:00:13. > :00:16.Minsmere. We've got the wildlife, we have got cameras and three extra
:00:17. > :00:22.live spinning watch presenters. Because this is your show, we've
:00:23. > :00:45.even got a live audience! CHEERING AND
:00:46. > :00:51.really, it's a unique, Kong lopration of natural history, wisdom
:00:52. > :00:55.and minds, we have got brilliant natralists here and this is very
:00:56. > :00:59.accessible to you and you can ask us pretty much anything you like. Make
:01:00. > :01:02.the most of this opportunity. Get in touch via the Springwatch website.
:01:03. > :01:11.All the information is there on how to get in touch with us, and that is
:01:12. > :01:13.www.bbc.co.uk/springwatch, in particular, there's that Twitter
:01:14. > :01:28.thing. You can pretty much get in touch
:01:29. > :01:35.with us almost instantaneously. Now, we've had an exciting first week.
:01:36. > :01:39.It's been pretty good. Not bad! The bitterns! We'll get to that in a
:01:40. > :01:42.minute. I'm going to ask the audience, have you had any favourite
:01:43. > :01:49.moments, anything that's stood out for you? The rabbits. The rabbles.
:01:50. > :01:53.The rabbits! Bitterns. Bitterns. Impersonations of the bits terns.
:01:54. > :01:59.That was definitely one of my highlights.
:02:00. > :02:07.All right, I'm going to run through your particular favourites. Martin?
:02:08. > :02:11.Yesterday. What was your highlight? I liked being out on the sea last
:02:12. > :02:15.night and was completely amazed that somebody had seen a hutch back whale
:02:16. > :02:20.off the coast here. It seemed completely impossible. Funny you say
:02:21. > :02:26.that. We were going to show that last night. We have that clip here,
:02:27. > :02:29.so the clip of the actual whale that was seen off the coast back in
:02:30. > :02:42.November. There it is. It's very brief. Whooa. Look at that! It leapt
:02:43. > :02:47.out of the water. Yes. That's real. That was sent in by one
:02:48. > :02:48.of our viewers, so that's pretty special.
:02:49. > :02:53.Michaela, do you special.
:02:54. > :02:58.I don't know if it's best, but it sticks in my mind, that spinning,
:02:59. > :03:03.I don't know if it's best, but it extraordinary. You saw that a minute
:03:04. > :03:11.ago and you can remember it? ! I happen to have a very good memory. I
:03:12. > :03:19.want to just show you my chest. I've worn that specially. Bug Boy Baker,
:03:20. > :03:27.I've done that for. We are almost having a bug-off here! I haven't
:03:28. > :03:37.seen this yet because I had to duck out of the meeting this morning, but
:03:38. > :03:46.wow, look at that! Whoa, it's drunk. She was looking the other way. It's
:03:47. > :03:53.like Kylie Minogue "I'm spinning around". Fantastic stuff.
:03:54. > :03:57.Now, bitterns. Yes. I just think a phenomenal bird. I know your
:03:58. > :04:02.favourite is going to be the bittern. It is. It's a dream come
:04:03. > :04:09.true because they are so shy. At this time of year, if you are lucky
:04:10. > :04:14.enough to see a bittern, even here at Minsmere, all you see is a
:04:15. > :04:23.bittern come up, look like a drunken owl and it falls back into the reeds
:04:24. > :04:27.again. We never knew they would do that so it's good to see and the
:04:28. > :04:31.cannibalism is something we have not seen before. It darks you out a
:04:32. > :04:38.little bit. It's pretty graph I believe. -- graphic.
