Episode 12 Springwatch

She is beautiful. She is patient. She is the Daniel Sturridge of the

bird world. She has left it late, but what she is produced is

absolutely fantastic. What a start to the final show of Springwatch

2016, but it is not just hatching, there is also fledging, lucky

escapes, and one star teetering on the edge with anticipation. It is

going to be wild and unpredictable right to the very end, of course it

is! It's Springwatch! Hello and welcome to our final show.

We are here with you live at the RSPB Minsmere reserve on this

beautiful evening. We have had three fantastic weeks here, and it is

still going on. There is so much to pack into the show, we had better

get started. It has been a remarkable day. On several occasions

I have had to retreat to my caravan and mop my own brow. Nobody else is

going to do it! We have chosen a new location to open the show, we have

come down here to the reed bed, a very important part of Minsmere. It

plays host to a whole range of specialist species, and deliberately

sculpted to that end. What we have seen here in the past few days are

things like this, Britains, herons, Marsh Harrier, only 400 pairs of

these birds in the country, and there are eight here, and they could

produce as many as 14 young. Nice to see the bittern. The bittern humour

and the Marsh Harriers like this area because it provides food in

secret places to nest, and that is exactly why the next bird we are

going to set comes here, the little reed warbler. We have been watching

this all day, is there anything inside the nest? No, it has gone! It

has only just gone. Let's see what has happened during the day. Here

are the chicks, for them. This one is warming up its wings, and it

nearly falls out. It is a very dangerous game above the water, but

it manages to struggle back up into the nest. When would one of them go?

And here it is. Look how athletic it is answering away among the reeds.

So, now there are three. The parents are trying to call them off, the

brother and sister get confused. That one has gone, but

unfortunately, we missed the third one going. It definitely did go, and

that left just the one, and it sat here until tonight, less than two

hours ago when suddenly in the end it went. And it joined its brothers

and sisters somewhere hidden away in the reeds. And here is an amazing

thing. Those little birds in about 12 weeks, they will fly to Africa,

3650 miles away. That is astonishing. Let's celebrate our

super dad, our stickleback fish, Son of Si. The camera is just over there

in the water. Give it a wave! If we go underneath the water, we can have

a look at it live. It is interesting, this, but it looks like

a lot of the Fry have disappeared. Son of Si, there he is. That is

interesting, he is chasing them away, but it looks as though he

might have chased some of the fry away. There is another reason,

because a ring chub came over and through a lot of bread on top of the

nest! He doesn't eat bread! Let's see what happened to Son of Si last

night, because he nearly had a dalliance. All his fry are on the

bottom, and he is protecting them, being the super dad he is known to

be. And then the water rail came along, fortunately didn't disturb

him too much, but something else did. It is a female, and she is full

of eggs, she is obviously very impressed by his father and skills.

All of the Fry are sleep on the floor, so what does he do? Does he

go and enjoy the flirtations of the female, or does he protect his Fry?

What should he do? It is a gal Emma. Eventually, the urge to protect the

fry wins, and he is not sure, but he chases her off, because actually,

she could eat those fry. Ten days after they hatch, he will chase the

fry away so that he can come back and start again, show she was just a

bit mature. If she had come to night when it looks like he has chased

them away, she might have been lucky. What do you think those fry

eat? Not bread, that is for sure! Syriza, those tiny little fish, what

do they eat? Tiny, tiny midge larvae. Ever since we arrived here,

we have been watching the sparrowhawk nest. We didn't know

when they were laid, so we didn't know when they would hatch. They

might not hatch for another week, but yesterday, we saw something

extraordinary. They had started to make noises, which was a good

indication, and then some cracks appeared, so we knew we were finally

in business, but having consulted the experts on the books, it said

sometimes it can take 24-hour is for them to hatch, and sometimes 48, so

when we came in this morning, we were desperate to see some action.

And we did! She was really fidgety, jumping up and down, off the nest,

back on. Now look very carefully on the right of your screen. Between

the twigs there, you can see a little dimple has formed in the egg.

