Episode 12 Springwatch Unsprung

raven, four extra presenters, a live audience, and bags of facts and fun.

It is the last in the current series of Springwatch Unsprung!

CHEERING CHEERING Wow! We've got more people.

This is a record, the most people we've managed to squeeze into the

studio. I would like to thank Julian, the landlord of the local

pub, for this shirt. We like shirts on this show. This is your show. We

love your photographs, good and bad. We love hearing your comments and we

love your questions. We want you to keep sending them in, which seems

like a strange request as the series is winding up, but the web carries

on. You can get in touch with us via the website - bbc.co.uk/springwatch.

You can get us on Twitter: The more than capable lawyerra is

scanning the Interweb. What are they saying? Tremendous. We asked

everyone today what their highlights were. The low was the hen eagle,

ospreys fledging, adders. Have you got a favourite moment? I really

liked adder in the nest. Hey, there is a dark side to you. I know. I

have never seen it before. I liked the water beetle. I have more bug

moments later in the show. Shall we have some quick fire? Die get first

go? Don't cheat. This is oryou. Phil Jones wants reassurance about false

widow spired. Don't worry about them. I share my house with dozens

of them, they are by my fish tank, under the bed. They were lovely.

They can bite but just don't squeeze them. Good advice. Michaela. Pauline

Garlic says thank you for the last few weeks. Where can we get therapy

for withdrawal symptoms? Sing you can get therapy from the great owl

in the sky. I will give you a very good rate. Martin. Should we disard

old swallow nests when they leave? I've got loads in the stables? No,

because sometimes they will re-use them. They will come and repair

them. Leave them there. I know Chris is itching for a question but he

isn't going to get one. Instead, you've got a more practical

challenge. This is from nine-year-old Lottie. She found

these on Skomer. She sent them in to you because she knows you are

fascinating these things. She thought they were owl but was

surprised by the presence of fish scales. I know what they are but I'm

keeping my mouth shut. Have a poke around. Martin. We know you're one

for the birds. Yes. Don't deny it. What's coming next? We have

photographic evidence somewhere. Oh, come on. I was hoping you wouldn't

do that. Come over here. Back by popular demand. And that means you

asked for this, and they came number three in the great Springwatch

moments, we have Lloyd Buck and his amazing starlings.

APPLAUSE This is what hats, out come the -- this is what happens, out

come the starlings. I thought we would do something high risk. They

love their bath and they haven't had their bath today. I thought, if we

put the bath on the table, just maybe they might have a bath. You

don't look that confident. It is unlikely but we'll give it a go. I

think there's too much going on. Royston's become a perch. Give us

the background of these birds. Rose and I have had these since they were

five days old. She put all the work on these, they are very impresented

on her, but they know me as well. We never realised how intelligent

starlings are. They were so clever. You've got owls. Everyone thinks

owls are clever but compared to the starlings, these are way smarter

aren't they? Owls are very good at what they do, but starlings have a

broader spectrum intelligence. And they can mimic really well can't

they? These guys do. We have them in the house in the evening and the

telly triggers them to go through a repertoire. They all speak. And some

of them have rather bad language don't they? I hope not! This is

pre-watershed! They do. They do bird calls, the ducks and the tawny

eagle. There is no point asking if they will do this to command. No,

they mimic when they feel like it. And they live inside the house with

you and Rose? In the evening they have their carry pits. I'm going to

leave you guys to continue having fun. Is he foraging or is it worse?

LAUGHTER Now, it is the last day of pitch and therefore it was my last

time to go on to the reserve for the my one-hour lunch break challenge.

