Episode 9 Springwatch

Hello and welcome to the wilds of Wales. And what a weekend we've had.

The reserve here at Ynys-hir in west Wales was hit by severe

weather and flooding. What would this violent weather mean or our

wildlife? We'll give you the answers to all of this and

introducing you to a new set of stories about one of Britain's most

charismatic and beautiful animals, the otter. Stay with us for

Hello and welcome to the RSPB slightly murky but nevertheless

beautiful reserve here at Ynys-hir in central Wales. Now we have had a

weekend-and-a-half. It's largely due to rain. But before we get onto

the weekend's rain, let's look at what was happening when we left you

last week. At the end of the week, the storm was brewing. The rain had

the storm was brewing. The rain had started. Our wildlife was beginning

to be affected. Our goldcrest nest was being blown around all over the

place. It's quite a weak looking nest. Common sandpiper looking

drenched. Up in the osprey nest the chicks were wet but still enough

energy for bickering. In the barn, the owls were absolutely fine.

Martin mentioned that there was a storm brewing. You would have seen

that if you were watching the weather forecast. Here was the map

at the end of the week. Look at that swirl of heavy rain. Look how

it centred over western Wales. It absolutely poured down here n. One

spot close to Aberystwyth there were 186 millimetres. As a result

there were the worst floods here since 1973. A lot changed in 24

hours. This happened on Friday and for Friday delivered here in west

Wales. It rained. And it rained and rained. The river banks burst and a

lot of places in west Wales were flooded. What we weren't worried

about at the time was what would happen to us, but look at this, our

production village has turned into a lake. By Friday, we had to

evacuate. There was a huge effort to save as much equipment as

possible. The force of the water moved a four-ton porta cabin. The

road to the reserve was completely flooded out and inaccessible. And

the water just kept rising. 12.42 on Friday, the decision was

made to shut down the entire Springwatch site. That meant we

instantly lost contact with all of our wildlife. Thing is, why did it

happen? There was a lot of rain all over Wales and many other parts the

UK. So why did we have the floods here? Well, one reason for the rain

in the first place was that the jet stream was pushing that storm a lot

further south than it typically would at this time of the year.

Should have been at the top of Scotland, but it was over Wales and

SORN England. If we look at the topography here. Here is the site

and here is the reserve and the Dovey estuary. Look at the hills

that surround us and can you see behind us. They have very steep

sides. When it rained the water cascaded off the sides of this, ran

down the river, very close to our site, as can you see, and then out

in the estuary, where it should have drained away. But we also had,

co-incidentally, two of the very highest tides that we have at this

time of year. When the water got to the coast there was nowhere for it

to go. It backed up and burst the banks of those rivers. If we look

at this shot from op top of the hill, you can see what a vast flood

plain that this is. You have the ocean out there in the background,

Cardigan Bay. Then you can see the Doffy estuary. See how flat the

land is, beneath the hill. Clearly, just a little rise in the water

level means that it will be completely flooded as our site was.

On Saturday, we couldn't even get there at all. What about the

wildlife? That was us and sadly, some of the local people. What

about the wildlife? Look at our picturesque water fall. This was

last week. And then over the weekend, this happened. A raging

torrent of water swept down that river. This little grey wagtail

doesn't look too perturbed. It's stopping for a preen and a feed.

But that is what was fublg straight into the Springwatch camp.

Extraordinary pictures. We couldn't do anything for a while. But as

soon as the weather cleared a bit, Michaela went out to try to find

out what was going on. Here they are. The only option we had was to

try and get close to the nest and reconnect the cameras close up to

try to see what was going on. Obviously, with all that amount of

water, we were fearing the worst. But fingers crossed, we had to see.

You could see actually quickly the storm passed and the sun came out.

It was a huge volume of water in a short space of time. Up until this

point, up until the power was switched back on and they connected

the cables, we had no idea how much it had affected all of our birds

and wildlife. But once we'd powered up, we could have a look. The first

bird we saw was the sedge warbler. Now this was the bird that we

introduced you to on Thursday. It was a new nest. You can see it's

the in the reeds just by our studio. It nests quite low down. This was

how the water and lake looked after the flood and obviously, the nest

has been completely submerged. Now this is a sedge warbler with five

chicks. The good thing is it may be able to have a second brood. I've

been doing calculations, if they started straight away, they'd need

until the 18th of June to complete the nest, by the 23rd they could

lay a clutch of five eggs. Then 14 days of incubation, 14 days till

they fledge. They could be out by July 21. By 4th August they could

be independent, the reason I'm running through this list is

they're up against a deadline. They have to get out of the nest and

feed up before they started their migration at the end of September.