She is fidgety, are up and down like this all the time, and then look.

Just on the lower part of her trousers there, that egg on the

left-hand side, yes. The top of it, and there, she is picking little

bits of the shell off. She is completely fascinated by this, and

she is a young bird. For all we know, this could be her first clutch

of eggs, and the first time she has seen one of them hatch. She doesn't

know what to do. Should I incubate them or just enjoy this remarkable

moment? And then look, a bit later, you can see the chick struggling to

get out. Its head is on the left-hand side, tucked down

underneath that other egg. And its tail end is in the back of the

shell. Look at that, it has finally

struggled out. It weighs about 11 grams at the moment. And of course,

it still damp because it has just come out of the egg, a little

moisture left in there. So she settles down to incubate, and when

she gets up again at macro she nibbles the shell, she once to get

it out of the way, she doesn't want it to stick to any of the other

eggs, because those chicks would have to break through two layers of

egg. Then she picks up what remains of the yolk sac and swallows that,

nothing can be wasted. Down she goes again, but not for long. She is

nibbling on prey there. And look, the youngster is beginning to dry

off. The shell has gone, she has them far away from the nest so no

predators are attracted. Now, this youngster doesn't need to eat

straightaway. It has enough yolk sac reserves in its body to last at

least 36 hours. And of course initially when it comes out, it is

very tired and weak, but look at that. She has given birth to a

beauty. Oh, yes! That is absolutely gorgeous. Loads of people were

watching it live on our online cameras, and I can't tell you how

excited we all work at the production team. A sparrowhawk,

hatching! On our last day. Let's go live to the nest now. She is just

settling down to incubate. And this is just one of the eggs which has

hatched so far. For all we know, another one could hatch during the

course of the programme, we know that two more have cracks in them,

so we must keep an eye on her. We might see her hatch one live on air.

Oh, yes! That is a television first. I don't think we have ever filmed a

sparrowhawk hatching. How can we trump that? Last year, on the very

last programme of the series, Son of Si's eggs hatched, and before that,

it was the Sandpiper on the last day. Really, we couldn't write it.

We have been chuffed with that. They have read the script! Obviously as

Chris says we will keep an eye on the sparrowhawk throughout the

programme, but first let's catch up on the continuing story of our

osprey love triangle which is continuing in North Wales. Yesterday

we saw how Monty the male osprey had got together with two ladies, he was

servicing two. Can I say that? And that was Glesni, his partner from

years before, and a young incoming female, Blue 24. What happened next?

It is made April in the Welsh valleys. Both Blue 24 and Glesni are

incubating a precious clutch of three eggs each. And yet Monty is

losing interest in Blue 24. He has stopped giving her fish, and she is

hungry. No matter how much she begs, he ignores her cause, and worse, it

he takes her food await arrival Glesni, who is sitting pretty on the

main nest. Now, Blue 24 faces a gal. If she leaves the nest to fish for

herself, then her eggs might get cold, and they will be vulnerable to

predators. But she can't stay there and not eat.

Monty and Glesni have no such worries. They are sharing the

parental duties. Monty even incubate whilst Glesni goes off to hunt. They

have done this before in previous years, so they are well practised at

parenthood. No matter what the Welsh weather throws at them, they know

how to keep the eggs at a constant 36 to Greece to help them survive.

-- 36 degrees. But without a mate to support her,

Blue 24 must journey out a loan to the nearby river, and whilst making

several trips a day to feed herself, the empty nest becomes a very

tempting target. And sadly, while she is away, nest monitors

photograph crows taking advantage of an easy meal. For Glesni, it is a

very different story. On the 24th of May, her first chick hatched.

Followed five days later by the second chick.

Delicately feeding them, Monty and Glesni will raise these chicks over

the coming months, and there is a very good chance they could be the

next fledglings of the local offspring population.

For Blue 24, her romances over, and her chances of rearing chicks this

year have gone. Maybe next year she will find herself a more constant

companion. Very sad news for Blue 24, so these

are long-lived birds and she will be back next year. Now, hang on a

minute, hold the front page. This just in from the osprey project.

