Episode 11 Springwatch

It might be our second to last show, but the action is still all on the

go. A caravan of stoats is on the move and our gorgeous golden eagle

chick is growing up fast. Don't worry, it is only me! I'm wearing

all this for the sake of wildlife. It's not Ghostbusters, it's

Springwatch! Hello and welcome to the penultimate

Springwatch 2016 coming from the RSPB Minsmere Reserve. The skies are

clear and the rain clouds fled at lunch time and they have been filled

with a vast volume of swarming midges which is sucking the blood

from all of us! They are everywhere. They are all in my hair! We shall

soldier on. We love all wildlife, don't we? Even the midges... I'm

quite happy to contribute a small amount of blood to sustain these

animals(!) After last night's show, a lot of you went on fledge-watch on

our cameras online to see if our great tit chicks fledged. If you

were watching between 7.00am and 8.00am, you would have been

rewarded. You would have seen this. This is our great tit chick nest. At

7.24am, one of our brave little chicks pokes its head out into the

big wide world and successfully fledges. So did the other four

follow? Let's look at that camera live now. In the nestbox, there are

still four chicks, which is curious. You would have expected them all to

follow their sibling. I wonder why they didn't. Normally they all go

out at once. They do. It makes life much easier. Now, they are having to

feed two sets, the one outside and, of course, the four inside. Had they

gone out together, they would be in a group at this time. That makes the

feeding process easier. They are ready to go. I'm certain they will

go tomorrow. That one was a pioneer, he was the Christopher Columbus of

the tit world. He was an explore, pioneer... I will get back to you

later! When they do fledge out, they are going straight into a place

which is only just a few metres away from their nemesis, the sparrowhawk.

We can go live to it now. This is the female that we have been

watching from the very start of our series. She's incubating five eggs.

She's sat there through the sun, through the rain, she's done an

amazing job. We have had these extraordinary views, just look at

that - a remarkable bird. Look at that. The piercing look of a

predator straight down the barrel. The last thing you might see if you

were a young great tit. Yesterday, this bird transported us all

It's a tiny little crack, there is no doubt that that egg is in the

process of hatching. After a further bit of fidgeting, look at this egg

on the right-hand side. As she turns it with her foot, look on the

surface - move your head - yes, another couple of little cracks. So,

the indications were correct. When the eggs start to cheep like that,

they begin the hatching process within one to three days. I have

everything crossed. How long does it take them to get out? Somewhere

between 24 and 48 hours. They started at 8.00am this morning and

we are hoping that tomorrow morning they will be hatching. That will be

something. It's been a long wait. We can't wait to see those young

sparrowhawks. Things seem to be going well for our sparrowhawk mum.

We have a camera on our sticklebacks. Here he is at night,

he is guarding the nest. A lot of the babies have gone into the safety

of the nest, or so he thinks. Along comes an otter. It all looks

graceful from above. Underneath, it is like a tsunami. It is utter

devastation. And all those little babies get scattered. The otter

swims off quite calmly, not knowing what it's done. Was it a complete

disaster? Well, when the dust settled, no, it wasn't. A lot of

those fry came back to the nest. I think a few were lost, but it's all

a bit of a numbers game. I don't know about that. I think - are we

going to go live to those fry? Let's go live to those fry. Look, there he

is. There's Steven! I have counted at least 50 less! They did quite

well. They are beginning to disperse. There is no question about

that. I think they are going rather well there. Another group of stars

in our show have been our young Little Owls, nesting in an oak tree.

They were very small when we started watching them so we had to look at

them inside their nest hole. They were active at night, so we were

using infrared and we saw them in black and white, a few glimpses in

daylight. Now they have grown, they are spending more time outside of

the nest hole. In fact, they are branching, semi-fledging, and this

morning they gave us an extraordinary opportunity to enjoy

them in a bit of early morning sunshine. They are already quite

nimble. Look at the way that one is jumping around. Perky little things.

You can see the adult feathers coming through. They have still got

that down coat. The adults will still be feeding these animals for a

few weeks yet. The adults have been working hard to feed them all sorts

of things. When it poured with rain, they were getting lots of earthworm.

