Episode 5 Springwatch

We haven't been on air since Thursday! Which means there is a

whole mass of great wildlife action to catch up with. Don't go anywhere.

Hang on to your hats for the rollercoaster ride that is

Welcome to Springwatch, coming to you live on a beautifulish evening

from the truly beautiful RSPB reserve in Wales. Where are we? We

have zoomed into Wales. This is an have zoomed into Wales. This is an

aerial view of the reserve. Lots of different habitats and that means a

great range of species. We met some of them last week and we have

plenty more to introduce you to this week as well. It will be a

great week. Let's remind you of one of our favourite characters of last

week, these are our barn owls. Now the chicks caused a great deal of

concern. How did they fare over the weekend? We will be telling you in

a moment. What about our waterfall dippers? There's been trouble at

nest. This is a mass of snakes on a compost heap. I'm so excited.

stop now. Otherwise I will have to do it for this week's guest

naturalist. He's the very special Wales' own Iolo Williams. Welcome

to my favourite place not just in Wales, not just in Britain, but in

the whole wide world. Where am I? Look behind me. You will get a big

clue. Wall-to-wall puffins. This place supports the biggest puffin

colony in the whole of southern Britain. There's a whole host of

other animals here besides. Come back to us later on. Top bloke, top

location. Fantastic. You don't think I have peaked too early?

might have done. If you were watching last week, you will

remember that we introduced you to a delightful family of barn owls, a

family that we haven't followed the for fuens of for quite some time. -

- fortunes of for quite some time. This is the scene we all watched in

horror on Thursday, they are nesting in that barn. It is a slate

roof. Chris, you said why not put a thermometer in there? Temperatures

did cool down a little bit over the weekend, peaking at 24. Which isn't

very hot. A lot of people were worried about the little baby.

Nothing to worry about there. The temperature that these things are

used to be can be much higher than that. Temperatures can get up to 40

degrees. They should be able to deal with it. You can see there's

one chick there that is a lot smaller than the others. There is a

very good reason for that, isn't there, Chris? There is. Some of the

young eat the smaller ones, it is a fairly frequent things. It occurs

in up to 33% of the barn owl nests. So 33% of all of the nests with

chicks in, they will be eating some of their chicks. The reason for

that - and we have seen it before - it is a survival mechanism and it's

due to the fact that some times there are bad years for barn owls,

there aren't enough voles around, or the weather is very bad which

means they find it very difficult to hunt. Those little chicks are

sort of like a lader in waiting. However, they have been bringing in

lots of food over the weekend. I know that all of you were very

worried about that very little chick who now relishes in his new

name, Bob - thank you to all of you on the message board. Baby Barn

Owl! That doesn't work - Bash Barnacle owl -- that doesn't work

Barn Owl Baby! Let's look at them live. There is a huge amount of

prey coming into the nest. I have no doubt the adults are stashing

field voles elsewhere, so it has cooled down now. They seem to be

doing very well. The only thing that we should be a little bit

concerned about is the weather forecast. Apparently, it could be

quite wet for the rest of the week. That stash presumably will last a

little bit? We hope so. Owls don't like hunting in the rain. They hunt

using their ears. If it is raining, it is very noisy and they can't

hear as well their small prey. Going back to the thermometers - we

have one close to the nest, we have another one outside as a control

thermometer. I think what we should do - we should monitor the

temperature three times a day outside and inside the nest so we

could develop a graph and we could maybe look at pants per minute! And

we could see if there is any correlation between temperature and

pants per minute in Bob! Something to look forward to later in the

week. I'm already breathless with anticipation. We tried to introduce

you to another new character at the end of last week, but failed

because we were utterly upstaged by beavers behaving beautifully and

live up in Scotland. So let's go now to this very pretty little bird.

It is a common sandpiper. She was - you can see she is feeding with

that characteristic bobbing. They bob about. They are pickers, not

probers. This was the nest that she had made. It's an open nest.

Normally they are deep in a tussock. She was doing very well at this

stage. She had been sat on those eggs for some time. We were hoping

they might hatch over the weekend. However... You probably noticed

Chris is using the past tense and, sadly, we had a bit of a dramatic

incident over the weekend. She is agitated here. This is the reason

why. It is not a ferocious predator, it is a herbivore. Here are the

eggs in the nest. She's been frightened off by the sheep which

was passing very close to it. Here she's obviously out of the way.

