Episode 1 Springwatch Unsprung

Hello, hello! And welcome to Springwatch Unsprung. The programme

which gives you live wildlife and so much more, it gives you a celebrity

guests, the one and only Kate Humble.

APPLAUSE Super Kings.

APPLAUSE Kim Jong-un Sue Perkins. And

eclipsing them both, Rocky, the conservation super dog and his

handler. It's also a problem that is very much about you, we want your

contributions, send your photographs, Lindsey will explain

more about that. Live animals, chat with celebrities, some fun and some

science hidden amongst it, you have to try to find it somewhere at the

science is hidden in there somewhere, Lindsey. There is, hello,

I'm very much enjoying this weather. I love damp weather. Do you like

damp weather, audience? Is because the audience went stood outside

rehearsing all afternoon like our crew, we preferred fine. The animals

in the rain, look at this stunning shot, it's been sent by Sarah Hanson

on Instagram. In the rain, hunkered down, fabulous shot, really nice.

And lots of garden birds have been enjoying it, loving brain. Many of

you have enjoyed watching our live cameras over the weekend, one of the

top hits was the bluetits because they fledged over the weekend. Not

just here, it's happened right across the country. Loads of you

have been in touch which is brilliant. Look at this picture.

From Clare Branston in Durham. How many do you think there are? 12, I

can't count that quickly. Yorkers, 15 bluetits. And they all got out.

No rents at all. If you did watch Facebook live Saturday morning, they

left their nesting box and there was one smaller one that didn't go, the

runt. It died because that is part of the process. Sometimes the adults

have identified that one of the young ones is not as fit as the

others, there might be a congenital fault, although we cannot see and

they can smell it and sends it, so they are that much of this bear and

although it sounds cruel and dispassionate, that is what happens.

A lot of people were concerned. What about the ones that got out, that's

more important. I can tell you one staggering fact I was going to use

tonight, 34% of bluetits survive once they have fledged, until their

first year. That's an astonishingly high rate when you think of all the

trials and jubilation as they face. Now it's time for the quiz. We have

a quiz every night on issue row and this is the first. This is the nest

that has been found locally, who lives in a house like this? It's

small, domed top, Bracken and Moss and if I put my finger inside I can

tell you, a deep cup. Rough and grassy inside. Who lives in a nest

like that? You've got 20 minutes to get in touch. It's very easy to do.

It has never been easier to get in touch with us here on Unsprung

whether you use a phone tablet. The easiest way is to become our friend

on social media. Like us on Facebook and you can post comments and

pictures to our wall. Follow us on Instagram and tag us into your

photographs or tweet us using hashtag Spring watch. And if you

can't remember this it is explained on the website. And we certainly

want to hear from you, people have already been in touch and sent

extraordinary things. Look at this. Here is someone's patio, Fox and

ahead job, we say sharing, but the hedgehog is hogging the meal and the

fox is picking up scraps, quite a surprise. Fascinating. This has been

sent in with a purpose because Doctor Dawn Scott has been asking

for these encounters. Yes, we had 300 so far, amazing interactions

between animals. I really want to know what is going on between foxes,

badgers and hedgehogs in your garden, please send them in so we

can analyse the data. And domestic pets, I have seen people cats lying

in harmony with Fox's side-by-side. We want that as well, anything

interesting, please send it in. Send it in, Dawn will analyse all these

and there will be some science. Let's move on to the first guest,

round of applause for the one and only Sue! Some time ago I asked if

you would be so kind as to visit us and be on our programme. I should

have put in the proviso that it would be a long journey to a damp

Gloucestershire where you'd be hanging out in a sweaty teepee for

most of the day. Would you still have come. I live for hot and sweaty

tepees. The weather isn't great but it is was that these guys. This

gentleman, here,... Are you a rustic lady. A secret rustic lady, brought

up in Croydon which is known for its undulating concrete fields, so not

much biodiversity. Escaping into the garden was escaping into the world

of imagination and making things with mud and anything I could find.

In my 20s I was more about the bars and clubs but as I have got older I

love it. I would rather be in a bluebell wood than anywhere else.

