Episode 7 Springwatch

It is getting a bit damp up here in Suffolk, but we have got a great

programme featuring some animals which have inspired sci-fi monsters,

creatures that put the F in ferocious. From the weird and

wonderful to the cute and cuddly, and sometimes comical, we will catch

up with the family fox cubs. And I am down on the beach, so stand by

for some real cliffhangers! Sorry! Welcome to Springwatch!

Yes, hello and welcome to Springwatch 2014, and to you from

the wonderful Minsmere RSPB reserve up on the coast of Suffolk. We are

live to explore all of the fabulous habitats and the creatures that live

here, and we are doing quite well. We have had a bit of booming, quite

a lot of regurgitating, that has been working for some of them. They

have been regurgitating to satisfy their young or their mates, I tried

it last night! Regurgitated lunch does not do it for me. Chocolate or

foam bats does it for me! Give me a simple gift! We have got live

cameras all over the reserve, lots of them on our nesting birds, and

there is a huge advantage of that for us, because once they hatch,

they don't really go anywhere until they fledge, so we can get plenty of

footage of them. However, it has been more tricky with the badger

cubs. They seem to move around a lot, and they have been quite

elusive. When we came here, we knew there were five, and we knew that

because the RSPB had filmed them near one of the sets, the warren

said. After we disappeared into the woods, we did not see them until a

couple of days ago, when we saw this.

We saw three of them, and we wondered where the other two had

gone. Well, we were confused until last night, when we finally caught a

glimpse of them. Interestingly enough, you can see the adult coming

in with one of the cubs. If you look, there is a second one there.

So it has answered a question that we posed, which was, first of all,

where had they gone? Clearly they are moving around a lot. There seems

to be two families, not one, and they are very nomadic. In fact, it

is not really typical, textbook behaviour, is it, Chris? No,

typically we would see them stable in one large badger set, not moving

around, but obviously we have two females moving around, and they were

obviously together when there were five of them. So this shows us that

they are the same social group so these are related animals. They may

well have a territory outside of that, we were looking for

territorial boundaries, but they are all in the same social group of

animals. If you continue to observe things and make decent nodes and pay

attention, you can uncover the secrets of these animals. We did

yesterday, we had a great day with our reed warbler is. Live to the

reed warbler is now, here is one of them brooding. -- warblers. Three of

the eggs hatched by the time we were on live last night. That is the

behaviour we would expect, but what about the fourth age? This afternoon

we had just about given up hope until about four o'clock, when we

looked down and saw this. After a little bit more incubation, it

opened completely, and there you can sit and eat the bill of the reed

warbler, the youngster struggled out of the egg. She reaches down to get

the shell, she will take that away. There you can see it. It is the

check at the bottom of your screen, slightly more pink. Interestingly,

the rest have gone a dark colour already. Maybe that is the formation

of the down starting in their skin, because at the moment they have been

hatched naked, entirely dependent on the female for warmth and security

in that nice deep cover. They are extraordinary looking, like a little

aliens, their heads are so big and their eyes. They have a big head

because they need a big mouth. As soon as their yoke reserves run out

a few hours after hatching and they have to be fed, they need a big

enough mouth for the female to be feeding. It was funny yesterday when

the eggshell ended up on his head like a helmet, I am calling that the

helmet family! A question from Joshua Roston, who says, how does

the reed warbler make its nest stick to the reeds? Good question, Joshua.

Why have a nesting reeds in the first place? The simple reason for

that is security from predators. If you look past the nest, you can see

it is surrounded by water which will keep most of those predators away,

ground predators like weasels and stoats and rats which would

otherwise try to get to the nest. The female makes the nest, and from

research earlier today, I can tell you she normally chooses 3.53 stems

to make that nest! But how to does she tie them together? She gets a

piece of grass and holds it in her foot against the reeds, and then she

doubles it back and could say not in it, neighbours say not. -- nippers a

knot. Given the reeds are swaying from side to side in the wind and

they will grow and expand, one of the most important materials they

use are spiders' webs, which are flexible, and that gives the nest

the ability to move in the wind and expand as the young grow. I think a

challenge for next Springwatch would be to put a time-lapse camera on a

bird actually building the nest, it would be fascinating. You would have

to predict where it is going to make the nest, that would be tricky,

unless you caught it after it put the first ring in. It would be

amazing, though, a challenge for the cameramen! One of my favourite

quirky moments of last week was our where is Wally moment on the beach?