This has happened, this is on the 10th of June. Let's see how those

chicks are doing, look how they have grown. And Monty is feeding Glesni,

lovely to see them bonding. Yesterday, see how the chicks have

grown, they look reptilian, but they are doing really well. And look at

those talons. This is the osprey's prime weapon, designed to catching

fish with little barbs that allow them to grab slippery fish. And the

pin feathers coming through, they, too, not long. When autumn comes,

what happens is that mum and dad will disappear back to Africa, and

they will wake up one morning there was little chicks, mum and dad will

be gone, and they will spread their own wings and follow to Africa.

Amazing stuff. Now, you can go and watch those birds up at the osprey

project. They have a viewing platform, and there are lots of

other places up and down the country where you can watch them. Rutland

Water, a place in the Lake District, loads of them, and there are links

to those places on our website. And as a matter of fact, it has been a

good year this year for Ospreys, up to 300 pairs breeding, which is

fantastic. It is great to get out like this, and watch wildlife, but

it is also very good to bring the wildlife to you.

Last year, the Avon wildlife trust and an ambitious project to join up

some of Bristol's green spaces and create a citywide nature reserve. I

was lucky enough to be involved with this great project right at the very

beginning and this is where it all started, in the front garden of the

BBC. The plan was to convert virtually lifeless lawn into a rich

wildlife habitat. A small army of volunteers and schoolchildren

planted, built and dug this. Just look at it, what was a sterile strip

of grass is now loved, lots of planting to give the place

structure, even bird feeders under this glorious field maple. All good

stuff. This is my favourite bit, but we built with the children a year

and a half ago. Heaving with woodlice. If any of the children

that build these are watching, it does work. If you can resist the

temptation to mow the lawn, you create a wonderful, moist, cool

environment for invertebrates, worms, beetles, you name it. When

you've got those it's the perfect place to forage if you are a

starling. You might say there is nothing new about creating a

wildlife garden outside an office, but bear with me, this really is a

conservation project with a difference. The plan is to create

wildlife corridors through the city to the surrounding countryside. In

nearby Gloucester Road, one of Bristol's busiest high street, the

next phase of this radical plan is being put into action. Matt Collis

is leading the wildlife trust team. This is great, where does the

wildlife trust fit into disgust what we've been doing is lots of

demonstration projects to show how you can change any space anywhere in

the city to somewhere that has value for wildlife. We approach every

single business on this stretch and said what would you like in front of

your shop? Would you like it more green and appealing? Couple of

plants of wood, you can reclaim them, topsoil which you can look for

advertised months for, it's about going to a local plant centre and

saying, can we have some plants? Lovely community project. All of the

aromatics of these plans, it doesn't smell like a city. That's what we

want to do, give it a multiple purpose, it's not just about the

visual impact for pollinators, but trying to improve the general feel,

we want to know whether it'll increase shopping experience here,

will they be more likely to shop here? If we can prove this and

people say yes, what a great way to sell it back to businesses to make

it spread across the city, even other cities. This green corridor is

gradually growing longer on this two mile stretch of road, ideal for

pollen and nectar loving insects. I can really see its potential but I

wonder how is this going down with the locals? One of the driving

forces behind the project shopkeeper Sarah Thorp. Everyone loves it, you

get gardeners who say I've got a cutting I can bring. I've got some

seeds. Then we get people who have rolled out of the pub on a Saturday

night and they love it as well. Loads of great plans, not all of

them wildlife plans but they've all got some kind of value. Great for

the bees, scabious. Marigold is good for the of flies. I read that bees

love dandelions, I've left that down there. Don't tell the council! There

is a wild flower down there. This project literally is growing in more

ways than one. What I'd like to see is high streets up and down Britain

take part and join in. Watch this space, I think. Spread the word!

This is a great project in a commercial Street, you might think

that's where the money is, backing will come from there, but there is

yet another street in Bristol not 1 million miles away that is

residential. It might give you some ideas of what you could do where you

live. Strict residence the newness family are already seeing benefits.

