Episode 4 Springwatch

It is Springwatch. We are coming to live from Wales at the end of our

first week. We have had all sorts of drama here, especially involving

our jackdaws. We will take you inside the Secret lives of some

very amazing animals, like these wild boar, notoriously difficult to

film, especially when they are with their young. We will be taking a

close look at one of the UK's place on British television that

you can see a hen harrier tonight. Yes, hello and welcome to

Springwatch, coming to you live, the last programme of our first

week. Here at the RSPB Ynys-hir reserve in Wales, fabulous place.

All week we have been saying it is 700 hectares. I stand corrected. It

is 800 hectares of the most amazing habitat. We have covered it with

cameras and we have stuck our nosey noses into the lives of all kinds

of creatures. Can I just say, what a glorious evening! The sunshine is

out. Let's see what has happened to the stars of the show, the nesting

birds, over the past 24 hours. The reed bunting, we left the nest

looking like this yesterday. Empty. We saw one of the chicks fledged on

the programme. What happens to the others? All five have fledged. Why

would the adult be coming back with food still? Interestingly, they

fledge before they can fly. They are only about 10 to 12 days old

when they leave the nest and they only fly about five days after that.

the food. They are still totally reliant on that parent. Of course

they are very vulnerable. They are a vulnerable but it is a good idea

to get out of that nest and split up. We saw earlier in the week, all

the chicks in one basket and the weasel got the lot. If they spread

themselves out, even over just one metre, there is a greater chance of

them surviving. There are predators out there, as well as the weasel.

We spotted this, a female adder. Of course they are carnivores, there

to be called Die it be incredibly composed of young, small mammals

that they take out of their nests. -- their typical diet. They don't

seek out young birds. If they happen to cross them, they would

probably take them. A reptilian predator active down here. It was

probably more likely to be a grass snake active down here. I found a

grass snake curled up in a willow warbler's nest the few years ago.

The warblers were going berserk and I got down on my hands and knees

and I saw the grass snake in there. I caught it, and running down its

body was a series of lumps. away! It's had eaten all the

youngsters. -- no way! Let's have a look that the great tips. This is

the nesting box. -- tits. One is not looking so good and we will

look at him in a second. They could fledge this weekend, but they will

probably hang on in until next week. You can see that one chick raises

its head more highly than the others. Let's take a look at what

we filmed earlier today. Again, the nesting box. The parent comes in.

One chick is straight up, much higher than the others. We have

named that one super chip and that is the one that we saw the other

day going round the nesting box. Super chick is doing well but we

are concerned about one of them, which is the round. -- the run to

one. Don't call him that because he is bound to fail! Call him Rudy.

runty we do not looking so good. A lot of you have commented on the

internet as well. They could fledge early next weekend. Keep an eye on

them. We will be watching all of the live cameras throughout the

programme as we transmit. If anything kicks off while we are

live on air, of course we will go directly to it. You can watch the

live cameras night and day and many of you have been. On the red button

and online. You have sent us some comments, which are rather nice. I

like this. Tim Brookes says that the webcams are the best thing

about working night shifts at this time of year. Thank you. Obviously

working hard one who watches them! I am loving having the webcam on in

the background as I get ready for work. Natalie says that what in the

webcam and showing the three-year- old daughter the jackdaws having

their breakfast. -- she is watching the web cam. And we have taken a

picture of a science-fiction monster as well. What is that? We

would like you if you can to tell us what manner of creature that is.

