Episode 2 Springwatch

It might be wet, but it's certainly wonderful. The RSPB's Minsmere

reserve is bursting with life. Our spirits are up. We have only just

begun and we are already getting to know our animal characters. From the

feisty fox on the grassy plains, to the Audrey Hepburn of the bird

world, the gorgeous avocet. Tonight, we are bringing you an

ornothological enigma. What a bird! For me, it is tales of the

unexpected. I'm going down to the reed bed to immerse myself in - it

is wild, it is wet, it is Springwatch!

Hello and welcome to Springwatch 2014. Programme two coming to you

from the wonderful RSPB Minsmere reserve, not only one of the finest

reserves in the country, but I dare to suggest one of the best nature

reserves in the world. Why are we here? To uncover more of its secrets

and surprises and a lot of new science, that is our mission. Let's

look at the site. Here it is. 1,000 hectares of a specially-sculpted

landscape. The RSPB have been working on it since 1947. It has got

beach, dunes, all of that reed bed you can see there snaking away into

the heart of Suffolk. Alongside it, woodland, grassland, it really is a

tremendous place to be. Look, I'm not a bloke who minces his words.

Can you take some advice? If you have any friends who are not

watching this, tell them to turn over now! We have one of the most

magnificent programmes coming up tonight. If the kids have gone to

bed, get them up, drag them downstairs. We have stuff tonight

that will burst your brain! It is an exciting and dynamic new location

and it brings us a wonderful new cast of characters. What I love

about Springwatch is we never know how the live dramas are going to

unfold and which of those animal characters are going to be this

series stars. We have already got a contender. It is from last night. It

is our badger. Our climbing badger, that is doing a jolly good

impression of a bear. This is really unusual behaviour. I would say that

is Badger's Got Talent! I love it. I like the sound it is making. It's

been a bit damp here today. Just a bit! It has been thrashing it down!

Never mind. Never mind about us. What has that meant for our animals

here? Well, here is the rain. Birds have got some defence. They have a

preen gland and they can cover their feathers with oil. You can see how

those droplets are sitting up on the avocet. The deer, they have guard

hairs, they will be protected a little bit. The poor rabbit. Aww! It

doesn't look like it's got any protection at all. It's soaked! Not

a happy bunny! If you want to keep out the rain, you want to be inside,

like those chicks. They will have to come out the next

couple of days. They would be fools to fly out today! Who would be out

in this? All this water, it is going down, draining down there to the

reed beds. Down in those reed beds is arguably one of the most

exciting, thrilling, thunderous birds that we have ever had on

Springwatch. It is down there in the reed beds. I am going to go down

there now and try to explore its watery world. Will you excuse me?

Good luck! Now, he's gone, we might as well get cosy! Let's go straight

in. You will know that one of the avocets' nests was in danger of

being immersed. It had chosen a precarious spot in the middle of a

rapidly-rising lagoon. Well, last night, parts of East Anglia had 2.

-- 2.5 centimetres of water. Let's see what happened. It's just as

predicted. The water continued to rise. It is quite interesting to see

that the bird is doing what it has probably been doing for a few days,

looking for more nest material to raise the level of the nest. They

will do this if water comes up. A typical avocet nest is 2.5

centimetres high. They will build them up to 15 centimetres if the

material is available. But very sadly, by the look of it, the

material wasn't available and now that those eggs are half immersed in

water, they are chilled and the chances of her raising 2.4 children

have gone! Shame. It is a shame. Real shame. What about our one now?

We have another nest. Look at this one. This one has chosen a slightly

higher nesting point. And it's about 15 or 20 centimetres up. This one

will be secure. Both adults have been diligent today in the rain in

terms of their incubation, not letting those eggs chill. As Martin

was saying, you can see the effects of the preen gland, how waterproof

this bird is. I'm looking at this, this could be a male. The only way

of telling the difference between a male and female avocet is the length

and curve of the bill. If they are not side by side, it can be

difficult. That looks like a long, curvy bill. It looks like a better

place to nest. Do you think the other pair were an inexperienced

pair that chose the wrong location? They could be. When you looked at

it, it was already surrounded by water so they had chosen the highest

point. It might well be, as you suggest, they were inexperienced,

not able to choose - they are quite territorial. You could be right. The

rain has proved a challenge for some of our birds, but for some of our

mammals, it's been a bonanza of food. Especially for one of our

badgers. This is quite interesting. This is the first time we have seen

a badger in the warren sett since we put our Springwatch cameras up. It

is very wet. But that fur is thick, it is clearly foraging for food.