Almost the whole street, not all, I think 30 houses. What have you got

in the corner? Behind the wheelie bin, this is brilliant, it's

somebody said, if you lived here, but a pond in, you would say, you

are having a laugh, but look! It's a little pond. It looks lovely. It's

already established, looks natural, this will be flowering. Beautiful,

it really does inspire. Another really nice thing is I can see

people smiling when they walk, it's nice. It's beautiful and it's

clearly working. This Street is perhaps most important part of the

citywide scheme, it's proof all of can make a difference. I've seen the

BBC turn into a veritable wildlife jungle, shopping high-street as a

meadow and a pond where they used to stand nothing but a wheelie bin.

This is brilliant for us, Soul food, great way to bring together the

community and let's not forget the benefits it brings to the wildlife.

Why don't you do something great? The little dandelions growing, I

know it's one dandelions but it might be enough nectar to keep a bee

going for ten minutes. That pond, you are thinking, it's a bucket, but

a bucket can make a difference. Testament to the project but on by

the Avon wildlife trust can be displayed on this map, each one of

these is someone who has engaged with this project. It's a map of

restore. You can barely see the city. It's brilliant, there's one

ridiculous area, Bedminster, the wildlife trust are working with. I

just spoke to my mate and those who lives in Bedminster, they are all

doing it, he says the great things about the houses there, they are

Victorian, they leak, bats can go in and roost. It's a great project, get

involved. Excellent. Can we go live to Marsh Harrier? There it is, the

Marsh Harrier. In front of the bush. Will they hunt off a bush, Chris?

Sometimes, but more often you see them quartering backwards and

forwards, listening, they have big ears. Just like ours. This is what

we got just a few moments ago. It's doing just what you said,

quartering. Two! Two together. This is it, they drift backwards and

forwards close to the reeds. They'll take anything from there,

amphibians, young birds. It of conflict, too. That's interesting.

Good stuff. Very good, bit of conflict. Bit of territorial

dispute, they are territorial this time of year. Act to the urban

birds. One of the species we find in our city is the pied wagtail, we've

been following a nest here. We can go live to it now. It's just over

here, quite close to us, in the barn. It's up there, see it? I can

just see it. The adults have been bringing in masses of food. Little

chicks in there at the moment. We've seen the adults flying around here

bringing food. That see what they've been getting up to the last 24-hour

is. Not 24, earlier than that. They've got five eggs originally.

It's difficult to see the difference between male and female that they

have been very solicitors, looking after the eggs. They are hatching

out, you can see. Take Michelle away. Here are the chicks. I can't

see how many. Five? You will often see... The wagtails

picking up insects from the ground and around the nest, once again,

insects, critically important. Then flipping back up. Up into the nest.

They are doing very well, hopefully they will hatch out. Fantastic. Like

our sparrowhawks, let's go live to see what she's doing. In debating

again now, one of the eggs has hatched, two of the others have

cracks in them, they are in the process. The reason they don't hatch

at the same time is they want the young to be different sizes. So if

food supplies run short, the weakest one will die first and quickly. If

they hatched at the same time and she was feeding them equally, it

would take longer for the weakest one to die, therefore she would be

wasting food on it. The whole asynchronous hatching is a strategy

to get the strongest chicks out of the nest. It sounds harsh but it's a

clever strategy to maximise the number of tricks that will get

through. The first one out is the luckiest. Probably the luckiest one.