And what is its favourite food? If you think you know the answer to

that, go to the website. Or the Twitter account. Let us know and we

will reveal it later in the programme. It is called -- cool

looking. One of the most ferocious creatures at large in the UK at the

moment. That is a good way of putting it. I have to leave because

I have to go to the squelchy God to do some detective work. -- squelchy

bog. And 45 minutes in that direction... That direction! We are

going to one of our favourite childhood haunts to look at a

fabulous bird. Welcome to the reserve in the heart

of this moorland. What a place it is. I am surrounded by heather

moorland, which she will not get in the whole of southern Britain. It

is a special place for me, too, because this is where I grew up,

when I was knee-high to a weasel. I used to wonder around here and it

was where my love for wildlife was developed. Just over the hill, we

have got a man in a hide, because we are here to see a very special

bird, the hen harrier. If we go over and have a quick look live,

you will see that the lens is on a bit of heather and there is a

lovely looking sheep. We are hoping that later on in the programme

there will be some live hen harriers for you. I make a personal

pilgrimage on to this moorland every spring are to see my beloved

harriers. My first visit this year This lake has a huge variety of

habitats, would learned to grassland -- woodland. But the most

important is the heather moorland, and I grew up here. Much of my

childhood was spent on the moorland, and we would get up before dawn, my

dog and I, and stay up all day and go back after dark. I still search

these hills that this time of year, hoping for a glimpse of my

favourite bird, the majestic hen harrier. One of the UK's rarest

birds of prey. In my home patch, there are thought to be five

breeding pairs. This reserve is a key habitat for their survival. I

am here to see how this year's breeding birds are coping with the

late spring. It is not long before the distinctive ghostly shape of a

male hen harrier bricks the horizon. -- breaks the horizon. It looks

like he is hunting. He is really obvious. This light grey colour,

just stunning birds. There is the female, virtually hidden in the

heather. If they are going to breed successfully, it is crucial that

the female can remain hidden. That is why, it is the female that

incubate the eggs, because she has this perfect dark brown, for large

all over her back. -- Brown, for. It is great to see the pair back in

the valley, since 39 years ago I was up here doing exactly the same

He has dropped in. That could well be their nesting site, hidden in

the thick heather. I suspect that maybe they are not on eggs yet

because the female does not like the male going down on to the nest

when their eggs in there. What usually happens in this, the male

will do all the hunting and the female will stay close to the nest

because she has to put on a lot of weight, build up the energy to lay

the eggs. It takes a lot of effort out of a body, so he will go

hunting and bring her foot. -- food. I can't think of a better way to

spend the day than this, sitting on my backside in the Welsh moorland,

watching a pair of hen harriers. It does not get much better than this.

I must tell you this. The Welsh name for the hen harrier, referring

to the female, means white bottom buzzard. What a perfect name that

is. They spend the winter away from us up land area, which is very

harsh, but they come back in early spring on the first nice days. This

year they were late and we were worried that they might not come

back at all. This power has been coming here for many years now, but

the signs are good. -- this pair. And this is what we saw just a few

days ago. Here comes the Mail, bringing in the prey, and there

cannot be a better bird than that in all of Europe. He is bringing it

in over the heather moorland. And he is so visible, so visible. He

drops the prey on the floor. Coming to the female. Let's go live to our

camera over the hill and see what we can see right now. Our cameraman

is in there, and he is focusing on the heather. The female is tucked

in among at the head and she is on eggs, I am pleased to say. -- are

among the heather. There could be four to seven. And you get them

polygamous, which will mean that the males can take up to four

females. That does not happen in Wales. In 39 years I have only seen

that happen once. We are very, very lucky to be up here with such a

rare bird, bearing in mind that this is one of fewer than 30 pairs

and the whole of Wales. But will we have live hen harriers on the

programme for you tonight? Well, you'll have to join us later on to

find out. Like hen harriers, that would be

something. Every time I think I have got a favourite bird of prey,

the cast will of course, up pops another one. -- the kestrel. Male

hen harriers. Not female? You can't revel in them. Beautiful bird, no

doubt about it. I am going to update you on a bird that has

featured a lot, and it is our family of jackdaws. We have two

chicks in a nest in a barn, which were doing pretty well, then we had

intruders coming in to attack them. It was quite dramatic. Yesterday it

went much quieter, but what has been happening in the last 24

hours? It is a little bit distressing. We saw the chicks

inside and these are the intruders. This happened this morning. The

intruder starts to do what it did the day before, pecking the cheque.