Mud pie and moth wings coming together in sculptural form, I can

only imagine. What about wildlife? I was a bit of a twitch as a kid, my

dad was a big Twitter and used to sit me down and when you are young

books bought you but I liked him reading and telling me what he had

learned so we would see that hatches and warblers and woodpeckers and

things. It's only now that he has died that I'm taking up the mantle

and thinking, I didn't know that. It is lovely. You have a roof terrace

see you do your best. We are to floss up, I put up a bird feeder, I

thought no way because there are lots of bluetits in my neighbour 's

garden, they founded, it took them to weeks to work it out and now they

are everywhere and we have bees and butterflies, all sorts, it is

stunning. You've been travelling, on one of your trips you went up the

Mekon. With a paddle. And you met some great wildlife. We've got a

clip. You beauty! Much as I am a conservationist at heart I've never

got behind single species conservation before but today I

understand it because if you save the elephant you save the forest and

if you save the forest is good video, the pigs, rats and the snakes

and everything. APPLAUSE

I think you touched the elephant and being touched by the elephant at

that point? Totally. An extraordinary project. Did not just

save the forest but all the humans working there because this

extraordinary conservationist Guy came in and said, instead of selling

your forests. Smart blogging I would like to retire your elephants to my

sanctuary and I will get money and help your hospitals and schools and

you would have to rely on illegal logging. So everyone in that

facility was improved. The elephant moved me. I started that piece to

camera and they were silent and I saw the camera wobbling. It had come

across the plane to greet me and I did not hear it at all. They can be

incredibly quiet. Normally in the bush you can only hear an elephant

if they are eating or crunching or if they are fighting. I just assumed

that was the Sandman! If they are not eating or hare they can sneak up

on you. The amount of bamboo they can lay waste to is amazing. What

would be the animal I should champion here? We are using these

animals as flagship animals, it's not just about the elephant, in this

country, on the programme tonight Martin will be talking about

beavers. A potential reintroduction, we've done it in a couple of places

in the UK. They sculpt entire environments, they are ecosystem

engineers. I like to champion those things because if you help one

animal you are helping so many others. So perhaps championing

beaver reintroduction, that will be the first. I shall try to be the

poster girl for be reintroduction. On a trip to India, we saw lots of

Bengal tigers. I saw what it is like to introduce an alpha predator which

means the deer don't proliferate which means you get more controlled

vegetation and all the other stuff springs up. That was fascinating.

You are branching out career started with a beaver but now you want more

predators. Perhaps you should champion the reintroduction of the

lynx into the UK. Beavers and lynx. You have said you are prepared to

help conservation in this country, would you be prepared to help those

who are doing something rather than just talking about it? If you are

interested in beavers, lynx or getting Sue on board, contact her

through her agent. I thought my personal details were going to flash

above bulbous green! Will be back with you later. Lindsey. I had

better jump in. With something new. We always have cameras on the

wildlife here at Springwatch but what happens when the turn them on

the crew? We went behind-the-scenes and found out that sometimes the

smallest creatures provide the largest problems. This is

Springwatch Undressed. Three, to, one. Each episode of

Springwatch involves many elements coming together. A busy day with

everyone working to the same deadline, you'd be. A bit lost.

Leaver it is a long day. Last Thursday it wasn't just the present

is preparing for the live show, some of the smaller creatures were also

getting ready for their close-up. Taking the utmost care, cameraman

Nick Pitt used a macro studio to carefully recreate a habitat for the

tiny stars. Leaver it It's so difficult to get these in the wild.

You've got things like the wind and the changing light to deal with.

With a detailed and ten I shot required he was working against the

clock. But the cockchafer had a different schedule. If only he

understood English and everything would be simpler. Here we go. After

for hours Nick finally got the shot. Liverpool there we go, tick. All

that hard work paid off even if it was just only for 15 seconds of the

show. APPLAUSE

Thank you very much. I am not sure that we actually used that shot

after all that! Someone who will be used to that... That's a shocking

jumper, can I say, it is lovely to see you again. Are you pleased to be

back? Have you missed the rain and damp? I have, I have missed the

slightly damp tent Dexter. Have you been watching it. I haven't,

actually. Our next guest, coming up on the show. I'm being honest

because he would only ask me some question! I don't watch it either!

