Episode 4 Springwatch

Good evening. Welcome to the RSPB's Ynys Hir reserve in Wales. It's a

bit damp tonight. But we're live and we have wildlife drama the

likes of which you've never seen before. For instance, our

Kingfisher family. What is going to happen to them as the rain beats

down and the river starts to rise? Did the common sandpiper come back

to the nest, after the 8.57 train passed by? The big question about

the little guy - has Runty the nuthatch survived another day? To

find out all this and more, with Yes, good evening and welcome to

the last of our Springwatch broadcasts this week coming from

this fabulous part of Wales. Can you see a little less of it tonight.

Previously you could see the hill tops over. There they're currently

shrouded in cloud. It doesn't matter. I promise you, we've got a

fantastic show for you. Last night, we left you with a cling hanger.

don't know about that, it was more like a train hanger. Let me explain.

We found a pair of sandpipers that have chose ton nest by the side of

a Railtrack, which is in the reserve not very far from where

we're standing. Look at what happened live at the end of

happened live at the end of yesterday's show. There's the

sandpipers, very comfortably. That's the nest on the ground.

Here's something in the distance, the 8.57 train. The train passes

and that has made the sandpiper get off the nest and wander away. The

big question was... Did it come back? Keep watching, it's wandering

to the nest. This is minutes after it's left. You'll be pleased to

know, yes, the sandpiper came back, sat on the eggs on the nest. We've

got live cameras there. Let's have a look. Oh, it looks very cosy,

snugled down. No trains must have gone by recently. Look at that,

wonderful. A little twitchy there. Just moving around a bit. Our nest

watcher says she's become Fitch ety. Maybe the eggs are fidge Eddie.

Once they hear them pipping, from inside the egg, they become curious

and they will be looking down. We have to keep our eye on her. After

that, we were wondering does she or he get off every time the train

comes by. Have a look. Sandpiper sitting on the nest, this is just

before 3pm, gets off, yes, the train comes by. And predictably,

she goes back, so there she is sitting cosy, an hour later, a

train comes and off the nest again. By this stage it's raining. We

wondered whether she would stay on the nest. No, just before 5pm,

she's off the nest once again. Will she continue doing that? We might

find out tonight, because if the train is on time, we'll get it live

on the programme. Of course there may be puddles on the line, it may

be delayed. Holden, the train company are now 94% accurate on

this line. Now Runty, our nuthatch baby. All of us here were rooting

for that little guy all day yesterday and yesterday evening.

Let's remind ourselves. He was doing quite well. Here he's in the

nest. He's considerably smaller than his brothers and sisters. When

mum or dad coming in with food, in he goes and a big mouthful, he's

fighting his way to the front there. Let's look again, when the food

come in, he's right at the back of the nest, he's moved round to the

front and he gets a good meal. We were all very, very hopeful really.

Even though he was small, he wasn't growing that much, he was a fighter.

But unfortunately, little is the key word there. What happened next,

well, let's have a look at this. He just can't compete with his

brothers and sisters. They've been growing before our eyes, but he

seems to be marking time. Slowly, they're just treading on top of him.

He's being buried in the pile there. As many of you saw on the web cams

at 7.48am this morning, I'm afraid Runty did succumb. There was

terrific traffic on the tweets, you were all watching it. Tracey says

"It's so sad when something like this happens. It looked as if he

was having a decent amount of food. RIP Runty. It looks that way Chris.

I thought he was going to make it. I was confident that the others

were large now fledge. But we've had a change in the weather.

Basically what we can see is that the temperature here at the

beginning of the week drops down to nine degrees today. The blue line

here is the rainfall, virtually nothing at the beginning of the

week, then it shoots up. We've had all this rain today. What does it

mean? It means less insect activity and that it's more difficult for

these birds to find their prey. Here are two types of birds we've

been watching very closely. Basically, we have the blue tits on

this side, feeding rates here for previous days, well down today. And

then on this side our nuthatchs today, previous feeding rates and

down again today. I think the basic thing was the availability of food

has dropped off completely. We've lost Rupty. Let's go live to the

nest and see who remains there. His nest mates are doing pretty well at

the moment. Whilst we always think that things are really tough for

the little guys and they certainly are, as we lose them, that's the

way it is. Runty has had his bit of fame. With all the drama of him,

we've ignored how well the others are doing. We should celebrate that.