Here you can see the nest. Watch this, the sheep is unbelievable -

the problt of that the probability of that happening! Shortly, after

that, the eggs had been kicked out of the nest and she deserted.

may be wondering what is a sheep doing in the middle of an RSPB

reserve? Well, this reserve is a huge area, 700 hectares. One of the

key management strategies of this reserve is for it to be grazed - it

is grazed by sheep and horses. As you saw, the sandpipers do nest on

the ground. So it is a bit of an occupational hazard. It is a bit of

a freak. It is rather sad. There are 200 pairs of these birds in

Wales. They live a long time. They are designed to reproduce over a

succession of years. I should imagine now that although they will

relay if they lose eggs - these ones were about to hatch - so I

think that they will probably hang around the adults and move back

towards their wintering grounds. These birds will migrate to western

Africa for the winter. That is what they will do at the end of June if

they fail. The sheep are performing an essential duty so no hate mail

for the sheep! Now, from a little bit of sad news to a really

wonderful find by one of our wildlife cameramen. It was this

gorgeous family, it is of course a dipper. Look at that shot. Isn't

that beautiful? Stunning! That is what they do. We saw there were

what we thought three chicks in the nest. We couldn't see any more than

that. This was on Thursday. So you can see that they looked well

developed. They had a bit of the tuft still on their heads.

couldn't rig them with a live camera. You can't put cameras in at

this stage because there is a chance they will burst out of the

nest. Nevertheless, our cameramen were able to get back there over

the weekend and this is some of the We have two that are having an

argument over some food. I think what's happened here is that the

male bird, at the top... We think these are the parents of our

chicks? I think it is undoubtedly the fact these are the parents of

those chicks. I think the male has come back, has started courtship

feeding the female, perhaps, because they do that. He's rather

changed his mind and thought, "No, I would rather have that myself!"

Eventually, he gets it from the female and flies off. We didn't see

whether he went to the chicks or not. Of course, what we were really

keen to know is whether those chicks were going to fledge and if

they did fledge, whether the cameraman who found this nest would

be able to catch the moment. Of course he was! We can see the adult

bird. Watch. It drops down into the water. Does that mean disaster? No.

Incredible that it manages to climb up that rock. They do like to nest

over water for security. A grey wagtail is very confused there.

Here is another one. Bit more of a struggle this one. Gets up on to a

very slippery rock. It is dipping already. It is out of the nest for

a few seconds and it has already got that dipping behaviour and

slipping-dipping! The other one comes in so the two are now

together, that is a gorgeous shot of being able to see the two of

them dipping in synchro nighisation. There, we have the adult just to

persuade the third one out - does it come? Yes. All three safely out

of the nest. We were so worried. This is extraordinary, Chris.

Straight into the water. These birds have a huge gland which is

their gland behind the tail and they are applying oil to their

feathers. I can only presume that the young have been doing the same

in the nest and they are waterproof when they come out for this very

reason. That dipping straightaway. There is still confusion over why

these animals that live near rushing water dips. Some people

think it is to camouflage themselves in amongst the turbulent

water. They have that characteristic bobbing stance.

Within seconds of getting out of the nest, it has to have an

advantage or it wouldn't happen. Thank you for getting those

beautiful pictures. Now, we like to challenge you always on Springwatch

as you know. We have a little question for you today. Have a

DISCORDANT CRY You can get your answers in. What

is that? Is it the Joker on Batman? No, it is definitely not that. Tell

us what you think was making that noise. I have heard that noise on a

number of occasions, when I tell you a joke in a caravan! Or is that

you slamming the door?! We are joined by a guest naturalist here

on Springwatch and this week we can join Iolo Williams. Last week we

were up here with Charlie Hamilton- James. This week we are down here

off the West Wales coast here on the Isle of Skomer. This is where

Iolo will be bringing us a number of treats when it comes to the

local wildlife. Hello, Chris. Welcome to Skomer Island where we

are broadcasting live from a veritable jewel in the Welsh crown.