Have a look at this. I have seen so many times, and I still can't see

what is that beach! But look closer, and you can see, it is a ringed

clever that we are looking for, and not until the last moment can you

see that bird. -- plover. It is so well camouflaged. When we saw last

week, it had chicks, how are they getting on? Really well, actually.

This is the adult male who is keeping guard, because they are very

vulnerable on that beach, and that is the female fidgeting a little

bit. Underneath pop-out the two chicks. They are really fast

runners, it reminds you of Roadrunner, the-beep! An amazing

fact, the mortality rate is about 25%, which is actually pretty low,

and that is because they have a few defence mechanisms. The Czechs, as

soon as a predator comes, will hunker down, and you have seen how

well camouflaged they are. -- checks. The adult bird will lead the

predator away and feign injury. 25% mortality, you would think it would

be higher. For a ground nesting birds, yes, with a chick on the

ground before its ledges, but they must be very good. A top life on the

beach, but this is one of the wildest parts of the UK. -- tough.

This stretch of coast is one of the wildest parts. If you take a look at

it from the air, it is not all about Minsmere, the reserve in the

foreground run by the RSPB. It is also about the Keith slightly

further to the north, which is National Trust, and if you look on

the top left, a ribbon leading away is another reserve run by natural

England. In fact, all of these are unified together one area of

outstanding natural beauty from Ipswich all the way up the coast

nearly two Lowestoft. This is 406 square kilometres of habitat, 30

different nature reserves run by 26 different partners. A single

isolated nature reserve is not going to be any good, it is not going to

be sustainable in the long term, so it is important to these people are

working together to join them up like this. And it is working,

because it is a fantastic place to see wildlife. Talking about seeing

wildlife, where is Martin? I can tell you that Martin is just, I have

exaggerated one part of his anatomy! But he is just down here on the

beach. Thank you very much indeed, Chris!

Yes, I am down here at the National Trust's Dunwich heath reserve. But I

am on the beach by the sea, use your imagination, imagine that you are a

migrating spring bird that has come from Africa, through Spain and

France, raced across the sea and gone bang into this. This is the

first thing you will meet on the coast of England, this lovely clear.

Amongst the first migrants is one of our favourite birds, the icon of

spring, I want to show you my diary for this year. This is a week in

April, put eggs in incubator, that in garden, this is how exciting my

life is! The first swallow of the year. That was on the 8th of April.

I always record the first one of the year. Last year it was April the

4th. There are lots of other birds that look very like a swallow, and

this is a little guide. This is the swallow with the long forked tail

and the chestnut throat, but it looks very similar to a house

Martin, which has not got the tale but a very obvious white rump. And

then you have got the last one that we get, and that is the sand martin,

it is Brown, much smaller. If you have a look, when they come across

the water and land on the cliffs, they don't necessarily go over the

top. If you look at there, there is a whole lot of holes, and that is

their nests. They are not being used this year. But what is it that makes

this clear and all the cliff up and down here so attractive to sand

martin is? I am going to tell you a little story. There was a town

called Dunwich, a big town, a very big town with churches Street, a

port, a naval port, and it also had its own mint. It was a huge down.