Let's look at the big one at the front there, let's call him maximus.

He's going to get out of there. That's what the natural world is

about, one of them getting out. last word to David Russell, "Sad

about Runty, a timely reminder we're not watching Disney, but real

life." I think we agree that the nuthatch family have been one of

the stars of the first week of Springwatch. The mammal stars would

be our family of foxes. It's an extraordinary family. There are 11

cubs, which is a large family. It's quite exceptional. We thought there

was one female, until last night, we saw the second female come in.

That posed more questions than it gave answers. Who is that female?

Is she a sister, a daughter? Or perhaps she's a mother, and half of

those cubs are hers. Let's see if we solved the mystery. Cubs are

around nine weeks old and looking really healthy and really well fed.

Cubs will normally leave their family at about 20 weeks, about

five months, but a strong cub can leave earlier or a weak one can

even get pushed out. Foxes don't like overcrowded territories.

Obviously it means there would be a struggle for food and a tuftle for

-- Tuesdayel for supremecy. Those strong -- tussel for supremecy.

When the cubs are fully grown female foxes will venture up to ten

kilometres from where they're born and the males go further, as far as

40 kilometres. With so many to feed, meal Times have turned no a bit of

a scrum. The cubs are already eating solid food, but they're

going keep trying their luck with the vixen, as they harass her to

give them some milk. To be honest, she's becoming a little less

tolerant of them and is spending greater amounts of time away from

them. Then, when both vixens are absent, another adult appears. Is

this the missing father or could it be a potentially danger rival

adult? It could be serious, as it's not unheard of for foxes to kill

cubs. And then, something remarkable, the cubs seem to

recognise it and then mob it. So it's clearly far from a stranger.

Unlike our two vixens it's not in tip top condition. It has an injury

on its nose and is missing half the fur on its tail. We solved one

mystery, we've been left with another. We started with one female.

Then there were two. Now we have a third adult. What is going on

there? It's been difficult for the cameramen and our editors, because

these foxes are all offer the shop. We have to try to identify them as

individuals. Look at this, this is our, what we think is the dominant

female there, the one that's given birth to most of the cubs or maybe

all of the cubs. She has the distinctive patch on her back.

She's spent most of the time suckling. We saw a lot of her when

the cubs were about. She's clearly lack Tateing and feeding them. This,

though, look here's the animal that came in the other day, the animal

which was secondary, not as dominant. We found these pictures

of her suckling too. If we freeze it when she's run ago way, it

hasn't got that dark patch, but what's happening here is she's

suckling, which means she must have given birth to some cubs to be

producing that milk. So this tends to imply that at least some of

those cubs are hers. Why are they all the same size? Very late last

night, thanks Tom Webster 1974, for your treat, he pointed out they

come into season and they're only capable of breeding for three days.

If those two females were associating with one another and a

mail impregnated both of them, it would happen at the same time and

that could account for the fact that the cubs are the same time. So

this is a pooling of two litters. There will be some cubs belonging

to one of those mee mails and some to the other. It's perhaps a happy

accident they're the same size. Dofrpblgts they all share the milk

from both? I think they would have. The cubs have a voracious appetite.

Most of the time they feed from the dominant female. Sometimes those

Dom nants will kill the other cubs. But if it was her daughter from the

year before, which was the other female, and they mated with the

same mail, -- male, then killing them wouldn't be the right idea.

they are two families. What about the male? We do think he's the male.

It was interesting when the cubs first approached him they were

timid, all of their ears are down, look. Nevertheless he's one of the

group. He's not attacking him. They are approaching him. It might imply

he was the dog fox. He was easy to spot because of his tail. He came

backwards and forwards close to the cubs. So this is what I reckon: Two

females, pooled the cubs, certain number of that 11 broken down

between the two of them and that other an ma'am was the dog fox. The

question is what's happened now? Our cameramen have been out every

day looking for these animals. I'm pleased to say as far as they can

discern all the cubs are doing well. They are going back to our family

there, on the sniff for food. The cubs have split up. This is

something that we would expect in any sort of situation. They're

getting lots of natural food too. Here's the alpha female carrying a

crow. She's taking it from the houses and she disappears into the

wood. The cameramen went into the wood and this is what they found,

it's really dense, it's a difficult place to see the animals. They

couldn't find them. They found plenty of evidence. They've been

munching on a wood pigeon and they've been nicking all the toys.

