Episode 8 Springwatch

It is Springwatch. We are coming to you live from Wales, and it ist end

of our second week, but I can tell you we have got some very very

exciting new arrivals. We will be bringing you the cutting-edge

science behind a garden flower favourite. Bumble bees.

We will take a close look at an iconic bird, back from the bring of

extinction. It is Springwatch. Welcome to Springwatch, coming to

you live from the Ynys-hir reserve in Wales. A great mixture of

habitats, so a great mixture of species and we have bugged them, so

ewith get close up views and insights into some of the creature's

lives. It is a beautiful evening here. And for most the weather is

going to get better. But let me tell you now, on Springwatch, it is just

about to get better. With our water rail. Now this is a very shy,

secretive bird, very rarely seen on the nest, hardly ever filmed. If you

remember it had seven eggs, and we were waiting for them to hatch. At

the end of the programme, yesterday, we knew that one had hatched. But we

hadn't caught a glimpse of it. So what happened after that? Well there

was a lot of fidgeting from the adult bird, you can see she is

taking the egg out of the nest. And then, we got the first glimpse at

4.30am. There is that adorable fluffy water rail chick.

As the early morning went on, we saw two more little chicks, poke their

heads out. And again, the adult is getting rid

of the egg, tidying up. But the morning, a few more had hatched.

Weren't sure how many, until the bird, the adult bird got off the

nest, we could see one, two, three... Four, five chicks. And I

think you have got to admit, they really are very cute little chicks.

As I say, we are very privileged to see these birds. And you can see

their egg tooth there, on the tiny bitle -- little bill, the adult bill

is so long, so that has a lot of growing to do. We were extremely

excited, when we got our first glimpse, as I am sure many of you

were that were watching the live camera. Would you like the honour?

Of what? Give it a rub. We have been on tenterhooks here, because they

could have been predated. We have been waiting for that to happen.

What a fantastic thing. It took me two years to see an adult, I never

dreamed I would see some chicks. That is a story so far, what has

happened during the day? Let us have a look.

Here are the chicks in the nest. These chick, they behave quickly,

rather like adults, they are trying to help mum and dad build the nest.

There is one egg, it is not going to hatch, we don't think. Look at this.

Here come mum and dad. Giving them one of their very first meals.

Tiny little titbits being offered. Lovely and snug in there, both

parents, working together with the chicks. And we notice the chicks

quite quickly started to move round the nest, here is one again, trying

to help mum do a bit of nest building. Hours old.

They have this funny little red marks on their head, we didn't

expect them. We notice they started to explore rather dangerously and

they fell out of the nest. Here is mum picking one up. She picks up

another one in a minute. Another one came tumable out. Watch

carefully, that one disappear, mum has a look. But we need not have

worried because again, they are so precocious, they can walk back up

into the nest. As I say, only a few hours out of the egg there.

They are all snuggled up in the sunlight. Another one out! And both

parents very active nearby, there is a little picture of domestic bliss,

one adult preening the other, just brooding those little chicks.

Absolutely beautiful. We are so glad that didn't happen over the weekend,

because nobody really knows how long they stay in the nest, it is thought

that maybe a day, possibly two, and if that had happened tomorrow, we

wouldn't be able to show you it live on television. Let us see if they

are there, live, right now. Well, one of the parents is sitting

down. We can't see any of the chicks. There is something I wanted

to ask you Chris, why are the chicks black? All other ground nesting

birds have chicks that blend into the surroundings and they stick out.

It is a good question and a different one. I have been thinking

about it all day and talking to researches and we have scoured the

literature as it were. Some people think they are black to be

camouflaged. That doesn't wore for me. . Nor me.You would think they

would be brown coloured, like many ground nesting birds. I don't buy

into that one. I think that these are water bird that don't get wet.