-- chick. Then the parent bird comes in and scares it off. It

looked like it will be OK but it You can see the intruder looking

through the nest box whole. Look what happens now. This gets very

aggressive. It's quite distressing. It starts pecking the chick. Even

the other intruder comes in, having a right old go at that one

particular chick's. He is fighting back, which is a good sign. He's

showing a bit of strength, but it goes on and on. They just keep

pegging back chick. The parent comes in, almost looking at its

submissive. The parent comes in with food, so there's very little

it can do. This is the trouble. The parents can't clamp down on what is

going on because they've got to go and get food. It couldn't chase the

intruders off because it literally had its mouth full. That want it

wasn't looking good. We were very concerned about it. What has

I'm pleased to tell you that they are sleeping. They are alive. It

took them a while to recover, but we have been watching them

throughout the day. The parents have been feeding them and they've

been up and about. You just wonder, how much of a hammering can they

take? But been attacked quite a few times. It was encouraging to see

them dodging about, fighting back. If this had been happening when

they'd just hatched, it would have probably been all over now. One

accurate Pep from one of those intruding subordinate birds would

have been the end of it. We can see that happening because we've got a

camera inside. If you were watching that from the outside, you wouldn't

know they were intruding birds. You'd probably think they were the

parents coming in. That gives us unique access to what is going on

inside. Our jackdaws are not all in nest boxes. As a small colony of

birds down here, and some of them have chosen natural sites in trees.

These are the favoured site. Scientific studies have shown that

if they have a choice, they will take a natural tree side, then a

man-made Holt, such as one you would find in a building, and then

and nest box. There are some in the tree holes. Often out, busy feeding.

These are Prince of the birds which of feeding on invertebrates. They

take relatively small things. Insects, lots of fly larvae. But

look here, that's its Boco pouch. That swollen throat is full of food.

When they are out collecting food, sometimes worms, they fill up that

pouch and they will go back into the nest and regurgitated into the

mouths of the young. One of the things they do is they put their

beak right down inside the mouth of the young. They've got to get it

beyond the Tong, so that the youngster can't put it back out

again. It's great to see them out in the wild and it's great to see

them in the nest box. Not far away from that is this bird on its nest.

This is a mallard. We don't know how many eggs of their, because

every time she gets up she covers them over. But we think they could

possibly hat at the weekend. When they do hatch they will be very

cute. Although there's a bit of jeopardy there, they are not far

away from the jackdaws. They are prey for all sorts of things.

are, but there's probably 10 or 12 eggs and a bed. Our jackdaws are

very wary birds. Our camera team have been very patient putting the

cameras in. But there are some other animals which make Jack Boles

look positively tame. They are super wary. They are wild boar.

This has been taken by then, he's been photograph in the wild boar in

the Forest of Dean. We sent him out with a camera to catch some movie

I spend every minute out here, just naturally photographing everything

I can find. The beauty of the place. My name is then lock. I live here,

in the Forest of Dean. Of all the wildlife we have, the wild boar

have been the biggest poll for me. They are quite a mystical creatures.

It hasn't existed in the British Isles for at least 300 years or so,

and now it's back. The wild boar aren't generally easy animals to

find. They don't like or seek out human company. My early time spent

looking for there was very shambolic, I didn't know what I was

doing. After many weeks, I got a glimpse of the backside of a ball

disappearing into the woods. That They have a pretty underdeveloped

sense of sight, but they more than compensate but Supreme hearing and

smelling capabilities. That presents a real challenge when you

are trying to photograph them. You need to keep the wind on the right

side of you, keep as quiet as you possibly can. They spent most of

their time feeding. They will root of the forest floor, looking for

roots, insects, acorns, chestnuts. Wild boar living groups. They are

matriarchal groups. Typically it will consist of the matriarch and

her offspring. The matriarch will team up in twos or threes and form

groups of May the 20 to 25 wild boar, with all the offspring. And

perhaps the previous year's offspring as well. You could have

three generations in the same group. The largest group I've seen

consisted of about 45, but this is I don't have a favourite time he in

the forest, it's so changeable. Winter brings a different kind of

peace, the Forest is very quiet. Earlier this year in the winter, I

made a point to go out and look for wild boar in the snow. Surprisingly

easy to find. There prints are fresh and the Snow shows them well.

It didn't take long to find them feeding. What was particularly

fascinating was there was a small crowd of Robbins following her

around as she went, making the most of the situation and the food that

she was uncovering. The wild boar seemed a bit annoyed and began a

new patch and left the Robins to exploit the area that it had

already uncovered. Typically, they will be born in the spring. Newborn

piglets of tiny, but by the time you stand a good chance of seeing

them, they could be compared to perhaps a small Jack Russell in

size. They are often known as humbug, due to their stripy

appearance. Probably one of my most special moments with them was one

day when I managed to find a group of piglets who would two week old.