Remarkably, it's not particularly big, a mile-long by a mile wide,

but it is jam-packed full of wildlife. We are here all week

thanks to the kindness of staff from the Wildlife Trust for south

and West Wales and the Countryside Council for Wales. Our wildlife

cameramen have been here throughout the spring. Filming what? Here is a

What a fantastic place and we will be seeing much more later on in the

week. What is it that makes Skomer so special? The fact that it is an

island. The Pembrokeshire mainland is over there and between us is a

treacherous piece of water called Jack Sound. That keeps away foxes,

stoats, weasels, rats so that means burrowing nesting birds can thrive

here. The there are 13,000 puffins. It's the biggest puffin colony in

the whole of southern Britain. The puffins at the moment are looking

pretty settled. Our wildlife cameraman was here to catch the

Through winter, Skomer is a lonely place, battered by Atlantic storms.

Things start to liven up in mid- March when the island's most

colourful residents return from a winter spent feeding far out at sea.

As breeding season approaches, the puffins start to re-colonise the

island. The birds reunite with their same mate from the previous

year. And they get to know each other again with a spot of bill

rubbing, that is a puffin foreplay. Puffins can live for up to 25 years

so these birds could have spent many breeding seasons together,

perhaps they first courted when Margaret Thatcher was still Prime

Minister. When the birds have rekindled their relationship, it is

The birds come back to the same part of the island every year. They

can dig a new burrow but usually they just make use of an already-

established one from a previous year. And this is where they will

settle down to make the next generation of puffins.

It all looks so peaceful, doesn't it? Don't be fooled. Puffins can be

neighbours from hell! Have a look at this. This is early in the

season, one puffin has already established territory around the

entrance to its burrow, another one encroachs and all of a sudden they

are fighting away. You thought those beaks were colourful and used

to love each other's partners, they are used for fighting as well,

intertwined beaks. These fights can go on for several minutes. This one

was over quite quickly and the victor takes the spoils! Beautiful

birds? They can be. On the mainland, we all know that the housing market

is in recession. But here on the island it isn't. Business is

booming. All the birds fighting for the best burrows. It is all about

breeding because the best burrows hold the more experienced birds and

they are the more successful breeders. We know the puffins here,

the first ones laid eggs around the middle of April and those first

eggs hatched roughly ten days ago. We will be following those puffins

through our cameraman, Steve - say hello - and before the end of the

week, we also hope to be able to show you a puffling! That is what a

baby puffin is called. We will also of course be showing you a lot more

birds from the island. For now, it is back to Kate and Chris. To help

you with your Welsh... Thanks! Martin, come in to Dick Squires'

and Fiona Evans Eagar den. What is that? That is an F91W alarm

chronograph! It is a crime against taste! Remember our buzzards? We

can go live to the nest. There it is. Chicks looking rather well-fed.

I think it is looking well-fed. It's changed a lot since we last

saw it. A lot more of the body feathers have come through. It is

looking browner. Still a speckling of down on its head. It has been

enjoying a great range of diet. Last week we saw it eating some

young tits, a duckling, a frog, but also snakes. In fact, today I

looked at this and it had brought in a snake that was still alive.

That is a bit unfortunate. It is for me. I'm a great fan of the

grass snake. Imagine swallowing it! What is this? This is a book. This

is my notebook from 1974. I'm not surprised! You can't put your arms

around a memory. Look at this. 23Rd March, 1974 - I was into grass

snakes. I caught it. He smelled immediately, he did not bite. I

measured him 24 inches long, and later, he was stolen the day before

I went to the Isle of Wight. who? Look, I know it was the best

part - it is more than 40 years ago now. A bloke called Dave came round

my garden and stole my grass snake. I will see you in court. He never

forgets! Look... Shall we go across here? We can see the place where

the snakes are. This is the snake - what would you call it? They have

all come here to lay their eggs. Now, they are in bed. It is too

cold for them. We can approach fairly close. We can move in. All

of the snakes would have disappeared in there, and this is

the... This is the live camera. There's a watch! Earlier in the day

- was it earlier? Have a look at what this looked like earlier as

well. You can see the snakes. This is a time lapse. Not one Chris, not

two, loads of snakes! It is not masses against the grasses here. We

have a huge number of female grass snakes that have come to this

compost heap to lay their eggs. It as ferments there, it generates

heat. They get in amongst that, lay between 10 and 40 - there could be

hundreds of eggs in there. Let's dig in! No, no! In August or

September, all of the young snakes will come out, about pencil-sized.