I'm on a mission to find myself, the last creature on my Minsmere bucket

list. It is a green-eyed beauty that's made my otherwise brown eyes

turn green. Everyone else seems to have seen it except me, so we are on

the quest for a Norfolk Hawker dragonfly. It is not the dragonfly I

set out to see but that is still a very special thing. That's a

four-shotted chaser but it is a slightly different colour form. You

don't see them very often. A stunning is insect. I've got an

adder who is just shrinking off, you can make out the end of his tail as

he disappears into the foliage. I suspect he was basking when he was

disturbed by us. And we've got one right at the top of that Scots pine

tree. It has literally just landed there. It might as weld be just

another pine needle on the tree, but it is there. We have succeeded in

our mission. As if that isn't enough, we know we've got another

one in there. We've seen a third individual fly up into that tree. So

we are in the presence of three of these glorious insects. We've

succeeded. There's no question about it. We've had Norfolk hawkers coming

out of our ears. In fact we've got one just there right now, honest,

right above us. In fact there's another one. They are famously

hyperactive. Today the weather is made for dragon flies. We have

succeeded in our lunchtime mission and I'm praying and hoping you've

scented -- sent in some fantastic pictures of Norfolk hawk hearse with

everybody. Brilliant -- hawkers with everybody. Brilliant. Job done.

APPLAUSE Not bad, we succeeded. We found one, more than one. Filming

them, however, was rather difficult. Well done Henry. He didn't have the

best camera or the most time. Do we have any images that give us the

essence of this wonderful dragonfly? Yes, we do. Look at that. They don't

get much better than that. They are wonderful. Any others? That's just

that for now. If you haven't seen a Norfolk haircut, come to the Fen

lands. You've got about a month left before they all perish, basically. I

mean they die. Their lives come to an end. Have a look at them on the

wing. They are stunning. We've been asking you what you got

up to on your wild lunch break event been busy. Iolo, have you done

anything in your lunch break? I went to Minsmere for the first time since

1986. What did you see they? Bitterns, har yes, occur clue,

silver-studied blues. How come you've seen a Norfolk hawker?

Whittled them down. Andy is our cameraman. They don't have much of a

lunch break. Let's have some sympathy. In the few seconds they

gave them to bolt down a sandwich, he was sitting on the deck. Look, a

hummingbird hawk moth and that was taken on your phone. Brilliant

stuff. That means there is a bit of a migration going on, so keep your

eye out in the next couple of weeks. If you see a humming bird in your

garden, it is not a humming bird. Michaela, many you don't get any

lunch breaks. You sit in your caravan. I'm fading away. I'm

fading! We've got some great pictures. Peter spotted on his

lunchtime at the Grand Union Canal in Ealing, the centre of London.

This is a skim ser, a female. I think I saw one of those today. This

one has a damsel fly photograph. I saw loads of these while we were

filming. Do you know what they are doing? The male is dragging the

female after she laid eggs. We did something about it. By his anal

class pers. Can you say that? Fantastic. Trevor the botanist. A

lovely one. A bee orchid on his lunchtime. You might think that's a

clean picture of an orchid but orchid means testicles. So you keep

telling us! I just like the word. This is biology, a nice big sexy

female bee to lure the bee be, and it deceives the bee and shoves

pollen capsules. Thank you, do keep them coming in. : We enjoy hearing

from you. We've been giving the you all sorts of things to get involved

with, particularly good old science projects. With all the wonderful

apps available, it's a lot easier. We've launched a few on the show and

we've had amazing stats. The great British bee count. Our coverage

helped them to achieve 38,000 new bee records since Tuesday. And they

appeared in a certain auction site's app charts. The i Record app, and

19,000 butterflies counted so far. Michaela has some stats. We did the

national hedgehog survey. We asked people to send off for a kid. The

people's trust who run the hedgehog survey have received a thousand

e-mails. They said they are sorry they are having a bit of trouble

replying to them all but will reply as soon as possible. The ladybird

survey, 10% as soon as possible. The ladybird

survey, of all downloads happened in the last two days, so thank you so

much for getting involved. It is brilliant. And we've got a new one

for you, just when you, you might have to delete some photos on your

phone. This is the mammal tracker app, by the Mammal Society. Another

beautiful quality production. Let's choose this one. If you see one of

these mammals you click the button. It has an ID guide, so you can see

where its distribution. It It has an ID guide, so you can see

where its distribution. has an image gallery. It's my fantasticers again.