I managed to get within about 30 to 40 feet of them. I was on lower

ground than they were, so all they would have seen of me was probably

my head, which probably made me The mother was mostly rooting

around and the piglets were running around play fighting. In the end

they were pestering a mother so much for milk Fachie just flopped

on the ground and gave in and let After having spent so long tracking

down wild boar and hoping for the perfect opportunity, I suppose,

that particular day was the Welcome to the Nunez here reed bed,

where we are being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Wild boar, what a

wonderful thing. A really thrilling animal to see. Increasingly you can

see signs of wild boar around the UK. Lookout on road verges where

they've been rooting around at night. You can see signs of them

but to see a live wild boar and the little piglets, what a treat!

Fantastic field craft by Ben. Thank you very much indeed for that.

Mammals, they are very shy, very secretive and very hard to see. But

they are all around us here at Ynys-hir. We have seen that auto

yesterday. We saw that we sought attacking the dunnock nest. Even

stranger than that, we haven't seen quite so many things. What things

might we see here? Squirrel, we might have another glimpse of that

otter. The fox as well. They are all around us. Now I'm going to

show you how to turn mammal detective. Watch out, it's a nice

squishy area. There's a bird- watching hide. Here we go. Through

the reeds, OK. How to turn detective. Well, this is a

footprint trap. How does it work? Animals can go in here. If we have

a look and get it out, this is what is inside. What happens is a mouse

or Ray weasel, they will walk in and go across this ink pad. They

will go to the bait. They will get the ink on their paws. As they go

out, they will leave a trail for you to see. That is the footprint

trap. You can actually buy these commercially or you can make one

yourself. It hears the deal. If you do do that, and it's great fun, do

it at home in the garden. Please get in contact with the mammal

Society through our website and tell them what you've found by the

They really want to know what animals you find. There's a guide

to the footprints on our website. What about the slightly bigger

animals? Back here, I expect some of you at home may already have

these. This is a trap camera. That is simply activated by movement. It

takes pictures of any passing animals. Animals, like us, would

they want to pass through the difficult areas? No. They'd much

rather walk down an existing path. We are going to put trap cameras up

and down the path over the weekend We might get an otter, a fox or

even a badger. Lots of you have been getting in contact with us by

social media, talking about badgers and the badger cull which is now

set to go ahead in Somerset and Gloucestershire, starting this

weekend. We are very aware it's an emotional subject, lots of you are

very passionate about it and there are very strong opinions on both

sides of what is a complex issue. If you'd like to know the science

behind the debate, or if you'd like to keep up-to-date with the news,

then go to our website. There's the chance for you to have your say and

give your opinion. I'm sure plenty of you will do just that. Plenty of

you contributed last night. We launched our kestrel count. Already

that website has had 10,000 hits. 2500 people have marked up where

they've seen kestrels. We even had one in America. That is pretty

good! We really want to do get involved. Don't sit at home

thinking, I'm so bored. With the USA involved, we need you. So make

sure you get out there this weekend. The details on the website. Put up

those reports because we need them. In just one day we had 2500. We do

have a new nest for you. Let's go From my point of view, this is a

really special species. This is presumably the female, and she is

proving some chicks that hatched just a couple of days ago. It is a

grasshopper warbler. They have had mixed fortunes in recent times

throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s they were in serious decline but in

the last few years they have greatly increased their numbers. We

think this is because of conditions and Africa. They are migrants. They

go back to Senegal and Gambia in the winter. Conditions there have

improved, but clearly in their safe European homes, things are getting

better as well. Let's look at what has been happening here. The chicks

are in the nest. One of the eggs has not hatched. The nest is built

by both of the parents but what the bird. They are skulking. They are

like mice. They rarely fly more than 50 centimetres above the grass.

Another bird is going to come in with some food. They eat insects.

Presumably the birds are waiting for a foetal sack. Eating that

might strike you as unpleasant but eating it when they are small, that

saved stamping it further away. This was recorded a couple of weeks

ago when the male warbler first appeared. This is an amazing sight.

Along, mechanical, monotonous sound, so diagnostic of this species. It

is producing two notes and it is repeating them 20 or 30 times a

second. What about that? And the longest ever recorded one, 110

minutes. And the bird was breathing every 26 seconds. What about that!