After that, they brought in birds, mice, insects. So we thought it

would be nice to try and spot the adults hunting. Let's go live now to

a camera that we have got over by the Little Owl nest tree, that is

the tree on the left-hand side there, where the actual nest is. If

you look beyond it, you can see a line offence posts and sometimes the

adult birds have been using those as platforms to launch their hunting

attempts. Well, nothing there at the moment. We will continue to go back

to that throughout the course of the programme, of course. We have set

ourself a challenge, haven't we, to see if we can see the owls hunting

live on the programme? Chris, you have to admit, we have had some

wonderfully charismatic birds on this series - the little owls, the

sparrowhawks, the golden eagle in Scotland, which we will update you

with later. There is one missing. It is Monty the osprey. I'm a big fan.

He is a gorgeous bird. Over the years, we have been following him.

Back to Monty the osprey, he always brings us a bit of drama and this

spring is certainly no difference because he is having a bit of

trouble with the ladies. Near the coast of Midwest Wales,

there is anticipation in the air. You see, the stage is set for a fine

romance. Ospreys are returning from Africa and one of the first birds to

return this year is Blue 24. She arrives deliberately early to stake

her claim on Monty's nest. Blue 24 always sets her heart on catching

Monty's eye. After days of waiting, it looks like her leading man is

finally on his way. Yes, at lunch time on the 3rd April, Monty returns

to his nest and Blue 24 wastes no time in making herself available.

The new couple have a few short hours of fun before their affair is

discovered. Glesni has been Monty's mate for the

past three years and she is not giving up on her nest or her man

without a fight. Blue 24 doesn't stand a chance. And

retreats to another nest platform in sight of Monty and her rival.

Yet, it soon becomes clear that Blue 24 hasn't lost her lover completely.

Over the next few days, Monty is seen visiting her nest. In fact, he

seems to be sharing his time between both of his ladies. The results of

all of this bed-hopping become apparent on the 17th April when both

females begin to lay eggs. And after just a few days, both nests

contained three each. With such stiff competition from Monty's

affection, can Blue 24 keep her man? # No, no, you can't love two. #

Monty is going to be busy in the coming weeks.

What is going to happen in that love triangle? We will find out tomorrow.

I am helping to fight what is possibly the biggest threat to the

wildlife here at Minsmere. That is a really big claim. What can that

threat be and why is it so deadly dangerous? Let's have a look. Come

down here and I will show it to you. Can you see this stuff? This is

what's called pirri pirri. It is from New Zealand, this is a plant

that grows in New Zealand. It is thought it came over on a bale of

wool from the New Zealand sheep and it started to grow here. They found

it here at Minsmere back in 2000 and was growing in the car park.

Somebody saw it, that's a pretty little plant, and everyone enjoyed

it. Until four years later when they thought we have a serious problem

here. The reason is, nothing, nothing eats pirri pirri at all. But

it is incredibly vigorous. It overgrows all the plants that our

animals, insects, birds, rabbits do want to it. It has runners that go

out and tap roots that go down. And look at these Sputniks here. That is

pirri pirri's secret weapon. They have 400 spines and they are tipped

with these barbed hooks. If anything brushes past the pirri pirri, like a

rabbit or a deer, they stick to its body. Fascinating. So,

unfortunately, they have got to try and get rid of this stuff. Let's

have a look. You can see, it's already starting to stick to me

here. So, I'm going to... It is not just getting caught to rabbits and

things passing by, this can have a direct danger to wildlife. Look at

this picture. Here it is. There is a chaffinch. It is stuck to the pirri

pirri. A Ranger had to come in and get that bird off. And lift that

bird off the pirri pirri, otherwise it would have died. You can see,

they are sticking to me as well. Hundreds of these seeds. This is a

really serious problem, so I'm going to get back to doing a bit of

spraying. Meanwhile it's back to Chris and Michaela. See you later. I

don't know about ghostbuster but he's a Pirri Pirri Buster. I think

it suits him or was he better as Poldark? I prefer his body

completely covered. I'm sure there'll be some viewers who don't

agree! On Monday we introduced you to a bird that nests in the reedbed

behind us, a bearded tit. A gorgeous bird. Let's look at the nest live.

There are four chicks in there. And there's a huge slug. There is, you

can only just about see those chicks. They are a week old. I saw

them poking their heads just above that gorgeous little nest hidden in

the reeds. The adults are so striking, particularly the males

with their black moustaches. You can't mistake them for any other

bird. This is our male coming to feed the chicks with invertebrates

that it has caught in the reeds. People come from all over the place

for a glimpse. Look at the female. She hasn't got the black moustache.