The female sparrowhawk has done something great, following our

campaign you have been inspired and across the country a lot of you have

been doing something great, too. It all started at Easter on a beach

in Wales. Since then, Martin has been mucking in. I'm going to join

in the RSPB survey, I'm not alone, thereof other volunteers all around

the reed beds. While Nick Baker has gone further afield, discovering

exciting projects, inspiring people and meeting magical wildlife. Up and

down the country, people are getting stuck in. In nature reserves, the

community, and closer to home. It's great for nature and it's great for

you. Find out what's going on in your neck of the woods and get

involved. Their projects just like this happening all the UK and if you

want to get involved you can. If you are enthusiastic, love your

wildlife, why don't you look at it, go out, find a project like these

and do something. It's fantastic to see so many of you

get involved and you can still get involved because "Do something

great" doesn't watch for the three weeks of spring, it lasts for ever,

you can do something great whenever you like. I've come down to the

beach where Martin was last week. He introduced us to a little bird that

nests on the shingle here, the ringed plover. It's a sweet little

bird, so well camouflaged, it builds this very un-assuming nest like a

little shallow scrape. Their response of its chicks, just

hatched, popping out. This is what we saw last week. They are

promotional, when they hatched a run-off. We saw two of them, white

wind-up clockwork toys. They are off lowering of their surroundings

straightaway using that stubby bill to pick what ever they can see. It's

great to see them. They are extremely vulnerable on that little

beach. So did they survive? Let's have a look. Because this morning

one of our cameramen came down and he spotted the chick. We know this

is our chick because there were only two pairs of ringed plovers on the

beach and only one of them had chicks. This is the only surviving

chick, we presume the other one got predated by goals. It's about two

weeks old, you can see it has grown, it'll stick around with the parents

another couple of weeks, then it will fledge, typically leave the

parents and move towards the estuary over the winter, away from the

reserve. That is good news story because are extremely vulnerable on

this beach. It was fabulous to see it this morning. I thought it would

be great if I got my binoculars out to see if I could see one on the

beach. They are extremely difficult to see because they are small and

very well camouflaged, might need an extra pair of eyes. Oh my goodness,

somebody is here, look who it is! It's Iolo. The birds aren't all

around your feet like on the farm. I can't find a ringed plover anywhere,

they were everywhere on the farms, where are they around here? First of

all, what about that Arctic Turner? The record-breaking Arctic turn?

What a beauty she was, 96 thousand kilometres. -- Arctic tern. Amazing,

amazing bird. She is still in debating two eggs, still sitting

tightly on those eggs. About half of the Arctic terns have hatched. We're

expecting her to hatch lovably any time over the next two or three

days. -- incubating. After going so far we hope the weather holds for

her and she can read some young. She really is a record-breaking

bird, isn't she? There might be birds that have flown further, but

they haven't been recorded. 96,000 kilometres, and she weighs just over

100 grams. A lot of people were talking about your hat. I mean, look

at that, that is a work of art, how many birds have pooed on that? Look

at that, that is arctic tern, gulls... But there is a reason you

have to wear those hats? On the boardwalks on the fun islands, you

have nest everywhere, and I am being mobbed constantly. These birds are

defending their nests, and they are ferocious in the way they defend the

nests. I had one perch on my head and peck away like a woodpecker, and

it does hurt. I had a full head of hair when I went up there, but look

at me now! That is arctic tern is. But they are fantastic birds. I

remember going to the Farne Islands, and if you haven't got a hat on, you

have to do this, because they are vicious. A hat is essential. Not

only do they attack, but they are fierce. Listen, Iolo, we have had

the sparrowhawk that today, so can you give us good news about the

puffins? One of the rangers was walking past on Tuesday, he saw an

adult bringing in fish, so we went in and had looked, and this what we

saw. The eggs has hatched. This is a log pile pair, not in a burrow, but

look at that. It is fabulous news, and I now have an excuse to say the

word puffling, and they are bringing back sand eels to feed the

youngster. It will be in their four at another 35-40 days. And they look

nothing like the adult, just a black bundle of further -- feathers. You

can see the eggs tooth there, this one is starting to hatch, and the

adult is getting agitated moving it around, and by 11pm it had hatched

out, and there is now a fluffy little puffling in there as well.

Even though the weather is not great, I am told there is plenty of

fish, so those puffling Blue will hopefully survive. In the very last

week, they will hopefully survive. Our star birds have waited until the

last couple of days to hat. We have new news left! -- no nails left. But

we have thoroughly enjoyed it. We are supposed to be looking for this

wind plover chip, but to be honest, Iolo, I don't think we have a

chance, so do you fancy a swim? I will race you!