What's interesting is what is the food? As we found out yesterday, the

soil here is very sandy, which isn't good for earthworms, which is what

you would expect the badger to be eating. The rain has certainly

brought lots of food out. There's a mouse hopping by. Badgers will catch

mice, so that could be on the menu. Frogs, a lot of them out in the

rain. Also, a tasty snack for badgers. Newts. It is quite a rich

diet that they have here. Those are all things that that badger might be

enjoying. Yes, they can eat all sorts of things. If they can't get

hold of those worms, that is. With the rain that we have had, that

might be bringing the few worms that are here to the surface. They are

not going to pass over a frog. It is not just the badgers that are

enjoying a bounty of food. Out on the Minsmere grasslands, there is

also a drama that's been going on. This is fascinating to watch. This

is the waterhole which brings a lot of creatures down, especially some

of the rabbits. Look at this. This is a fox. He's spotted something.

Keep your eye on the left-hand side of the screen.

You can see the rabbit. The fox trying to get it, run, rabbit, run!

The rabbit gets away. The fox is using its eyes and ears. Now, it is

following the scent of that rabbit down there. It can't see these

rabbits through the gorse. It's got to be listening for them. Look at

the ears going backwards and forwards. Then you can see it is

looking around, where's the rabbit gone? Listening again. Look at the

ears twitching. The nose sniffing. It was not going to give up. It was

going to get its dinner. The cameraman watched that for 20

minutes. Then it leapt in. Look what it has come out with. It caught the

rabbit. Caught the rabbit. If you look closely, it's limping, which is

hardly surprising... Jumping in-and-out of gorse bushes! One of

those thorns has gone in its paw. Who knows, is it going to eat it?

Well, that's a good question. Dog foxes will do that, too. I'm a bit

worried now, it's got a thorn in its foot. The balance between predatory

and prey is so fine that a limp might be enough to stop you from

catching enough rabbits. That fox will have to chew that thorn out.

Last night, at the end of the programme, I announced that today we

were going to have a special species. It was a bit too much. I

induced a birth in Birmingham and a dog started barking in Kent and

hasn't stopped! I was tremendously excited about a bird that once you

have seen it, it creeps into the dark heart of your soul, where it

takes on a supernatural grip. I wanted to see this bird and so did

Martin. It is a bird that you tend to hear before you see and you have

to go to the right spot. So a month ago, we came to the right spot here

at Minsmere. This is what we heard. An unbroken, soft blanket of reeds.

Beautiful, isn't it? It is lovely. This is a hotspot for bitterns. At

this time of year, they will come out on the edge of these pools and

they come out of the reeds. You can see them there. This is a bittern.

They are like that. You are not miserable enough. Hold on.

They are like an old bloke in a filthy jacket out in the reeds, like

they are choking on a biscuit or something like that! Chris isn't

selling these birds, but they are near the top of most bird-watchers'

wish-list. Why is that? It is because they are extraordinarily

difficult to see. They mimic the vegetation and that makes them hard

to spot. In fact, you are more likely to hear them because bitterns

have an unmistakable call which for full effect is best heard an hour

before sunrise. Chris? Chris? This is more like it.

I feel like we have crept into the soft heart of Minsmere. The sound

can travel three or four miles. That is the whole point of it being such

a low frequency so it travels over a great distance in an open

environment. They are the only sort of birds to make that sort of low

sound. They do beef themselves up. They take on strength of the muscles

in their throat. You can actually hear...

Oh dear. We lost our pictures there. That was before we heard the full

magic of the bitterns booming out here. Although they boom in early

spring, we have been hearing them booming out here in the reed beds

during the day. Now, what is that booming all about? We haven't

explained that. It is the males and they are being territorial. They are

very aggressive. What they are doing is, "Don't come anywhere near me,

this is my territory!" They are also calling in the female. Although you

can hear the male booming, the female booms, but very quietly. When

she comes into the le's territory, she booms to say, "It is me!"

