Episode 3 Springwatch Unsprung

APPLAUSE. Hello! Thank you very much indeed. Thank you for coming along.

Welcome to Unsprung coming to you live from the Sherbourne Park estate

in Gloucestershire run by the National Trust and this year home of

Unsprung and Springwatch. On this programme it's all about you. We

want to hear from you throughout the programme. Send us pictures, ask us

any questions you possibly like the answers to. We will do our best to

answer them. We have some wildlife, a little bit of science and guests

too. I am pleased to welcome tonight Sara Cox.

APPLAUSE. T Yes, I do a bit of pottering, I get in the way. We will

be joining you later. Also Richard Jones.

APPLAUSE. Richard has written this book, The

Secret Life of Dung, if there is one thing we love here on Springwatch

it's dung and we have some coming up. Isn't that right, Lindsey?

Before we go on I have an extract. This is absolutely fantastic. It's

about a species of beetle which dives into dung. They fold away

their flight wings and literally dive in swimming is exactly what

they do and they have broadened legs. They turn their limbs into

oars. Swims through its own food and its food is dung. Brilliant! That is

brilliant. Not sure how to get out of that one. I am going to follow

with kingfishers. Lots of you got in touch about the wonderful footage we

had. Have a look at this. This has been sent in by Denis Williams. Come

on, Chris, what do you think of that? Well, yeah...

The wings are in front of the face. Here we go! A twig over there in the

background which is disturbing. I thought it was a stunner. Then I

found this one, as well. This is from our Twitter account. From

wildlifetog. Look at the timing. Time something good. I would like to

see the fish facing me. LAUGHTER. I am looking at the fish's

tail, I would rather see its face. I will keep trying. Lots of you have

been enjoying our fantastical beasts. Some viewers got creative

last night and sent this in. This is incredible. It's a screen shot. This

is the Packham native. Did you know you were doing that? I did not. Had

I known I would have been symetrically. Keep sending them in.

It's easy to do. This is how. Now it's never been ease yir to get

in touch with us here on You think sprun. Wherever you are, and whether

you use a phone, a laptop or tablet. The easiest way to find us is go

online and be our friend on social media. So, 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 Springwatch. Don't

worry, if you can't remember all of this, it's explained on our website.

Chris, what is brown and sounds like a bell? Dung! Yes, that's right,

it's time for tonight's quiz I read that in the Beano before you were

born! What a treat we have for you. It's a slif specimen. Well, it was.

It came from a live specimen. There are maybe things living in it. It's

a piece of ex-crept we found on the estate today. It's quite dry. It's

not a fresh one. Not much of a smell to it. We want to know who produced

this poo? Who pooed? Absolutely. Brilliant. Get in touch, you have

about 20 minutes. 25 minutes to do that. Use the hashtag Springwatch. I

will keep an eye on it. Get quizzing now. Top work. Thank you very much.

I am going to move over to the first guest. Thank you very much for

coming in, Sara. Nice to see you. I like the audience's reaction then

when you sprung around with the poo. OK! I don't mind getting too close

to poo. Not everyone is so keen, Richard will be. I have been with

Richard all afternoon. A lot of poo chat. You grew up in a situation

where you were relatively rustic. My dad is a farmer, still farms beef

cattle, Hereford. Brown and white ones. He has a few acres, but

housing is marching slowly to the edges of the field. Still there?

Still there showing cattle. I will ring him up after. And the

tractor... All right, darling... Did you get involved? I could drive a

tractor when I was about 11. It was a really old one, to speed it up

with the accelerator, it was like a stick there and the clutch. If it

started to run away it was so slow that my dad would have been able to

catch and stop it. You would jump off. Exactly. What about wildlife on

the farm, was it a good place? Pretty much. We would have, I think

we used to get barn owls when I was really little, I think. I think we

used to get, what do they call it? Little birds that would come in and

out of all the buildings. Swallows. Yeah, I think we had a few. What

about cattle on the farm, lots of flies are attracted to the animals,

swallows come to feed on them. Obviously the odd rat which you

weren't as keen on. No? We like rats on Springwatch and Unsprung.

Everything has a job. The pest word doesn't occur here. The pest word

occurred and we would be short of 50% of our stars. Then you went on

to other things. How did you get on to the radio doing 80s music that I

used to listen to? It's bizarre journey really. I didn't really want

to go to uni because my sister used to ring up from uni every week going

there is 15 of us living on one potato and I have no shoes. That

doesn't sound like fun, I need to get a job, so I modelled for a bit.