So there is just time and there's also hope because when I was

waiting down here earlier, I heard a male sedge warbler singing behind

us there. That's where the nest was. If it was the male of that pair,

it's a good indication that he's singing because they're going to

start again. Do you think the adults would have survived then?

The adults would have survived, no trouble at all. The youngsters

would have been lost. Probably with all these inning sects buzzing

round they're enjoying a bonus. It's a question of whether they

decide to nest again or go through their moult, which is essential

before they migrate back. There's an energy debate taking place.

about our cold cests? Tiny birds who really enjoyed seeing inside

their nests. Last week the nest was blowing around violently. How would

that nest survive this enormous storm? Again as soon as possible,

Michaela went out to have a look whether they'd survived.

What can you see? Oh, my word. It's still there! Yes. And the bird's

still in it? Yes, a significant lean on though. I can't believe the

goldcrest nest is still there. That is incredible news. We were quite

surprised as well. I thought that would be the first nest to go in

the wind and rain. So did we. We were amazed. Chris was saying

because it's so spongey it can take quite a lot of movement. Yeah. It

is definitely moving. It's still a bit worrying really because it's

still windy. As you can see. Yeah. We have just seen one chick's beak

poke up. We know at least one chick is still in there How the heck does

a bird that size survive all that rain. It's amazing really. Do you

know, I felt really quite down this morning, when I saw the state of

our production village and I just wondered whether anything would

have survived. But things are looking more positive than I'd

spoke to Michaela and she said she couldn't even drive in Saturday, I

thought of all the nests that were here, the goldcrest would be the

one that would be lost. Let's go to it live now, because it is a nest

that's still active. If we push in, you can see it is quite sheltered

here in that conifer. They invariably choose conifers. There

she is! One of the adults brooding the young. It's tipped to one side.

They're very flexible nests. As long as it doesn't blow too much it

will be all right. The question is what has survived in the nest. We

might catch a view of the chicks later. So, we've seen what happened

to the sedge warblers and the goldcrests, what about the Ospreys?

Michaela went down on Saturday to investigate.

We've had 24 hours full of emotion, drama. We've had blackouts. The

electric's been off, the cameras off. We can't see the birds from

the hide properly. We're all fearing the worst, but thankfully

now the cameras and electricity is just about am coulding back on

again. Because I would have thought they're very exposed, that this

weather would have hit them really hard. I was here in the warge and

it was just awful. Norah, the weather was so resilient, doged.

She's lay down on the two chicks and just shielded them from the

worst of the weather. It was incredible to see. How difficult is

it for the adult osprey to fish in this weather? Very is the quick

answer. It was so bad yesterday, they probably went without food for

24 hours. Both mum and dad will be fine in those conditions. Of course,

we're not sure about the two chicks, which are about a week, week-and-a-

half old now. It's good news and bad news. Good news is they haven't

abandoned the nest. But you don't actually know whether the chicks

are OK yet. As I speak to you now, we've had one glimpse of a few

seconds. This is exactly what we saw about five minutes ago.

looks like one of them is moving and it, and that one you just see

it moving a bit. Yeah, well we don't know whether they're week

because they haven't fed for 24 hours or whether they're in that le

chargic state where they have fed and can't get up. What do you think

is the prognosis, do you think they'll make it? It's very

difficult to say at moment. We need more evidence and information. They

just don't look too good at the moment. The next hour or two is

critical. If they feed, the weather forecast is not too bad, they could

be OK. But time will tell. Very worrying pictures from the

nest. That was back on Saturday. There were further developments and

we'll go back to that a bit later on. Meanwhile, all over the weekend,

bit by bit, our live cameras were coming back to us and we were able

to look inside more and more of the nests around Ynys-hir. After all of

that rain, we were keen to find out what was going on, particularly

with those in the nest boxes like our pied flycatchers. We presumed

inside the box the young would be sheltered and our brood, numbered

seven little birds. Of course, they did manage to keep out of the rain.

The problem here might have been were the adults short of food. Well,

it worked for pied flycatchers a bit of rain. They will spend up to

70% of their time flying from the trees down to the ground to pick up

their prey. The adults will feed on beets and wasps and bees, but

they're after the caterpillars to feed their young. If they've been

knocked off the trees by the rain drops it's a bonus for them. You

can see that over the weekend, they were doing a jolly good job of

provisioning enough food. Done very well. Already I'm surprised at how

well the birds are doing. So am I. Let's go live to the pied

flycatchers. There's the external of the nest. It's getting a bit

dark here. It's very overcast this evening. But inside, all seven

youngsters are still doing really well. You can see that they've got

those flanges on their beaks. They're probably not thinking about

fledging until at least the earliest the 13th. They grow really

quickly. The adults are still in and out with plenty of food. The

strange thing is, we call them flycatchers but they don't spend

that much time salying up from the perch to catch a fly and landing

again. They keep going down to the ground. One can only imagine over

the weekend that's what they were up to. There's the pied flycatchers.