Hearing them is not that difficult. Seeing them is a completely

different ball game. How do you see a bittern? We came here as we were

doing that film and we tried to see bitterns for an entire day. We

didn't see anything at all. That's happened to me loads of time. --

loads of times. We have got the RSPB to help us. They have been watching

for weeks before we came here and they have been watching - what they

do is they see a bittern flying in and if they see one flying in four

times in 24 hours to the same place, then they know it's nesting.

Way back, that was our dream, that we might be able to get a camera on

a bittern nest. After the RSPB had told us where the nests were, our

camera team went in and tried to creep in to get a camera on it. Did

we manage it? Well, of course we did! Thanks to all those people, we

can now go live for the first time to a bitterns nest. There it is. You

It is pouring with rain, she will be protecting whatever it is

underneath. Very cryptically coloured. When they stand up they

look like a string of reeds standing up. She looks a little bit

miserable. They are the most strange looking animals. I never thought I'd

see life into a bitterns nest. We will find out later what is

underneath, because we've been following her for some time. She's a

little further away from me now. As soon as we got the cameras we

started to follow the bittern. Let's have a closer look at one. As soon

as we began to observe her, we noticed some strange things. Look in

closely, she's got a rough on the back of her neck. Even Chris didn't

know that they did that. We are starting to find out new things

straightaway. When the bird has eyes up in the

air, they can look past their peak. They hold their heads vertically in

the air when they are hunting and then they plunge downwards. That is

the nest. We are going to see a lot more of them during the programme.

When you come back to me, I'm going to get out of the boat and into the

reed bed. There's nothing like really getting to know your subject

area. I'm going to try and out -- I and find out who and what is living

in here, along with the bitterns. Fantastic! In the 1920s and 30s,

people did look at bittern's nests. Then in the 1960s, a couple of

Germans did the same. Since then, hardly anyone has had these sorts of

views at all. The birds became so bred that the idea of putting a hide

anywhere near there was too risky, we didn't want to disturb them. But

now we can do that with our small, non-intrusive cameras. Let's see

what has been going on, because it is a nest and it had four eggs. Here

is the female turning those eggs to ensure they are evenly divided.

After a few days, one of them has started to open. The chicks soon

emerged. Still wet. You can see it through the reeds with those three

other eggs. They are laid at two or three-day intervals, and she begins

to integrate with the first egg. Which means they hatch very

synchronously. It was about three days later that this second one

started to open. Hello, hello, look at that! The next chick is on its

way out. It seems to have got its head stuck in the egg. She is

delicately trying to help it by removing the shell. It's like the

other chick is also trying to help. I think she is begging for food. She

is confusing the fact that the adult has her beak down, thinking she

might be regurgitating for food. When chief finally stands up, we can

see that there are chicks in the nest.