:04:39. > :04:42.The colourations, one is gingery and one is dark. Any idea why? No. I
:04:43. > :04:46.trawled through the literature on the Internet. Remember it's their
:04:47. > :04:50.down, it's twoing to be interesting if we see what happens to their
:04:51. > :04:56.mature feathers, there's nothing to say one is a male or a female or
:04:57. > :05:00.anything like that. Again, this is possibly because it hasn't been seen
:05:01. > :05:04.before. Last time we saw these, they were in black-and-white! We couldn't
:05:05. > :05:09.tell what colour their down was. They are going to walk off into the
:05:10. > :05:15.reed and we'll never know. Yes, it says in boobs, ten to 15 days, they
:05:16. > :05:19.start branching, so they are back in the reeds. By the start of next
:05:20. > :05:22.week, we might start to lose them. We will understand more about
:05:23. > :05:27.bitterns by the end of the week. If you are one of those unlikely people
:05:28. > :05:31.for whom the bitterns aren't doing it for you, we are going to try to
:05:32. > :05:36.up the bittern love for you. A bit of a challenge for you. We want you
:05:37. > :05:41.to tell us in 10 characters or less what it is about bitterns that you
:05:42. > :05:45.like. You can help us by adding the hashtag at bittern's got talent. I
:05:46. > :05:48.don't understand that at all, but it's quite catchy! We thought we'd
:05:49. > :05:53.do that! Martin, job for you. We need your
:05:54. > :06:01.help. Come with us over here. Thank you, chaps.
:06:02. > :06:09.Going to leave you with Laura. You can help Laura there. Today's quiz -
:06:10. > :06:14.my love of the little things is well known - I don't know what gives you
:06:15. > :06:19.that idea, but we are going to do a quiz and talk about small is
:06:20. > :06:24.beautiful. We have taken these various images, mystery macro shots
:06:25. > :06:28.of some creatures that are featured on the show and I want you to guess
:06:29. > :06:33.at what they might be. Mystery macro. Have a look at them audience,
:06:34. > :06:38.but don't shout out the answer, wait until the end of the show for that.
:06:39. > :06:42.But what tuning that is? -- but what do you think that is?
:06:43. > :06:47.Look at the shape. That is the clue. This is a little easier but pay
:06:48. > :07:00.attention as it may not be as easy as it thinks. -- as easy as you
:07:01. > :07:07.think. If you have any ideas, do let us
:07:08. > :07:11.know what this is. Threeite ens in today's quiz, so... There's a lot of
:07:12. > :07:18.giggling going on. Let us know and we'll reveal the answers later on.
:07:19. > :07:22.You can do that via the website. Right, over here, Chris. I know you
:07:23. > :07:27.have been itching to get on and do this all week. This is your
:07:28. > :07:33.opportunity. You have the floor. Yes. You have been talking about
:07:34. > :07:41.cuckoo might races, you followed one all the way to Africa. Yes, don't
:07:42. > :07:49.rub it in. We have had a Nightingale too. We have had a lot of the
:07:50. > :07:54.audience getting in touch saying about the mechanisms. There is some
:07:55. > :07:58.good news science. There is. Birds migrate from one part of the planet
:07:59. > :08:02.to another and a mechanism they use is a compass. They can actually see
:08:03. > :08:11.verbally, we know that they can visually see the earth's magnetic
:08:12. > :08:16.field, so they can record electromagnetic raidration --
:08:17. > :08:19.radiation and record it. I read that German scientists had been doing
:08:20. > :08:23.work with robins for about seven years and they were tested in which
:08:24. > :08:28.direction they moved in. While boiling a Celt until the middle of
:08:29. > :08:33.the room, the robins lost their ability to orientate themselves, so
:08:34. > :08:36.any disturbance that we generate using electromagnetic force, can put
:08:37. > :08:42.the birds off their ability to use this. If a bird is migrating over
:08:43. > :08:46.cities, where we are boiling kettles and a lot more, they won't be able
:08:47. > :08:50.to use that method. Will you luckily, they have other means of
:08:51. > :08:54.migrating. We know they can use star maps, they are use the -- they can
:08:55. > :08:59.use the stars and the position of the sun in the day time. They could
:09:00. > :09:04.switch off the electromagnetic thing. Assuming they can see the
:09:05. > :09:09.stars? Yes. The other thing is, they'll learn the landscape. Birds
:09:10. > :09:14.which have long lived are frequently seen follow courses such as rivers,
:09:15. > :09:17.railway lines, even motorway networks and they'll come back year
:09:18. > :09:21.after year and navigate through perhaps the UK to get to their
:09:22. > :09:26.favoured area. When it comes to finding the last spot, if you like,
:09:27. > :09:31.other recent research has shown that certain species like song thrushes,
:09:32. > :09:34.they are short-term migrants and don't go too far, but they'll come
:09:35. > :09:38.back to the neighbourhood using the stars, or the sun, the magnetic
:09:39. > :09:44.compass or even features on the ground. But when they get there,
:09:45. > :09:51.they find their way back to your garden using smell. No, no, no. Yes.