Here is a closer view of the snakes. The female is a bit more robust.

Their heads are a bit wider. There might be some males in here, too.

They do return to these breeding sites - sorry not breeding sites,

they mated a long time ago in April - these egg-laying sites. They are

very important. So many compost heaps have been lost. They won't

come to a compost heap if it is in a bucket! They need to be open like

this one. They travel enormous distances. Most mobile of all of

our snakes. They might have come half a kilometre at least to get to

this site. Now the snakes - we have noticed something curious about

them. If you look closely at them, can you see there are tiny animals

- mites - rushing around - they are infested. They are young ones

because they are white and adults would be brown. That is my guess.

Normally, you don't see this many on them. The mites are taking

advantage of the fact there are a large number of snakes here.

Perhaps there's been a hatch of these mites in the compost heap.

You don't find that many on them typically. Before we move on,

something I want to put down here. I will put that very gently there

like that. Martin, during the course of the year, snakes will eat

somewhere between four and five toads? This whole area is crammed

with amphibians and many different types. I went out and I saw a

remarkable sight. Have a look at this. Oh my Lord! Look, there are

literally hundreds, if not thousands of tiny toads here. Look

at this. I am going to wet my hands first. I have never ever seen

anything like this. They are Dick Whittington toads, if you like -

they are setting off to seek their fortune elsewhere! It is quite a

dangerous thing for them to do as well. The local blackbirds, all the

other things that will come down and eat them, they will find out

soon. A lot of these won't make it. I had no idea you would ever get so

many altogether. Extraordinary sight. I have never

ever seen anything like that. Kate, have you ever seen anything like

that? Absolutely never. I don't think I have ever seen such a mass

of new life all in one place. We have seen frogs hopping out of a

pond but never that great mass of toads. Springwatch is made thanks

to the help of an amazing number of wildlife experts. This year, we

have really taken advantage of the extraordinary expertise of two men

- Steve Roberts and Paul Hatfield. They are licensed nest-finders.

Because of their extraordinary knowledge of birds and their

nesting behaviour, they have been able to find a first for

Springwatch. Just to give you an idea of how skilful these two men

are, the nest is just down there in front of the water, Chris. I'm

going to point it out to you. You have the crescent of bushes. Then

there is a sick mother sapling just to the -- sycamore sapling just to

the right. It belongs to this bird. It is a grasshopper warbler. Isn't

that special? Very special. They are hard to find. I only found one

of these when I was a kid. A lot of people might think here is a little

brown bird, it is not a special species. It is a little brown bird.

It advertises itself in a very different way and that is through

its song. Take a listen to this. It's extraordinary. It's very

mechanical. It is two notes repeated. It goes on and on and on.

The males produce this when they get back here in the spring to

attract the females. They will sing for about four and a half minutes.

One bird made that noise for two hours! No way! Sometimes they will

produce 1,400 notes in an hour. During the course of a night, they

might produce 250,000 notes in one night. It can be terribly

ventriloqual! I now find it quite difficult to hear these things!

They can be, when you were younger, very loud, but difficult to locate.

Let's have an update on what our grasshopper warblers have been

doing so far. Here is the nest. They had six eggs. They have

hatched all six of their chicks. If you look very closely, what they

seem to be feeding them are lots of spiders. The white there is the egg

sac. So they are very busy and the young are doing... They have bright

orange gapes. If we are able to see their tongues, they have three

spots which further mark the target point where they have to get the

food into. The nest is so tucked away as well. The chicks are tiny.

They hatched just over the weekend. So the adults really do need that

target to come in and be able to teed them? They do. Fantastic --

be able to feed them? They do. Fantastic little birds. Look,

another bird that we haven't seen for a little while, the oyster

catcher. It's a beautiful scene. The sun dipping down. We don't know

whether that is the male or female. If you were watching last week, you

will know that one of them had a slight limp. That bird is sitting

on two eggs and the nest is sitting on a wall about eight foot off the

ground. Let's have a look at what they were up to over the weekend.