What about other animals here? Let's go to what we saw on the

ottercam. This is meant to be, to have otters. It had been taken over

by somebody else, a couple of lovely pheasants. A cock and hen.

It seems to me the bad weather hasn't dampened his ardor at all!

No certainly not. Later on in the night, the camera picked up what it

was put there to see, look at this, a really ridiculously close view,

little kiss to the camera, of an otter. Fantastic. They're around.

One sniff and it's off. Gone. Fabulous. Almost too brief view of

an otter there. We like to see more. Luckily we have a good friend of

Springwatch, the wildlife film maker Charlie Hamilton James who

knows these creatures intimately. He went back to a river he visited

last year, earlier this spring. He Unlike those living along

Scotland's coast, our river otters are rare, secretive and nearly

always nocturnal. To have a chance of spotting one, you have to head

out at first light. I have come to this stretch of river, for a very

particular reason. A tip-off last year got my pulse racing. Otter

seen regularly right on the edge of a town just an hour from my home.

Not only that, but out fishing in were behaving in such an

unotterlike way. Metsing round on the river, in the middle of the day.

-- messing round on the river, in the middle of the day. When I went

to find them for winter watch, I discovered they had cub, I saw

great behaviour and I realise this was a unique opportunity to get to

Hoping to catch up with them. The first thing that hits me is how low

the river is. It is like a river in the middle of summer, yet it is

still the spring. What hits me straight away is there has been an

otter really recently. You can see a wet trail going along that bank

there. That has happened in the last hour. So the otters are still

here obviously. When I was here last year, the otters were out

every morning, regular as clockwork, spending the days fishing. But for

some reason, finding them this time is proving more tricky. This is the

first time I have ever been here, at this time of the morning and not

seen and otter. I don't really know why. The river is so low. I wonder

if the level of the water is affecting the fish, in turn

affecting the otters. I don't know. There has been a lot more people

round, the otters have attracted more attention, and people have

travelled here to see them. Maybe that has had an effect. Maybe they

have flipped to hunting at night like normal otters do. You know,

that is why I'm not seeing them. I am not going to give up though,

because this is just one day. The thing about otters they are so

unpredictable. I am going to find them! Having experienceed the flood

with 187 millimetres of water in 48-hours it is hard to believe

there ever was a drought. Bizarre. But did Charlie find his family of

otters? He is not a man to give up easily so we will catch up with

what happened when he went back later on. Now, eventually the storm

died down. It was short and sharp, and then gradually, the waters

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 49 seconds

began to abate, the sun came out, and it looked particularly

beautiful but many of those species could have swum through it or flown

through the storm, what about those that were on the ground? Some of

the invertebrate, they would struggle. Well, you think they

would, but look, as soon as sun comes out that little fly has been

hiding somewhere, and it is out gathering nectar, that caterpillar

is thinking somebody up there likes me. Because it has found a blade of

grass, although it is eating his own perch which seems suicidal.