She is paler, not as striking, but I think she is still very beautiful. A

few weeks to go for them before they fledge. We won't see fledging, but

this is something I have wanted to show you for a long time. Brace

yourselves for ceremonial gaping. These are the tits we showed you

last year, and look inside the mouths of the young. They've got

four rows of white conical projections. What is that all about?

There are several theories, one that they are sensory devices that tell

the young bird when to close its mouth web the adult has put the food

in, and secondly they are targets, but I'm not buying that one. Lots of

birds have those gapes without three-dimensional structures in

them. The vibrancy of those markings indicates the health of the

youngster. So the brighter the more dynamic, the more healthy that

youngster and therefore the more likely it is to be fed. And that

gives the parents the advantage to culture those young which are most

likely to survive. That's been recorded not in bearded tits, it has

to be said, but in barn swallows. Ceremonial gaping. That's a new

ceremonial gaping, outside a chip shop after the Hitman and Her in the

'80s, begging for chips. It is a beautiful pattern, but you don't

have to come to an RSPB reserve like this to see incredible wildlife. If

you know where to look you can see even exotic wildlife in a city.

David Lindo takes us on a tour, this time to Liverpool. Liverpool, a

thriving modern metropolis built on a long history of trade. It's

commercial docks are the oldest in the world and have made this one of

the most diverse cities in Britain. What few people realise is that

Liverpool's wildlife is just as cosmopolitan. The most obvious place

to start is in the famous Albert Docks, where I'm meeting a doctor

who is studying this phenomenon. The docks' solid structure provides a

perfect home for numerous marine creatures. I must say, it is

incredible. I would never imagine that abundance of life. This is

basically an artificial reef what you see here. Loads and loads of

mussels, and some shrimps, and loads of sea squirts. It is so fascinating

to think there's a jungle there basically. Is that a jellyfish? Yes,

it is, a Moon jellyfish. We also have sponges. Some of them are our

native species. But what makes this reef unique is the combination of

creatures from across the planet. This is a community of hitchhikers

that have grabbed lifts on boats, ships and tankers travelling here

from across the world. So whereabouts exactly are these

creatures coming from? Oh, from many, many places, all over the

world, so you've got species coming from the Pacific, for example. South

Korea, Japan. Also Australia, New Zealand. As each new species

arrives, it justles for space in this everchanging community. But all

newcomers are at the mercy of the docks' resident predators. Eels,

Kings of a complex cut throat world right beneath our feet. I am a

birder, so I watch a lot of activity on the surface and above in the air.

For me, to know that you have such a wealth of life in an an urban area

like this is almost completing the circle that people don't know about.

It is amazing. Just a couple of miles away in the centre of

Liverpool is Sefton Park, where more new arrivals are making their

presence felt. Loud and clear. This is a really special place. I've been

so excited hearing so many different types of birds, as well as seeing

them as I walked through the wide land and along the lake. But there

is one new addition to the avian scene here, and I can hear it. It's

all around me. What a racket! Ring-necked

parakeets, escapees from the pet trade, first bred in Britain in the

1960s. Gradually they've spread from city to city, reaching Liverpool six

years ago. This young male ring-necked parakeet, it's a young

male because the collar around its neck is still forming in colour.

This bird isn't breeding yet, because ring-necked parakeets don't

breed until they are about four years old. There's Sefton Park,

there's probably about 20 birds. That's a very small population. But

who knows what will happen in the future? Just across the Mersey

another man-made habitat is providing a valuable refuge. For a

mammal introduced so long ago that it is now pretty much accepted as

one of our own. This is fabulous, I've never been this close to brown

hares in my life and I've been watching wildlife all my life.

There's two of them. It indicates that one can be female, because when

females come into heat, the males follow them everywhere. Brown hares

flourished after arriving with the Romans, but they are ter arriving

with the Romans, but they are now in serious decline - victims of

disease, poaching and changes in farming, so this cemetery with

abundant food and shelter provides a welcome haven. They are coming

closer to me! The thing I love about watching wildlife in urban areas is

the fact that you can get so close to creatures you would never

normally get close to, and that's because they are used to seeing

people, used to humans, and that's a great thing. Liverpool and its

surrounds are full of surprises. Wildlife from around the world has

taken to this man-made environments, making for some unusual and even

exotic encounters. Amazing places, cemetery, for

wildlife. I went to West Norwood cemetery in London to film and we

got the most incredible views of foxes on the graves. It was

stunning, and obviously it is peaceful. And not a lot of

disturbance, peace and quiet. Let's go live to our little owls now,

because there is some chance there might be one of the adults out

hunting. Let's look. It's gone, but just a couple of minutes ago it was

there. We spotted it. There it is on the fence post, and it has got

something there. Something in its beak. It is carrying it back to the

nest. Look at that! A small mammal. Look, here it is... That's

fantastic. Dropping it into the nest. And that happened minutes ago.