These young birds don't have an active preen gland, so if they get

wet they can't oil their down to keep them dry, so I reckon if they

fall in the water, which as we have seen they are likely to do, they go

into the sun and the black plume imagine allows them to warm up

quickly, so it Stefan Koubek a thermal thing. Then there is the red

spot. What is that? Again, this is something that is common in all

rail, they all have moor hen, bald as a coot, it is because the

youngsters have naked red heads. We think that because they have a black

body, which is none December ciept, possibly because they want to stay

warm if they get wet, they need a target for the parents to see when

they want to feed them. So perhaps that patch on the head, is focussing

the parents' attention to they had and the beak of the bird. I had

another slight thought and that was, if they were in the sun and black

they would get too hot, so the sparse plumes on the head, and the

red colour, could be can pillories and they could be losing heat

through I now we are offering pure conjecture. It is interesting, but

all rails are black. What a success story, how fantastic to see these

birds out. They have always been vulnerable as they are ground

nesting ing, we have been saying in of the ground nest nesting species

are vulnerable. Earlier today our meadow pipits were under attack. We

had postulated that weasels and grass snakes were about. The chicks

are active. They cower down. And look what arrives.

Straight into the nest. A grass snake. And within just seconds it

seizes one of the chicks. It is quite an aggressive attack and it is

grasping that bird by the head. Grass snakes are not a constricting

species, it won't squeeze it, to kill it. It is going to hold it in

its jaws and swallow it. That is what it did. It snaked off out. The

parents came back, none of the other chicks remained in the nest, we

could still see the snake active. By this stage it has swallowed that

chick and it is looking for the other, which have scattered into the

surrounding vegetation. And the agitated adults, including a

stonechat which joined in, came back to mob the snake. The snake came

back, and was constantly sniffing round for about 20 minutes at least,

round the nest area, looking for the other chicks.

They will eat small birds if they happen across them like this, here,

as the snake leaves the nest, look very carefully and you can see the

tell-tale bulge in its body, where that chick is now resting.

Mustn't demonise the grass snake, this snake probably needs to put on

some weight because it will be laying egg, but look at this, it got

very bold, and started to think about attacking the adults. As well

as the youngster, that might look like a disaster, we had a whole nest

full of healthy chicks and now we have none, I can tell you it wasn't

a complete disaster, because they employed a strategy to protect the

remainor of -- remainder of the young. The chicks have to play to

win and win is survive. It certainly is. It is fascinating to watch. It

looks like a disaster but it is not really. Grass snake gets that one,

but watch what the others do, they are old enough now to explode out of

the nest. Watch carefully now, one will leap out. It goes out

backwards. Straight at the camera that one, I think there is two left

in the nest now. What are, the grass snake flicks back into the nest,

bashing them. One of them, boldly treads on the snake's back. One more

runs out towards the camera, so luckily, they were old enough to

escape, that snake will have a real job now, looking for those

youngsters because they will be round the nest, but further away, it

will hunt round and the parents will be able to continue feeding them. So

maybe luckily they were old enough, it is not such a disaster: If they

were younger and they couldn't have scattered the snake would have eaten

all of them. So the adults will be going back in, they are probe spread

in an area of five to six metres and they will be being fed. Amazing

behaviour. You have to feel sorry for the chick that got it. You have

to. It is about one of those birds perhaps surviving, that is what it

is about. To see it was extraordinary. . I have waited a

lifetime to see that. We will keep an eye on the live cameras tonight.

For anything like that. Who knows, if anything like that happens during

the programme, we will try to go to it live and see it live. And you, of

course, can follow the cameras, 24 hours a day, a day and night and go

hours a day, a day and night and go to our website.

Or on red button, they are up all the time. We have got Iolo Williams

live with us, and he is going to be looking at a fantastic bird on an

extraordinary bird feeding table, he is at a farm about an hour away in

is at a farm about an hour away in that direction.

Welcome to the farm on a beautiful June evening. Look round me, there

is hardly a cloud in the sky. This place is rightly famous, as a

feeding station for Wales' national bird. The red kite. Every year, for

over 20 years now, Chris Powell and his father before him have fed the

birds here, at 2.00 in the afternoon in winter, 3.00 in summer.

But a few days ago, for one day only, there was a new kite feeder in

So what is so special about red kites? Their impressive wing span

and small bodies allow them to float through the air with barely a wing

beat. That forked tail, when twisted from side the side, gives them great

manoeuvre rabbit. Oman noofrability.

I started working for the RSPB back in 1985, if grow saw two or three

kites in theary air it was a red letter day. Look at this, surrounded

by kite. Some of these birds come here from

over 40 miles away. They are here for one thing. Food.

Look at this. Coming in to feed with probably 2 hundred kites overhead.