Where is it now? Come with me! Dunwich is 200 metres out there

under the water about ten metres down. It is a sunken city, and the

reason down. It is a sunken city, and the

for that is that this whole cliff face is eroding every year. It goes

back on average about one metre. It is one of the fastest eroding cliff

faces in the whole of the UK. But that the very erosion makes it

perfect for sand martins. Why? The reason for that is that the cliff

drops away very sharply, and predators cannot get up into those

nest holes. And the adults will dig a hole, the male arrives first, and

he will move about ten centimetres a day, making a hole about one metre

deep, then the female will join him. But one other thing - as well as the

steepness, look at this. Excuse me. Now, it is all about grain size. I

was reading a paper this morning from 2003, and he was studying these

nests, and what he discovered, looking at 654 of them, he

discovered that if the grain size was too small dust, they couldn't

big a hole. -- build. The perfect size was 0.9 of a millimetre. If you

get a sharp live and the right grain size, you can get hundreds of sand

martins. -- sharp cliff. We filmed this at Minsmere, and they look like

insects, enormous numbers of them. You can get up to 2000 in one

nesting area, and there is a good reason for that, because if a

predator turns up, such a small bird, they will already is out and

attack it. Talking of predators, so many birds altogether like that in

the will attack a predator, attract, get it right! And this is the most

iconic predator of them all, this is a magnificent bird, incredibly

agile. It has caught a dragonfly here, which is what they will be

feeding on at this time of year, spring and early summer. A

marvellous shot! Later they will turn their attention to the swallows

and the sand martins. They migrate here with the swallows and the

sandmartin 's. Their lives are inextricably entwined. -- sandmartin

's. It is more dynamic when they feed on

those martins. Sandmartin is our charming little birds. But sadly

they are in decline. Their nesting habitat is ephemeral. It is always

collapsing. People have designed sandmartin nesting chambers. This is

a fabulous example at That must really adds to the load. Sometimes

quite a few. I remember back in 1974, I borrowed my friend's bike, a

blue Raleigh! It is so Walter Raleigh, isn't it? It is not a

rally! Is this too much detail? I picked up a dead swift on the

roadside, and it had 18 of those flies on it. I put it in a bag, and

by the time I had got home, and I have still got them in some alcohol

in my wardrobe, what about that?! They would have been carrying them

backwards and forwards from Africa. It is an incredible migration, even

more so that they do it with... Bloodsucking parasites! Well, from

parasitic intruders to intruders are they due to kind, let's catch up

with our fox family who have made their home underneath the decking of

a house in Brighton. They are now seven weeks old, and

the cubs are becoming a lot more confident, even venturing out during

the day. They are increasingly boisterous,

and they will soon need to expand their horizons. To analyse their

development, Dawn shows me the most recent footage. They almost as good

as poodles! They will bring in not just food but always for them to

play with. You have open days bring watch can of worms, I always get

chastised by viewers, because I don't think that play exists. It has

to have a function. I am not saying they are not playing, as we see it,

but there is a reason they are doing it. Yeah, it is not playing for

enjoyment, there are important skills in doing that. It is

essential to their development, so they are

essential to their development, so they doing it for a reason. There is

a scientific backing for everything I ever said! Take that, viewers!

What about the male? We have not seen a male, which is quite unusual.

If she was on her own, the male might have brought food, but with

two of them bringing food and lactating, they don't seem to need

the male. In fact, it is quite common for females to work together

like this. You see, it could be that Stumpy, the younger, subordinate

vixen, has had an unsuccessful pregnancy, and this is causing her

to lactate. This means she can suck all the young, while Sugar, the

dominant vixen, is away feeding. In the absence of a father, this is a

highly effective strategy. It would suggest they are closely related. I

think it is mother and daughter. In terms of the space, it proves that

urban foxes don't need much to have a successful den. A tiny garden, and

the decking, on the concrete paving stones, not the most hospitable,

cuddly, fairy tale den you have seen. No, but they don't have any

bedding, they give birth on their ground, and under sheds and decking

a very common places in urban areas for them to give birth and raise

cubs. Things have been changing over the last few days. One of the cubs

has already scrambled up the climbing frame, taking its first

steps into the wider world. Probably realising this protected garden is

now too limiting realising this protected garden is

now too for her growing calves, Sugar takes matters in hand. She has

got to find them a more suitable home. Getting them out of the garden

is easier said than done. Not only does each one way more than

a kilogram, but the rest of the litter is simply won't get out from

under her feet. sugar manages to move all of the

Cubs out of the yard. Where has she moved them to? Dawn is convinced

they will not have gone far. We looked for some clues to find their

new location. Peter Wright into somebody's kitchen! They have got a

lot of lingerie on their line! I am not looking, seriously! I think they

are probably a couple of houses down that way. After a spot of

investigation, we home in on the garden meters from the original den.

The signal I am getting is just down there. This garden is a bit more

Overgrown. This is what you need, isn't it? Obviously! That looks like

an ideal spot. Given the signal and given the quality of that habitat,

they are probably tucked up in their sleep. All of them. Looks like sugar

has found an ideal new home for the Cubs. It has got plenty of cover,

plenty of slugs and insects for them to get their teeth into as they

learn to hunt. All being well, they will soon be spilling out onto the

streets. That is when their survival skills will really be put to the

test. As they learn to live in Brighton's dents community.

I have been very lucky so far this year, I have had four fox cubs in my

garden. They are irresistible. The word cute could be applied to fox

cubs. It is not a word we could apply to many of our checks, except

for the tawny owl chick. He is rather cute. This is the tree that

he is nesting in. We do not always see him poking his head out. Let's

have a look. I think we could call him cute because he is pretty

fluffy. We have also given it a name. Grob. He died very groggy when

he was eating. If we are talking about food, this is a chick with an

eclectic diet. Unbelievable, the variety of food. We saw it being fed

a slog. He got very groggy from all the slime. Then it was fed a tree

creeper. After that, a rodent came along. We could not actually

identify what the rodent was but it was definitely a rodent. This was

quite comical. It was the slow worm. Not comical for the slow worm! You

called it a alive and. -- endoscope. Last night it got fed from. The

feeding rate may slow down. An extraordinary variety of food.