:09:52. > :09:56.You look like one of the cameramen for a brief moment there. Where's he
:09:57. > :10:00.gone? Don't be so rude. They collected material from several
:10:01. > :10:03.gardens and found they could smell the difference between one garden
:10:04. > :10:07.and another. They are using a complete complex of things to get
:10:08. > :10:11.back to precisely the same spot. The subtlety of that we shouldn't
:10:12. > :10:15.underestimate and it makes you worry, if boiling a kettle can put a
:10:16. > :10:20.robin off and confuse its direction, what are we doing with everything
:10:21. > :10:24.else. Mobile phone antennae and all the rest of it. Thanks for that
:10:25. > :10:29.insight. Wondering what the nose was about there, we had a surreal
:10:30. > :10:34.collection of items there. Do we have any migration stuff or cuckoo
:10:35. > :10:39.sightings? We had a few cuckoo sightings on the web. Laura, had any
:10:40. > :10:45.good cuckoo sightings? Really good ones on the web. We gave people the
:10:46. > :10:50.link to the BTO survey so they could track things. Lee Martin heard
:10:51. > :10:55.cuckoos in Edenbridge in Kent this year. That's significant for me
:10:56. > :11:01.because I grew up down the road from there and I used to hear them as a
:11:02. > :11:06.child and I went to visit my dad recently and not a cuckoo to be
:11:07. > :11:11.heard. It really is happening. I'm spoilt where live because I liven
:11:12. > :11:14.Dartmoor, a cuckoo hotspot, it's like an island, amazing. Great
:11:15. > :11:22.questions as well about bittern if you've got time? Not right now.
:11:23. > :11:28.We'll come back to that. Haven't got time for a bittern. Ridiculous! What
:11:29. > :11:34.have I started? We'll come back to you so we can do it properly. Your
:11:35. > :11:44.lap's fallen off! -- your lamp!
:11:45. > :11:47.Every now and again I like to find an hour to disappear off site and
:11:48. > :11:51.this morning I headed to an hour to disappear off site and
:11:52. > :11:53.Before we have even stepped into the treeses, just look at this. We have
:11:54. > :11:58.got a perfect situation here, we treeses, just look at this. We have
:11:59. > :12:02.have a track and this is very muddy with all this water and rain we have
:12:03. > :12:08.been having, it's produced the perfect kind of mud. It's not too
:12:09. > :12:12.coarse and not too slippy, it's just about right and already, this is for
:12:13. > :12:18.real s hook, we have a fox footprint -- sloppy. How do I know it's a fox
:12:19. > :12:22.print? You could draw a cross between the pads and it woulden
:12:23. > :12:29.touch any other pad. If it was a doing, you couldn't do that. So
:12:30. > :12:35.that's a fox. Then there are some footprints of a rabbit. It gets
:12:36. > :12:46.better. A pheasant. Badger track. Last night's footprint. We have got
:12:47. > :12:51.red deer tracks here as well. You can see the footprints of an animal
:12:52. > :12:58.with cloven hoove. I could spend an hour alone just analysing the life
:12:59. > :13:04.associated with what most of us would chas as a dead tree. Each hole
:13:05. > :13:09.represents a life. A meaty, chunky beetle grubby life. You see the big
:13:10. > :13:12.jagged holes around them, that is where a woodpecker's come and
:13:13. > :13:19.smashed its way through the bark to extract the same grubs.
:13:20. > :13:29.A little look down the bottom. These are brilliant. They are called
:13:30. > :13:33.harvests, the big er erones tend to be out harvesting and mowing the
:13:34. > :13:39.grass. They are found at all-times of the year. A very, very quick
:13:40. > :13:43.glimpse of some red deer there. You know, very rarely when you are
:13:44. > :13:48.tracking animals, do you see animal at the end of the journey. I imagine
:13:49. > :13:53.they are the same ones that left the tracks further up at the beginning
:13:54. > :13:59.of the trek. We have only gone, 50, 100 metres and already my time is
:14:00. > :14:05.up. If you saw yesterday's show, you
:14:06. > :14:12.will have already have met a Trina, but we have her again in the studio
:14:13. > :14:17.-- Katrina. You have written a fabulous book called The Unfeathered
:14:18. > :14:22.Bird and we have thrust it into that Kayla's hands. What do you think?