An incredible feeling. Kits are mostly scavenger, feeding

on the carrion of any small mammal or bird. Raw chicken, beef or lamb,

complete with bones and skin, provides them with everything they

need. What happens at this farm is not

that different to natural feeding that different to natural feeding

That was real treat. I reckon if this telly business doesn't work, I

will get a new job there! They say not to work with children

and animal, I would add tractors on the that list. The birds are fed in

the afternoon, and it is the evening now of course, but we have asked

Chris to put some food down in the hope we might be able to attract

some later on. The history of kites throughout the UK, is like all birds

of prey, a sad one, a history of persecution, you go back to the

Middle Ages and they were a common bird, 100 years ago they had been

hunted in England Scotland and Ireland and a mere handful survived

in mid -Wales. Now they were protected, they increased slowly,

painfully slow at time, and even when I joined the RSPB in 85 there

were maybe 40 to 45 pairs less, left, so scientists decided it was

time to rein to produce them back in to their former haunt, one of the

areas was into the Chiltern, that was back in 1989 and the early 90s.

I wanted to go back there, to see how the birds were getting on.

Something special is happening in the skies above in Chinna. The red

the skies above in Chinna. The red kite breeding season is underway.

Remarkably, across the village, receipt kites are nesting in and

around people's gardens. There is a pair settling in at the

rektory. -- rectory. In another garden

nearby, high up in the branches, a pair of receipt kites is mating.

They will meat many times before laying their eggs.

It is the fifth day of nesting in the tree. They stay here all year

round. The male is easily identified by his left foot.

-- it's dangling. With so many kites in the skies, there is a lot of

competition for the nest sites. This pair has the best nest scythe in the

whole village. With so many kites in town, the male

bird sometimes has to defend his territory from rivals.

And these sparring matches are spectacular.

With talons locked, the tumbling battles sometimes end up with both

birds crashing into the ground. Spectacles like this are becoming a

part of every day life in this very special village.

Well, now there are so many kites down in that area that they are

fighting for territories. Now let's have a look at the ling. It is

spectacular. What happens is two males come together, they lock

talons and cartwheel down. Look at that. I remember being a kite warden

in 1989, I saw two males doing this in the sky. They cartwheeled into a

tall larch, all the way down through the branches and they separated only

as they were about to hit the ground. It an incredible thing for

me to watch. Who would have thought, way back in the RSPB days, that I

would be seeing kites nesting in people's back gardens? Well, these

are what I will be doing later on in the programme.

What a fabulous success story, the receipt kites. -- the red kites it

is fabulous to see them doing so well.

It is. The most common bird then by a long

way was the kestrel, but they have crashed. Last week we launched our

Springwatch survey with the slogan, kestrel's count. If you go to the

website, you will find a guide to kestrels. You can post your

sightings. We have had a great response. Over 25,000 people have

visited the website. Over 14 sightings that average at one a

minute. They come from Sydney, Kazakhstan, the United States and

Madagascar. All sorts of people have been posting them. A man running for

a train. He missed it but spotted the kestrels and posted it. One,

Tiffany, has a kestrel nesting above her bedroom. Another lady was

looking out of the window while Springwatch was on, and she posted

that too. Gosh! Red kites in the garden, on

the window sill, how amazing? ! This week we have you to ground nesting

birds, the willow warbler, the stonechat, the grasshopper warbler.

If you look here, you could be forgiven for getting them confused.

Let's look at the chicks. These are the grasshopper warbler. They are 11

days old, there are five of them. They could fledge at the weekend.

Here are the willow washlers. They are smaller but also 11 days old.

They have the great tufty ears. What about the stonechat? Not sure how

many chicks are in there but there is a bake poking out. They are also

11 days old. A small chance that they could fledge at the weekend.

Now, it is easy to get the chicks and the nests muddled up but not so

easy to get the adults muddled up. The grasshopper warbler is streaky

brown olive with the light marks on its oil hif-coloured chest. The will

willow warbler is not as streaky, a pale yellow chest with yellow

tinges, but the stonechat is much browner. The male and the female

look different. You can tell them apart. I now know it is confusing

when you only see the nests and the chicks.

The basic structure of the nests is made of grass and they are in grass.