Indeed. We asked you if you're watching this film throughout the

night, to let us know what you have anything. Generating lots of data.

-- what the hell was eating. The first five diagram of this series.

-- high diagram. With a 54% of things which could not be

identified. The vast majority, 37, are invertebrates. Lots of them were

slugs. We have fewer amphibians. I think that what we're seeing here is

a reaction to the weather. It has been a means that there are lots of

slugs and snails snails and worms. And also, those amphibians. The big

question is, what is the young Al getting out of these invertebrates?

You get 90 calories per hundred gram -- 100 grams activist love. They are

not an ideal diet. Why cant they kept the mammals if it is raining? I

will show you. The leaves are down. The owls cannot hear them rustling

around in the woodland. They cannot hear them to hunt them. I should

imagine if things dry out we will see more rodents and less slugs.

There is a reason that is the only highly charged you have had so far.

I know you love them! Let's go to the West coast of Scotland to

explore the watery underworld of a Scottish sea loch. I used to think

it rains a lot in Wales but that was before I came to the West Coast of

Scotland. The water is the elixir of life. Where does it end up?

Invariably it runs down the lens and into the locks. Below the surface,

some of these locks are host to an incredible array of wildlife. A few

days ago I took a journey down this lake to the sea in search of a

gathering of some very special creatures. There are more than 100

sea lakes on the West Coast of Scotland. It is a lock that opens

out into the sea. The best way to explore them is by kayak.

This is so and calm and quiet and swear this was a river. If I were

going, -- I will end up in the open sea. This is where the channel' body

of water this is where I get wet. On the surface they seem -- on the

surface it may seem lifeless but underwater is incredible. We have a

bottleneck. The fresh water is coming down and the sea water, as

the tide comes in, comes back up. Both are carrying nutrients. It is

so rich down here. In this fast flowing water, you have to be able

to cling on to survive. But the waters are so fertile, those

creatures that can withstand the current, the benefits. Snake lock

anemones, sea urchins, crabs and starfish Wolfie in the rapids. What

really surprised me was the carpet of brittle stars. They are

everywhere, covering every available surface. There are two types. The

common brittle stars with their tail spines and the smaller, black

brittle stars. They are beautiful things. Let me show you this one. It

is like a starfish that has been on a crash diet. Much more thin

delicate. If you think they look beautiful here, and what they look

ten times better. Amazing and beautiful things. -- underwater they

look ten times better. That really was a. Like you are the

world 's. We were so taken by the brittle stars, we decided to take a

closer look. We put them in a time like this briefly. They trapped

morsels of food between the spines. You can see the conveyor belt of

those feet carrying everything was in the mouth at the centre. We left

a time-lapse camera down there to see roughly how much they would move

in an hour. You can see that they do not much at all stop and think that

static. Then we put a clap down there and all of these, you could

see a wave of brittle star moving in. Just like StarOffice, they are

opportunists. They scavenge the sea bed when anything you violates the

senses. Fascinating behaviour. The more we explore this fantastic area,

the more wonderful things you cover. Join me again tomorrow when I will

be getting another dose of West Coast wildlife.

That was absolutely fascinating. I love exploring underwater. You

always see something extraordinary. It is a world that many people do

not have the opportunity to see. It is a bit like the nocturnal world.

Lots of things happen in life that most of us do not experience. We

sent our cameraman with a thermal camera in the night. Things look

very different. You can see the reedbeds. You can even see Sizewell

nuclear power station in the background. We have got a thermal

camera in the woods. Some very little animals. We think this could

be... You have the boxes of hunting. So many animals from a knife. --

come out at night. It is amazing for a camera on a camera on a knife and

see It is great for finding and observing them. The cameraman found

a factor, too. When they leave, they are difficult to follow. For many

years we thought that is for feeding worms, they suck them out of the

ground. Even this one in a field. Look. It is holding the worm by his

head, tail, in its instances -- incisors. Eventually the worm uses

traction. You can see it again. The badgers swallows it. When his death,

the worms are coming to the surface to pull the stand into their

tunnels. Although they are small, is, you can we have had all the

seasons in one day. And, we will report tomorrow on what he sees. We

are expecting to see some sort of predator. I think that sometimes we

see a disproportionate amount of interest in animals. We forget about

the plans. Sometimes they provide an extraordinary spectacle.