We did see, Chris, both adults in attendance and they are sharing the

incubation of those eggs? They have the two eggs there. They are very

well camouflaged on top of the wall. I am sure that is probably why they

put them there. It is a fantastic location. We don't know how long

they have been on those eggs. They may not hatch before the end of our

series. A hot weekend so they were cooling off there. We also saw a

little bit of housekeeping, Chris? The nest is pretty sparse to be

honest. They are picking there at those stones around the edge of the

nest. They lay them on bare ground typically. The eggs are well

camouflaged. They also are trying to stay cool in the warm weather.

We have seen a lot of very hot birds over the last couple of days.

You saw the owls panting, so, Chris, how do birds and animals regulate

temperature when the temperature gets extreme? I stroke my imaginary

The great British weather is a thermo-regulatory nightmare. We can

put on nice warm hats and coats. What about the wildlife? It is out

there 365 days a year. Some of those days it has to take all four

seasons in just 24 hours. How does it cope? The first thing that

wildlife can do is get big, get fat, get blubber. It is brilliant

insulation. Just ask the seals. The next thing that it can do - we can

do it too - is getting goosebumps. So other mammals have another neat

trick. They have a counter-current heat exchange system. The vessels

run very close to those carrying the very warm blood. The warm blood

heats up the cool blood so it doesn't shot the animal's

metabolism when it gets back to the core. What about when the sun comes

out? And it is all about staying cool when it is hot. Well, the

first thing you can do is get lazy. Think of all of those deer sat

around on a warm summer's afternoon. They are not moving so they don't

generate any heat which they have to lose. If they do get hot, you

might see them panting. Cue the poodle! We don't need to pant

because we can sweat. Both achieve the same thing, though. It is about

evaporating water from the skin surface to keep the body cool.

There is one other trick that mammals have. Basically, they can

pump the blood very close to the skin so any air currents that come

by cool it and the blood is transported back to the inner parts

of the body to keep it cool - it is called blushing! I used to tell all

the girls it was cool. Sadly, they never believed me! Have I ever made

you blush? There's still time! then, let's go back to Skomer and

to Iolo Williams. Welcome back to Skomer Island and I tell you, it's

all going on here now. Puffins galore, gulls every where. This

often happens when the puffins come back, they will spend a bit of time

on the water preening, cleaning the feathers. It is very important for

a bird that spends most of its time out at sea. Then they will come on

these cliffs in their hundreds. Also, a few fulmar here nesting. I

do like fulmar - stiff-winged birds. I went over to the far side of the

island to see how some of these nesting birds make use of the sea

cliffs. This is the Wick, the most impressive seabird colony on the

whole island. It's fascinating to watch the birds here. You have four

different species - they don't compete for nest sites. All four

nest in different areas on that one cliff. Guillemots are the most

numerous bird on this cliff, hundreds of them. They will nest

along long, narrow ledges packed tightly together there. Then you

have razorbills, they nest in a different place. They look for

smaller ledges and they nest in ones, twos, threes and fours. Then

the fulmar, they nest higher up towards the top. Sometimes two,

three, four in a row. Finally, the kittiwakes, the bravest of all.

They are nesting right down just above these crashing waves where

they have built their nests. So you have four different species nesting

in completely different sections of the cliff.

It is amazing how precarious some of those nests are. Not just the

kittiwakes, how about the guillemots? Hundreds of them

nesting on a very narrow ledge. How do they avoid kicking the eggs into

the sea? Here I have a guillemot egg - an old egg - and look at the

shape of it. It is almost triangular. Imagine this is a

narrow ledge. A guillemot kicks the egg. What happens? It goes round

and round and round. Thus avoiding being kicked into the sea. Those

birds we saw there, that footage was from two weeks' ago, but we

have got up-to-date footage from yesterday morning so let's have a

look and see how things have developed. You will see these are

razorbills, beautiful black-and- white birds with this wedge of a

bill. They have chicks. One of the adults has brought in probably a

sprat. That chick is well over a week old. They will be on those

cliffs for two weeks before they venture forth to the wide-open sea.