Damsel flies, they are used to these sort of thing, here is a

spail and that has found refuge on grass as well. Look at this

resourceful spider. Walking across the wa tuck -- water, it has hide

phobic hairs which means it doesn't breakthrough the surface, it is

carrying its egg sack to safety. Lots of leaf hopper eggs under that

cuckoo spit as well. We spotted this beauty wending across the top

of the water. Out on the prowl. A grass snake. It eye looks all white,

is that what I think it is. It is because it is going to shed. I

suggest it is not looking for food because they don't typically eat

before they shed, so perhaps it found refuge somewhere and it is

heading back to that warm compost heap. That is amazing to see it

swimming. Beautiful animals. Stunning. You could call them water

snakes rather than grass snake, they spend so much time in the

water. You could but you don't. The birds that did survive it became a

bonanza for them once the sun came out. Not only did the insects

appear but there were hundreds of toadlets. They would have hunkered

down during the storm and the sun came out, they needed to warm up

and feed, but it did make them very vulnerable to being captured and

birds would have been having a feast on those as well as the

snakes. Yes small snakes would eat them. They eefpbt tadpoles but the

real winners here will be the thrushs, you know, if ever you have

a pont and you get a big happen of toads all the black birds are down

there having a feast. In the aftermath of the storm loads of

wildlife came out and that allowed Chris to go down into the woods,

the beautiful woods, the oak woods, and look into the productivity of

an oak tree. And the different ways that different animals make use of

An oak. An Oakwood land is an incredibly rich habitat here in the

UK. It supports a vast amount of life. And the reason for that is

that these trees have been growing here for longer than nearly any

other species. So lots of invertebrate herbivores, things

like caterpillar, bug, beetles, have learns to feed on them. But of

course when I say invertebrates I mean food for birds, that is why

Oakwood land is such a rich environment for them. How do they

all live here at the same time, feeding on the same trees? They do

that by using niche separation. They partition themselves, so they

reduce the amount of competition, they find different ways of feeding

in the same place, at the same time. How does it work? Well it starts at

the bottom. The ground beneath the oak tree has plenty of insects and

other invertebrates living on it. Food for Robins, black birds.

Thrushs. Even redstarts. Then of course there is the trunk. The

trunk itself is home to a couple of our most charismatic members of the

oak community, the tree ceer. And the nut hatch. Tree ceers climb up

the tree, carefully examining all of these ce e-- ce siss into which

they put their fine bill to remove their prey. Nut hatches, they will

go up and down too. Looking for similar sorts of things but their

bill is slightly larger, and they also eat a bit of fruit on the side.

Then of course you have the woodpeckers and if there is any

deadwood here, the great spotted woodpecker will peck it open on the

trunk and even excavated a nesting hole. As we go higher, and the

trunk separates into its boughs and branches, you have a completely

different set of birds that is feeding up there. Most notably of

course, members of the tit family. The smaller the bird, the further

it will go out, away from the main trunk, until it is right out here,

hanging on those twigs. Turning the, looking for tiny caterpillarser and

this means that this huge gild of birds can survive on one tree and

its neighbour, at exactly the same time. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

It is why if you take a walk in an Oakwood land, at the beginning of

spring, it is bound to be rewarding, obvious, but it is raining, and it

is looking a bit stormy. It is looking very grey, isn't it, but we

would need a lot more rain to repeat that exercise. Let us hope

not. Fingers crossed it doesn't rain too much. In your film you

mention the redstarts and by Thursday, we saw the redstarts

looking like they were about to fledge. Well, did they? Of course

we didn't know because the power went off and our live cameras were

turned off. We could only find out when we plugged in again and this

is what we saw. An empty nest box. Is that bad news? Or could it in

fact have been good news? I am feeling good about it because they

were on the broifpbg leaving. As long as they waited for the storm I

knew they would be OK and they did. Look at this they waited for the

rain to end and the youngsters jumped out of the nest box. Our

cameramen went out and they found five of them, and filmed four of

them there is one of them in the tree. And they are doing really

well. Female coming in and feeding them. Stunning. Stunning. You

pretty things, look at that. Look at that. So they were fortunate.

They had the shelter and they were taking advantage of all of the

insects that became active after. It was very damp. When the

temperature warmed up it was humid. That was perfect for flying insects.

Look at that! Oh. They waited to fledge, after the storm. Very

sensible because I would have stayed in the nest box. That, look

at this though. I know. I know. Look at that for a lot longer than

that. Much longer than that. I have to say. Might be the last we see of

them. They will be off. They will be being fed for the next couple of

week gis parents. They will find their own food before that, so yes,

and then they will migrate back to Africa. Let us hope they come back

next year. They were being fed a lot of food because there was a

bonanza, it went from famine to feast. It wasn't just the redstarts.

Look at these swallows taking advantage of the huge number of

flies that were over the marsh, having a drink there as well.

Everyone was after a meal and this sunshine and all of that water,

very humid. Skylark here, down on a flooded road. Young wagtail. This

must have been a bonus. And even the swift, which normally feed much

higher up, on smaller insects were swooping low over the marsh, there

must have been a bonanza for them. There was, when I went out once the

sun came out I could see it. There were insects everywhere and the

toadlets, there was a lot of life going on when the sun shone.

Excellent. Now, every week we have been using a different type of

camera to see the world in a way that our eyes can't perceive. To

take a look at animals in way we would otherwise never understand

them and Martin is moving the project on this week with a new

camera what Jew got for us? We have already seen extraordinary close up

and we have seen, we used a thermal camera to see difference in heat.

Now we have a completely different sort of camera, have a look at this.