Oh, hold on, yes it is a shrew! It is difficult to say on infrared

whether it is common or pygmy, but I think it might be a common shrew.

That's fantastic isn't it? It is worth keeping on eye on the adults

outside, because we may well see them successfully hunting. Here

another good male being brought in for these birds. They are doing

really well, these chicks, getting meant of food. We've really see them

grow, haven't we Chris? I didn't think we would get that. No, I

didn't. One of our stars of this year's Springwatch without a doubt

has to be our female stoat, the mother with eight kits. She has been

so active and she's such a fantastic little hunter, and she's been on the

move again. Here she is with all her kits, crossing... It is difficult to

tell between the fully grown adult and the kits, because they are about

12 weeks old, so they are pretty big. I love the way they move. It is

like a fluid moment of mammals. It is masterly in motion. Like they are

stuck together. A group is either called a caravan or a trip. They

almost trip over each other. But if you are counting them you may have

noticed that they are not all there. She's moving them quite fast, but

this poor little one... This is a youngster. This one has been left

behind. It doesn't want to be left behind. It makes it a little bit

vulnerable. It does. Although these are a predatory animal and we've

seen them try to President ate our great tits, a buzzard or fox would

have these animals, so this at the moment is a vulnerable stoat. You

can see what it is doing. It is sniffing the trail of the rest of

the kits. But it has taken the wrong direction and gone into the wilds!

This is extraordinary, because this is a busy place, with lots of people

around. And it is the middle of the day. The other one had a tick on its

head, so this one is the other one. Two of them must have been

separated, and this is another one. It is following its nose. It has

obviously got the scent of the rest of its party and it is trying to

unite with them. I wonder if she is calling to them as well. Eventually

she comes to get them. She doesn't want them to be left behind. She

want to try and keep them all together. That's the adult leading

one of them off to join the other kits, and the second one follows.

It's been amazing to see so much of them. And there they go. There's the

mother with the two kits. They will join the other six. The caravan of

stoats. It is a great name. Absolutely fantastic. Last night I

moved down to the other end of the reserve to the sand marten cliff.

These are a small bird that choose to make tunnels into a steep, Sandy

cliff, where they presume they are same from predators. They presumed

that until about 2 o'clock this afternoon when guess who turned up

on top of the cliff. Yes, our stoats have had their nose into just about

every nest they can find. We are not entirely sure this is the same

female. It is quite difficult to identify. But look but look at this,

on the edge of a precipice. It looks as if she is trying to work out how

to get down safely. What we have learnt from watching our societies

is they are very arboreal. And now it has gone into one of the nest

holes. And the sand martins are going berserk. They recognise this

is a predator and they are swarming. This is why. It has gone in and here

it has a sand martin, which it has captured and killed. It is difficult

to see whether it's an adult or a fledgling. It has got long primary

feathers which suggests even if it is a fledgling it has been on the

wing for a time. And this is a second bird it has come out with. I

reckon, I am wondering if a stoat has come down previously, killed

these sand martins and is now cashing them in there and is

returning to take them to its kits. If you look at a sand martin it is

not a huge meal for a stoat, but when you can get quite a few in one

go it is worth the effort. And another one here. I think this is a

cache. I don't think this is... It is interesting, we've seen it go in

and come out of another hole. It is almost as if those holeses are

interlinked. Which suggests they are not this year's nests, because they

are not interlinked unless it is by accident. She is doing a great job

of climbing around the cliff, ignoring the swarm of sand martins,

who are clearly distressed. It looks like they are trying to mob her, but

not very successfully. Poking her head out there. Probably trying to

work out how to get up or down again. It is very crumbly that

cliff. It is. Pokes her nose out. You can see the birds are going

crazy around her. What an amazing piece of behaviour. It really is.

I've spent more time watching stoats in the last two weeks than I have

watching them in the wild all my life. They are so difficult to

watch. This is a privilege to be able to follow those animals, that

female and her family. Seeing them go about their daily business, and

turning up in places you would never expect them. The chick now I think

has probably had enough. She's got her stash. She has moved the stash

into that larger burrow. And now she has to work out how to get down.