We should also have some guillemots to show you here. Here we are,

packed in their hundreds. These if the razorbills are black-and-white,

these are chocolate brown and white. A chick there again. That chick

probably about a week old. That will be there for another week. We

will watch these birds. Scientists have been telling me that some of

the birds are much earlier this year. Is that because it has been

warmer? Who knows. I would like to introduce you to one of the great

characters here on the island. I mentioned we have no foxes, no

stoats, rats. There is a particularly avian predator, the

biggest bird on the island and here it is. This is the great black-

backed gull. To give you an indication of its size, it is about

as big as a red kite. It is huge. They cruise the area looking for

food. This one is walking through a puffin colony. I have seen them eat

puffins whole. This puffin is made of sterner stuff. Look at it,

battling away. It is only about the third of the size of that gull yet

it is standing up to it. Isn't that amazing? If it tried to fly off,

the gull would eat it whole. If it tried to dash into a whole, the

gull would have it. So it is standing there, looking at it,

looking quite hard! Now the gull has moved away. You watch what

happens. The puffin dashes into its hole and makes its escape. Isn't

that fantastic? I have never seen that before. Every other time the

puffin has come off worse. This is another clue to our sound quiz.

Locally, these are known as "angels' wings". Everything else

has been eaten by a great black- backed gull. This belongs to the

commonest bird on this island. By day, all you see are these wings.

What is it? I know we gave you a clue - we gave you the noise of

this bird earlier on. Let's hear that again. DISCORDANT CRY Another

fantastic noise. It is an amazing noise. If you come back to us later

on, we will reveal what our mystery bird is.

Thank you very much. We have had a few answers in. Robert got in touch

with us via Twitter. He thinks it is bats. It is not. Iolo did say it

was a bird. Another one thinking it might be starlings. He will give

you those answers in just a little bit. We are out on the estuary and

our heronry is just over there. Let's see how they are doing. The

sun is setting behind them. They have been really active jumping

about over the course of the weekend. They have both come back

to the nest this evening. We will see that sort of behaviour over the

next few days as they build-up their confidence and their flying

abilities. The adults will continue to feed them there. We haven't come

all the way down here tonight to look at the heir Rons -- to look at

the herons, but to introduce you to another fantastic bird. The studio

is up here. That is where we are. That is where our studio is. If we

move up the estuary by about a kilometre, moving inland following

the estuary up here, past the railway line, you will see here is

another reserve where a very special couple of birds have turned

up after a long wait. I couldn't wait any longer. I went down there

this morning to see them and to find out what had happened. Take a

look at this. The magnificent osprey, a bird that we very much

come to think of as a Scottish speciality but now it's come to

this part of Wales. In fact, it's come to a Montgomeryshire Wild Life

Trust reserve just necks door. Four years ago, they put up an

artificial nest to tempt them to stay. It took a year to get a male,

but it's taken another three years to find him a female. Then in April

this year, the first ospreys' eggs were laid in Wales for 470 years.

After 33 days of waiting, yesterday the first one hatched. So this

morning with great excitement I went to meet Emma Evans, the warden.

It all kicked off yesterday. It must have been amazingly exciting

here? We got a thousand people here for the first time ever. A lot of

excitement. We witnessed history in the making yesterday. Last time the

ospreys bred on the estuary was 1604. To witness this live is a day

I will never forget. Round about midday, one of the volunteers

shouted down, "I think I can see a hole in the egg." By 3.00, 3.30pm,

this tiny osprey chick made its way out into the world. What about the

second one? The second one was slower. At 3.00 we saw another hole

in another egg and that is when the excitement hotted up. This chick

didn't emerge until 4.30 this morning. What a sight! Fantastic.