But you get the -- it's my fingers again, but you get the idea. You can

record all your mammals on that. He's been behind the scenes, we know

that he is a mammal. Where are you? A small and cuddly mammal I think

you will find. We were in one of the hides to unveil a stunning piece of

graffiti art. The bearded tit. He featured on the programme. It is

tremendous. This is the star of the show, the bittern, look at the eyes,

foliage and colour. Finally, the other set. Look at the curve of the

beak and the colours. It is truly stunning -- the avocet. Matt is with

us. We set up a time-lapse photography kit. We saw your images

appear on the wall. You had helpers as well. It wasn't just me. I wish I

could paint that fast normally. It is transforming what is pretty much

a dull hide, isn't it? Every hide should have a make over. Hide is a

dreary place, usually. Suddenly it is colour, fun, drama, terrific.

Thanks very much. I love my job. What can I say? You are happy man.

You made the rest of us happy. At the end of the day it is only a bit

of graffiti, isn't it? Spray can paint, how hard can it be? Look at

this, fantastic. There we have the bearded tit. Then we have the eye.

We have our very own Birds Eye pie chart. That is a stunning piece of

work! From all of us in the studio, in hide, goodbye. Low-carbon Matt,

you had better paint over that quickly. Thank you for your

enlightening insights, that is the best thing to call them this week.

Thanks to and from the red button team for keeping him under control.

Wright, Chris, pellet analysis. I did not know if the young lady

wanted them back. These are pellets made by a gull species. These fish

scales are clearly visible. It has been scavenging fish. There is quite

a lot of glass material in here. These gulls will pick this up when

they are foraging for other things. I opened this slightly, filled full

of fish bones. It is probably catching or scavenging fish from the

shore. It is not only birds of prey is not only birds of. Anything which

eats something in the adjustable will take it into its crop and

regurgitate it. It does not want it passing through its got, even small

birds like Robins will inject a pellets like this. This is a

receptacle of great joy. When you are a kid and you can break this

open you can find all sorts of interesting things. I thought for a

long time rather than small plastic models, cereal manufacturers should

have one in each box so the kids can open them at the breakfast cereal.

Some kids almost certainly do that. We have been contacted by Saint

Mary's primary class. They have just coughed up these pellets

themselves! They have been doing this in the classroom. This is some

of their work here. Look at this, they have glued down all the bones

onto there. Look at that! Oh, no, I will stick them back on later! Mrs

Jenkins, where are you? Mrs Jenkins is here, their teacher. She has to

be teacher of the year. I would vote for that. Did you do about pellets

at school? Only under the covers, just me in class for B. They have

all the bones out, I like the idea of articulating a skeleton and

sticking them on, because it teaches them which animal they found and

also how the animal works in terms of its skeleton. Top work. Thank

you. Do you have any questions? We have time for one. Why do owls heat

-- eat whole bodies, not just the meaty bits? A good question.

Kestrels and buzzards are annoying. They test things up before you eat

them, they smash up the schools and they are difficult to identify. Owls

have a massive throat and can swallow these things whole, which is

what they tend to do. They will turn up to feed their chicks at that time

and if they get something really big like a young rat or a rabbit, they

will tear that up as well but typically the big wide mouth enables

them to swallow them whole. Even better, I had the remains of an owl

pellet in my necklace. I thought you would be impressed with that. Look

at that. It is a shrew. If you want any more information about owl

pellets, how to pull them apart, there are resources on the website.

There is a storm brewing, you can hear it in the distance. This is a

special treat. Please welcome back Lloyd and Bran the Raven. Bran has a

TV phobia, it turns out. We have seen just how smart Corvids can be.