Cheeky chappies! Look at this, what a treat we've had with these

animals, watching these beautiful little cubs growing up there,

absolutely stunning. Little glimmer in his eye. How can you not love

him? One of your favourites, aren't they? One of my favourites, no

doubt about that. All this week we've been following the fortunes

of a pair of kingfishers. We started filming them on the river

at the beginning of February. Last night, they were doing very well.

They had some chicks until they were doing well, until it started

to rain. That was at beginning of a and our kingfisher's precious eggs

have hatched right in the middle of the worst of it.

So far, our pair have done well. The chicks seem lively and strong.

But conditions on the river are horrendous.

Storms blow in. The river starts to but the river's too murky and

running too fast. She struggles to find fish. Kingfishers need to be

able to see their prey. More and more rain falls. In the burrow, the

chicks are sheltered, but are they getting enough food? The male

catches a fish, turning it round, head facing forward, and prepares

to feed it to the hungry chicks. He enters the nest. At least

they're getting fed. Straight away, he's back out. The fish, still in

his mouth - why haven't the chicks taken it? This is not a good sign.

Over the day, the river continues to rise. Against all hope, the

female desperately tries to hunt in the murky torrents. She's got a

fish, but she can't physically get into the nest. Again, she attempts

to get just to the nest - the fish poised to be fed, but the waters

are so high, she can't get in. She keeps trying and trying. Each

hungry chick needs to be kept warm and fed throughout the day. This

can't go on. It's the male now. Once again he tries to get to the

nest, but the rushing water blocks his path.

He disappears. He's in! But inside the nest, it's bleak. He seems

confused, lost. It's pitchblack to him. Perhaps he can't sense the

exhausted chicks. He turns and leaves.

Back in the nest, movement. They're still alive! They're just too weak

to feed. Now in full flood, the river's risen three feet in one

morning. With the water so high, he can't dip down under the ivy, but

the persistent male makes it to the burrow again. It's too late. The

time. Outside, he doesn't know what to do, and the female hasn't been

Extraordinary pictures, but a really tragic story, but there's

two things that we ought to think about. One is that life is very

precarious, both for kingfisher chicks, but for all the chicks we

have here on the series as well, indeed, every nest in the country

right now. Nature has strategies - evolved strategies to cope with

these sort of tragedies, and in the long term, they will survive, and

there's another very important point. Those kingfishers were

filmed back in April, and it's not the end of their story. Let's go

tragic story, but I think it's made worse for us because we saw the

whole thing unfold. You know, we saw them laying their first egg. We

saw the first chicks hatching. We saw how hard those adults worked to

keep that nest going and keep the chicks alive, but you know, it

happens all the time. It's not a one-off. I have seen it countless

times on this stretch of river alone, and we have just had the

wettest April on record, so I would imagine it's happened to

kingfishers all over the country. If 20% of young kingfishers can

survive to adulthood, they're doing well, so it's kind of factored in,

but there is some good news, and when you come back to me, I'm going

We'll certainly look forward to that because we need some good news,

don't we? Michaela, definitely. he said, it has been raining here

most of the day here in Wales, and I must say the birds look very wet.

Has it affected them? Let's have a look at some of the birds today.

It's a beautiful shot - very misty... Moody, mysterious.

atmospheric. Those crows aren't enjoying it, just sitting there

preening. I think they preferred the beginning of the week when the

sun was out. You can see the raindrops falling on the water.

This is sweet - obviously a bird that's used to getting wet. They

have found somewhere to shelter, but there is only room for two.

There is a sunny umbrella. That poor swallow that's come from

Africa is having to put up with this. It's a tough time. It affects

all birds. Those ones are just looking wet. Fingers crossed all

the rest of the birds will be OK. Those birds are outside. Of course,

some of our birds are inside. Let's check up on our barn owl chicks -

lovely. They're looking a bit sleepy. They are, aren't they?