:14:23. > :14:30.It's absolutely remarkable this book. It's called The Unfeathered
:14:31. > :14:35.Bird. Katrina's drawn painstakingly pictures of skeletons of different
:14:36. > :14:38.birds. They are totally accurate and she's done them, they are doing
:14:39. > :14:43.something some of the bird, they are not just a skeleton. It shows you
:14:44. > :14:55.why birds have evolved in different ways. You have lots of different
:14:56. > :14:59.birds up there. You can see it is doing what a woodpecker would do.
:15:00. > :15:05.How long does it take you to do a drawing like that? It depends if I
:15:06. > :15:10.am in practice or not. If I was in good form, the skeleton would take
:15:11. > :15:20.three or four days. How long did the book take? 25 years. 25 years! You
:15:21. > :15:22.could have got your husband to build it for you. From the biologist's
:15:23. > :15:25.could have got your husband to build it for you. From the point of view,
:15:26. > :15:30.it's so unlike anything else, this book, it's not just art or science,
:15:31. > :15:38.it meets in the middle. To give you an idea of what it is about, if you
:15:39. > :15:48.take, and this is Steve, by the way, if I was to grab gizmo and compress
:15:49. > :15:52.him, there's not much owl in there, it's mainly feathers, so if you
:15:53. > :15:56.start intellectually plucking these birds, underneath, there are so many
:15:57. > :16:05.other stories. Take this bittern here. A very talented bittern.
:16:06. > :16:13.Remember these points. Well, once bitten. Don't give them ideas. It is
:16:14. > :16:19.doing the sky pointing, you can't see me think. When you look at it
:16:20. > :16:23.head-on, you can see how man of these things are. I'm doing a good
:16:24. > :16:28.impression there, but see how narrow the body is -- how mannered these
:16:29. > :16:34.things are. Other than being narrow, is there anything else going on?
:16:35. > :16:38.They are narrow so they can squeeze through the reeds without disturbing
:16:39. > :16:43.the vegetation. They have this interesting thing going on with the
:16:44. > :16:47.two struts, and in most birds they are joined together like this on the
:16:48. > :16:54.breast bones, but herons and the bittern overlap so they can
:16:55. > :17:01.compress. This is interesting, and the heron has one as well. This
:17:02. > :17:07.bone, this vertebrate, it's a bit longer. It actually joins the other
:17:08. > :17:12.vertebrae so it meets at more of an angle. That is so it can shoot its
:17:13. > :17:22.head forward quickly to grab things, like fish. Like a built-in catapult?
:17:23. > :17:27.You can see as the neck of a snaky bird, but there's more to it. The
:17:28. > :17:34.neck of the heron always has a kink. This is a work of love. What made
:17:35. > :17:38.you want to do a book like this? It began when I was an art student, an
:17:39. > :17:45.undergraduate fine art student. I did pictures of living birds. I felt
:17:46. > :17:50.it was important to understand the app -- the insides so I could do the
:17:51. > :17:53.outside is better. I found a dead duck on the beach which I stripped
:17:54. > :17:59.down layer by layer, and if you're going to spend months grip --
:18:00. > :18:03.stripping a duck down, you give it a name, and this is a blog dedicated
:18:04. > :18:12.to Amy. I thought this would be a really good idea for other artist to
:18:13. > :18:14.produce a book about bird anatomy aimed at normal people and
:18:15. > :18:18.bird-watchers so they can appreciate the living birds more. We are
:18:19. > :18:26.dissecting birds, so you don't have to. It is unique. I've never seen
:18:27. > :18:33.anything like it. Loads of good stuff, great inspiration. Look at
:18:34. > :18:39.the massive great feat for treading over the reeds. Look at the feet of
:18:40. > :18:44.the bittern. If any of these things have inspired you, extra talents
:18:45. > :18:52.that we weren't aware of, thank you very much than that. Right now, all
:18:53. > :18:56.week, we've been trying to help and inspire you in ways to get involved