It is like opera. Let's take a look at one of our live cameras. This

one is sleeping. Can you really notice? The nest, is it hire? We

think it probably has. They have been very busy. Let's have a look.

We have got both of them. Probably the female sitting on the eggs. The

male is coming in. They have been really busy doing this, building a

nest up and up. The reason we see them building it up, that is

because the water level could rise. But it does not seem to be, is so

it could be because the eggs are going to hatch. We hope they will

not build it so much that we do not see them hatching. There will be

seven, and when they hatch, there really will be a magnificent seven.

They are like two little black pom- poms stuck together. You know, like

used to make as a kid. You probably didn't! Fingers crossed they will

hatch soon because they will be adorable. That will be fantastic.

Iolo Williams has been looking at fantastic birds himself. Let's go

back to him in the search of hen harriers One More Time.

Welcome back to the beautiful heather moorland where we have a

camera live on a hen harrier nesting bank. Are there any? Let's

have a look. No! Surprisingly, no. I will tell you why that is. If you

come down with me, in among the heather, you can sue the nest. The

heather will come all the way up to my waist. The female will be

hunkered down on the nest and she does all the incubation because the

brown colour blends in with the heather. Through courtship,

intubation, right up until the chicks are seven to 10 days old,

the male does the hunting. And food plays an important part in the

courtship process. When the male passes through to the female, that

is truly spectacular. -- passes through OUT.

In spring, they perform a stunning display. As the male approaches the

female, who whistled to let her know that that he is overhead. The

male must convince the female that he is capable of providing enough

food, and she must put on enough weight to lay her eggs. This

acrobatic display continues throughout the nesting season and

And the male does not go anywhere near that nest, that is because

against the dark background the light colouring is so obvious. He

would draw the attention of crows, ravens and foxes. Unfortunately,

the weather up here has not been very good. Bad weather has made

their lives very difficult. It rained the day before yesterday and

most of yesterday and first thing this morning. We were quite worried.

How wildlife cameraman was in his hide before first light. When the

rain eased up a little bit before mid-morning, this is what he saw.

The male coming in. It is still raining, but he is coming in with

prey. He is obviously an excellent male, providing food for the female.

Up he goes, and he passes the food. That is fantastic. For anyone who

has ever worked on hen harriers, and has worried after days of bad

weather, when you see a food pass like that, the relief is incredible.

The header is intensively managed here. It used to be burned and

these days it is known by the RSPB. If you know it, then you can

attract some small birds. One of the things that I was eager to

learn, was whether the late spring has affected the small birds. It is

not just the hen harriers that returned to breed on this moorland

every spring. So do the smaller birds that they prey on. It is the

perfect habitat for ground-nesting birds like wind chat, and meadow

pip it. I have joined forces with this RSPB warden to find out how

the birds are doing. There is a male one on the end of the heather

there. Each spring, he carries out a survey of these birds. He makes a

record of all the different species that he sees and hears and he keeps

an eye out for any nesting and Court of activity. This gives a

good estimate of how successful the breeding season will be. Every

sighting is recorded on the map. What do the symbols mean? That is

it taking off, calling and the singing. So with the late spring,

has that affected the brace species? The skylarks? They are

waiting in the lower feels to go back on to the moorland to breed.

It is just so cold. Small birds mostly eat insects and The Mall and

provide them with plenty of food. Despite the long winter this year,

it seems that activity is now heating up on this particular patch.

And it is not just us watching this. Male harrier up there. You had

better put that one in, too! Their breeding success is vital to the

success of the hen harrier. Their chicks are food for their young,

and so the hen harrier coincides their nesting period perfectly.

Everything eats them, kestrels, peregrines, harriers. Don't come

back as one of the small birds! The hen harriers prosper here because

there is plenty of prey and because they are protected. As we know,

this year it is a late spring. The small birds are late breeding. The

harriers are synchronise their breeding, and they are breeding

late as well. That means that when they have chicks in the nest, there

should be plenty of prey around. Fingers crossed, let's go back to

the live camera one more time. And we are looking at... They have a

bank once more. To be honest, I am not surprised. -- and heather Bank

once more. We are so far above sea- level. But the birds have done well.