Matt Taylor and Iolo go skinny dipping. -- Michaela and Iolo.

We were watching the blue tit earlier in the season, and we rather

neglect to the great tip. We have seen this nest fledge in the last

couple of days, only two on hat eggs, but they have been fledging,

and here we have the adult bird going in and teasing them out, she

leaves, and pretty soon afterwards, one of them thinks, time to get out

into the big wide world. Squeezes out through the hole and

successfully makes it to the tree. Pretty soon after that, this one

jumps up... He makes it to the branch, which is perfect. Doesn't

really want to be on the ground at this stage. And that just leaves

this one here. A little bit later, this one, and it has missed the

branch and gone down onto the ground.

The adults will be feeding all of these birds. Ideally they want them

up in the trees like this, they are safer up there. And so the answer,

if you can't fly up, is to scramble up, and that is what we saw

happening. I am pleased to say, last time we saw these birds, they were

also being fed by their parents. So a successful fledging, and the

adults have done a great job of feeding them. We have been thinking

a lot about the adults providing food for their young here, all of

the species we have been looking at have been doing that, so now I will

present you with something very special. Beneath this cloth is the

mother of all bar charts. Just brace yourself for this.

This is our super parent bar chart. I tell you what we have done. We

calculated on the very best day of their foraging, the day when they

got more food than on any other occasion the weight of the food that

each parent brought in, and to make it fair, we divided it by the weight

of that parent, so this is a way, if you like, of generating the relative

weight of food provided to the young. And we can therefore see

which of these parents is doing best of all. Let's look at the great tits

to start with. Here they score a four. What about the little owls?

There is no doubt whatsoever that our little owls have been doing a

fantastic job of supplying food to the youngsters. Here is one of the

youngsters, there were three in there, and they are all prospering.

We have seen all sorts of things are brought in, insects like this cock

chafer, and also plenty of small mammals, that looks like a roll. So

our little owls have been tremendously busy, and on one night

they brought in 160 separate feeds, see you think they would score

highly when it comes to being a super parent. Quite low, lower than

the great tits, so why is that? This is possibly and embarrassingly a

statistical anomaly, due to the fact that many of the things they bring

in our low in weight, so they are going fine numbers not bulk. Let's

move onto sparrowhawks, and in this case, we are interested in the

activities of the male bird, not the female. The female has been

incubating the eggs, but he has been enormously busy, here with a great

tits. Typically the male will bring in five items a day. On his best

days, and there were several of them, he was bringing in ten, so

surely the sparrowhawk will score more highly than both of them. When

you divide the weight down, he is still not doing as well as the great

tit, which moves us neatly on here. We go on to the blue tit. And this

is the single parent raising this brood of great tit young, and she

was in and out of bringing in huge numbers of caterpillars. We

regularly counted her visiting that nest box more often than both of the

great tit parents put together, just a single mother, so let's see how

she scores. She actually just be the two birds here in the great tit, so

one bird here, is doing a remarkable job. Let's move on to the stoat,

because our stoat mother has been remarkable. She has found

woodpeckers, rabbits, and dragged them enormous distances all the way

back to her kits. Let's remove the Gold card here to

reveal the fact that our super mother 2016 is undoubtedly our

female stoat. She is scoring more highly in terms of the food that she

is bringing in relative to her body weight than all of the others. She

is undoubtedly an action hero. Meet our stoat mum. Just 30

centimetres long, and with eight hungry mouths to feed, her challenge

seemed impossible. We found her on the grassland with its abundance of

prey, albeit of the agile, jumpy kind.

But our pocket rocket made swift work of bringing home the bunnies.

When the tables were turned, what this supermum did net was stoatally

amazing. She gathered up our family and headed for the woods. You see,

she was ready to raise her game. First she tried to break into the

blue tit box. Next she set her sights even higher. The result was

stoatal wipe-out. Then, with her family increasingly

mobile and exposed to danger, she brought them right to our doorstep.