:18:57. > :19:02.with mass participation science projects. We are calling it Citizen
:19:03. > :19:09.Science. But you have been helping us. I won't mention rabbits
:19:10. > :19:13.distracting us, but some of you have helped us by watching the nest feeds
:19:14. > :19:18.and counting your visits and looking at the sort of food coming in. We
:19:19. > :19:24.are really grateful. Laura, do you have any name checks? David
:19:25. > :19:31.Sanderson and Brian Goodall. They were up counting this morning. Thank
:19:32. > :19:34.you very much indeed. The people who appreciate this more than anyone
:19:35. > :19:40.else are a team of dedicated naturalists, and we are there in the
:19:41. > :19:43.production village with them now. Not quite in the production village
:19:44. > :19:49.but we're outside the technical area of the Spring watch village. There
:19:50. > :19:56.are lovely green and blue ones, and some shiny red ones. Moving quickly
:19:57. > :19:59.on, we will go into the BT truck, arguably the most important truck on
:20:00. > :20:05.the whole operation, not just because this is where we do the
:20:06. > :20:09.online and read about and show, but also because this is where the story
:20:10. > :20:15.developers live -- red button. The story developers are a vital part of
:20:16. > :20:22.the operation. URA story developer, Maddie, what do you do? -- you are
:20:23. > :20:26.a. We have loads of cameras around the sites and we have to keep an eye
:20:27. > :20:29.on them and we record the ones with the exciting action on so when it
:20:30. > :20:34.comes to the show the next day, they can put the footage across. The
:20:35. > :20:37.pressure is on you guys. If you missed something, it won't go to
:20:38. > :20:43.air. You are logging everything that happens. Exactly. We have to record
:20:44. > :20:47.the right channels so stuff goes wobbly on the screens. I am on the
:20:48. > :20:54.night shift, so I have to keep an eye out for the badger action. What
:20:55. > :20:57.is it like when a badger appears all you get some great wildlife action?
:20:58. > :21:04.Do you get the surge of an adrenaline? Definitely. On the night
:21:05. > :21:07.shift there is only two of us but one of us might suddenly see what is
:21:08. > :21:12.happening and there is pressure to get on the right channel, but then
:21:13. > :21:15.we can sit back and enjoy it. You got the short straw, the night
:21:16. > :21:22.shift. I will be here until four in the morning. Well, you are doing a
:21:23. > :21:28.fantastic job and we love you. On that happy note, we will go back to
:21:29. > :21:35.Nick in the studio. Easy, made. Easy. Brilliant. Thanks that. --
:21:36. > :21:40.mate. We have Laura manning the computers and taking the tweeds and
:21:41. > :21:44.e-mails and we also have Martin, who is very capable, I hasten to add. We
:21:45. > :21:48.have been sent some fantastic video clips and Martin has not seen them.
:21:49. > :21:56.Some pretty cool ones. What's the first one? This is called the great
:21:57. > :22:03.escape by Andy Holden. He filmed it while he was filming fox cubs. What
:22:04. > :22:08.you have is a bit little -- a beetle wrapped up by a garden spider. There
:22:09. > :22:18.is a noise that the beetle is making. Futile clicks, but are they
:22:19. > :22:21.futile? But are they? He has cocoon that cocoon that the spider thought
:22:22. > :22:29.he had wrapped around him to store him. He has clicked his way out. And
:22:30. > :22:33.he keeps clicking, and he is out. And it gets better, because the
:22:34. > :22:38.spider comes back and you can imagine the disappointment. Look
:22:39. > :22:48.what he does. Or she does, rather. He's gone! Where has it gone? Have
:22:49. > :22:53.you seen the second Hobbit film? That's exactly what happens. I had
:22:54. > :22:59.terrible trouble in rehearsals because there was lots of the B in
:23:00. > :23:05.one sentence. A polluted versus bumblebee in a box. James is 18 and
:23:06. > :23:17.he has gone to a lot of trouble to get as this clip -- a polluted.