They are different colours. The one at the back is very dark. We've no

idea why that is. I've looked in all the books, all of the scientific

papers. There's very little reference to

what happens in a bittern's nests because they are so shy and

secretive and they simply haven't been watched. We are going to be

privileged to see things that have been seen by very few living humans

ever. That is unique footage. People come from miles around just to get a

tiny glimpse of them here. They certainly wouldn't get a shot like

that. Let's have a look at how much those chicks have grown over the

last few days. They started off as little fluff balls. They are not

particularly attractive chicks! Gorgeously ugly. And this is them

today. Look at that yawn! We are going to be seeing a lot more

of them. In comes the parent to give them a feed. You can see the dark

one on the right. We don't know whether that a male, female,

different colour morph. We've no idea why that is. Rather like the

other set, they are nesting quite close to the water and that nest is

quite a skimpy structure. It's about that high off the water. It's made

of reeds, which get sodden and sync. We are concerned with this rising

water level. We are. We've managed to get footage like that because

we've got cameras on those birds 24 hours a day. We've thrown a lot of

technology at it as well as the expertise of our cameramen. But

these days, getting footage like that isn't an exclusive thing. Lots

of people have cameras, lots of people film wildlife. Just an hour

and a half away from here in Essex is a man called Russell Savory, who

is absolutely passionate about filming the wildlife around his

rather unusual workshop. This is a great war aerodrome. The

first reason I came here was for my workshop. I'm a motorsport engineer

but it didn't take me very long to realise what a special place this

was for wildlife. I'm exchanging the spanners and motor for wildlife. We

have quite a few redundant buildings here, which is perfect habitat for

the owls. Its high intensity agriculture around here and this is

a fantastic oasis amongst it. Having a great passion for wildlife since

about five, I incorporated that in the plans and vision for the site,

really. I first realised there were water voles there when I was sitting

on a bench with a cup of tea. You hear that little plop. I thought,

wow, water vole! I always want a bit of a project for

the year and this year it is the water vole.

It's very interesting with the mini cameras and the perspective you can

get with those. It looks like he's done the fastest

50 metres possible, but the scale of that is only about ten feet. The

reeds, the great trees and the bank, it looks like a cliff. I was blown

away with the detail. What I've been doing lately is

getting down on the ground and getting the eyelevel shot. It

changes the photographs you get with that.

I stayed perfectly still and the water vole comes out to a little

island we've built for it. It's been great fun and quite

enlightening. I just wanted to get really close in so you can see the

feet, him gripping. It's that detail. Seeing the interaction

between the water voles. Some of them completely ignore one another.

They don't almost look at one another. Then occasionally, this

time of year with mating and everything else, they almost have a

bit of a fight on top of the reeds. It's been fascinating, absolutely

fascinating. The more time you put in, the luckier you get. It is not

instant gratification, that's for sure. The buzz that you get from

having a look sure. The buzz that you get from

whizzing through it to see what you get, it's almost like winning

Quite right, because if the lapwings were nesting around the area at the

lap dash that the marsh harrier might go for the chicks. This was

filmed right here in Minsmere. Up comes a duck, has a go at it.

Very sensible as well because it might well have taken those chicks.

That is the marsh harrier. Marsh harriers Will Best, and they have a

very fascinating way, the male feeds the female whilst she's sitting on

the nest. Here is the male. The female will be nesting down in

the reed beds. You can see the male has got to pray. I think that's a

chick in his talons. He will fly back and forth above the nest site.

He's trying to call up the female so she can take... Here she comes.

She's got it now. She will go back down into the nest with that prayed

to feed herself all the chicks. That's what's going on above the

reeds. But let's move down a level now. I said I was going in, you

didn't think I was going to but I am. Oh, that was a bit too far! If

you get down to water level, you might imagine other things around.

You could see maybe hanging on here a kingfisher. A kingfisher is a

beautiful little bird. Just hanging on at the top. There it is.

Every time I see a kingfisher it is a special day. Here is a heron

feeding on the fish. There are loads of this year. There is a pair of

authors here. We will meet them later in Springwatch. There's a

female and a club that been following. These reed beds have got

lots and lots of life. Let's go down another trophic level. I'm going to

go out now a little bit further. Not too far! I can feel under my

feet, it is all lovely and squishy. That is full of the baseline

animals. Today, we have been filming some of the little things that are

underneath my feet right now. We filmed these in our microworld. That

is a baby newt. I have 13 of these in a tank at home. It is fascinating

to watch them change into land-living creatures. That little

newt would love to eat those as would this stickleback.

Beautiful. Very small, very tiny. Relative to the size of the weed

there. Here is a water boatman. These are the algae. The key to all

this, of course, is these reeds here, and these can grow

fantastically fast. How do they do it? Well, let me have a look round.