What have you been doing. Some filming and a quiz with someone you

might know, as a team host, we did do a quiz which is coming out in a

couple of weeks, great fun, that starts on June 19 at 6:30pm, BBC

Two. And I have also been doing some filming in Wales which is where I

live. A beautiful series about Welsh landscapes and how people work and

live in them and appreciate them. It is a thinly veiled excuse to have my

dog on the TV. You do live and work and appreciate the Welsh landscape

with your dog. I wrote about lasting about the relationship between

humans and dogs, I was really interested. I have to rescue dogs

that I adore. I was interested in the working relationship that to

very different species come humans and canines, could have together. I

worked on One Man And His Dog and that relationship seems almost

symbiotic. We can see that relationship now. Here you are with

your dog. You are horrible, I have not missed you at all! Learning to

work a dog is not a straightforward trajectory, as I discovered. There

are days when things go right. I felt the first time just a bit more

in control. And there are days when go wrong. Away, away! But practice

makes perfect! APPLAUSE

Your voice, shouting away, away! You feel such a fraud as well. When you

watch One Man And His Dog and it is seamless, whistling and all that,

but one thing that I learned, my dog is a Welsh sheepdog. And they are

wired, we did a DNA test to see if they were actually different from

colleagues. And neurologically there are 50 different genetic snips that

make them different and make them work completely differently, think

differently. How is the training coming on? It is

me that need the training, the dog is amazing. We worked with cattle

and these dogs are amazing, they can work with anything, they have such a

strong herding instinct. We drove 25 cattle to the summit, it was

amazing. I look forward to seeing it. Another dog here that doesn't

need any more training, it is Rocky. And you guys have met before? We

have, because one of the other things I was really interested in

when I was researching my book was dogs being used in and conservation.

I've read there were dogs being used in Wales I this slightly mad

gentleman here to find British species. One thing that Aran was

training dogs to do was to find pine martens. The other thing was bats

which we will talk about in a bit, but the thing that really fascinated

me was that the Aran had taken on the task had tried to train the dog

to find great crested newts. So we have the world's only newt finding

dog in the studio. It was the benefit of finding those that if

they need to move, they are quite hard to find. Yes, there's places --

measures in place already but if you have a dog it speeds up the process.

We have no less than five buckets, and in one of those we have a dead

bat. Rocky will sniff out which one that that is in. Let's put a block

on this, and off he goes. -- let put a clock on this. He identified one,

it didn't take very long. How long was that? Six seconds. We will

reveal... Take the top off... He found it! You clever boy. Just to

prove it was the right one, there is a dead bat. That's what you pay your

licence fee for! Joking apart, the reason he finds dead that is the

surveys of wind farms to see if there is any negative impact? Yes,

there has to be surveys for mortality. Usually it is people,

fingertip searching going through harsh vegetation but we train the

dogs to shoot around and sniff them out. The wind turbines do have an

effect on the bats. Again, a wonderful symbiotic relationship

between brilliant handlers and brilliant dogs. Thank you for coming

along, that was a fantastic demonstration. Live animals in the

studio always sends shivers down the spine but that was remarkable. As

you will know if you are a regular viewer, I like to squeeze myself

into tents with celebrities to find out how much they know about

wildlife... Who is coming first? This year high chair has gone

mobile. It can pop up anywhere. And anyone

could be hiding inside. So who is first? The natural habitat

of my celebrity Hideshare guest today is a world of glitz and

glamour and this would normally be as close to a bird as you would get,

but not today, today it is strictly come birdsong. We are in the garden

of... Craig Revel Horwood! Jazz hands! It has started already.

Welcome to the theatre of nature. Beautiful. And it is your backyard!

Yes, it is almost like a cert. Are you good on birdsong? Only songs

from musicals normally. Let's listen because there are great musicals

going on here. That is the wren, a tiny bird but they shout at the tops

of their voices. Oh, yeah. I was brought up in Australia and I am

used to hearing kookaburras. This represents beauty and proper song,

which is gorgeous. I just heard of the looted calling, not singing.

They have a chat call. This looks like a male feeding a female because

they are about to go into the nest boxes and laying so she is demanding

commitment from him. I don't like that, I get scared of commitment. Is

that why I'm single? You can buy recordings of bird songs but there's

no substitute for the real thing. So the best thing to do is come out

here, sit down, this into the songs and tried to spot the bird. If you

force yourself through that process, you will remember it more clearly.