:23:18. > :23:27.There is a bluetit in a box, not that surprising, but look, there is
:23:28. > :23:34.a B. Bumblebee. That bumblebee is not happy. It is freaking out. I
:23:35. > :23:41.thought it was somebody outside with a lawn mower. That is an angry
:23:42. > :23:46.bumblebee. That is pretty good. We think that is enough. But something
:23:47. > :23:52.else happens. It carries on, this saga. Watch this. We will go back to
:23:53. > :24:01.it. The bumblebee is on its back, Sting in the air. It might be trying
:24:02. > :24:08.to be aggressive, not actually stinging, she is screaming away, and
:24:09. > :24:12.the bluetit picks it. The bumblebee has had enough, and then the bluetit
:24:13. > :24:18.does sidestep, and the bumblebee slaps it in the face and flies. That
:24:19. > :24:24.is from James, and he wanted to know what kind of bumblebee was. It could
:24:25. > :24:29.be a tree bumblebee who are spreading. They recently arrived in
:24:30. > :24:33.the UK and I only saw the first one on Dartmoor the year before last,
:24:34. > :24:38.but it's very recent. We will hopefully keep you posted, because I
:24:39. > :24:42.want to know what happened. Did the bumblebee comeback, or did the
:24:43. > :24:50.polluted family takeover? -- the bluetit family. Why do we have a
:24:51. > :24:55.hornet on the table? One of the audience brought in. Shall we get it
:24:56. > :25:04.out? See what happens? Here she comes. This is worth a quid. Chris
:25:05. > :25:13.said it -- he would give you a quid if it's done you. The idea is, well,
:25:14. > :25:20.Martin, I will leave you here. There we go! Now it will fly off into the
:25:21. > :25:24.audience and there will be an immediate evacuation. They are not
:25:25. > :25:35.aggressive at all, she's just very big. I'm going to get on with the
:25:36. > :25:38.quiz. This is what happens when all of the present is what happens when
:25:39. > :25:42.all the presenters are in the studios. Mystery objects. Pay
:25:43. > :25:46.attention. Let's get them the right way up. What do you think that might
:25:47. > :26:00.be? Any ideas? Anyone in the audience? Leg of a moth. Yes, but
:26:01. > :26:04.let's look at the clip. There it is. You could look at the legs on the
:26:05. > :26:12.moth and think it doesn't look like it, but it is the back legs. The
:26:13. > :26:18.soccer legs. Very good who got -- to anyone who got that. Mystery object.
:26:19. > :26:24.What do you think it might be? On the face of it, quite easy. Violet
:26:25. > :26:33.Brown beetle, but I'm not sure about the thorax. It might not be a Violet
:26:34. > :26:39.Brown. It is a beetle, but those striations make it problematic,
:26:40. > :26:43.because it's easily confused with the Violet Brown. That is my hunch.
:26:44. > :26:46.These are fantastic beetles, you can find them in the garden, and they
:26:47. > :26:53.like slugs in particular, so they are good for the garden. Mystery
:26:54. > :27:04.number three. Anybody know? The goose grass seed. It is! Goose grass
:27:05. > :27:11.seed. Also known in my part of the world, as sticky Willy. I can't
:27:12. > :27:16.imagine why. If you have a wildlife garden, these things grow really
:27:17. > :27:22.quickly, something like 30 feet in a season. They have just come out of
:27:23. > :27:33.nowhere. Do we have any more questions, any great questions? The
:27:34. > :27:38.bittern has unusually low set eyes, so why? It's so they can see their
:27:39. > :27:43.prey. Many birds have the capacity to look in their own beak, so the
:27:44. > :27:50.bittern can move eyes in their socket, like the heroine -- Heron,
:27:51. > :27:53.and they can judge distance to the point where the distance is just
:27:54. > :27:56.beyond the beak or even inside, so that is why they are able to twist
:27:57. > :28:00.their eyes like that. When it puts its head up and is doing the reading
:28:01. > :28:07.thing, it can look underneath its peak to achieve the same thing. Yet
:28:08. > :28:14.another talent for the bittern. Have we created a boom on THAT twitter?
:28:15. > :28:25.There's a lot of puns stop but they are pretty bad. Have we got any?
:28:26. > :28:30.It's mostly once bitten twice shy. Michaela will appreciate this, I was
:28:31. > :28:36.handed this by Nigel, and look at that. Guess what it is. We are
:28:37. > :28:40.running out of time. We will tell you next week. Chris, enjoy that for
:28:41. > :28:44.a moment. We are about to go off air and we are going away to the
:28:45. > :28:51.weekend, but you should not. The animals are here, the cameras on the
:28:52. > :28:58.nests. Will there be a fledgling bluetit tomorrow? They should be.
:28:59. > :29:01.Keep an eye on the bittern as well. We will see you on Monday. Goodbye!