There we go. You can see, here is the reed and here is the tuba that

grows out from it. It sends up another shoot there. That will go on

all year and you can get out five metres a year. It is a wonderful

thing. This, you can eat. Smells rather lovely. I will take it back

to Michaela and see if she is feeling a bit peckish! Looks

tasty(!) I was told that Suffolk was drier than Jerusalem. All I can say

is Jerusalem must be a very wet place! It seems like all the rain

over the North Sea has been dumped on us in the last 24 hours. But, all

this rain is good for the grass and what is good for the grass is

certainly good for the rabbits. We have established that there are

plenty of rabbits here. Particularly, at this time of the

year. Why? Well, because they breed like, well th breed like rabbits! We

don't normally get to see where they breed because they have their young

underground in the warren. Not always. We have another first for

you on Springwatch. We have a rather unusual above-ground rabbit nest in

a rather surprising place. This is the Springwatch production village,

the technical hub of Springwatch where all the edits happen. We have

the outside broadcast truck, the production office - it is where we

eat our meals! It is a hive of activity, so we were extremely

surprised when this morning a little nest was found right in here. I

think this could be the cutest nest we have ever had on Springwatch. If

I lift this, you can see... Oh look. It's a rabbit nest. Oh my word. That

is the cutest. Look at that. There's five, maybe. Very, very

cute. They have still got their eyes closed. We reckon they are under

eight-days-old. By ten days, those eyes will open, the ears will pop up

a little bit. Really, really unusual to have a rabbit nest aboveground.

We think that this is a subordinate female. She doesn't want to have her

babies in the warren because older females may come and eat those

babies. There will be a few different family groups, mothers and

babies in the warren. The big danger here is that somebody will come

along with their fork, put it in there and chuck it into the sweet

pony behind, which is how they were found in the first place. That is

what someone was just about to do this morning. They saw some

movement, had a look and found that gorgeous nest. The mother hasn't

been seen all day. That may be surprising but it is typical. What

happens is the mother will come in, like a Formula One pit-stop, and

just pump milk into them for just three minutes, so she will visit for

three minutes a day. It is called absentee parenting. They obviously

do alright on it. That is typical mother rabbit behaviour. What I'm

going to do is make sure that our security guard keeps an eye on this,

this mound of hay, makes sure that doesn't happen. Also, I will get the

camera guys to put cameras here so we can watch the progress of these

very cute cute kits over the next couple of weeks. That was a good

find. First for Springwatch! And on the doorstep. Exactly. We put our

cameras on that nest and this is what we got. Our nest-watchers had

to watch very closely. That mother comes back for two minutes in 24

hours. This was between 5.00am and 6.00am. She finds the nest. And lets

them suckle very, very quickly. There's a reason why that is so

short. Minimal visits means less chance of predators finding where

the nest is. They are highly predated. It is unlikely many

predators will come in. In one way, she's chosen a good spot. It is a

pit-stop every morning. She comes in and pumps milk into these little

kits. The milk that she puts into them is incredibly rich. It's got

202 kilo calories of energy per 100 grammes, or four times as rich as

cow's milk. Dolphins and fur seals have richer

milk. The richness in terms of fat, protein and nutrition means that

these things are putting on ten grammes a day. Their eyes will open

after ten days. They will be out of that nest in 18 days. They will be

weaned by 25. And I have to tell you, that within three months, that

little, short-eared bunny with the white stripe on its head will be

breeding itself. That is why there are so many out there. Hopefully, it

will be breeding, but as we have been saying, the mortality rate is

very, very high, about 75-92% of them will get to adulthood. We will

be keeping a close watch on them and hopefully, the fact that they are

breeding right by our production village, that might help them.

Indeed. We pride ourselves on Springwatch by not editing anything,

not censoring any of the things we see and record. Some of these can be

quite harrowing to watch. This is a crow predating a rabbit. It is quite

an unusual piece of behaviour. Crows feed on cereals. Taking live prey is

quite uncommon. It is probably chosen this particular rabbit

because it is a bit slower, maybe it was ill. Maybe it wasn't as good at

looking around. It's got hold of it. The adult rabbit couldn't protect

it. It's taken it out of the reach of that adult rabbit. I don't know

what is going on here in terms of how the crows learn to feed on this.