Perhaps being the people would keep them out of trouble.

After three weeks of mayhem, all eight of her kit are on the verge of

adulthood, and our supermum looks none the worse for wear. It has been

quite a journey. You could say it has been stoats emosh, if you were a

teenager or something. Super stoked. When I have seen one in the past is,

a stoat, you get a glimpse, it is nothing like that. We have been so

fortunate to be able to what these animals. We last saw her down by the

visitor centre a couple of days ago, and we will wondering what has

happened to her kits. She was moving again, she has moved them throughout

the course of the series, and I am pleased to we have found them. They

are in an old rabbit burrow on the edge of the woods down there, and

here they are peeping out. Just look at this. This is an extraordinarily

intimate view into the life of an animal which as you say is so

difficult to watch. They are just pure naughtiness in animal form.

Very, very naughty animals. At the moment, some of you might be tempted

to think that they are playing. They are playing, Mate. They are not.

They are practising. They are establishing a dominance hierarchy,

because there will be males and females there, the males will grow

larger. At the moment they look the same size, but all of this chasing

and nipping and rough-and-tumble, look at that! Eight of them

altogether! That is just glorious, honestly. If you put your hand in

there, it would just be a stump by the time you took it back out. And

she is doing a meerkat, constantly on the alert. Although we have been

talking a lot about these animals as being predators, they are also pray,

of course. Foxes would have them, buzzards would have them. She is

doing a great job. All eight of them are here, those two that got lost

obviously met up with the others, so they are altogether down in that

row. So they are learning how to hunt, because they will be hunting

pretty soon. There are eight or nine weeks old at the moment, and by the

time they are ten weeks, they might be making clumsy kills. But by the

time they are 11 weeks old, they were making their own kills, just

another couple of weeks and they will be actively hunting. I wouldn't

want to be a vole round here, or a shrew. They won't stay together,

they will disperse all over Minsmere. The males will move out,

but the females will stay in the Natal area. On average they live

about a year and a half. Only that? They have to live long enough to

breed successfully at least once, and that is long enough for them to

do it. What an extraordinary privilege it has been to look at

these animals, a testament to the hard work our cameramen have put in,

not only in terms of filming but the natural history skills. A couple of

nights ago, I was introducing you to a Nightingale nest. We managed to

get a camera on it. Let's go to that nest live now. Oh, dear, there is

nothing in it. You might think they have probably fledged. They didn't.

Something happened a matter of hours ago, high drama. Here is the nest

with the Chicksen, and listen to that calling, that is an adult

coming in with some food, but it notices something and gets very

agitated. Look at that! It is an adder. Both parents now, what can

they do? This is a venomous snake coming in to have a go at the chick.

Can they fend it off somehow? Let's have another look at that. The

parent comes in the first and wax that at the head. What a brave

animal that is. The chicks have all flown out of the nest, well they

have leapt out to get away from the adder. It isn't going to give up,

and it has another go. Still attacking. I think it is female, and

she needs to feed, but the parents backing, wondering where the chicks

are, and the adder is still there, and of course the adder can sniff

around, use its tongue as it goes along sniffing the air to try to

find out where those chicks might be. It tastes the air literally with

its tongue. Well, they've gone, all the chicks,

it was a bit early for them to go, they weren't quite ready to fledge.

What on earth is going to happen? Until we have cameras on the nest I

don't think we realised how arboreal the adders were here, they went up

quite high in trees. We've seen ad adders going into all sorts of nest.

If you look at textbooks they say occasionally take round nesting

birds but these things have been right up in the brambles. -- round

nesting. An update, we heard the nightingales singing. Not singing,

Corning, we heard the chicks calling. It's very likely inside the

dense bush the adults are still managing to feed those chicks. It's

part of the strategy, although they are not ready to fledge fully, they

will scatter if a predator terms. They've got to find them

individually now, the bug, but they will do that. -- they've got to find

them individually now, the adder. What is next? Bees. We've been

following a high-tech project in Bristol, the Bristol bee project.