Tell us a bit about this camera. This is a high speed camera it

shoots high definition, up to 2,000 frames a second. So how much does

it slow things down. By 80 time, so one second with this camera becomes

80 seconds when you play it back. So we are looking at insect, how

they are using their wings. We couldn't normally see it in any

other way. It would be impossible. Last question, what is this one

about? It is not a skirt?. This is so I can throw it over myself and

the cam rand it stops reflections in the monitor. Go ahead. We are in

days of photography, we're going back to that. Now I should say that

Edmonson wards and I, -- Ed Edwards and I, the cameraman, filmed it

last night. We're looking at insect wipbgdz and the differences in

wings between different sorts of insects. Here is the basic insect

wing pattern, on this dragon fly. They've got two pairs of wings,

front pair and a back pair. You can see they almost move in a slightly

different way from each other. That's a sort of basic insect

pattern, four wings, a pair at the front and behind. Now beetles. This

is a ladybird, the front pair of wings are modified into hard

protective case that's cover up the flight wings. They have to flick

them out of the way before they take off. Isn't that great! Now

let's look at the bee. Bee has the basic pattern, the front and rear

pair, they're slightly joined together n. Bees they always look a

bit too small and have to work too hard. This is the most fascinating

of all. This is a fly that we're coming to and have a look at this

bizarre creature. That's a close up of a crane fly, Daddylonglegs. The

front pair of the wings are for flight. But the we're pair, that

looks like a pin is stick in it, that's all that's left of the rear

wings and that's used as a gyroscope. Before they take off,

that thing swings round and round and gives them a sort of gyroscopic

action. That explains why flies are so good at flying. The world of

insects, absolutely fascinating! Back to Chris and Michaela. Those

specialist cameras are fascinating. They let us look at thing that's

our eyes wouldn't naturally see. So they reveal proper science. That's

why you love them. I do love them. Those little hairs, can you imagine

having some of those on your sides so you didn't fall over. No, I

probably can't. That's even stretching it for me. We'll show

you more of that slow motion camera tomorrow. One of the birds that we

weren't -- were particularly worried about were the owls.

They're sheltered in a barn. By the end of the week they seemed to be

getting a lot of feed. 17 before 2 o'clock. There was quite a lot in

the nest for them. Let's lock at them live. Because I can reveal

that they did make it. You can see, just about see four of them there.

They're hissing a bit. There's one in the corner. One's moved round.

That's the oldest one. That's the Big Brother one. It is. It's

looking almost like an adult now. It's still a bit downy, not quite

there. But it's making significant progress, that one. Now, you

mention that they had all that food. They do cache their food. They keep

it, if not in the nest then certainly in the barn. I should

imagine with that amount of food coming in last week, that one or

two days that we had here wouldn't impinge too much on them n. Other

parts of the country with two or three days of rain, and without too

much food they've lost some of the their broods, in Lincolnshire in

particular. Ours are looking good. They had a busy weekend to be

honest. As usual, plenty of exercise. They're still looking,

you can see the age difference there between the largest one and

those which are smaller. They still have the down. They're following a

fly again, aren't they? They are following a fly. They're practising

jumping and squeezing with their tallons. These birds kill their

prey by squeezing it and stabbing it with their four large tallons.

They'll spend a lot of time grabbing things and squeezing them.

The fly's not backing off. There's probably some rotten old vole in

the base of that nest some wr. They're fascinated by it. Another

fly comes in and the alacrity of the barn owl pays off. The one in

the foreground has caught the fly. Did you see the face of the one

lying down. It's disgusted. "Oh, how due do that? That was clever.

Did it taste nice? "Not really. Here you can see the difference of

the big erchick. When it stretches its wick, it's obvious that bird is

thinking about making his first trip. They've been active today.

They've been spending a lot of time jumping off that platform. There's

rotting voles, old pellets, lots of poo. They typically leave after 56

days. Another bird we were really interested to see what had happened

after the storm was the sandpiper. This is the bird that's nested

right by the train track and often gets off its nest every time the

train goes past. How would it cope with the flooding? Well I can tell

you, it did survive! Here it is live, sitting on the nest. What I

love about this, last week, we were saying it was a nutty nesting bird.

Clearly not, Chris, because it chose a really good spot this

weekend. It's up on an embankment. People build those so the trains

don't get flooded out. Of course, it's well drained. That's the

purpose of that railway clinker is so that it doesn't rot the sleepers

or flood the trains. Being on the side of it, I should imagine that

nest was very Westminster drained. Thing is, she's been on the eggs,

she and he, they've been taking the -- turns, they've been on the eggs

a long time. They haven't been turning them. That's unusual. We

think that they must hatch before Thursday or there might be a

problem. The next couple of days will be telling, we think, if these

eggs hatch or not. Also the adult may be two, but definitely one

adult has survived, but how has that weather affected the eggs even

if they were turning them. If they were off them they could get

chilled. The later during the incubation period that occurs, the

more damaging it could be. We don't know. They could have been off them

for hours or sat tight like the bird is now. Let's hope it's the

latter: I'm pleased to see the sandpiper has survived. It's become

quite a character. It's amazing it survived, because for a lot of

ground nesting birds flooding is a major problem. Yesterday we sent

Iolo Williams out to see how other waders fared during and after the

the Dovey estuary is the most important area for breeding waders

in the whole of Wales. You're talking about maybe 80 pairs of

lapwing, about a fifth of the Welsh population. These fields here,

three or four fields are the most important breeding sites for them.