"Hello, yes!" It's fine for them. They're keeping nice and dry, but

it's not so great for the parents because the parents hunt using

their sense of hearing, so if the rain is pitterpattering down, it

makes it difficult for them to catch food for the chicks. Oh, he's

coughing up a Pellest live on British television. Nice! We

weren't quite sure how old these chicks were actually were, but in

fact Colin got in contact with us. He runs the Barn Owl Conservation

Trust, and he did an extraordinary thing. When he saw the birds

opening up their wings - I think we're going to see that in a minute.

Look - first of all, this is what happened earlier, and it can always

make you smile. We can always rely on our barn owls. What is that one

doing? Where is its body? Their necks are just ridiculously

flexible, aren't they? And the one at the front looks like it's

already seen the camera and is doing a little head dance there.

Aren't they lovely? This is where you see them come out. We weren't

sure how old they were, but Colin watched this, and off his own

television he measured the length of the primary wing feathers of

this bird. He measured the fourth primary wing feather, and from its

development, incredibly, he could tell us that they're exactly 36

days old. The oldest one is 36 days old. And he managed to do that from

measuring the wing on the telly the telly. Thanks, Colin -

fantastic skills. They'll fledge - it takes 60 days for them. They're

two-thirds of the way through their time in the nest. They're slow

developers, unlike our chaffinches. Let's take a look at them live.

They're actually pretty snuggled right now. But you can see some of

the patterns on the wing starting to develop. They're moving so fast,

Michaela. They'll fledge, chaffinches, on average, in 14 days,

so fast. There were five chicks. They hatched we think about the

24th of May, so they could in fact fledge this weekend. They could.

The cold weather could slow it down. They could stay in there as long as

14 days. I had a word. I told them to wait until Monday. That would be

nice. Shall we have a look at the blue tits? They're doing well,

aren't they? They're all there. We have seen them being fed, and they,

again - I don't know. I think by Monday they could be out of the

nest. Both chaffinches and blue tits are birds you regularly see in

your garden, and Chris is about to tell you something you can do to

little bit eccentric here, but I am very excited to tell you about a

new survey we're doing in conjunction with the British Trust

of Ornithology. We'd like you to join in over this long Bank Holiday

weekend. It's going to take just an hour of your time. When we normally

survey garden bird, we count the number of birds and the number of

different species, but this time we're interested in something

lightly different. We're interested in what we call the biomass of the

birds, the living weight of these birds. Let's imagine we have one

wood pigeon that measures 400 grammes. That therefore would be

the equivalent to 40 blue tits. It would also add up to no less than

80 gold crests. If you have one wood pigeon in your garden, you

could in some way, shape and form say it's the equivalent to 80 gold

crests, and what's important is this living weight of birds is

actually a very good way of showing how productive your garden is. The

higher the biomass of birds, the better your garden is, so what we'd

like you to do is settle down with a cup of tea and a piece of carrot

cake, look out the window for one hour and record the number of any

species of bird you see in your garden. You can fill out the

information at our website, bbc.co.uk/springwatch. What's more,

we'll bring you an update next week. Not only that, the BTO will analyse

all of this and publish it in a proper scientific paper, so this is

your chance to get involved in some Now, about eight years ago when he

was just 15, we met a remarkable young man, Lindsay McCray. He was

filming his wildlife in the Lake District where he was growing up,

and he made us a lovely film. This year he has been back to the Lake

District. He has been out there now. He's working as one of our

established wildlife cameramen season. It's just amazing how

quickly things change. The whole are in full bloom. The smell is

unreal, just the fresh blue smell of a wooden spring. Insects really

start to become more active when the flyers start appearing. I feel

the only way to learn about wildlife is by observing it. A lot

of people say to me you must be really patient and wait for hours,

but if you just sit still in a place like this for just ten

minutes, the stuff that starts happening around you is

unbelievable. There was one day where I was just sat quiet, as I do,

and a pair of chaffinches were just coming and going from this small

patch of Bramble. I found where the female was building a nest. She

must have just started building it, and it was this tiny little cup.