They are going crazy. You can see how difficult it is. She is slipping

on that slope. It is easier to go down than climb up? That's the

question. Down. Down. Just watch this. That is steep. She

jumps, she is so energetic and acrobatic. She's absolutely

remarkable. I love the shadows of the sandmartins chasing her across

the sand there. Look at that. I know it's very easy to feel sorry for the

sandmartins but you have to remember that this is the circle of life that

happens every spring and normally we don't see it. The only reason we are

seeing it is because we have live cameras all over the reserve so we

can document it. So it is fine to field empathy towards the

sandmartins but we must not demonise the stoat. That is the way the world

works. Let's go live to our little owls now. The world is working for

them. They have come out in the evening light and, again, it is

allowing us a great view of them. It is fabulous to see them out like

this. As we were saying, they are branching, they are going to be

doing this for a couple more weeks before they fully fledge. Great to

see that on the live camera. We will keep our eyes on that because it is

lovely to see them hunt. The adults, of course, that is. The chicks are

not ready to hunt yet. I think it is time to join Martin again. He has

stripped off his Ghostbusters outfit and now he is spreading his seeds!

What I'm doing now might, just might, hold the key to saving one of

our best-loved species from extinction. I'm not casting these

seeds out for them to grow, they are food. Let's have a look at it. What

it is, it is this sort of food, very similar to what you might have at

home, but this is turtledove mix. Turtledoves are the animal that's in

deep, deep trouble. Let's look what they look like. A beautiful little

bird. Very neat. Smaller than a wood pigeon. This lovely call, purring

call, which used to be so commonly heard, but now it is very rare.

Their numbers have dropped by an astonishing 96% since the 1970s,

their population is halving every six years, they are the fastest

declining bird in the UK. This is an emergency. Why, why are their

numbers dropping? They migrate to us from Africa, from Senegal, in fact.

Let's see them out there. They are in quite big numbers out there.

Then, of course, they face a lot of problems. They have got habitat loss

out there, drought sometimes, and they have got an exhausting journey

to cover all that ground, to come back to us. And also, of course,

they get shot at. It seems incredible to me that they get shot

in southern Europe. Now, all of those things are pretty bad. It

seems that the worst problem actually is right here in the UK

because they used to breed here very, very successfully and they

would have two, three different nests. Now, when they come here,

they have one or none at all, they disappear back. The reason for that

is the lack of food. These are very specialist feeders and they feed on

things, special little plants, there are far less of them now than there

used to be because farming practices have changed. They are very

specialist and they want to feed on them. They need to build themselves

up on these sorts of plants - I can never say this - that one! They need

to build themselves back up to successfully breed. This is where

this machine comes in because, hopefully, these seeds will allow

them to get started on their nesting. Nobody knows if this is

going to work. This is very experimental. Because their numbers

are declining so fast, something has to be done. It is an emergency. Just

over here is a farm and a farmer here, Jane Thompson, has been

busting her gut - I can't say that on telly - she has been doing

everything she possibly can to help the turtledoves.

This is turtledove mix and we have had it down now for three years. In

a few weeks, this will be smorgasbord for them? Yes. In a

couple of weeks, we will top some of them, so some will run to seed and

some will flower then later. You have some bare patches here as well,

that is on purpose? That is because the turtledoves like to feed on bare

ground. Literally, they need to be on that edge there? Yes. To feed

properly? This is too deps for them to access this -- dense for them to

access this. They wouldn't come in here? Yes. Really? Even if the food

is here? They need to be feeding from the ground. What else do you

need to provide? They need suitable nesting habitats, blackthorn,

hawthorn and scrub and also water, access to water. If they are

seed-eating, they need a drink. I imagine you are probably waiting to

hear that sound as springtime arrives? Absolutely. It is a great

moment when you hear the turtledoves arriving. It is lovely.

I had no idea that turtledoves were so specialised and they needed all

these special conditions for them to thrive. Anyway, Jane is doing her

bit and from the air, if you go up, you can see what is going on more

clearly. This is a huge extent of what Jane is doing and this is one

bit of her farm. She let me help out with this difficult and dangerous

work. There is another tractor. Hi! He

waved at me! This is a lot more tricky than it looks. Here we go,

coming to the end of the line. Knock off the throttle. Round we go. Woah!