Look at it now, the water level is about 30cms higher than it should

be. If this is wiped out the way it is, for the whole of Wales, that's

disastrous. Look at this, look at that, just within probably two,

three days of being able to fly, both of these chicks here. And it's

the timing really that's disastrous. A month earlier the adults would

have relayed, a week later, and most of these chicks would have

made it. They'd be able to fly away. It's the speed at which this whole

area was inundated with water. These and probably dozens of others

have succumbed. It's tragic. One of our wildlife cameramen

witnessed the flood and what happened to the birds. This road up

here was, become a bit of a refugee camp for a lot of the chicks.

have made it. I can see high ground away to the left and to the right

here. That's right. There's a farmer's track, the burns on either

side and there are chibgdz that made it. You have winners and

losers too. If you have dead chicks, something is going to pick them up.

Yes red kites have been picking the chicks up. The odd thing is water

is vitally important for breeding waders and for wader chicks,

because where you find water you find insects which is what they eat.

But this much water all at once, it's a tragedy and this is one of

the most important sites we have. This highlights, first I should say

welcome, thank you for coming, this is your patch of course. Thank you

for welcoming us to Wales. And for coming on the show of course. This

highlights a conservation problem. It's all eggs in one basket. This

It's all eggs in one basket. This percentage of lapwings on one site.

It is, in an ideal world we would have lapwings widespread across

Welsh farmland. But they've declined rapidly. We had 7,500

pairs in 1987. What have we got, maybe 500 pairs now. Because of

that, areas like the Dovey and Ynys-hir in particular are so

important. What these birds couldn't cope with was the sheer

volume of water, all at once. Had it been over a longer period they

would have been fine. But they couldn't cope with it. It was heart

breaking to go there and see these chicks, had it come a month ago,

the lapwing would have relayed. A week later, they would have been on

the wing. But it just hit them at just the wrong time. But there is a

bit of good news in there as well, because they're long lived birds. I

suspect we have about 80 pairs here. I suspect next year we'll have 80

pairs again, but they will need a good breeding season next year.

These freak events can be disastrous for colonial breeding

birds. I remember being in Shetland and there was a guillemot colony on

a rock at sea and there's a series of photos there, one freak wave and

it wiped out the entire colony for that year. I bet they were all back

the n. Year They're long lived again. There's another chance.

Shall we go back to our Ospreys. When we left Michaela down at the

osprey project, things were not looking that good. Let's go back

looking that good. Let's go back and remind ourselves what was

happening. The two chicks were there, looking very under par. This

is agonising to see this. The parents have got food, but they

cannot feed it to the chicks. The dreadful thing about this is that

unless the chicks get up and beg, the parents won't give them food.

I'm afraid to say another one of those chicks died. Now three chicks

were laid, we were down to just one, what were the project going to do?

Well the news is that they had to intervene. The weather here was

dreadful. It was absolutely awful. I've seen of him wading chest deep

through water to get in. They intervened. They got the chick out

of that nest very quickly. It only took them 20 minutes I think. Here

we are before they had it back. They dried it, fed it. Because it

wasn't feeding at all. They got a lot of food into it, just to make

sure it was strong enough when it went back into that nest for the

mother to feed it once more. thing was their intention was

always to get it out, warm it up, feed it, but get it back to the

next as fast as they could. It was. I'm sure some people will so, hang

on we shouldn't intervene n. Truth we've always intervened. If we

hadn't intervened in the first place Ospreys would be a common

bird. They're not, they're very rare. They became extinct because

man intervened. To intervene once more, to help, I permly think is a

very positive thing. When you think we only have two pairs in Wales, if

we'd have lost this one, we're down to one. Hopefully, there's a long

way to go yet, hopefully this one will survive and think of the

education value tens of thousands of people will come and see this

bird. If there's nothing there, they're going to think well, we

won't go. Hopefully they'll come, be enthralled, they might join,

spend money on conservation. This could become a toe temic bird in a

toe temic species. Hats off to him. I think he did the right thing.

Certainly did. What are we doing now? Oh, yeah. Let us look at what

happened once that bird got back in the nest just to confirm this. They

got it straight back in and there it is, looking much, much better

now, begging properly and the parents feeding it there, lots of

food in the nest, that's a great thing to see. Let us just hope the

weather now doesn't get too cold again and that chick, the last

survivor of the three carries on, does well and pulls through.