She intricately built this nest, and it didn't take her long at all

to build that up - a matter of days, really. There was just this frantic

was taking bluebell leaves for his nest, which I thought was bizarre.

I never knew they did that. In a dry stone wall at the side of the

wood, there were voles all over the place. They seemed bold as brass.

Everything at this time of year gets me going in this wood, but the

badgers have to be my favourite. They lead such a secretive life.

First badger of the year. Still no sign of any cubs. Usually the

parents come out first. Then the cubs would follow. I suppose it's

still early days and those cubs would be quite young. There's a

cub! No way. He's absolutely tiny. Here he comes. There's two. At

sound, like a little squeezy toy. - - squeaky toy. There's nowhere,

absolutely nowhere, I'd prefer to be right now. It's just brilliant.

Lindsay's absolutely right, ever so often when you're in a wild place,

it's so important to stop and listen. It can be amazing what you

see and indeed, hear. Now Lindsay know that's wood intimately. He's

passionate about the wildlife. Another one of our cameramen

passionate about the wildlife in his patch is Charlie. He's live

with us on today's programme and he's in his favourite place down by

the river bank, where he filmed the kingfishers.

Thanks Michaela. Now, kingfishers, highly territorial birds and

particularly on a river like this. This is a really clean, healthy

river, packed with small fish, stickle backs and bull heads and

particularly minnows. That's what a Kingfisher needs to live on. If you

look here, every bend on this river has a lovely high, steep mud bank.

That's what we need to nest. That makes this stretch of river prime

real estate for kingfishers. That's worth fighting for. They do. They

will defend their territory fiercely, even to the death. I've

seen kingfishers actually drown each other. What does it mean for

our pair? It means this is too good a territory to abandon. Last week,

I went out to try and find them again on this stretch and catch up

with them, see how they're coping high the river's got. You know,

it's been dumping these grasses and sticks and debris right up into

these root systems. That is right at the top of the bank. You can see

here where all the mud has been cut out from under this bank. There's

almost no sign at all there was ever a Kingfisher nest there.

It's kind of gutting really. I feel so sorry for them. But, living in

such an unpredictable habitat, right next to water, kingfishers

have learned to cope. Our kingfishers nested quite early this

year. The nest failed, but the good news is that kingfishers will often

nest two or three times in a season. So there's every chance that

somewhere on this stretch of river, they're nesting again. Finding the

kingfishers shouldn't be too hard. You listen for the distinctive call.

Look out for flashes of blue and other clues. What I'm looking for

are signs kingfishers are using the area. If you look here, that's

exactly what you can see, all these white droppings are because the

Kingfisher has been sitting on this branch. That mean that's they're in

the area. There's a good chance if I carry on down river from here, I

Kingfisher nest. I know every single nest hole on this river and

that's a brand new one. I don't know how old it is. I don't know if

they're in it, even. I'm going to stick my hide up river a bit and

stake it out with my camera. I can't get my nest camera in there,

as I don't want to disturb the family at this critical stage. So I

move a bit further back, set up my hide and wait. I don't have to wait

long. That looks like the male bird, just suddenly appeared. He's

sitting on the branch right opposite the bank. Is he going to

fly in? Is he going to fly? Come on. Yes! Oh, that's amazing. He's gone

in. That is definitely a nest that's being used. After the male

bird goes in, the female emerges. It looks like they have eggs in the

nest and are taking their turns to incubate them. Oh, that's great

news. OK, fingers crossed that this nest works. It's hard to know how

old these Kingfisher eggs are, but as they're only incubated for

around 21 days, I think they could be hatching any day soon. That's

great news for our Kingfisher parents.

Just down river from here is the new nest. Although it looked lovely

in those pictures, I wonder whether it's just a bit low and we could

actually be at risk from flooding again. That's what happened to the

old nest. Enough of my pessimism. What I want to know is are they on

eggs or on chicks? And there's only one way to find out, and that's for

me to go down river, get in my hide, sit and wait and watch them. That's

exactly what I'm going to do. Come back to me in a bit, and we'll be

live from the hide. It will be so fantastic if there

are chicks. Even bet fer he saw them taking small fish in, because

that would mean they'd hatched. Fingers crossed. Yeah hopefully.