As I found at the weekend. Beneath the blue of the sky in the green of

the corn, it is their the regal red poppies are born. So wrote the

Victorian poet Clement Scott when he saw a field of poppies. How often do

we see that today in these days of heavy use of herbicides? It is quite

a rarity. This weekend in Suffolk some of the fields have quite

literally exploded. Copies of one of our best loved wild flowers. This

year's warm spring seems to have brought them out early. And in

abundance. This is the cornfield Ostaad poppy, and this is a plant

that likes disturbed ground. The bloom might only last week, but each

one of these is capable of producing up to 3000 seeds, and once they drop

into the soil, they can last, dormant and waiting, for up to 100

years. So this field may not have looked like this last year or the

year before that. In fact, there may not have been poppy is here for

decades. -- poppies. The seeds like underground in photo dormancy. --

lie. Protected from decaying by a thin coating, it is only when the

soil is disturbed that the seeds are brought to the service and then even

the smallest flash of sunlight can trigger germination. That ensures

there is no competition for the germinating poppies. This need for

light is why the poppy is so closely associated with the ploughed fields

of agriculture, but for the last 100 years they become inextricably

linked with something else. Many of the First World War battle is fought

on the Western front were fought over farmland, but with hundreds of

thousands of bombs dropping, there was no farming taking place. But the

explosions disturbed the ground, the poppies germinated to produce a show

of red like this between the trenches. It must have been quite a

sight, to the extent that it inspired a Canadian lieutenant

colonel, John McCrea, to write his poignant home, In Flanders Field Is.

Bees have been used as symbols of remembrance for all fallen soldiers.

-- these. But there is no denying that when they bloom like this, they

represent one of nature's greatest spectacles. So if you have the

opportunity, get out and see it. It is the anniversary of D-Day this

week, the 6th of June, Operation Overlord, the landings on the

beaches, a perfect time to be thinking about what the poppies

symbolise. I did a bit of a search today, I can point you towards a

farm in Kent, which has all five species in the UK. West entire field

in Cornwall is another top spot. Salisbury Plains, the Chilterns and

the Cotswolds, there might be some there. On account of remembrance,

people have been out seed bombing, deliberately seeding areas, so you

might find more there. Some farmers, and this is great to hear, have not

been spraying herbicides to allow the poppies to come through, all of

which is great. See them if you can, but there is something else you

ought to see it again. We watched it yesterday, the blooming -- booming

bittern. It is the last one that does it for me! Last night I was

saying that, in my opinion, the way we try to express bird sounds using

letters is pretty poor, so I threw out a challenge, #boomballs, to our

Twitter followers, and I can tell you that Matt came up with this one.

I do not think you are doing it credit! Shelley D, I can't wait for

this, she has come up with this one! Shall I do it like that? I had not

finished, do you mind?! I am done now! All I can say is, thank you

very much for that, you have allowed my co-presenter to make a complete

and that fool others up in front of 2.5 million people! One other letter

to draw attention to, a really nice letter from Richard in Portsmouth,

deer Springwatch, I love watching your programme and I wish I could

contact you sometimes, but I don't have a computer, so I hope you get

this letter. We are very pleased to receive your letter, and any others

you would like to send us, it is not all about Twitter and Facebook and

computers. From booming to a patch of brambles where we have quite a

few nesting birds, this is the bullfinch. I think the adults are in

there at the moment, but you can see it is quite a pretty nest. It is

actually a bit of a perfect nest. The lovebirds are in there, that is

what we are calling them, because they are quite loving. They do

everything together. They always feed the chicks together.

Obviously, that is the male with the crimson breast. Not only are they

feeding together, bullfinch is often forage together. Sometimes they have

to go a long way for seeds, and they will put them into their pouches and

go back to the nest, but they are incredibly tidy at the nest. They

really keep it clean, the perfect tidy neighbours. If they have taken

a vow until death do us part, I can tell you that the other finch

species, the Goldfinch, let's gold live to that, that is Steptoe and

son! Look at the shabby yard they have got. That is not nice! If you

have not been watching on the webcams, the young birds are

defecating over the side of the nest. They are not producing foetal

sacs that the adults are removing. I have seen this before, the first

Springwatch I ever did. We had a Goldfinch nest, and they did exactly

the same. By the time the chicks had fledged, it was a great big pile...