Yes, you're right, it's like learning a song. You hear the

melody, you listen for it, then you recognise it and can repeat it.

Birds actually rehearsed the songs as well. Nightingales, in the winter

time when they have migrated to Africa, they practice a couple of

lines or a bit of the chorus and when they come back here in the

spring they will string the whole song together and the rehearsal will

mean they are better songster and we know that those with the richest

songs produced more young out of the nest. That is unbelievable, it

really is unbelievable. I have had a look at your schedule. You don't get

much spare time, do you? No, I don't. Buy direct and choreographed

musicals and leading up to Christmas I do a show called Strictly Come

Dancing. I have seen it. It is something I think you should be

involved in. You have taught me so much, I would fight tooth and nail

to get you on the show, you would be fantastic. I will get my glittery

jacket out. Before we go, what about some strictly style scoring of

today's loudest star. I am scoring the wren with a one. For me it is

not fabulous, it is a scratchy and repetitive song. It is a bit

scruffy, unlike the bird sometimes. A bit like you then, darling,

because I am scoring at a whopping nine because I never give tens

anyway. I like it song and it's a firm favourite of mine. It is there,

it is loving us. How you can score it once I have no idea, I wouldn't

give you one. If I was on your programme I would be lucky to get

half! It was a top score. We got him up at

about 4:45am on a freezing cold morning to sit in the bird hide so

thank you to Craig. And we are not rating the song of the wren here, we

are rating your sparkly jacket. Chris says, it is Chris wearing that

jumper for a bet? No, I'm wearing this to prove the 1980s should not

have happened at all. It is time to round up the quiz. We asked you at

the beginning of the show whose house you thought this was, who

lives in a nest like this and loads of you have been in touch. Lots of

people not getting it quite right. We have had dormouse, Jeff Jaffe,

long-tail Stitt and field mouse. Not right, but lots of people did get it

correct. Jack Dawson, well done, you gave the right answer which was of

course... It is a wren's nest. Those suggestions make similar shaped

nests but they are not as substantial as this. This is not

wind and when the female chooses the best one she likes, it will be lined

and they make their brood in it. Thank you for getting in touch, more

quiz tomorrow. Now for a new and exciting part of the programme. We

like to challenge our guests and we are going to. It is Fantastical

Beasts. In the past we have asked our guests to go out for ten minutes

and take a world-class photograph on the phone, like plasticine Wildcat,

those sorts of things, but we have a new challenge - they have to come up

with their very own animal. It has to be reasonable, it might evolve at

some stage in the future. This is mine, the thing called the cat-owl.

It preys upon domestic cats. That is the call of the catowl and it never

attacks children or poodles, only domestic cats. So, what have you

come up with? I wanted to go for a hybrid, something that would be

waterproof, then I thought about foxes becoming a -- possible to

reproduce in a way that I don't have to hear them at two o'clock in the

morning. Then I developed a hedgehog that developed of bioluminescence.

They will never get run over again. Ladies and gentlemen! That is pretty

good! I'm not sure I can beat that. I was thinking of a dog that could

do a decent gin and tonic and do the ironing... However, interesting we

came up with a similar thoughts because I thought I would go for a

lollipop crow. It is a crow that instead of hanging about by the side

of the road waiting for roadkill would hang about at the side of the

road and then when something wanted to cross the road, like one of your

hedgehogs that hadn't evolved its bioluminescence yet, it could wait

at the side of the road and fly up to see if the coast was clear or

stop the traffic with its lollipop. Grows being very intelligent

animals, this is not far off. -- crows. Somebody asked me what they

would eat and I said they would be a vegetarian and eat nuts or

something. I never imagined we would get off to such a good start. I am

going to score them equally at this point, what do we think about that?

I think that is a bit of a wimp's way out. OK, you can wimp that if

you like. Any questions? Yes, I have a question - when can we clean out

our nest boxes? Right at the end of the summer, don't do it yet. On that

account I have to say goodbye to our first Unsprung. Tomorrow we are on

at 6:30pm on BBC Two. Big round of applause for our guests, thank you!

In Japan, art and life are intrinsically connected.

Understanding the principles behind the art

unlocks the mysteries of Japanese culture.