That chick has got meat on the edge of its beak there. Go on. They are

so close to it. Everything is here ready to happen. They are begging

for food. She's got food. She's taking it in her beak. She is not

quite getting it in their mouth. is all in the genes. It is

translating that into behaviour and doing what the genes are meant to

tell her to do. No shortage of food and the male, it is a question of

practice making perfect? It is. New behaviours, will they get it right

the first time? Who knows. Time will only tell. Kate, before we

came on air, I spoke to him, and he told me they had a successful feed

at 11.00 this morning. We are going to have to keep our eyes on those

birds. Now, our next film was made by a man who is a surfer and a

photographer, his name is Mickey Smith and this celebrates the glory

of the seas around the British I spent a lot of years kind of

trying to learn to be comfortable in the sea in all sorts of

different situations. Some of the most interesting situations are

around big heavy waves. I think some of the movement of waves is

quite unique. The power of waves like that is one of the great

forces of nature, I suppose. I have always been around the sea since I

was born, I guess. I seem to spend half of my life stairing du'

staring out at sea. -- staring out at sea. The other half swimming

back! Filming, photographing the sea has always come naturally to me.

I like to try and open people's eyes a little bit of different

perspectives of life around the sea. Photographing waves and the ocean

has made me take into account more of the details of every single one

of those waves, it is completely individual. No one wave breaks the

same. It is like this crazy ever- changing canvas. I like to set

myself a challenge of going out and trying to capture one beautiful

moment from it each time I'm in the sea, you know. A little thing

around you, little details and light moving on the surface of the

ocean, kind of the mist hanging in the air after a wave or the

rainbows through the spray off the back of a wave, even over a couple

of hours things can change, a storm front can move in. The sky can go

from purple, to gold, to black, to grey, to a beautiful blue. It is

all the stuff is constantly moving. It is nice to be part of that. It

is an amazing environment. It is so full of life. Totally mind-blowing

experience catching waves with dolphins. They seem to be doing it

for fun and enjoying themselves. Sometimes you meet solo dolphins

who are like cruising around the coastlines on their own. There is

one called Dusty. You can tell she just loves riding waves. She can't

really figure it out. We are nowhere near as good at it as she

is. She is trying to help us out and teach us a few tricks. Yeah, we

are not cut out for it, really. A lot of the time you see birds using

waves. Obviously, as the waves move through the ocean, a big wave

anyway, it must create some kind of updraft and the birds seem to come

along the face of the wave for ages gliding along it. I can't tell

whether they are doing that for fun or whether they are doing it

looking for fish. It looks fun to me! I wish I could do it. I like

that feeling of isolation and being around the wilderness. There's a

lot of energy flying around all over the place. I think you end up

feeling scared a lot. You are in an environment that is totally beyond

your control. If there was no fear involved, it wouldn't be half as

much fun most of the time. You learn good lessons for life in

general from putting yourself in those situations, really. You can't

help but be humbled by that. It is good for you. It is good for you to

be taken out of thinking you are in control of your life and put into a

situation where you are not. And learn to be OK with that. What a

fabulous film! If that doesn't inspire you to get out to the coast,

I don't know what will. I know at home you are all itching to find

out what our mystery bird is. Well, it's a Manx shearwater. What I hear

you say is one of those? All will be revealed in this footage using

special night-time cameras. From the middle of April onwards, Skomer

starts to come alive at sunset. The greater black-backed gulls can't

see to hunt at night. Seen the blackness is pierced by bizarre

calls. DISCORDANT CRY Our infrared cameras can reveal the source of

this noise. These birds are Manx shearwaters. They are relatives of

albatrosses and this is the largest breeding colony of them in the

world, 250,000 come here every year. The birds manage to find out

exactly the same burrow that they used the previous year. Nobody

really knows how they do this, but we think it might be by smell. Just

like the puffins, they get very aggressive if another bird tries to

occupy their burrow. The fights are serious because the stakes are high.

If a pair bred successfully in the previous year, they know it is a

good burrow and they will want to use it again. It is the males that

arrive back first and a few days later, the females come in. Like

the puffins, the birds mate with the same partner every year. Even

though they haven't seen each other for six months, somehow in the dark,

they manage to find the very same bird they mated with the previous

year. That is the pair greeting each other after half a year apart.

Isn't that sweet! Some incredible images there. I

have spent many a time here on Skomer and it is incredible how the

whole atmosphere of the place changes after dark, thousands of

Manx shearwaters, that incredible noise, it is a very odd place.