It is not failing, they are going to pledge. Although it is an unusual

strategy, and we know they produce foetal sacks to reduce bacterial

load, the Goldfinch is somehow seem to overcome that, because they are

not failing. We will investigate further. I would rather be a

bullfinch, quite frankly! Last winter, I am sure you remember, was

the wettest recorded for the last 100 years. We had storms and endless

rain, 15 inches in southern England. One of the worst places to be hit

was the Somerset Levels, with 66 square miles being submerged under

water. Now, the floods had a big effect on the people living there,

but what about the wildlife? Martin lives on the edge of the Somerset

Levels, so he went to investigate. The Somerset Levels are home to a

rich community of wildlife, all dependent on one another. To

understand how the floods have affected the natural history of this

area, I've decided to start at the bottom. I'm looking for worms.

Tim Young is from the Somerset wildlife trust is taking me to an

area which, until a few weeks ago, was underwater. He is trying to find

out how the worms have coped. There are over 20 species of native

earthworm here. I didn't know that. We have been tending to find red

worms and green worms. A green one! Quite a small red one. They have

survived, look at that. Both cancer via underwater for some time by

breathing through their skin. -- both can survive. The Greens can

survive for weeks. And vast tracts of the levels were underwater for

two months. According to experts, 95% of worms would have died in

these areas. Both the species have a strategy that helps to ensure their

long-term survival - waterproof cocoons. Each cocoon contains

between one and 30 acres. They can stay in the cocoon for up to five

months. -- eggs. In a wet winter, they can just wait for the spring.

Little time capsules, they can survive after the adults have

drowned, then they will hatch out and recolonise the grassland.

Wonderful little system! So the worm population would have been hit hard

by the long winter flood, but it will recover in time. And for

animals further up the food chain, that recovery can't come soon

enough. Worms make up as much as 60% of a badger's diet, so the crash in

numbers was bad news. But during this year's extreme flooding, the

badgers here faced a far more immediate threat, and that led to an

SOS at a nearby animal rescue centre. At Sigrid World, Simon is

caring for three recent recoveries. In February, the undertook a daring

mission. Blimey, look at that! That is the strip of land that is the top

of the bank of the river. And there they are! Two adult badgers

surrounded by a mile of water. What happened to this pair? You got them

out? We got them back, they were in quite a poor condition, so we fed

them up and prepared them for release. Sadly, one died, probably

from delayed shock, but the other was healthy enough to be returned to

the wild. Time for these guys to go back in. Is this the moment I am

allowed to touch them? There you go, there is a reason! Look at you!

Sorry, we are not allowed to do this, I just put you back into your

box. You are so lovely! I am glad you have not got your full set of

teeth yet! I did not enjoy that at all!

Badgers weren't the only ones to suffer. Mice and other rodents would

have been decimated. Even otters were flooded out of their homes, and

several were reportedly hit by cars. But it hasn't all been bad news.

Larger species managed to escape. They are already returning. And some

birds have done rather well, especially those that lead in water.

-- feed. Fifth Harry Padgett Wilkes from the RSPB has been monitoring

this place for the last 20 years. An astonishing sight. I have never seen

so many hours -- heroines. Have you ever read the lost world by Arthur

Conan Doyle? They are just like pterodactyls! San Yellowknife gas

from youngsters clacking. -- Yes, the youngsters are clacking. We have

145 nests this year so far. I suspect many have come in from

somewhere else. January and February around here, there were massive

floods. That must have been a real draw for the birds. It is a fabulous

site and it is lovely to see something that has benefited from

this flooding and destruction. They are a weird. -- they are Wearden!

Here we are at the cliffs again. Only now there are -- they are

smaller. Don't be fooled, because there are many fascinating creatures

here. We came down here with Richard Gilbert, a senior warden, and we

stood and watched and waited on a lovely warm day, and gradually

things began to reveal themselves. The first thing we saw was a tiger.

A green tiger beetle. It is a process predator. They can move at

lightning speed. Hard to tell the male and female apart. This is the

female. Look at her face. Look at the eyes as well.

female. Look at her face. Look at They have got very good site. The

thing is, when they hunt, they move so fast. They lock onto their prey,

make sure it is there and just launched straight at it like an

emerald green Exocet missile. launched straight at it like an

Fascinating. If we go down lower. We started to look around at the holes

in the ground. That one is a little bit big for the next creature that

we saw. The next thing we saw does dig holes like this. Here she comes.