Gently, gently. Down we go. I can feel it bite. I feel a second career

coming on! I never thought that I would be doing this for

conservation. Massive respect for Jane. A huge

area. All this trouble has to be gone to if we are to help the

turtledoves. Let's hope that all that effort that

Jane's putting in and other people around here will work and we can

save the turtledove from extinction. If you want to help, don't throw

seed around, but do please get in contact with the RSPB or Operation

Turtledove, if you see or hear a turtledove. There is a link on our

website and it would be brilliant if you could tell us where the

turtledoves are in the UK. Turtledoves need very specialist

conditions for them to thrive. But other animals are a bit more

opportunistic. In ponds and waterways all across

the country, early spring spawn has developed into perfectly-formed

miniature toads, toadlets. These tiny amphibians must leave the water

and head out into the big, wide world. En masse, they surge abroad

looking for damp, secretive places to hide and fatten up over the

summer months. But they aren't the only ones living down here in this

microkingdom. Last year's young horse leeches also like to live in

the damp, wet undergrowth of ditches and pond margins. Stalking through

the grasses, they sense movement using hair-like structures. They

also use receptors to detect the smell and taste of their prey.

Now, leeches are famously known for their ability to suck the blood of

their victims. But this species has bigger ideas.

The teeth of a horse leech are so weak they can't bite through the

skin, so they attach themselves with mucous and suction and devour the

toadlet whole. Capable of eating up to three times

their own body weight in food, it is thought these young leeches may

synchronise their hatching to make the most of the toadlet emergence so

these small amphibians are not out of danger just yet.

What a way to go! Gruesome. But fascinating. One of the undoubted

stars of our series this year has been our golden eagles and I am very

pleased to say that David Anderson has come down this evening to enjoy

our midges(!) David, it was through your hard work and expertise that we

got those cameras in place and you have been keeping us up-to-date with

what they have been doing ever since. We appreciate you coming

down. Let's take a look at our female. Tell us about this bird as

an individual. This bird replaced the original female from this nest

site three years ago. She still had juvenile plumage so we know she was

three years old then, so she's now five years old and this is her third

chick. A third chick? A third chick. She has reared a chick every year

since she was three. Which is pretty good going for a young bird? Really

good going. Normally, golden eagles wouldn't take over a territory until

they are six or seven, so a three-year-old, it is all down to

the male. She's got a really good male. We have seen the male from

time to time, of course. He is much older, he looks more haggered, he is

paler. He looks like he's been kicking around the glen for a few

years? He is fairly bleached with the sun. His eye colour is really

golden, whereas the female's got that nice hazelnut colour. Her eye

will turn as she gets older. He's been doing a good job of providing

her with food. We have been watching the development from day five when

we first got the pictures. Here is the young chick way back then, as it

were. This was delightful to watch. It was great that we managed to get

the camera in when the chick was so small and the female accepted the

camera. We are seeing quite a lot of unique footage, I think. This one is

doing really well. Can I ask you about the other eagles in the

region. How have they fared this year? We were having trouble trying

to get a camera into a nest. We are looking around 12 pairs. Out of

those 12 pairs, six of them have got chicks. But not all of them are good

enough to put cameras in. In terms of the population, good or bad year

for eagles? In my area, it is quite a good year. We have some more

pictures of the youngster from yesterday, so this is right

up-to-date. Here we can see quite a radical transformation. The feathers

are coming through on the body, primaries are visible. So talk me

through the rest of this chick's development. They are in the nest

for a long time. From hatching, to fledging, that is 12 weeks. She is

five weeks, this chick is five-weeks-old now. There is going

to be some rapid development now over the next couple of weeks and

you will see the back of the bird will turn brown fairly quickly now.

I suppose once they lose that down and replace it with feathers, the

female will be able to leave them for longer, they will be more

waterproof, more insulated? Yes, much more insulated. Like I say, the

female will have to start hunting for food once the chick gets around

eight-weeks-old. So the male is doing all the hunting just now. He

is not just hunting for himself, but for the female and for the chick. We

have seen loads of different food brought in, including a lot of small

things. What do you reckon that is? That is red meat?

I think it is probably a red deer calf that the butchered on the hill

and it has stripped it. I think I saw it with a meadow pipette on one

occasion. You did. That's been the surprise with me, with having a

camera on the nest, we've seen a range coming in, including the crow

nest. They are like jelly babies, going straight down the gullet and

then they are flying away and dumping the nest. You wouldn't find

that without a camera. So it has some value with your study, the role

these Eagles play and the ecology of the area? It's been a great value,

yes. And if you had to pick a highlight? I think the highlight for

me is the fact that it worked out. After all that hard work! You went

up a few cliffs, to be honest with you. We went up a few cliffs, but we

thought this would work out and it did, so I'm pleased with that. There

is more exciting news, and that is if it continues to prosper, and you

think it will. I do. There's a good chance we might be able to fit a

satellite tag to that young bird and we'll be able to follow it and

follow its future as it spreads its wings around this part of Scotland.