Let's check out some of the live cameras. This is marsh cam. I don't

think we'll have the beautiful pink light today. Got the swan though.

Are the cygnets there? I can see them where I'm standing. We've just

got that one. Let's go to the feeder cam to see if there are more

birds. We have drawn a blank there actually. Which is vur prizing,

with the weather you'd have thought they would take advantage. What

about the mammal stump? Nothing in there either. There was a funny

moment earlier. Look, oh, it's a parachuting wood mouse.

Then sudden thri goes again. And then watch, it parachutes back in

again. It's the Tom Cruise of the wood mouse world. They are quite an

arborial animal. They climb high in the Autumn, sometimes into the

trees too. The bank voles are more terrestrial. They tend to stay on

the ground. It might be caching some of the food, hiding it at the

top so other animals can't find. It I thought there was a top on that

blocking it. Yeah he could stick it into a crevice. Now let's go live

to the wood warbler. Look at that! There's a hardening sight. This is

one of our wood washlers. We think there are six in there. One of them

is getting a very healthy feed. What has it got? It's difficult to

see, is it a beetle of some kind? Or did it have wings? It's gone now.

It's gone down the throat of the small chick. They seem to have been

doing really well today. Every time we look back we see the little

heads coming up, stunning little things. Let's see what they've been

up to. It's quite an active nest. Oh, it's a thrush. I think it's

come down here because it's curious. I don't think it's at risk of

predation there. It's normally Jays that find them and rob them.

Beautiful sight there, a healthy chick. Look at that. Look, this was

interesting, because this bird comes in and it's actually brought

in a damsel fly. It turns it around, puts it in head first into the

chick's mouth, but trying to swallow that is quite difficult and

much later in the day, if you look at this chick now, you can see it's

still got the little bit of abdomen sticking out of its throat. Don't

worry, it break up and be swallowed. They're known for their beautiful

the woods early in the morning, everything's quiet and you're very

close. They're really loud when you're close to them. You hear that

piping tune in that mass of emerald green, it's pretty good. We are

just about to go to Martin who is in the studio, where the midges

aren't, just list ton this. -- listen to this.

What do you think? Beautiful. Lovely sounds. But the midges are

in here too! We have seen birds, adult birds, bringing all sorts of

food into the nest for their chicks. But what are they bringing in and

why? Let's have a closer look. Here's a chaffinch, can't see what

that is. We've seen a lot of caterpillars. This warbler is

stuffed with them. It's very fascinating, because some of the

birds that come to the bird tables and eat nuts and so on, completely

change their diet when they're feeding the chicks. Here are the

blue tits, caterpillars again. So I wonder, what is it that's so great

about caterpillars? Well, because we've had Alastair MacEwen here

with us, a macrophotographer, he's been able to get right in close.

Let's have a closer look at the caterpillar.

Here it is, why do birds want to eat them? There's two excellent

reasons: First, the caterpillar is about 25% protein, essential for

building muscle and all the things that the chick needs to grow. But

the other important thing is, and many people have asked, how do the

parents get water into the chicks in the nest? They don't bring water

because a caterpillar is about 80% water. If they're eating

caterpillars they're getting both food and drink as well. Excellent

pictures. Now we've also seen them bringing in spiders. Fantastic

images this, glistening. Looks like it's made of glass. Constantly

cleaning its legs there. The crucial thing about spiders, they

have silk. The silk stays in a sort of pool of liquid protein in its

abdomen. It has to draw it out with its legs, that's exactly what it's

doing here. It's using the back legs to pull out the silk. As soon

as it hits the air, the lick paid protein turns no a solid. Of course,

spiders use that silk for all sorts of things, building webs, wrapping

up their eggs. They even, some of them, withdraw a long thread of

silk and catch the wind and fly using the silk. Now let's look at

the aphid. Here they are. Probably all over my broad beans back home.