In fact OMD. I was in a video. Yeah, I was wrapped in a a bed sheet

against a wall like this. OK. Still got it. All these decades later!

Eventually got into TV and into radio. Now I am on Friday nights at

10pm on Radio 2. You have been out with other naturalists in the field.

You went out with Gordon Buchanan. You are my favourite of course.

Wow. That's the adult male. All of them...

What an amazing way to end. APPLAUSE.

It was so amazing. One of the best weekends ever. So lovely. The

weather had turned beautiful by that point but we had a long, very wet

weekend in Dartmoor and had gone looking for badgers and they didn't

come out. You have to be careful not to be downwind of badgers because

they'll sense. We looked for all this wildlife, couldn't find it but

ended with that male beaver popping up, we weren't expecting it until

dusk. It came out early. It was gorgeous. I discovered I was a

screamer, I didn't realise I screamed so much and filming that,

he showed me this frog and it jumped at me and I was like argh! Then a

mouse was accidentally dropped, it was fine. They were like stand

still. I was like argh! That beaver encounter was astonishing. Do you

know how lucky you were? They were like we might not see it. We were

going to hide and get night vision goggles, we would go around in -

they created this beautiful habitat for it, it's a secret place to

reintroduce them and we said we will do a bit of filming and walk around

with the waders on and then I -- I spotted it. A question. How do

beavers know where to start building, do they carry out surveys

to know where to build? They do. One of the things they can do is sense

the flow of water and they use their whiskers for that. They'll move up

and down the stream. They'll find a place where the flow of water is

perfect to start building. Obviously they start at the edges and move

towards the centre. When it comes to starting the dam. The same probably

when building lodges. Their lodges, where they live, they spend more

time choosing those close to a food source. They were huge. These

lodges, most are under the water. You are talking about a big animal.

Incredible. OK. What about one thing you are passionate about are your

horses and riding. Yes. That started young I presume? That started

younger than that, about 14 then I think. That's Gus our lovely farm

pony born on 1st August. Thanks last year at the Dartmoor Derby. I have

done two of them now. You go out in big groups and ride around Dartmoor,

like an enduresance ride. That is at Goodwood. Terrifying. Seven furlongs

for charity. At that point I am thinking I have three kids and I am

about to gallop this beast at 30mph, I must be mad. But the actual riding

out and with the lads and lasses in Lambourne, which is the valley of

the race horses, it's beautiful. That was the best thing going out

and riding with, jockeys are incredible, they're so brave. It was

a dream come true. I am very lucky. Thank you very much. We will have

you back later for your fantastical beast. Lindsey. I always love an

unusual moment. This is a fab picture of a Goldfinch and a wood

pigeon on a bird bath. I thought it was fun. We had our own unusual

encounter this week. Because this happened. We found a very tame

pigeon hanging around the site. I caught her in a butterfly net. It

was funny to watch. She was like... Now we noticed it had a ring on its

leg. It's clearly a racing pigeon. We called the owner. It turned out

it had gone off course on the way back from France and landed with us.

There was a glorious reunion. It's a very happy story. There is never a

usual day on Springwatch, they're all different. This is Unsprung

Undressed. Every morning starts with a meeting

to talk through the day ahead. Before the presenters run to the

edit to view tonight's films. Cut that out! Everyone's favourite time.

Lunch. Before heading to the studio floor for the first run-through of

the show. This is where we get ready to do our trail. Join us at 8pm on

BBC Two... Then we do a block of the whole programme and that's for tick

nickical reasons. -- technical reasons. The Springwatch team are

working to get everything ready for transmission. The presenters make

their final notes. Honestly, they look like a five-year-old has done

them, look! That's not good, is it? Dress rehearsal done, Gillian has a

last-minute question about one of our newest nests. Are both parents

coming in? Yeah. 8pm, the rain is falling but the cameras are rolling.

Hello, welcome to Springwatch 2017! It's our second week... It is quite

a challenge for those parents to feed those chicks. Just like that,

it's all over. Until tomorrow. Join us then at 8pm on BBC Two. See

you then, bye! APPLAUSE.