That will be truly fantastic. Martin.

It's been astonishing to see inside that golden eagle's nest. The first

time I saw those pictures was one of those pretty much moments I will

never forget. But it has also been great to share the lives of our

little owls. And that's the tree that the little owls are nesting in.

And there's a hide where the cameraman is sitting there trying to

film them right now. Let's go live inside the nest and see if we can

see the chicks. And there's the chick!

Just a few minutes ago we saw the owls running around. Let's look at

this. There, they are hunting! Look at that, a few minutes ago. Going

back up into the tree. We've noticed we've been able to record something

truly amazing. If you look along there you can see a sort of a row of

posts. And that's where the owls have been hunting, most of the

pictures. We've been able to see they are using three different

strategies to hunt at night. You can see, this is a thermal camera. The

owl is moving up that fence line and going back into the nest tree. See

that glowing form flying around the owl? That's a moth. The owl's become

alerted to it, the moth that gone down, so what's the owl going to do?

It doesn't go straight down. It is finding out precisely, and bang! Has

it got it? Yes, there it is. It's going to take that back to the nest.

It is using an am British technique and listening. What sort of hearing

have they got? Remember, this is pitch black. It uses another

technique and that's running around on the ground looking for beatles,

worms, maybe a vole. And a third technique, the most impressive of

all. Somehow, goodness knows how they do this, in the pitch black

they are catching a moth. How can it see that, or hear it? It is

completely dark. Quite fantastic behaviour. Amazing we've been able

to see them actually hunting during the programme. Let's have a little

look. Can we go inside the nest again quickly? There's a little owl,

it is growing up now. They've been exercising their wings. Are they out

or in? Just outside I think in the tree. You can't quite see it, it is

just there. They are just creeping out. If we stay, it's lovely sitting

here. I'm trying to use my binoculars before it gets completely

dark. Look at this there, lovely. Brilliant. We've got to leave the

little owls now and headway up north to the Farne Islands to get the

latest instalment of Iolo's adventure with the puffins.

Look at this. Unfortunately the bad weather has returned here on the

Farnes and for the last 48 hours we've been battling against cold

winds and this prolonged light rain. It is having a devastating effect on

many of our chicks. But despite them being a bedraggled bunch their

hardiness never fails to impress. These are resilient birds and here

on the Farnes you have to be. So how do these dedicated parents cope?

Well, they are forced to adapt and work even harder. One mother who

hunkers down whatever the weather is the eider. Eider females are pretty

easy to find, as during incubation they don't bunch. But not today.

This is all that's left of a wonderful female eider, number 42.

Look at that eiderdown, it is so warm. The eggs were due to hatch

tomorrow. They've hatched early and she's gone off with her chicks. But

I bet you any money she hasn't gone far, so I will see if I can find

her. I've been told that number 42 is around here with her chicks. Here

she is. I don't want to scare her. What she's done is met up with other

females and they've creched all the chicks together, so they'll all take

care of that batch of probably 12 chicks. All eider females look the

same but I'm pretty sure the one on the left is number 42. Or maybe it

is the one on the right. The one on... The one at the back is number

42! Anyway, I'm sure that one of those is number 42. Eider-way, a

female will lead her chicks down to the sea within 24-48 hours after

they are borned a as they undergo what we call the eider walk. Earlier

this week we were treated to this incredible sight, a group of mothers

leading their ducklings down to the water's edge. Once they reach the

water, the eiders will swim two kilometres over to the mainland,

because there's less competition and more food over there. Their

feathered friends left on the island, however, continue to fight

it out. Each parent doing everything they can to keep their chicks alive.