They have reached the egg incubation stage. The weather can

be awful appear. The good news is that we will pop back here to see

how the harriers are doing throughout the series. Now, from

one of the most beautiful parts of Wales, to another stunning area, it

is back to you at Ynys-hir. Sono live hen harriers but we will

be checking to see if we can see the birds. They are in trouble

because of persecution in some parts of the UK, which means they

could be lost. In a supermarket of their prey, the meadow birds are

high on their agenda and we have a life vest here. -- live nest. The

chicks are doing very well. It is dark. You might wonder why the

female is not there. They only sit on them after five -- for up to

five days. This is the habitat where they are, open habitat. They

feed principally on flies. 50% of their diet is flies, 14% beetles,

9% spiders. It 0.2%, maybe I should have rounded up, moths! The male is

probably passing the insect to the female, gives up then decides to

feed them itself. And just like the reed bunting, they will leave the

nest before they can fly. Up to four days before they can fly. That

strategy seems to be prevalent among the ground-nesting birds.

still makes them very vulnerable and they would be a tasty snack for

the buzzards. This is our buzzards nest. The chicks seems to be doing

very well and the parents are doing well at bringing them up. Let's

take a look at that nest. It is made of twigs but there is green we

around it as well, which is Scots pine. That is a beautiful shot of

one of the adults. He flies into the nest. What is in it? It is oak

leaves. Why have they got the green stuff in there? It is thought that

perhaps they use the natural insecticides. There is a resin in

the Scots pine and tannin in the oak leaves to repel insects. That

is the theory that we have got, but there is a flawed because the

tannin would have to be ingested to make a difference. The pine has got

aromatic qualities. Lots of birds of prey bring in the pine, but I

think the old leaves might have just fallen in! They might be

decorating the nest, trying to camouflage it. There might be more

to it. If you were watching it earlier in the week, the love dance

might have peaked your interest. After a good romp, snails need good

Spring is the growing season, and for our garden snails, gourmet

dining becomes an option. These snails have an appetite to satisfy,

but the journey from their daytime hiding place to reach the rows of

vegetables is anything but easy. In A misplaced broken bottle and the

snail must conquer its own Mount It takes these peaks of broken

glass in its stride as it shimmies up and over the sharpest point.

Waves of muscular contraction moving down the underside of the

foot power of the snail up and over. Up higher is the perfect place to

catch a whiff of anything that is going on. Not just the food end

goal, but any threats lurking about. This agile Centipede is one of the

most aggressive predators found in the garden. Rather than 100 legs,

it has actually only got 30, but it is on the lookout for insects and

spiders for its meal. Even as male. Once found, it will paralyse its

prey with venomous jaws. This carnivorous ground beetle is also

The final hurdle to a midnight feast is a barrier of eggshell laid

optimistically by the gardener, to stop this male in its tracks.

However, are breaking in the shell barrier, and this opportunistic

takes advantage and sneaks through. Our her before has finally reached

It tucks into the sweet, young lettuce leaves and munches them

with its tongue. It has rows of minute teeth, and it is unique to

molluscs. It quite literally rasps its way through the vegetable

material. All too soon the tell- tale signs of a snail in the

vegetable patch of beginning to show. As the night draws to a close,

the snails stop what they are doing and retreat to a safe hiding-place,

ready to rest until they next wild night in the garden. That film has

made me extremely worried about my broad beans back home! Anyway, come

into my garden. It's the RSPB site managers garden. It will be teeming

with snails. But we've seen the snails in action. Can we hear the

snails in action? We set our expert Tsonga Gordon a challenge, so that

we could hear snails actually eating. It's quite a difficult

thing. He tried with soft lettuce leaves, but he found the only way

to do what was to find a lovely, juicy cranberry very -- Berry. The

You go up to a window and you put some sugar solution on the glass.

Add your garden snail, can you see that? You can see right up at the

front, the mouth parts. You can also see the waves of muscular

movement passing down the food. That's something you can do at home.