The lining is different. There are feathers' in the stonechat's nest,

but the question is that all birds are nesting on the ground, feeding

on the same stuff. How do they achieve that? They have to space

themselves out it is what we call niche separation. Look at this

stonechat. When the bird is foraging it sits on a perch. It is

nationalally about 1 metre off the ground. From here it can scan the

environment for prey. It will then jump down and grab a hold of it now

what about ill willow warblers? They are feeding in the same place but

not same structure. They are in the trees, in the bushes. They are

gleaning caterpillars here. You can see that this one has found one. So,

yes, a similar diet, and yes, nesting in the same place but a

different foraging environment. Look at the grasshopper warbler. This is

extraordinary. Here is a bird that spends most of its time walking on

the ground! It is an honourary mouse this bird. It has a bill of food

there but walking around looking for a completely different set of

insects. That is why they can all live here, they are catching things

that are different it is stalking, even ducking under the grass. Look

on the left-handside of the screen, you can see its little head peep out

it is looking for grubs that the willow warbler would never find and

the stonechat would only find if they came tonne the surface. That is

how the niche separation is working. Well, three ground fledgeling birds,

they may fledge at the weekend, but this one it is the grasshopper

warbler. They don't look active there, do you they? But throughout

the day we have seen the largest chick active. He has been preening,

stretching, but they are sleeping now but they have had so many feeds.

13 feeds between 5.00pm last night and the same between 6.00am and

7.00am. I think that they will go. They are

a species that leaves the nest before they can fly. Keep your eye

on them over the weekend. Now, from birds to bees. It is

tempting to think that we know all about the most common things around

us, but as this film proves, we actually don't. On a sunny spring

day, the meadows, gardens and parks are a hive of activity. Squadrons of

bees going about their business. Flitting from flower-to-flower,

seemingly at random, but there is method to the madness. You see bees

are smarter than you might think. To us a flower inted a delightful array

of colour and suss -- subtle scents, but to a bee, it is a kaleidoscope

of stimuli. A highway of billboards, advertise advertising -- advertising

everything that a bee may need. For over 2,000 years, since Aristotle's

time, we have been grappling with the complexity of the relationship

between the flowers and the insects. Here they have been unearthing

supercharged secrets of the world of bees.

There is a host of ways that the flooufr advertise to bees. The --

that the flowers advertise to bees. There is the colour, the shape of

the flower, the scent that the flower producing and also the

texture of the petal. The sheens between the petals.

The more that the flowers advertise themselves, the more likely that a

bee will be to land on that particular species.

The bees get a sugary reward of Nectar. The flower gets to transfer

its pollen, to hopefully reproduce, but more recently, Heather

discovered that bees can sense a queue on the flowers. She set up an

experiment. A colony of bumblebees as access to a flight arena,

containing ten identical flowers but there is is a difference. Five

contain a sugary drink that the bees love. The other five contain a less

appealing drop of quinine. We use identical flowers so that there is

no ways that the bees can tell the difference between a flower

containing the sugar or the flower containing the quinine. So without a

stimulus, do the bees learn which has the reward? If they don't have

the stimulus, they will forage randomly, and then be dismayed at

the taste of the quinine. But when Heather placed a charge on

half of the flowers, only the ones with the sugary reward, their

behaviour changed dramatically. What we find is that then the bees

start to learn which flowers are worth visiting, ie, they start to be

able to learn just to visit the sugar-containing flowers and avoid

the quinien flowers. So this tells us that the bee can without landing

on the flower, tell whether it is charged or no.

Bees' senses are sensitive and attune to floral queues, but the

fact that they were this sensitive to electric fields was not known

before. We repeated the experiment many times to check that this was

happening. We were that surprised. So we know without a doubt that bees

condetect electric fields but what does this have to do with flowers

and bees? A lot. A bee is positively charged as it

flies through the air. So like a car or plane it gain as positive charge.

The flower is grounded in the soil but growing in the atmosphere is

negatively charged. When the two charged objects meet

magic happens. Back in the bee lab all is revealed.

The charge passing through the flower is measured on a scope.

Without bees present it remains at a constant level. When a bee

approaches the flower you can see that things change.

The positively charged bee causes the charge on the flower to

fluctuate, but only briefly. But if the bee lands, the circuit is

complete and the bee's electric field discharges on to the flower,

affecting the flower's electric field for a longer period, up to a

minute or two and other bees may use this information to their advantage.