The fascinating thing is they don't need a male, females at all, they

proproduce parthnogenetically. The baby is genetically identical. It's

a bit like a Russian doll. Already inside that baby, as it emerges,

there's another baby waiting to be born. It will plug into the plant

and it too will give birth at any moment. The fascinating thing here

as well,ants look after the aphids, as we do with kaus. The aphids

produce a sugar solution out of their abdomens. The ants drink that

and in return the ants protect the aphids, like us with our cows.

have. It's a particularly important feeding source for the birds. Can

you see - I have brought a few friends with me. There are a few

out there tonight. There are a few out there. You are being bitten as

we speak. All of that fabulous macro has been shot in the last few

days, and we thought we'd task Alison of one last job - to get

some close-ups of these biting midges. We got a volunteer. There

was a long queue for this job! Because this is a Midgeee biting

into human flesh. They have specialised mouth parts. They make

the hole, then stick those mouth parts back in to suck out the blood.

There are 50 species in the UK. Only about 20 of those regularly

bite mammals, and only two of them normally bite us. Now, I am sure a

lot of you will be saying what in the world use are midges? Well, let

me tell you. They play a very important part in the community.

The male is a really important pollinator, so without them

pollinating, we wouldn't have the flowers. Secondly, the males and

females are really important insects for food like bats. I wish

there were squadrons out there tonight. It would be more

comfortable for us. In the north- west of Scotland, the midge

population is profound. There are vast numbers of these, and there

always has been. It's thought this is one of the reasons it's sparsely

populated. Therefore we think that's one of the reasons our most

enchanting animals, the golden eagles and pine martins actually

survive, so the reason we have those left in the UK come down to

midges, so no more swatting. They're part of your community.

Learn to - love them! He doesn't even flinch as he's being bitten.

We all - what is it with you?! Right. Let us go from the minute

midges to something a little bit It's late March in Wellny on the

edge of the Norfolk fens. In the dew-drenched grass, something stirs.

It's a jill, a female brown hare. This is the story of her day, and

it's going to be quite a day. Normally, nocturnal, solitary and

shy, at this time of year, hares are anything but shy. And today,

the jill will be at the centre of The mad march hare - famous for

their eccentric and erratic behaviour! And often brutal boxing

bouts. Fur flies, but what's going their rabbit cousins, longer ears

with black tips distinguish them. Their faces are longer, chiselled.

Their eyes bulge. There is something otherworldly about a hare.

The jill will come into heat for just a few hours, and the local

males, the jack hares, are all fired up. However, all is not as it

seems. These aren't the vows of fervent jack hares scrapping for

the females. It's actually the females themselves fighting off the

unwelcome advances of the persistent jacks. Male and female

hares are virtually identical, so for a long time, it was assumed

these violent confrontations were males boxing over the females.

As a female comes into heat, she releases pheromones, whipping the

males into a frenzy. From one suitor, more and more join in. She

could be battling off up to ten at a time. She's only receptive for a

matter of hours, so the jack hares can't resist this opportunity. The

males will chase and chase her, but she's picky. She only wants the

best. It's a test of strength. She'll shake off and beat back the

males until only one remains. Stalemate as five jacks surround

the jill. She's taking a break from all of this unwanted attention. She

needs to feed, chewing on grass as she goes, but the jacks, they're

twitchy. They won't let her eat. The idea that hares are only mad

march hares in March isn't true. Hares will box all year around, but

it does reach a crescendo in March. As the day wears on, the jill needs

to go about her business, feeding and cleaning as she goes,

constantly shadowed by her suitors. As another jack gets a sniff of the

action, it all kicks off again. Hares are built for speed - long

front and back legs pound at the ground.

At full pelt, they can reach 45mph! They'd finish a 100-metre Olympic

final in just five seconds! Not only are they fast, but they're

also amazingly manoeuvrable. Their low centre of gravity enables them

to bob and weave. Hares are our convinced the jill that he is a

suitable match. He's outshone the others and will now sit and guard

her, following her every move, protecting his prize.

As the day draws to a close, our jill seems content with her new

mate. The March madness is over - It's obviously a common

misconception. Lots of people used to think it was two males boxing,

but now we know it's a male and a female. We love it when we get

unusual footage from viewers, and we have a fantastic piece of film

to show you. It's from Norman, who filmed this. Have a look. It's so

Female hare, and she has three babies, and a rabbit is coming to

have a suckle as well. It's very rare because the female will only

suckle those babies for three or four minutes per day. She'll

normally hide them in the grass. Look at that naughty little rabbit.