Looking good. We hope so. Looking great. Right, now early on, we left

Charlie Hamilton James looking for his otters. It was a family of

otters, there were two youngsters and an adult. He worried about the

youngsters. They're small and quite vulnerable. When we left him he was

looking in drought conditions. He couldn't find them there. My

goodness, talk about one extreme to the other. It went from drought

to... Have a look at this: After the drought came the flood. Record

levels of rain in April caused the rivers to rise more than six feet.

It broke the banks. This is really worrying. The mother otter is

powerful enough to cope with the floodwaters. The much smaller cubs

could struggle with it and get separated from mum. At just a few

months old, they'd be too young to survive alone. I returned as soon

as I could, keen to find the otter family. Straight away, there's a

surprise in store. I've got three otters, way, way down the river.

And it's the mum with the two cubs. It's really exciting. It's the

first time I've seen them for months! You can see they've really

am determined to stay with them. These otters are so used to people,

they are not bothered about them. Which makes filming them a lot

healthy. They are swimming well and surprise, so do the cubs. So these

cubs really are getting independent. They are just swimming round.

Fishing. That is a real mark of independence. What is so

interesting about this family, is they are fishing in the day. And

not at night. Otters on the coast of Scotland do this, but this

behaviour in river otters has always been rare. The mum is

zooantly, just keeping an eye on us, she is pretty relaxed. But she

wants to know who is who, where the humans are, are there any dogs

round, every time she pops up she immediately have a little look. But

she ain't going to let it get in the way of fishing. Otter mothers

have to nearly double the time they spend hunting when they have cubs,

so being confident enough to hunt in the daytime, gives this young

family a head start in life. This is a new generation of otters, who

are adapting to live alongside humans during the day. Really

relaxed fishing session there. The best thing about it is it is about

10.00 in the morning. Massive great main road next to them. These

several hours. Watching them catch lots of small fish, but suddenly,

the mum's skill comes into play, and she gets lucky with a huge

catch. Whoa, we have an 'll here. - - eel here. Mum caught and eel. It

was in the bushes so fast, I barely got to see it P --. Eels are a

favourite food for otters but I am pleased to see one for other

reasons. It is so nice to know there are eels in the river,

because there aren't in eels round any more. But otters love them. I

have been worried about the drought and the flood affecting this young

family of otters. But they seem to be thriving. Oh, beautiful. I love

it when they do that. Seeing mum teaching her two small cubs to fish,

not only in daylight, but right under a main road, confirms to me

that some British river otters are daylight. But to see an otter in

daylight, terribly unusual. It is in the south of England these day,

on the west coast of Scotland you will see them in daylight where

they are tide pen dent but here it is a treat. What we have to

remember is all animals are individuals and it may well be this

female is just a tolerant individual. She has got used to

people in this area where it is busy and therefore Charlie and now

we are able to enjoy her, in daylight. Of course, in the past,

they were ruthlessly hunted, they were much loathed animal actually

into the '50s, people didn't like them very much. It was only Tarka

the otter and Gavin Maxwell's ring of bright water that turned them

into pin up stars, they have become popular. I thought it was a treat

seeing it fish for the eels but this is a treat. This is something

Charlie saw in the daytime. It is spots a bag tail on the bank, oh

the otter thinks, it is quite interesting. And then it gets a bit

disinterested and goes back. Comes up again, and what is on the bank?

There it is again. The little wagtail. And then, they spot each

other, and it's game on. The wagtail flies to the other side, it

flies off again and the otter chases it. Is it hunting the wag

tile? I don't think so. I think it is actually just playing. Don't

you? Maybe the wagtail is player with the otter. I think that they

are enjoying it. Calm down, calm down, they are not playing at all I

think it would eat the wagtail if it could catch it. Otters do eat

biers, it is not hunting it because it is making no attempt to hide

whatsoever. But at certain times of year, up to, you know, 14-20% of

the diet can be birds. Typically goose and moor hens but geese and

swan, we have swans here on the marsh, let us see how many of our

Signets are currently still going. -- signets. There is the first two.

And there is the third one. there are otters out there we saw

it on otter cam, and that is within tens of metres of where the swans

are. They will come up like a Great White shark. They don't advertise

the fact they are coming. Take them from under the water. A running

theme throughout this whole programme has been these bizarre

weather condition, that we have had just in the past few days here. But

what about your spring, your experience of spring? We would love

to see pictures of wildlife, strange things that have happened

in this very odd drought ridden then too hot, too wet spring, so

please do send us your pictures. We will try and put them together in a

lovely montage. Shall we introduce a new test? It is amazing we can do

this. This is extraordinary we can do this, I couldn't believe they

had managed to do this, and this is a bird of my dreams. Look at this.