When a bee lands on a flower and drinks the Nectar it leaves queues

to the pollinators, both scent marks and electrical queue queues that

let's other pollinators know that the flower has been visited and

probably does not have Nectar. So a flower with an auto charge is

likely a flower without food. The savvy bees learn to fly by,

optimising their foraging strategy and saving vital energy to find a

more suitable flower. Now that is clever.

What a fantastic bit of research. That was really clear. That shows

that the bees are a handful of animals that have that electric

sense, they can detect electric fields. On a personal note, I would

like to say, by coincidence, my son, Alexander, works in that laboratory.

Proud dad! Any way, it goes to show that there is still fascinating

things to discover about even some of our most familiar creatures, like

the bees. Now we all know that honey bees are in trouble, and bumblebees,

but there is something you can do, especially with the bumblebee. You

can build a bumblebee home. There are instructions on how to do that

in this book let here. You can download the book let with the

instructions from the website at: Now, back to micro world.

Imagine if you will you have turned into perhaps a little newt, and you

have gone in, you have plunged into this cool, watery wonned world here,

and you are swimming round, how lovely it would be, but maybe not so

lovely, because if you you remember, we discovered there was serious

predators down there, including the dragonfly larvae. Now we saw the

larva, it is voracious with an explosive jaw, and it can grab hold

of things like tadpoles, and this one poor is being sucked away into

oblivion. It is like an alien creature, a space creature, would

you believe me, if I was to say, there is an even more arguably

voracious predator in these waters? Let us have a look at it. This is

the great diving beetle. It is, this is the larvae of the

great Daiing beetle. Have a look at it. It has extraordinary jaws, like

are like needles. It is injecting them into this poor may fly larva.

And it is injecting enzymes in, digesting it and turning it into a

sort of soup. Sucking it back up, drinking basically, what is the

inside of the larva. You can see black dots there. When it is

finished sucking out all the juices, it drops it like a crushed crisp

packet. Poor thing! Now I am going to take

my life in my hands. That was the larva. Here we go. Now this, is the

adult great diving beetle. That is what that larva is going to turn

into. Chris and I were arguing about it. We don't know whether this has

just strong jaws, it could have a go at me. This can fly as well. But

they generally, it is thinking about it. But they can generally fly in

the evening, so I think we are fairly safe. This is the adult, very

carnivorous, great diving beetle. Let us look into its life in more

detail. Here we go.

There it is. This is still the larva, and there it is. This time it

is sucking out the juices from an unfortunate tadpole there. See those

jaws again, what happens is the larva disappears out the water, it

buries itself in mud, and changes into the adult. This is the adult

diving beetle. It is covered in unpleasant film. It looks like

mould. It makes it unplaitable to possible predators, this is a

female. The stripes on her back told tell you she is female. The male is

smooth on his back. You can see the leg, they are very fast. The back

legs are modified into flipper, and that allows them to move incredibly

quickly through the water. So there is the great diving beetle.

All of that has been filmed in our macro lab, right here over the last

couple of day, those guys are really delivering. More of that next week.

But now, it is back to Iolo and the kites.

I am making my way up into one of the many hides that have been built

here to accommodate the general public, bird watchers and

photographers who come to see the birds being fed. Despite the food is

out, there aren't many birds in the air. That is hardly surprising, now

is the time they should be settling down, go into roosts, and preen. We

have our cameraman who has his lens trained on a buzzard on top of a

tree at the moment. Are there any kites or just the buzzard? This is

not unusual. What the birds do in the afternoon, the kites

particularly, they will perch in trees and wait for the crows to come

down, they will wait for the raven, rook, once they know they are

feeding it is safe for them to come down. As numbers increase here, and

we have huge number, some time, they are moving into new areas and you

worry about how they will be accepted there. I went down to the

village of Chinnor to meet one resident who is delighted with the

new neighbours. There are so many kites here. You

don't know where to look next. Despite the fact that I am in the

middle of a housing estate, at the top of that pine tree there, is a

kite's nest. How incredible is that, it is in one's back garden.

-- someone. Lynn and her family moved in five years ago.

They have grown used to their unusual neighbours.