Somehow they cut out all the hard work there! Richard, thank you for

joining us, you are keen on insects but isn't afraid of this stuff, poo.

Every time. These are more samples from the estate. Some nice rat poo,

close to where our set-up is there. Rabbits, sheep, bat. Water foul

here. The sheep is going to be the nicest, I think. A sweet smell. It's

not a cheeseboard, you know! What have you got there? Sheep

dissected with a couple of dung beetles live in there. Who is in

there and what are they up to? Two species of dung beetles.

They are tunnelers. Unfortunately, in Britain, we have not got the

lovely sake read sacreb. They will dig a deep tunnel and take down

morsels for offspring. Without these sort of animals we would be knee or

neck deep in this stuff. Swamped in hours and our farm animals, yeah, we

would, it would be a terrible mess, as happened in Australia for several

hundreds of years. The stock animals that the European travellers took

out there, the settlers, the native dung beetles were unable to cope, it

was too wet. Unlike... The local dung beetles could not cope. For 200

years it lay there until a programme of introducing African and Asian

dung beetles to cope with the mess. A biological control there. In

Britain we are lucky we don't see it because it is kept under control.

There is a rolling programme of recycling going on by these beasts.

What else, you have a box of tricks here. This is just a selection of

different dung beetles from the biggest species, fantastic beast.

Smaller dung beetles. Dung flies. The hornet robber fly. It doesn't

eat the dung itself but uses the dried Pats as a launchpad to leap up

and attack its pray. --

The lesser earwig is not right, but you do not see it these days. It

used to be so common in London, well into the 1940s, because there was so

much for strong traffic in those days, and all strong carriages, the

horses would drop dung in the streets of London, it would be

cleared into heaps at the side of the road, and it would not get

recycled. It would dry, it would go mouldy, so we would have wood lice

eating the mould. What about that? Richard, these are some dung flies

that we have seen, I used to see masses of these when I was a kid,

they seem to have disappeared. They may well do. Unfortunately, farmers

nowadays treat their stock animals with insecticidal injections to cope

with the parasite load, the worms and flukes inside the animals. That

gets passed out in the dung, and in fact to get in sector sidled dung.

The flies lay their eggs, and the maggots are killed by the

insecticide residue still in the dung. This is no good, because

whilst the larvae are feeding on the dung, lots of animals then come to

feed on the larvae. That is right, it is one of the nice things about

dung - the dung is like a microcosm of mycology, the interconnectedness

of all living things on this planet, you cannot possibly understand it

all, which is why people focus. You can look at dung is a microcosm, get

a feeling about what is happening, how things interact, the late

comers, the newcomers, the fungus feeders, how they all interact with

each other, how things can go wrong with insecticide in droppings. We

have got a time-lapse here that one of our cameramen did, this is horse

dung, just overnight, fungal spores that have germinated, and they are

producing all of this, these other fruiting bodies emerging, incredibly

rapidly. One of the things we have to stress, dung does not last long

in the environment, a lot of stuff once this, Sara, it is after this

valuable material. Yes, it is incredible, these different types.

It was funny before, we were having a Capote earlier when the producer

rang in, she came in with a big handful of sheep poo, only on

Springwatch would you get that! Oh, we have got a bit of slippage, the

sheep is slipping! The speed of turnover is for nominal. It is, and

it changes, and especially herbivore dung, it is effectively just

processed plant material conveniently chewed into a nice much

for the dung beetles. But it quickly develops fungus, earthworms, long,

there is a complete turnover from fresh droppings to effectively dust.

It might take a few weeks, it might take a few years. All wrapped up so

eloquently in your book, The Secret Life Of Dung, I have been honoured

all day, I should have been rehearsing, but I have been reading

your dung book! Thank you much, Richard. Sometimes I like to take my

hide with me when I go out, and sometimes I coax someone else into

it to see what we can spot. Who will it be today?

This year, hideshare has gone mobile.

It can pop up anywhere! And anyone could be hiding inside.