Maybe it's been feeding on roadside carrion and it's drawn an

association between the two. And now it's perfected the art of predating

fit, healthy, young rabbits. It finds it difficult to open them. But

if you think that is rotten for the rabbit, remember the crow. It plays

a valuable row in the ecology of this area and all across the UK and

it's got to survive, too, so have its young. The fact that it could

fly off with it, I found that astonishing. I know. It was carrying

it. I don't think it will carry it up into a tree. It is going to get

it out of the way of the other rabbits. A bit of an uncomfortable

watch. If you want something less gruesome, let's go back to our live

bluetits which are just behind us in a nestbox. Let's have a look at

them. They are all surviving pretty well. If you have a look, one thing

we noticed yesterday was the way that nest is, it means every time

the adult comes in, it goes in the right-hand corner. There doesn't

appear to be a runty chick. We were wondering what happens in between

feeds? We did a little experiment. We filmed the adult coming in. You

can see what sit doing. It is feeding the one at the front. Now,

we have an arrow on that front chick. We have sped up this footage

over three hours and look where that chick ends up. At the back and

different ones at the front. It is like a bluetit merry-go-round. Yeah.

Give me, give me. Sometimes they cycle to the right, they go

clockwise and sometimes they go anticlockwise. Maybe it is something

to do with the corialis effect! Do you believe that? I don't know. It

was interesting to see not how much they have grown, but also something

else. Have a look. This is them about five days ago, I think.

Listen, and listen to the now. Totally different vocalisation.

Yeah. You can see the change in size. But you can hear the change as

well. I wonder how that influences how she chooses to feed them. I was

reading today that sometimes they choose how to feed them by looking

at the ultraviolet reflectants of their feathers. I had an e-mail from

Patrick Barker, a farmer in Suffolk, he told me this year he had rung 12

broods of ten bluetits. Hopefully, if these ones do fledge

successfully, they will be adding to an increase in the population. Now,

if you were watching yesterday, you will know that I went in pursuit of

my namesake Chris the Cuckoo. Chris the cuckoo was marked three years

ago and has been going backwards and forwards from Africa. We have found

out that it went down to the Congo Basin, but before coming back to the

UK, it took a dogleg into West Africa. We wanted to know why this

was. So, I headed out there to find out and it was getting close to the

time that the cuckoo's bleeper on that satellite transmitter was going

to go off. While waiting for Chris the Cuckoo's

tag to give us his current location, Chris and I turned to a more

traditional technique. Chris has been trapping and ringing birds here

for several years. But with nearly 500 species resident

here, it is not long before I get my hands on one of the locals. I'm sure

you are going to enjoy this. This is a pygmy kingfisher. It is a very

brightly-coloured bird. But it's called a kingfisher. It doesn't

catch any fish. It's a small, woodland bird. I've got a pygmy

kingfisher. So have I! The next bird we catch may not be a cuckoo, but

their lives are inextricably linked. Chris, we have a reed warbler. They

are nice, aren't they? Potentially, that is a British bird, isn't it? It

could be. Of course, a host of the cuckoo. Yeah, absolutely. One of the

favoured hosts, particularly in the UK. Better stick a ring on that

bird. This bird has got no fat on it. By the time this bird is ready

to migrate, the whole of that area will be a pad of nobbly fat. You can

feel it is pretty flat across the sternum. That is good. On location

here, so good luck. Let's let him go. It turns out that we are not the

only ones on the look out for birds. Good morning, Sir. I see you are

armed. You have your catapult? Yes. To kill? Birds. To kill birds? What

sort of birds? Any birds. Small? Big? Have you seen these birds? Yes.

Within this year, he's seen one on the tree. Right. What I would like

to do, I'm going to put this over there on the path and I want to see

how accurate he is with his catapult. That is a cuckoo. That was

about the third shot. The cuckoo is one of our fastest

disappearing migrants. Until recently, it was easy to blame

changing conditions at home. But now we are realising that they face

threats in Africa as well. Armed with the latest data from Chris'