We are blessed aren't we, to have such wonderful creatures in the

garden, so close to us. Most people look out of their window and see

bluetits and black birds and sparrow, we look out and this, there

is the kite again. This is the same pair of birds we

filmed building their nest here earlier in spring.

Something wrong with his foot or leg. I am noot sure. We have

nicknamed him limpy. This year things haven't gone smoothly or

Lynn's neighbours. Their clutch of eggs has failed to hatchment for

them, the breeding season is over. A few days ago, we sent a licensed

team up the tree to find out what went wrong and they took a couple of

photos of the adult -- the egg, a peek inside the nest is very

revealing. There are one or two things that

belong to you. Is that your dishcloth? Yes.Is it? That is

hilarious. What is worst, the second picture, look at this. What is that?

Is that a cuddly toy? Yes.Is that a teddy? That is a teddy. How sweet.

Best not show the girls they have their toys up there. That is

fascinating. What is incredible, there are tales from 3 hundred, 400

years ago of kites taking ladies underwear, taking towels and using

it to line the nest. Just anything. Anything warm, wool, clothes, sock,

cuddly toy. So I will have to climb the tree to get that one. You are on

your own with that one. How wonderful would that be, to

share your back garden with red kites, it would mean your nuthatch,

great spotted woodpeckers and sparrowhawks would pale into

insignificance. It is interesting to compare that with the Chilterns, the

kites are confide, they are not afraid of the people. In Wales they

tend to nest in the more out of the way, the more isolated woodlands,

they really do avoid humans. Or maybe it is just the Welsh they

don't like! Who knows? They are the come back king, to go for six pairs

to over 2,500 pairs, is absolutely remarkable. They were voted the bird

of the last 100 years because of this remarkable come back they have

made. When you join me later on, I will be looking at whether it is

their versatility that is the secret of this bird's successful

A red kite nesting in the garden would be pretty smart, but a live

rather wail and its chicks on TV isn't bad. This is what we have add

the moment. There is a little beak there,

peeping out beneath what we presume is the female's beak. She is

brooding that group of chick, here we are, there they are.

They are going to stay here overnight. The big question will be

for those watching over the weekend, will they stay there tomorrow night?

The books it says up to 48-hours before they leave. . She is getting

up, we can see them. There we are. It is amazing. Fingers cross they

will stay until Monday, though it is probably unlikely. They are all

coming out now. Look at that. a little yawn. Water rail live on TV

isn't as good as half a water rail on your T-shirt. Let us take a look

live, at our jackdaw, we have been following this family of jackdaws in

the barn, they are in a nest box, there are two chicks and they have

been constantly attacked by these invadersers this happened today. It

happened three time, in they come. They are having another go at the

chicks which are fighting back. But look what happens now.

One of the adults comes in, gets rid of them but it gets stuck, in some

nesting material, it gets completely tangled. It is struggling to get

free. If it can't get oat it is a disaster

but thank goodness it escape, but if it hadn't been ab to get out and the

intruder had come back in, that could have been the end. It would

have been stuck. . Let us sigh what they are doing now, live.

They are looking pretty good. In fact, I reckon that is the best we

ooh have seen them in ages. It is probably a week before these

two chicks fledge, but they are looking strong, healthy, they are

feeding well, despite all those attacks. . This drama has elicited

the greatest response. I had a tweet at lunchtime who suggested we get up

on the roof with an air rifle and every time, I am serious, not the

kill them, when they come we take a shot. I am not sure guns on the roof

is the answer. If I did, I would have the police on my back. I

thissing about this, it is not just this nest of jackdaws, these are

highly social animal, there is another nest close to it. It is

another nest box, up in the barn. Very close to the nest box which has

had this constant attack, and if we go inside that, there is one chick

there, being tended by the parent. Let us look at some of the activity

that has been go ocean none this nest box.

The adults have been in constant attendance, bringing in plenty of

food for that youngster. This is when it was young and you

can see they are busy visiting the nest, the extraordinary thing is it

is just a few metres away, from the nest box which has been constantly

Harried by those intruders, yet they have only been in here once or twice

and they have only stayed a couple of seconds. You can see that that

chick has grown rapidly. It is getting all the food to itself. It

is well on its way to fledging. What this suggests is this pair, the one

with the one chick is hiring up the social order, and those cheeky

intruders don't have the temerity to turf that pair out. That is how it

works in jackdaw society. But keep an eye on thompl the weekend. That

one might fledge. The others will probably be there on Monday. Another

Ood bird that lives in a community are the long tailed tits. They are

fabulous looking birds, that build cosy nests, we are going to give you

an amazing glimpse into their secret lives.