So who is next? I am very relieved to say that my hideshare guests

today won't be put off by this pouring rain, because she took like

a duck to water at a very early age, and I can assure you that this will

be a swimming success. I am at the London weapon centre with Olympic

champion Ellie Simmonds, out of the pool and into the hide! On a very

wet afternoon, I must say. To think we are in the middle of London! It

is fantastic, and there are good birds here, not just, as people

might imagine, pigeons and sparrows and starlings and crows. Look over

there at that wall, loads of sand martin is coming in and out, because

they are nesting in there. It is an artificial structure to represent a

sandbank, each year the wardens and the volunteers fill it with sand so

that the birds will take them out and think they are making their own

burrows. What do they feed on? They are insectivores, they will be

swooping over the war. -- water. Well, I am really sorry we have lost

Springwatch Live, we will try to get back to the programme as soon as we

can. Well, I'm really sorry we have is

lost Springwatch Unsprung. I am pleased to say we can return right

now. I think that is a hard question.

Ferociously competitive? Not just in the pool, outside as well. Best off

not playing Connect 4? Please, no matter! I don't cheat, but I like to

get very competitive. Everything out here is competing as well, and as

ferociously as you do. And here, it is about life and death, and the

reason we have got so many different species living in this one place at

the same time is that they have all found their own little niche. But

here is a thing, what about out of the pool and into while swimming?

You swam with dolphins, that had a big impression? It did. Such

powerful animals. They look like they are hardly moving, and they are

so intrigued by you, they are so intelligent, they want to come up to

you, they use their echo to check you out. It was an exhilarating

moment, a moment that has given me such an eye-opener, how incredible

wildlife is, how incredible nature is. It has really opened my doors to

ocean conservation, for sure, just protecting not just the ocean, and

when nature and our wildlife. I am very passionate about it. Amazing.

APPLAUSE Massive thanks Mark Rutte Ellie

Simmonds for coming out in the wet and for the wetland trust and to you

for sticking with us because we lost picture for a while!

That fulfilment will be on the website. Poo has gone crazy on the

internet, Debbie says, yeah, AP Jan poo I love it. There is a book about

dung, yes! That is what people want. I am not alone, and nor is Richard!

Back to the quiz, we ask you who this belonged to, who could have

created something this wonderful? Many of you got in touch with the

wrong answers, so we have got otter, fox, deer, caddisfly case. If that

is from a caddisfly, I am not going down to the river! It is from a

badger. Congratulations to Lily, who was nine years old! A number of you

getting it right, please keep sending your comments and pictures,

your nests, go unusual encounters. And here is a souvenir for you,

lucky chap! Now we move our fantastical beasts. At this point we

have got a fantastical beasts, we like to set a challenge to our

guests, in the past we have let them do some drawings, take some

photographs, but we have raised the bar, we want them to invent their

own animal, an animal that could live at some stage in the future,

but it needs to be realistic, it needs to have an ecology and proper

behaviour. Richard, you are going first, what have you come up with? I

have come up with the cherub scarab. The ancient Egyptians were right on

when they revered and worshipped dung beetles, and we have forgotten

about that. I thought that if there was such a thing as the cherub

scarab, it would be a feature in every religious painting, it would

be so familiar, so instead of the go to friendly beetle being the

ladybird, it would be the cherub scarab. So you would like to

supplement the one and only ladybird with a cherub scarab? Can you see us

with a range of books starting in the late 1950s, teaching people to

read, talking about the Ladybird books? I think Scarab books has got

a certain ring to it, I could go with that. Interesting animal, what

is it going to do? Hang around religious paintings? It is a genuine

dung beetle, but it is very clean. OK! A clean dung beetle, then, from

Richard, what have you got, Sara? I did work experience at a local

kennels and cattery when I was 14, and I used to ride my pony to work,

and I live in London now, in the megalopolis, so the dream is to

write to work everyday, so this is the megalopony, a pony, although it

is technically a pause, 15 hands, it has evolved so that it will replace

the car in cities. It will save the world! It doesn't need any food, it

breeds in harmful emissions, and it trumps out fresh oxygen. And it has

sort of evolved... I like how it trumps it out! It has got flesh

stirrups, it has evolved to have this saddle, have I gone too far?!

Really into this! You have got 15 seconds! People will use it in the

way that they used a city bike. I know it looks like a 12-year-old's

homework! You would not need cars in city centres. Put-down glasses in a

nice, they can rest when you park them up. The ladies and gentlemen!

Straight to the top of the list with the megalopony, without doubt! Sara

Cox, Richard, thank you for coming into night, thank you for joining

us, see you later! I want to know...

..what will happen next. And I want to know...

..what it all means...