We have seen them in action, up to all sorts and they don't get much

more intelligent than a Raven, do they? No. Tell us a little bit about

Bran. I have had him since two weeks old. He has a lovely temperament. He

is a bit clumsy! A bit like me. He is also very clever and cheeky. He

is going to go for all the schools. We are going to be in trouble. Mrs

Jenkins is here. There was a little demonstration, Mrs Jenkins will put

me in detention! There is a tray of stones, somewhere. Is it under the

table? He has spied it. I will try and distract him. Now, there is a

particular item there. I don't know which one it is! It it's -- was it

that one? It is a stone. When I say the magic word. There it is, we will

hide it. Bran can't see it. Make sure he can see all the food. I have

concealed it. See if Bran can find it. Where is your stone? Where is

your stone? Look at that, straight in. That is absolutely amazing. He

has had that's done, he found it when he was small and he goes

everywhere with it. He can spot it anywhere. Why that stone? He took a

liking to it. I took it home and I hide all over the place. He is a

smart bird. Do you remember when I set him up against the poodles? The

poodle is meant to be intelligent and we had a chamber which they had

to try to pull open and they failed completely. We gave it to Bran and

he did it in 12 seconds. He thrashed the poodles. We had a trick earlier

on. One of the tea cosy spot it, unfortunately. He is trying to raid

me. He knows that there is good is in my pocket. -- there are good

things in my pocket. At is water, OK!

LAUGHTER Sorry about that. Right, there is

food somewhere on this table, Bran. Bran. There. Not the glove. Thank

you. There. What is that? Leave the badge alone. Maybe this is where the

birds get their own back with the badgers. He is more interested in

the pile of... I was testing him with that earlier. Bran. We will

have to make up how intelligent Bran is. Fabulous stuff. I have to leave

you guys to play. I have to go over here because you have been sending

in loads of your... Hello, Bran. You have been sending in loads of your

photos, good and bad. All you have been sending in loads of your

photos, good and bad. wonderful Flickr images will be on the website

has a slide show, at some point, when Laura has recovered. How many

have we got? 350,000. That is a big slide show. But you accidentally

came up with a good idea whilst photo file a couple of weeks ago. It

is the other end of the photographic spectrum. You have done us proud. We

have a few of the best of the ones we haven't shown.

This is my favourite. This is called red squirrel. I assume that is the

red squirrel, the smudge in the middle. It is all about the

environment. This is a skylark. It is my favourite! That is good, the

-- the emphasis on the sky. This is barn owl, from previous night. You

have to look at that. It looks like Greece on his lens. It is all --

annoying. That is closer than the background but he managed to get the

background. Thank you for being brave enough to send those in. Do

keep sending them in. Whilst photo fail. Who notes what we will do with

these images. Top ten, we have been asking for your top ten favourite

Springwatch moments throughout the series and we are down to number

one. Which is... Everything. Everything. They just couldn't

choose. You mean everyone gets a lollipop? Very convenient and PC,

but shall we see them anyway? The beak is under the wing and that

was a water rail having a little dream. What was it thinking about #

Hopefully will fledge and survived to next year. That is the cutest

thing I have ever seen. An adult male would mouse and everything must

go. It is climbing the greasy pole and it will end with a comedy fall.

Wait for it! In fact, each snail has both male bits and female bits, so

they do it to each other at the same time. Twice the fun? When she does

settle to feed it gives me my opportunity to get my annual otter

fix. I can't resist trying to get that close. The little female. It

was a buzzard, a very good one. The great news is that we do have a

buzzard nest again this year. So... Oh, you idiot!

APPLAUSE A combination of much mirth and

emotion, that is pretty much what Springwatch is all about and we have

pretty much come to the end of the three-week long roller-coaster ride.

It has been fun, hasn't it? It has been fun. A huge thank you to the

RSPB at Minsmere, who have made us so welcome, and to the other

wildlife organisations we constantly phoning up and say, can you tell us

the latest statistics? They always help us. Thank you very much, it is

appreciated. We want to see thank you to the camera teams all around

us. APPLAUSE

And Q. The people who put all the films together for us, the producers

and directors who are talking to us in our ears and the people behind

the scenes who enable us to put this programme together and never get any

sex. I would like to thank the animals myself, they are very much

in our debt -- they never get any thanks. The badgers, the bitterns,

we will have to put up the price of the licence fee. More importantly,

we thank you, the audience. You have been brilliant. We cannot do it

without all your feedback and input. Both Springwatch and Unsprung thrive

on that. We love what you are doing out there. Keep doing it. We may be

off the box but nature is continuing out there and we are online all the

way through the summer and hopefully with a bit of luck we will see you

in the autumn for Autumnwatch. Goodbye!