It is mid-April in the valley, a few miles west of Sheffield.

For 20 year, scientists from Sheffield university have been

studying the secret world of a population of long tailed tits here.

They have made some astonishing revelations about the lives of these

little birds. As their common name suggest, they

have the longest tail in proportion to their body, of any British bird.

But they are tiny. Weighing barely nine grammes, which

makes them very vulnerable to low temperatures.

Despite the cold in the valley, one pair of long tailed tits has started

building a nest in a Holly bush. This is the male. And we know he

nested in the area last year. However, all his eggs were taken by

predators. It is the first time he has paired

one this female. She also attempted breeding last

year with another partner. But her chicks died because of the cold, wet

weather. This year the pressure is on to

succeed. Long tailed tit nests are some of

the most elaborate of any species in the UK.

This pair started building about five days accuse and have created a

bag like outer cases of moss and grass and this this case sheep's

wool. It is a laborious process, that

drains these tiny birds of energy this this cold weather.

The different building materials are elab ratsly woven together with silk

from spider cocoons. -- elaborately. The female using her

beak to unravel the silk into stretchy strands, that act as a

binder with other materials. Far from being alone in the valley,

the pair is part of a population of long tailed tit, many of which are

related to each other. Some of the others are further along

with their nest building. They are gathering feathers to line the

interior of their nest. This pair have built their nest in a bramble

patch, just a metre off the ground. They are bringing in feathers by the

beak fful. The male bred successfully last year after three

failed attempts but the female is only a year old. It is her first

breeding season. They take it in turns to gather

feathers from the surrounding wood lank.

-- wood lank. No easy task when they are buffeted by a chill wind. It

will take up to 2,000 feathers to line the nest and properly insulate

it. This is the finishing touch, by the time it is complete, a pair of

long tailed tits may have flown up to 700 miles gathering materials for

it! After only two weeks of building and lining, the holly tree nest is

also finished and the female has laid the first of the ten eggs that

will complete her clutch. It's been a Herculean task. It's been a huge

expenditure of energy to get this far and yet they successfully faced

their first big challenge, but there will be more.

The harsh reality is that three-quarters of long tailed tit

nests are destroyed by predators. This fate has befallen a nest

nearby. The nest has been ripped apart and all of the eggs have been

stolen away. The odds are stacked against the

holly bush family. Ly. Also the bramble family in survival, but they

have a unique strategy to help them cope with what lies ahead.

Intimate views there and the second part of that story we will see next

week. There is more. Look at this... That is amazing that nest. When you

see it in the hand you can see the lychen, and the moss. There is the

hole that the birds go in and out of. We have not been in this one...

I will be gentle. Michaela but let's see what feathers... That is a

handful. There is a pheasant feather, a male

pheasant breast feather. Here is is a wood pigeon feather. This plum

agenda looks like a duck feather, it could be a mallard feather. This one

has been shopping around. There is a tiny blue feather, that has come

from, well, that is tricky. It could have come from a duck. A great range

of species in that. Up to 2,000 feters in a nest. Amazing and all

bit in two weeks. Absolutely gorgeous. Let's check up

on a common garden live, our common blackbird. They are doing well. They

lost a chick earlier in the week but the rest are looking strong. They

have grown a lot, there is a reason for that, they are being fed very

well. Look at this, the male comes in it cannot get any more food in

that beak. That is an astonishing amount of food! It does not know

what to do with it all. The female is looking, thinking I fancy some of

that myself. Take some, well, begging from the male, now she is

thinking, shall I nab that for myself? Or do the right thing and

give it to one of the chicks? Well, it is as the mother's know, the

chick got it in the end. She did, but some birds are more

equal than others, birds like red kites for instance.