Get those snails on the windowsill. Remember our quiz. Let us have

another look at that science- fiction monster. What is it? A lot

of you got it right. Derek Moore, Sarah Butler, congratulations. It

is a tiger beetle. A tiger beetle is a fearsome predator in the

garden. They can move... It's been measured at 5 mph. That would make

it one of the fastest land predators on earth, if you scaled

it up. Long legs for running at high speed, huge eyes foreseeing

its prey. They're like a warm-up before they go. When you look at

their jaws, they are really It's a fearsome creature. If you

get up close to one, it will take off. I've found one of those are my

garden. I found those -- loads of these. Food doesn't keep a Pardon

list? I've got about 32 on my list. Never underestimate the wide-leg in

your garden. To find out what is in their regular garden, Anna Lo,

Michaela, Chris and I went forward and undertook a BioBlitz. The

purpose of our exercise is to conduct a BioBlitz. It's an audit

of his garden, in terms of its species diversity. We've split into

two teams. We are going to try and count the number of different

invertebrates, birds and plants, any life form that we can find, in

one hour. You've got to identify it at species level and provide its

correct scientific name correctly Look, a frog. Common frog. Look at

that! The great black slug. Dandelion. How did the dandelion

get its name? It means truth of the lion. Look, we've got loads of

woodlice. And worms. I R Loe, I might need some help identifying

their names. I don't think they are wild. I'm at sweeper netting.

Martin sweep as much as he likes. It's time wasting. Flies. Getting

them to species level will be tricky but I know what I'll do -

I'll lie! Michaela, I've got another one here. A nice, big it

Centipede. A housefly. Cleavers, that is what these are. They are

wild raspberries. Lots of wood lice. I think there are 46 different

species of British woodlice. Quick, quick. They be slow worms. Loads of

them. These are last year's Young. I think we should get extra points

for something more interesting. Underneath corrugated iron is a

fantastic place to look. Possibly a slowworm if we are really lucky. A

slug. Centipede - did you see that? One of those ones were you never

know with the head is at one end or the other. A different sort of

species of Centipede. That's a much more fearsome looking one. You can

get Centre breeds -- centipedes abroad exactly like that that of 12

Martin, Williams is in their rivalling around, pretending he's

looking for his car keys. 36 new species in here. Nothing at all, I

really wouldn't bother going in there. Very disappointing.

Greenfinch. On the line there. Chris, do you fancy a bit of

puttering together? A plethora of woodlice. Someone at Kew Gardens

once told me that the British slug species were extraordinary

difficult to separate in terms of their physical appearance. But

there was a lady in Bristol, a scientist, who could do so by

licking their because they had a Martin, where his Chris? I don't

know. We are doing all right. Spying on him up. I've got to keep

Michaela? I'm afraid I must draw this hour to a close. Announced.

That is good going. 62 is all we've It was a lot of fun but I hate to

tell you this. There is a recount. There's a thought that you might

have cheated. In fact, you admitted to it. Aside from the competitive

edge there is a serious thing. This weekend is BioBlitz weekend. If you

go to the website you can download one of these sheets. We'd like as

many people as possible to get out into their gardens and perform

their own BioBlitz. You can take the species off. As you know, this

is all part of our Summer of Wildlife season. On that same

website you can now find your Summer of Wildlife guide. You can

flick through this online and print the pages that you particularly

want. There's something for everyone in here. A bit of tracking,

other ways you can engage with the great British wildlife. Do try and

do that. Let's go to our live cameras. We've got a brand new live

camera. It's a blackbird. Some eggs have just hatched out underneath.

We are ending this week on a brand new one. We'll be following that

nest. It's very dark, we haven't quite got the lights on her yet. We

will go to the marsh camera now. A beautiful swan. Any more cameras?

Anything exciting? Meadow pipit. I tell you what, we've got 15

seconds left. I've been sent in a joke by Matthew Christian. He said,

did I tell you about our bird of prey? He goes out at night and

plays in a band. Our kestrel manoeuvres in the dark. A fabulous

end to a week. Take a look at this. This is the highlights of all the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 48 seconds

things we've seen in our first week What a week! There are two more

weeks to go and will be back on Monday at 8pm. Keep a close look on

all of our cameras, particularly the jackdaws. Let's hope they don't

get another battering. Next week we will be taking a look at our

seabirds. Some beautiful individuals. Close relatives of the

cormorant. What a tuft of hare! what of the dolphins doing in

Aberdeen harbour? Springwatch Extra will be on straight after us. If