She doesn't seem particularly bothered. She's in another world,

Michaela. I tell you, there is no such thing as a free meal, and he

hops off with nothing. Great footage! Keep them coming in, keep

your questions coming in, and we'll be back with Springwatch Unsprung.

We have been getting in pictures from the Montgomeryshire Wildlife

Trust project. Where is the nest? Let's stand back and have a look at

it. It's at the top of that great big, top pole. That's great for

stopping ground predators from damaging the nest in any way, but

they're terribly exposed up there, and you can see today they have

gotten absolutely soaked. We have been watching these ospreys all

week, and we have some really good news about this species. They had

three eggs, and previously we had seen two of those youngsters hatch.

Yesterday we thought the third head had actually cracked open. Take a

look at this, because this is what we have been watching today. We had

those two chicks. We knew they'd already hatched. What we were

hoping to see was the third one. It has been very, very wet and pretty

cold too, but nonetheless - there is the sign we were looking for -

an empty eggshell and new youngster, and these animals work really hard

to keep the youngsters warm. They were brooding them. Their body

temperature is 40 degrees. The chicks will be just a little bit

lower than that, but as I say, it's a tough job when they have

youngsters this size. We have been saying all evening that the change

in the weather makes all the chicks very vulnerable. Let's think about

those ospreys. They're on that very open nest. They're small. The

chicks are small, very, very vulnerable to a change in weather

because they're not covered in down, so if they get cold, it could spell

disaster for them, and I am afraid to tell you that just before the

show today, we found out that the weather has taken its toll on just

one of the chicks, and it's not the one that hatched. It was one of the

older ones that hatched a couple of days ago. Let's take a look at them

live now. It's obviously really sad that we've lost one, especially as

this couple managed to get three successfully hatched and fledged

last year. Yeah. But the good news is, I have been watching the

monitors this evening, and they are successfully feeding the other two,

which are looking good. The rain came just at the wrong moment.

afraid it did. Today's show really has been an emotional roller

coaster. There is no doubt about that so let's try and end on a high.

We're going back to Charlie. He's hiding in a hide. Please tell us

some good news about your kingfishers. Welcome back to my

very cosy, very dark hide. Now, I wanted to film a kingfisher live.

Sitting in a hide really is the only way to do it. It's a very shy,

very secretive bird. What I really wanted to see was an adult bird

with a fish flying into the nest because that would mean that the

chicks have hatched, but I haven't seen any of that all I have seen is

an increasingly dark nest bank. It's very quiet. I would have

thought mum is sitting in the nest now on eggs. So I am afraid I can't

show you the kingfisher tonight. She'll probably sit there all night.

In the morning, the male will come in. They'll swap over. They'll do

that every two to three hours. That'll be going on all across

Britain. All the kingfishers will be doing it. They'll either be on

their nests or feeding their chicks. It has been a tragic year for our

chicks on Springwatch, but they have dusted themselves off and

started again, and if it doesn't rain, they have every chance of

success. Now, we will keep following them and keep updating

you on them. So from me, in a very dark hide, it's back to you in

Wales. Thank you very much, Charlie. We're coming to the end of our

programme, so let's take a quick look around our live nest. Let's go

to our sandpiper. We have been following the antics of this little

bird as the trains have been moving station to station, and we know

there is a train due any minute now. You never know. We might be seeing

her get off the nest. I tell you - it's a bit of a worry on Saturday.

Oh, no! The train. It happened again. I don't believe it. It's on

time. I don't believe it! This is the most efficient railway

in the country. We can actually tell the time by

the train! That's sandpiper time! You know what it means, though? It

means it's the end of the programme. Yes, takes us out. Next week we

have fantastic things for you. We have some real birds coming up next

week - none other than peregrine falcons. Also we'll find out will

those nuthatchs fledge? I am look at them. They're ready to go.

That's it for us. Stay tuned for Springwatch Unsprung, where we'll