit sit, who is now seven, he wants you

to know. He found this on holiday in Sardinia. He said there was a big

one and a little one on the beach. You might assume this is a heart the

chin, but you can see a few hints as to why it isn't. They are buried

just underneath the sand, and have spines that all face in the same

direction. But this is matted hair all over the place. And if you look

on the underside of the urchin, you can see a little hole. That is where

the food gets drawn down. So, you have told us what it's not. It looks

like a donkey dollop or something. But I think it is probably some kind

of sea bream. It has a funny texture. Shall we perform an

autopsy? Hirwaun have a knife. looks like a giant cat furball.

there something in their? I don't want to destroy what is inside.

There is something in there. There is a seed in there. Without a shred

of doubt. It is a seed of some kind. But this might have been in the sea

for some time, which could have changed its appearance, and all of

this matting could have been more structured originally. But this is

plant material, not animal. It is probably highly toxic, perforating

my skin, and I won't be here much longer!

Are you sure it is not a lion that has eaten a furball and coughed it

up? Into the sea? Meyer, thank you very much. We are

about to do another autopsy. Let's have a look at why. A month ago,

something was washed up on the beach very close to here. Sadly, it's a

while. We all know about when they get stranded in people rushed down

to help them back into the water, but in fact, just because it has

died isn't the end of the story, and it is certainly not the end of the

story for Rob Deaville. Here he comes. What on earth is that? What a

fantastic thing. It is. That was a salvaged beach while. And that is

its goal? Not that animal, I have to stress. This one was found in Kent.

Only the males have teeth. There are suction feeders. They feed at debt,

they hold their breath for half an hour, dive to a thousand metres, log

onto a squid or fish and suck it up. So that fish we saw there was a deep

sea Wael. Not a fish.Sorry! So once you come across the dead body, you

go in. What are you trying to find out? We are trying to learn more

about mortality in cetaceans. The threats are usually our activity,

things like fishing nets, pollution that might cause disease, and so on.

We are trying to preserve these animals in the wild if we can.

have you any results about either of these? This is into room results,

still carrying out small tests. The find was consistent with live

stranding. It was in moderate condition but hadn't fed for some

time. That is a common condition with these deep divers. They get

close into sure where it is shallow, and they can't feed. They have a

very specific feeding strategy, and when they get to coastal waters,

they can't feed, and because they get their fluid from their diet,

they get dehydrated and that can lead to the stranding. So that is

the anywhere you could see a deep sea mammal like that. Shall we see a

picture of what it looks like? That is what it should look like. It

spends up to how long underwater? The interesting thing is that we

don't know much about them. Some creatures we only know about through

stranding. We think they might rest hold for half an hour or more. Some

can dive for an hour and a half, sperm whale have been found in 3000

metres depth of water. And if people do find one washed up, do you want

to know about it? Absolutely. is alive, notify the rescue

authorities, there are authorities who specifically deal with this. We

depend on the public to report things to us so that we can learn

more about them. There is a link on the website. If you ever do find

them when you are out this summer, he wants to know. Thank you for

the quiz right now. Let's carefully move this out of the way. Can we put

that back up? Thank you. Let's try. The well isn't gone. That is because

number four is fiendishly difficult. There are people who have got close,

and we will accept their answer. Cathy W got very close. It is very

difficult. Let's go through them. Number one, any ideas, Chris?

Dormouse. Yes, they make their nest from Honeysuckle bark. Number two,

an animal that uses shells and ground up vegetation. There are two

of three species of mining bee. These are relatives of that, and

they create little chambers inside an old snail shell and lug it with a

mixture like pesto. And we have a picture of one. And watched you

reckon makes its home in here? Come on! I thought this would be the

easiest one. It's a hermit crab. what about the wall plugs? We can

have a look at it here. And this last one here, that is a nest. Any

ideas? Lots of birds use spiders web. We will accept longtailed Tate

and Goldcrest. Thank you very much indeed, brilliant. We are going to

stick on board these very quickly. Meld Timms says, I have got on board

these in my garden. One of them killed another. Why was that?

world changed the day I discovered cuckoo bumblebees, and I found they

were up all sorts. They look very similar to, almost identical, and

they don't really have queens. Females go into nests, lay their

eggs and take over the nests of bobbies. And the bumblebee workers

on that nests carry on rearing their young for them. Sometimes they will

kill the Queen. Sometimes they will live alongside the Queen. Sometimes

they just kick her out. This is all part of natural history, there is

nothing to fear. There are wonderful creatures. They don't have pollen

baskets all workers, they don't need them because somebody else does the

work. There are about six species of cuckoo bees, and you can get one in

your garden. So the Queen has hibernated all winter, and then she

gets horribly predated? That's not fair. Marvellous strategy.It is

appalling! Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Please keep

all these questions coming in. And all these questions coming in. And