It is a sand wasp. About two centimetres long. Very elegant. They

have a fascinating way of reproducing. She paralyse the

Caterpillar. You know what is coming next. And she will drag it off to a

chamber that he will have prepared. She will injected with then time and

time again. Each section gets a dose and then she drags it off to the

chamber and lay an egg on it. She lays an egg. You may put a few

caterpillars down into that chamber. Then she will try to seal the

chamber. She is worried that order -- other wasps may come along and

try to pinch her caterpillars. She puts some stone and debris in there.

She will shovel some sanding. Eventually the egg that she has laid

will hatch and will eat the Caterpillar. It is gruesome. What

will emerge from that whole will be another adult wasp. OK, we have seen

a tiger. There is a lion down here. This is utterly fascinating. It is

quite difficult to see. We have had a shower. This is a very rare

animal. In fact, I have only ever seen them in Africa. I did not know

they existed in this country. It is called an ant lion. You only find

them in Suffolk. And in Norfolk. This is a trap. At the bottom is an

ant lion lava. If you flick sounds as cliffs if this if I have this to

do. We have of the live there are five... Look at those jaws. We have

had to highlight them. The ant lion lava is down underneath there. It

flicks of bits of sand at any passing and. What happens next is

gruesome. Here is the ant. Flicking the sand. It is like some awful

science-fiction monster. It will grab it. That will be the end. It

has got it! For ant. Just like some hideous science-fiction. This is an

enormous one that we have blown up. Look at those jaws. If these things

work two metres long, we would not be wandering around so chirpily.

Here is one more fascinating thing. They have no end this form. They do

not excrete. They store up all the debris in their body. They will use

that to create the pupal case before they emerge as adults. When they

do, they will do a pool for the first time in their lives. What a

relief that must be. From the small things to the larger things. Doug

Allen is one of the world's leading underwater cameramen. Normally he is

in Antarctica. We have asked him to turn his camera to the waters around

our shores. I spend a lot of time at sea, in

boats of all kinds. There is something about being at sea. It is

so different from being on land. I cannot think of anywhere on land

where you could see wild animals as close as this. I am a child of the

60s. It is going to sound corny but as I grew up, there were two big

frontiers. There was space. And there was underwater. There was no

way I was going to the moon. So underwater was really the first

passion that I had. I quite like it in a way when it is

like this. It has got an air of mystery about it. You are never

quite sure what you are going to see around the next corner. The ferns

are quite low lying on the surface. I did not expect to find these deep

gullies here. Off to each side there are splashes of quite unexpected

colour like these dead men's fingers, as they call them, stuck

into the side. The important thing when you are underwater is to go

with the flow. Go with the ebb and flow of the swell and feel at one

with the sea. Especially if you want to get close to other animals. It

sounds crazy but you stand the best chance of seeing seals if you are

not too bothered if you don't see them.

And then when they do come macro inside, you do not look at them

directly, you just want to give them a chance to get accustomed to you.

Now when something like that happens, that is when you get a real

borders. There is a completely wild animal that has decided to trust you

enough to come up and give you a big course -- kiss on the front of the

lens and ahead of how above have -- we are both happy. Plans and cancer

if you see, I think we would be a long way towards re-establishing the

connection string people in the natural world.

You see seals on land and they are so ungainly. When you see them under

the water they are completely transformed and beautiful. Doug

Allen and Doctor John Scott will be on the red button at the end of the

show. Chris and I have come down to the reed beds. Behind us in the

distance by the beach is the scrape. That is where we have the avocet and

the goals. It has become a scene of drama recently. It is not surprising

because quite a few of the chicks have been predated. There are quite

a few chicks there. Then there is commotion. This is regularly

happening because of lesser back black goals. They work as a colony.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And a lesser black-backed

gull dole comes in and grabs one of those chicks, drops it in the water.

It starts to swim. The adult comes in, tries to rescue it, but

unsuccessfully. The lesser fact that my lesser black-backed gull takes a

wave this is happening quite regularly. It is amazing that

anything survives. One of the reasons it is happening one

regularly is this. We are seeing a build-up of the number of large

goals. As more and more of these herring gull chicks hatch, if these

girls continue to predate them, we will see increasing agitation, and

that is what we are seeing. What is worrying me in particular is that we

have a single nest of an avocet down there. Audrey is down there, our

avocet, and she is perched on the edge of this black headed gull

colony. Typically, they nest in a group, and they want all their young

to hatch at the same time so we see a phenomenon called predators

swamping. There are so many young that they cannot eat them all. The

problem is, if they hatch asynchronously, it is easier for

predators to take them. I am somewhat concerned about the future

health of those avocet chicks, we will keep our eyes peeled. They

could hatch imminently. From black and white beauty to glorious

Technicolor, a bird some people as a prize to see in our towns and

cities. -- are surprised.