Look at this, all of these birds nesting alongside the wall of St

Cuthbert's chapel and among them is our very own record-breaking

Superman, Arctic tern number 91. She is incubating eggs but her

neighbours, many of those eggs have hatched and they are feeding their

chicks. These bundles of down are vulnerable as they take their first

steps into the big wide world,ence in this weather. I'm keeping my

distance and making sure I'm not putting the parents off the nest. In

normal conditions, Arctic tern chicks can usually fly after 21 to

41 days, but often they choose to stay with their parents for a

further month or two. Whatever the weather, these parents are clearly

doing something right, as there are now between 1,800 and 2400 breeding

pairs on the Farne Islands. And these aren't the only bird numbers

to report. Since doing their cliff counts, the Rangers have been busy

number crunching. I can now reveal that they've collated some of those

results and bear in mind this could all change if this bad weather

continues. But believe it or not so far it's good news. When the

National Trust first counted guillemots here on the Farnes in the

1970s there were roughly 2,000 to 3,000 pairs. Today there are 36,000

pairs. Razorbill numbers are also creeping up. Even kittiwake numbers,

which have seen a gradual decline, are stabilising. And there is good

news for the puffins too. There are 40,000 breeding pairs on these

islands. We've been keeping a close eye on se eye on two of those pairs

- the log pile puffin pair and the burrow cam pair. Both are incubating

a single egg. We'll be watching them closely over the next 24 hours in

the hope we can bring you even more good news from these wonderful

islands we now call Fanapidos. In the meantime I'm keeping everything

crossed that the weather improves. The rain has stopped and I can see

blue skies. I really hope we get three or four weeks of wonderful dry

weather to give these thousands of chicks here every possible chance of

survival. It really is such a special place, with such an

abundance of wildlife there. The weather's been pretty challenging

though. It has. Super pictures of the eider duck going into the water.

Eider-way, I like that. And fingers crossed we might see the pufflings.

We'll wait and see. We've seen one great tit fledge. Hopefully we'll

see the others in the morning. But there is another nest where the

chicks are ready to go. This is the reed warblers. Look at them, they

are squashed in there. There are four chicks. They are 10 to 11 days

old. You can see their little heads peeking out. That's a nest that's

bursting at the seams. It is. We put together a montage of their

development over the last ten or 11 days. Look how quickly they've

developed. There is the point of hatching. They are being fed a huge

quantity of small insects. Most of the things are very small. And a

great diversity too. More than 50 genre of insects are fed to these

birds. The adults are working tirelessly. Lots of small things,

only a couple of millimetres in size. This is this morning at

6.50am. They are ravenous and their feathers are coming through. It is

water bemethod to that, Michaela. Oopsy daisy! They've got to jump

into the reeds and not out of the nest. They are protected by the fact

that it is built over water. We could see them go tomorrow. Only 4

hours left with our live cameras online and on the Red Button. So

enjoy those. Last week we saw Martin help out with the water vole survey

here at Minsmere and he saw evidence of quite a few individuals. We

thought we would put a live camera in the reeds. This is the live

camera. There is nothing on there at the moment but we have had quite a

lot of success with this camera. We have. Here's a water vole swimming

along, pulling a whole common reed. Look at the way it handles it. It

bites it into bite-sized chunks and starts to nibble off the less

nutritious outer parts of the plant to get to the growing material on

the inside, the stem. It is not eating all of this. I like the way

it handles it. Breaks it into nice bars. There you can see it

dextrously removing that outer part and enjoying the inner part. Every

day they have to eat about 90% of their own body weight. That's a lot!

When I say it is more nutritious, there is not a lot of goodness, so

they are pretty much eating all the time. I think they are delightful

animals to watch. I don't dislike them but I don't find them that

attractive. Bulging eyes. Let's look at the bullfinch nest. There are the

chicks. It is a shame the parents aren't coming in. You can't see the

chicks terribly well there. They are hunkered down. They've developed

really quickly. You can see the wing feathers on the back of that one.

Shall we go live, to look at the sticklebacks. I think the fry have

come back, I can count them now. A festival of fry. And look, the

attentive male, the diligent dad patrolling, trying to keep other

sticklebacks away, because they can be carnivorous. Keep your eyes on

the cameras. Tomorrow it is our final show, but oh my goodness we've

got so much to show you. It is going to be such a packed show. Coming up

at 6.30 on BBC Two... No we haven't. We discover what happens with our

osprey love triangle. And will there be pufflings on the Farnes in our

nestcam? We've got everything crossed for a glimpse of our

sparrowhawk chicks. What about that. Fantastic. Next it is Unsprung, 6.30

tomorrow with Dr Chris van Tulleken. And I ask you about the psychology

of sentimentalism web it comes to animals. Should we be more

dispassionate. That's the question for Chris tomorrow. Bye-bye.

Hello, there. You left us a voicemail

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