Welcome back to the farm here where it is a beautiful evening but the

sun is about to dip below the horizon. We have been talking about

the resurgence of the red kite. From over half a dozen pairs to over

2,500 today. I saw a bird of prey, that is a question I am asked but

what was it a bud arred or a red kite. The rule of them is, if it is

a view like this it is almost a buzzard. Here are the buzzards on

the floor. Here is a buzzard in the air. This is the key, the fairly

long wings but the tail is short and rounded. Comparing that to the kite,

here it is, very long wings, five-and-a-half feet across and the

tail, the long, forked tail. What is interesting here is that the

buzzards, they will land to feed. The kites will not. They come down,

they skim the surface, they pick up the food and they will travel away

with that, feeding on the wing or up in the trees. These kite feeding

stations have been very important in kite conservation in Wales.

Especially in the winter. They have helped a lot of young birds to

survive the harsh where are, but with the birds increasing in areas

like the Chilterns, it begs the question, then, do they still need

our help today? Ian Carter was involved in the project of

introducing kites to the Chilterns in the 1990s.

Did did you think that the reintroduction would be this

successful, Ian? No, I didn't. A lot of people were pointing to the

surviving birds in Mid Wales, saying that the birds need remote wide

openen spaces away from people, it turned out to be nothing of the

sort. The birds are doing so well, here in a place where there are

large numbers of people. So, no, we did not think that 20 years on, we

would be thinking of -- talking of in ex-cress of 1,000 birds.

It is not surprising that the birds are doing well here. There is a rich

range of wildlife. Source of carrion is potential food for a red kite. So

there is lots of natural food here for the kites, but in the Chilterns,

some residents have been -- become so attached to the kites that they

are feeding them every day. It is extraordinary.

I can understand why people enjoy being at such close quarters with

these wonderful birds but is feeding red kites in your back garden really

a good idea? There are mixed views. Some are saying that is unnatural,

but on the other hand, people are used to putting food out in their

garden for a whole range of other species if it gives people a chance

to appreciate the birds close to and bring them into the gardens, in some

respects it is maybe no bad thing. Feeding red kites, whetherever you

mention that it opens a can of worms. Even in Wales. People say

surely it is artificial? But no it is not. Going back to the Middle

Ages, red kites would scavenge over middens, picking up rats and mice

and rotten meat. They are useful birds. In the Chilterns, the advice

that is given is not to feed the birds, but if you do do, put out the

right food. Salted meat could kill the birds. They need raw meat with

feather, and also bones in there, but the one thing that feeding kites

has done is to give us wonderful opportunity to use our slow motion

You know what, it is only when you see them in slow motion, close up

like that, that you appreciate how agendaile and how elegant that bird

is. Let's have a look at that and talk you through some of the

features there. Look at them, they will often dive down from a height

of five to ten metres, folding back the huge wings. Then as they come

down, at the last minute they fan out the wings, fan out that huge

long tail. They act as air bricks. Here is one, every feather is

rippling on its back. Stunning birds. The sun is shining off the

rusty red tail and somehow they avoid colliding with each other.

They are absolutely amazing birds. Look at that, aren't they beautiful?

What is odd is that there have been so many people involved in kite

conservation over 100 years, my role has been minuscule but when I see

the kites recolonise, it does make fee feel incredibly proud.

Lovely. Thank you very much, Jonno. One thing, we are having that very,

very slow motion rar, the high-speed camera, here with us next week to

try to capture some unusual behaviour. So let's go quickly now

to the live cameras. Here with are with the water rail. Look at that.

Snuggling down for the night underneath mum. That must abhigh

light of Springwatch this series. So maizing to see.

They look terribly perk perky -- That must be a height light this

season, amazing to see. Now the redstart. This is a big

brood. Eight chicks in there. They have been fed really well. They are

growing. Amazing really. At the West end of the week we still have all of

the chicks. Thinking of all of the chicks that

will be fledging over the next few days, these could be the last to go.

Here we are... Look that yellow gape! We have nearly come to the end

of week two. We are back for week three on Monday at 8.00pm, but it

has been an incredible week. A lot of excitement. Lots of drama, a few

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 54 seconds

surprises and a bit of science. Great. We are keeping an eagle eye

on our nest over the weekend. Especially the water rail nest. What

is going to happen? Hopefully they will pull through. We will learn new

science by watching them. And coming up next week, we are

looking at urban gulls. The city dwellers and also one of Britain's

beautiful mammals by far, foxes. Keep watching the cameras online.

That is the place to go. Watch for Springwatch Extra. We are back on