It is the sort of thing you would see in a documentary about wildlife

in Africa. They are fun, beautiful, exotic birds. Large, green

feathered, blue tailed, red beaks. You cannot miss them!

In the UK, these ringnecked parakeet is are at their highest numbers

around Greater London, and in East Kent, the Ramsgate area. We have had

reports of them as far away as Scotland is now, so they asked

Reading. -- they are spreading. In Ramsgate, you don't have to go far

to find them. You will probably hear them, they are an incredibly noisy

bird. Once you are here, you get used to them very quickly, and they

become as common as seagulls in the area.

Their native range is very large. They come from all across India,

sub-Saharan Africa. There is a couple of great theories as to why

these parakeets are in the UK. One of them is that some of them escaped

from the set of the African Queen, which was being filmed in London.

The other is that Jimi Hendrix released a couple in Carnaby Street

to inject some psychedelic colour into the streets of London. More

realistically, it is likely that the parrots were STB is as a result of

the captive breeding of ringnecked parakeets. -- escapees. The

populations that we have got now well-established around 1969-70. The

current population Estimates are at about 32,000, so they are one of the

most rapidly growing bird populations in the UK today.

The character of the parakeet is quite cheeky. They do not have a lot

of fear of humans. Parakeets really are quite agile. They are very good

climbers. They basically use their bills as a third hand, I would say.

It is almost like a monkey with its tail. They have got a particular

foot formation, where they have two toes at the front and two at the

back. It is a grasping foot, which means they are particularly good at

grasping onto branches and manoeuvring, grabbing food. So they

are very agile, very nimble, very dextrous.

The male is easier to distinguish from the female, or young males,

because they have a brightly coloured ring around their necks. I

have seen their meeting, I have seen the ritual to do with that. -- them

making. The male will basically get on top of the female.

The female will slightly turn her head from side to side, and he will

literally head bang her, that is the only way I can describe it. It is a

very strange thing to witness. I have also seen them in the

branches of the trees when they do the regurgitation ritual, where the

male parakeet regurgitates some foods that it has collected as a

gift for the female. It is almost a sort of human type characteristic,

almost like a kiss, which is quite strange to see. It cannot help but

strike you that it is a tender moment when you see it happen. I

love them, I study them and have done for the last four years, so I

think it will be a long-lasting relationship. I think they are

fantastic birds, and I think when people first to see them, they are

amazed to actually see a bird like that. It is the sort of thing you

would probably have to get on a plane to normally see, it is

fantastic they are here. Oh, the parakeet head-banging

foreplay was interesting, wasn't it? I am not going to break into it!

Anyway, the parakeet scientist, Hazel, is doing a survey on

parakeets. If you find parakeet feathers, send them to her so she

can do DNA testing. All the details of that are on the website. Coming

to the end of the programme, let's take a look at the live cameras,

let's go to our tawny owl. We have got nightingales there. He is

becoming quite active, quite cool this evening. The rain has stopped,

maybe that is why he is not fully out. What the reed warbler is doing?

I should imagine they brooding tight. There they are, one male or

female, we can't tell, snuggled down on the nest keeping the youngsters

warm. They will be up at about four o'clock, I should imagine, and to

start collecting food. It has got quite cold, the son came out, we had

a gorgeous sunset, but it has got a bit chilly now. -- the sun. Back to

the nightingales, we have got a few seconds. They looked to be still

active, they are not being brooded. They have put on a phenomenal spurt

of growth, and it will be interesting to see when they leave

the nest. They will sometimes leave after just ten days. So if you are

watching those, keep your eyes on them. Martin, you back just in time

to say goodbye! Don't forget to tune into the red button for Unsprung,

Nick will be speaking to the underwater cameraman. And we are

going to catch up with cuckoos tomorrow, the cuckoo chick which has

been growing at an unbelievable rate! We will be taking a look at

the bitterns and the nightingales, they are due to leave their nests

quite quickly. The drama continues with the urban foxes, just look at

that face! Come on, who didn't go aw?! Chris! See you tomorrow, we

will see you, bye-bye! This is one of the most

fire-prone regions on earth.