Taube, we can visit his last known location, and this should give us

precise insight into what these threats are. He was probably

roosting in one of these trees. The thing is, this area... I'd say it

was badly damaged. It is burnt on a regular basis, most of the large

trees have been taken out, but Chris the cuckoo has been coming back

here, so it still got to offer something to these birds. I would

imagine this is better than the surrounding area but it's not as

good as pristine habitat would have been. It really drives on the

problems these migrants face. Forests once covered a third of

Ghana. Today, less than 10% of that remains. And this will have

devastating consequences, both for native and, of course, migrating

species. Chris the cuckoo's target is soon due to come off and I feel

so tantalisingly close. You can see red lines, the most recent

movements. Dots where the birds are. You can see we've got one, two,

three, four, five birds all in the Ivory Coast. They've overflown

Ghana. Most importantly, here in the middle, that is Chris and that is

us. We are not too far from that trace. We need to make sure we are

as close to it as possible. It's due to come on 4am tomorrow. Then we

know where to go and hopefully he's still in the same area. For clock,

then. Or coups have been declining here,

and it would be easy just to blame changes here. It just goes to show

you've got to look at the bigger picture. These birds only spend six

weeks in the UK. We'd much modified our landscape, intensification of

agriculture is undoubtedly a problem. But when you go to garner

you can see the landscape there has been much modified. It had been

rainforest but most of it has gone. People out there are eating cuckoos.

They are killing the wildlife but they are eating it. It's very easy

to have an armchair perspective, to sit down here and think that is a

terrible thing to do. But they are not killing them for sport or fun,

they are killing them because they are hungry. The population of Ghana

has increased fourfold since 1960. You've got to keep this in

perspective. If you want to conserve these species, you have to

understand the needs and requirements of other cultures,

human cultures. Wise words. Can I show you this extraordinary thing? I

had no idea that it really did that. Isn't that a dream example of what

actually happens? You can literally see it growing out will stop This is

the growth point. Tasty, wouldn't you say? I did think you'd brought

me my dinner! I don't know if you can eat it, be careful. Yes, you can

eat it. It's not so bad. It's quite tender. It's like very well

cooked... Asparagus. It's rather good. Every year in early spring,

regular as clockwork, a magical bird turns up in my garden. It pinches

all the little shoots of my apple tree, unfortunately, but it's worth

it because it's a vision of Sir Rhys, grey, black and white. It is a

bullfinch. We have got, for the first time on Springwatch, a live

camera on a bullfinch nest. There it is, it's very damp. That's a female.

What a thing to see. She's sitting there on eggs. No, she is on chicks,

I think. She's keeping them nice and dry. We've been filming this nest

for quite a while. We can actually see the male now as well. Let's have

a look at how it works. He is so handsome! There are the chicks. What

will he be ceding -- feeding them? Seeds and insects. He is placing

them very neatly into the chicks. They have two storage sacks which

they have evolved, different than other finches, in the face of their

mouth. Probably because they have to fly further from the nest to find

the food, it occurs at quite low densities. He's been passing it to

the female and she's been feeding it to them at the same time. What a

treat. We'll be giving an eye on those. Did you see how many thorns

were in there? Credit has to be given to the cameraman who got the

remote cameras in there, he is covered in scratches! I think our

blue tits are going to fledge, but don't worry because I've got some

quirky tits for you. These are in the reserve as well. This is what I

like to call the Deer Hunter nest. And nice little spot that blue tit

has found. This is the top gear nest. Or it should be called the

rusty gear nest -- nest. Where is that blue tit going to nest? It's

found a nice, clean hole to put its nest in. This is the quirkiest one,

though. Look where those people are walking past, a comb. Look where the

blue tit goes, right into the cold. I was running past that: The other

day. The nest is right at the bottom of it. It's extraordinary. What I'm

really concerned about is how are they going to get out of the nest

when they fledge? I know, it's just a very narrow, slippery comb. But

occasionally the wind blows, a branch breaks off and it twists in

that wind and those in the top and all the little tits can climb out

and escape. Over the years, you've sent us lots of wonderful pictures

and videos of quirky nest. If you find any more, please let us know.

We hear a lot about habitats in decline but there is one on the

increase. Occupying now an area the size of Oxfordshire on our gardens.

More than all of the National nature reserves put together. An incredibly

important resource for wildlife. We invited the grand daddy of

Springwatch, B1 and the only Mr Bill Oddie, to come back and celebrate

our garden wildlife. Ten years! Ten years! I feel a

flashback coming on. It is eight o'clock, it's Bank Holiday Monday,

you know what it means, it's Springwatch time! And what a truly

glistening evening. It's too small for fox, it's too big for weasel.