There is the dead oak tree, we have driven past this every morning, in

the crack, yes, it is a tree creep Ernest, again I never thought I

would see this. It is a very active nest. Both a dulls are in and out

the whole time. Can't see how many chicks there are yet. They look

fairly well developed. It looks a bit shaky that little bit of bark

there. But remarkable to have a brand-new, this was rigged up, we

saw them rigging this up yesterday and there it. Wonderful to have a

tree creep Ernest. I like them very much indeed. Let us go live and see

if there is tree creeper activity at the moment. There is plenty of

insects, you see the youngsters in there. If be can zoom in we might

see. We don't know how old they are. By 2 days they jump about and they

will climb round inside that cavity, and it is about 15 days when they

finally come out. But both adults are been busy today, taking food in

and out. You can't tell them apart, the male and female look the same.

You find them in Britain, all across northern Europe, stretch

across what was the former Soviet Union as far as Japan. I love them.

Really successful, they fill that niche on the tree, so well, there

are other species of tree creepers, not in the UK. There is just come

in on Facebook from Ab Star, she says are they born with curved bee,

do they curve in later life. They curve through the process of

development. We saw some young tree creepers, the other day huddling on

the tree. Once they fledge they will hide and stay warm by huddling

on the tree. We got a unique view of that with tree creepers the

other day, if you notice then their beak was already hooked because

they have to look for food themselves pretty soon after they

fledge so they need that hooked bill. Do other birds develop curves

in their beak? There are birds who feed like the tree creeper, the

neatest thing, I had one in the hand one, its tail, they have a

tail just like a woodpecker, very very stick feather, if you get a

treecreepers tail in your hand and you press it across your fingers --

fringe o finger as you do, the feathers are really stiff this is

because they rest on their feathers, if you watch them when they land,

they fan their tail and they use it to support them on the tree, just

like a woodpecker, that is why they have tatty tails because they are

well worn, I am talking a lot about them because I hope it is going to

come back. I think it is amazing we have managed to get a camera in

there. We are just about to go to the cameras live to see what is

happening and I am so excited on the able to say that, when I looked

tat production site on Saturday, I thought it was going to be the end

of Springwatch 2012. At the time it looked like we weren't going to be

able to bring you a show at all, and we certainly didn't think we

would be able to get our live cameras back, but with a lot of

hard effort and people working long hours we did, so let me say with

great excitement let us look at our live cameras. Shall we look at the

goldcrest. The goldcrest that is in there at the moment. Brooding away.

It will be fascinating to see how many chicks that were in there. We

have never known how many hatch. We don't know how many survived, but I

think we have seen them feeding, so there is... There is a good

fledging rate. They get a lot of the young out of the nest. They

build them on the edge of the branchs to keep them away from

predators, the down side of course, is that the nest is very flimsy and

gets blown round a lot. So there is a trade off going on.. It is now as

a jaunty angle. Nicely jaunty. think I would prefer non-jaunty.

Pied flycatcher, there was a bit of action going on there. Do you think

the adult is coming in? Maybe not. I did see one of them do a bit of

stretching, but you reckon they might go soon, don't you. Yes, let

us go to the tree creeper. It just turned up. It is in the nest. Oh.

Just a glimpse of the unique tail before it flew off. Still don't

know how many chicks there are. There was movement.. It was a

little tease. What about the barn owls? Let us look at them. A bit of

a hiss. How many are there? I think two of them are round in the corner.

He had fallen asleep there. He really has got fed up of sitting on

the nest with the dead mice and voles. We should say people saw

them lying down, and they were worried about this, thought they

might be ill, but if they are well- fed and they are comfortable, young

owls like this and birds of prey, young stirs in the nest will lay

down on their chests, spread out like a dog in front of the fire.

believe it's a strategy if they get threatened. Sometimes they will

play dead when they are little. when they get bolshy. They lay on

that back. When I saw them on Saturday, there were two of them

lying down and you couldn't see one, for a minute I started to panic, I

thought one hadn't made it. I was the same.. A lot of the birds have

done so well. A quick look at the sandpiper eggs. I can hear the

train. The train is coming. She's off. Brilliant. I think that is all

we have time for. It is. Well, tomorrow, we will be looking at the

basking shark, the second biggest fish on earth in British waters.

And Chris and Martin enjoy a night out on the town, with a bevvy of

badgers. And we will keep an eye on those tree creepers and hope to

bring you more action from that nest. We will be back again