Right, the competition. Congratulations to those who got it

right. Two winners - Alex Berryman and also to Ranger Bob. Some of you

correctly identified that call as that of a male Manx shearwater.

They come to Skomer of course to breed. So watch this. We have a

Springwatch first for you. If you read the books, they will all tell

you that they breed underground in their burrows. Thankfully for us,

they don't read the books. Here, thanks to our tight camera, here is

a pair mating out in the open at night. It is pitch-dark. We can see

it only because of the infrared camera. Isn't that amazing? I have

spoken to some experts. All of them say that is the first time they

have ever seen that. What I find incredible is as I talk to you, as

I walk, there are thousands of Manx shearwaters underground now in

their burrows. Most of the burrows will be occupied by these birds.

This being Springwatch, we have a camera in one of those burrows.

Let's look at some of the footage from earlier on. This bird, we

don't know if it is a male or a female. It is incubating a single

egg down there in that burrow. Its mate might not come back for up to

ten days so it has to sit there and if we look carefully, she will move,

or he, and we will see that egg. It is quite a big egg considering the

size of the bird. That egg is about the size of a hen's egg. They

really are incredible birds with an amazing life history. We learn more

about those birds and several of the other birds here on the island

later on in the week. For now, from Skomer Island, goodbye. Thank you

very much. A Welsh lesson at the same time! Now we have come back

into our lovely studio and let's go to our flycatcher. If you were

watching last week, we introduced you to this lovely bird. It is a

pied flycatcher. It is in that box. There you can see the female tucked

down on her chicks. She laid six eggs, four of them hatched. They

were absolutely tiny when we left them last week. But they are

feeding very well. Yes, every two minutes during the peak of the

feeding during the daytime. Not just fly catching. If you were

watching last week, you saw some strange behaviour from the male

which had been attending this nest. Look at this. We were worried

because he disappeared. Here is the female. She was doing her duty. He

did appear from time to time. And he turned up with food. He would

come into the nest, she would not be too keen to see him and he would

disappear with the food. She was doing her duty. She kept the young

fed. He does come in later on and he did start to feed them from time

to time. Things then took another twist. Take a look at this. There

is one male outside here. If you look on the right-hand side, you

can see another male fluttering about. They are territorial birds.

The epicentre of their territory of course is the nest hole. I do have

a few theories. One of them is poly-territoriality! I promise you

I will explain it tomorrow and we can have a good old hard piece of

science! So stay tuned for geek behaviour tomorrow. From me and the

birds! Now, Martin is going to show us another nest. I am, Kate. First,

I have to make a confession. You may remember last thursz I talked

about hedgehog -- last Thursday I talked about Hedgehog Street. You

linked up Britain's gardens by cutting a hole in your hedge to

allow hedgehogs to move between the gardens. I said that the hole

should be 15 inches round, I meant 15 centimetres. That was the bad

news. When we made the film, there were 15 hedgehog champions in the

UK. There are now 3,335 hedgehog champions. Thank you to everyone!

Now, have a look in here. I don't know if you can see up here. We

have got a swallow's nest. We have two parents there sitting up on the

top. That is a slightly crazy place to build the nest. They are

settling down for the night. You know where we are going with this.

We have asked you to tell us the most extraordinary nest sites in

the UK. This is last year's winner. This was sent to us by Vanessa

Hague. Despite building the nest in a fire training station, where they

were regularly inundated by fire and doused with foam, they hatched

out the eggs and they all fledged safely. My personal favourite was

the year before from the Alan family, a family of bluetits in a

level crossing. They came in-and- out and the whole world changed

through 90 degrees every time the train west past. Please tell us

about your nest sites. We will beat those! Straight back to Kate. How

are you? Thank you very much. We are going to have a very quick look

at our grasshopper warbler. She is our latest star of Springwatch.

Beautifully crouched down on her nest keeping her chicks warm. You

can keep an eye on all of our live cameras by going to

bbc.co.uk/springwatch. What have we got tomorrow? Cutting-edge science

will tell us a lot more about the cuckoo. This will be tremendously

exciting. Even more exciting I think is otters. Right here on the

reserve, caught on camera, more of them tomorrow. What about you,

Martin? The ospreys. Looks pretty good. We don't know. The latest