It's old stoped. Just as if it were yesterday. Draw up the deck chair,

grab an ice cream because it's Springwatch! Actually, that bit was

yesterday. Of course, quite a bit has changed over ten years, people

have changed, technology is changing an awful lot. But what about the

wildlife? In fact, it's not easy to judge whether wildlife is doing well

or badly except in one place, and that is the garden. And the reason

we know so much about what's going on in our gardens is quite simple.

You tell us. Ever since we started, you have been joining in with our

surveys, sending us photos, telling us where our garden life is

flourishing or where its dwindling. And one of the things that has been

said so often over the past few years is, well, I haven't seen a

hedgehog for ages. I'm afraid I've had to respond by saying, neither

have I. Unfortunately, Nationwide we have lost around 35% of our

hedgehogs in the last ten years. One of the major problems without doubt

is habitat loss in the countryside. So this means that our gardens are

absolutely vital refuges for species like hedgehogs. But it is, I was

going to say a worry, but it's rather sad, isn't it? And here is

another one. Only a few years ago if I walked down my garden in late

February, early March, there would be frogs jumping up all over the

place. Diving into my pond and doing all that stuff. But the last couple

of years they just haven't been there. Frogs have really suffered in

the last decade. In fact, the decline is something like 81% in the

south-east of England. The problem is our lack of habitat and also a

deadly virus spreading across the country. So, as they said years ago

about bats, now it's frogs that need friends. I think probably most of

you are aware how the birds in your garden are doing. The truth of the

matter is most of the species we've featured on Springwatch haven't been

doing too badly at all, which is a great tribute to yourselves. Blue

tits, great tips, robins, wrens, thrushes, they've all been on

Springwatch and I'm sure they are grateful for the publicity and also

grateful to you lot for putting out the food for them. And another big

bonus in the form of a little bird called the Goldfinch, with a bright

red face and flashing gold on the swings, that has gone leaping up the

league table of garden birds from 14 up to number seven in the last ten

years. And I hereby predict it may go higher.

I'd say ten years ago I didn't very often see a fox in my garden but

nowadays I see them pretty frequently. Maybe they just prefer

the fast-food in the rubbish bags and tips and so on and so forth. And

be honest, they love having a den under the shed in the garden. I do

know people who regard urban foxes as pests but to me, if I had a fox

at the bottom of my garden, it would be a privilege. There are some going

up, some going down and quite a number staying more or less as they

are. The fact that so many gardens are wildlife friendly is without any

doubt whatsoever up to yourselves. It is a challenge, it's a

responsibility but it is also a joy. I think this one could do with a

nice pond, maybe a rockery over there and a woodpile. On the other

hand, it's very nice as it is. The British birding legend that is

Bill Oddie. It's great to have him back and he'll be back again next

week. When it comes to quirky tits, nothing beats the Scandinavians.

This will be coming up in Unsprung shortly after the programme. If

you've got one of these at the bottom of your remote, press it to

join Nick Baker, who will be on immediately after this. Tomorrow we

will be on live again at 8pm. We've got an extra ten minutes of

Springwatch tomorrow, and I didn't get wet enough today so I'm going

out to the sea. Tomorrow, we have got the interesting mating habits of

this extraordinary looking creature, the cuttlefish. I'll be

finding out more about those cuckoos and Iolo Williams, who hasn't been

with us today because he's been busy out looking for these things, will

be looking at Scottish otters tomorrow. Gal will be keeping you up

to date with our live cameras, particularly our avocet. Hopefully

it won't be in trouble with the weather. We will be watching our

blue tits. I think they will go maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after,

maybe they will stay in because of the rain. For about the last five

minutes in my ear I've been hearing from the cameramen from our gallery

that the water is coming up very rapidly under the bitterns. It's

probably quite dark, but beneath that the water level is coming up.

This is a tiny, fragile nest that is precariously balanced there. It's

the best nest we've got here. So whatever happens, join us tomorrow

or 7am when it will be live! Goodbye!