The idea of this is to compare country bees and town bees to see

what differences there are. We've reported on some of the differences

so far. Town bees seem to have to stay out of the hive longer to find

food. Here's the fascinating question now, can bees perhaps

predict the weather? Predict the weather? It would make sense, if you

are a yolks you don't want to be battered out of the sky by a

thunderstorm, can't forage, why not go back to the hive? They might be

able to predict the weather, they might do it in a way that might

surprise you, Martin. In a way we've seen you demonstrating yourself in

the last couple of weeks. What can he mean?

Oh, my hair? You've been putting on quite a show. It has, hasn't it? Oh

dear... Oh dear! Oh very dear. What did you call my hair? Your erectile

knob to plumage. Enough of that. -- your erectile nuptial plumage.

Basically, the electrostatic charge... In the balloon. That's it

now. You have a sparse Mohican, grandad Mohican. The electrostatic

charge in the balloon is lifting your hair, bees are completely

covered with tiny little hairs. Here they are coming you can see them.

What we now think is, we know actually, bees approach flowers and

are able to detect whether the flower has an offering of nectar,

because of the charge the flower is giving off and they are using their

hairs for that. There is evidence to suggest they are equally using these

tiny little hairs to detect changes of the electricity in the air

related to weather. You might think it sounds far-fetched but have a

look at this graph, this was from yesterday would you believe? This is

bee activity, the dark blue. You can see there is a peak in bees going

back to the hive at 12 o'clock. The light blue one is rainfall building

to a massive thunderstorm. Look, the bees went back to the hive about two

hours before it started. I think it's pretty conclusive. They sense

the weather is going to change and the vast majority of the bees, when

the thunderstorm hits, they are back in the hive. If you don't have that

much faith in the bees as predictors of whether or sensitive hair, I can

tell you someone we can have faith in. Nick Miller in the weather

centre. With those intense downpours we've been seeing, those bees won't

know whether they are coming or going, in, out, perhaps more out

than in this weekend because they land us will take advantage of quiet

weather with fewer showers as high pressure builds for time. Not long,

next week more Atlantic weather systems coming our way, more rain

for the osprey chicks, Coughlin is on the Farne Islands. -- baby

puffins on the fun islands. Southerly wind rather than easterly.

Easterly is to blame for a huge influx of these, you saw them on

Springwatch, now they are making news headlines, the diamondback moth

coming in tens of millions, not seen in numbers like this since 1996.

They and us will be wondering what is lying ahead for the summer

weather. We'll be looking over the next few weeks, looks like dry warm

weather rat times but also wetter weather occasionally. Shaping up to

be typical British summer weather, we'll have to see how it plays out.

Whatever the weather, no excuse not to go out and do something great,

sparrowhawks bringing new life into the countryside. How we've enjoyed

watching on those cameras. We can go out, explore, support what is going

on around us, like the reed warblers, we can fledge and do

something great. In the fabulous summer months ahead.

Wasn't it great to see our little moths have hit the headlines.

Amazing. Yes! Nice to see you. I'm going to ask you teach your

favourite moment through the series. It's got to be golden eagle, going

up to Scotland in 1972 as a young lad I went looking for golden eagle,

didn't see one, when I saw one a few years later it was a spec. Look at

that, iconic species, the bird everyone wants to see. What I like

about when we do this, we learn new things, you would have known the

golden eagle would feast on small birds? New science. See Lamb prize.

-- sea Lahm praise. I had no idea they could move stones around with

their mouth to build that nest. Look at that. The oral dexterity. They

drag them back. -- lampreys. Henry the first died of a surfeit of

lampreys. Bit of history, too. Is position and said don't eat any

lampreys, he ate them and he died. I thought they got stuck to him or

something. Should have been vegetarian. Your favourite,

Michaela? You know I love a good story, you couldn't have written

this story, like a great soap opera on Christmas Day. It was the bluetit

story. We had a single hard-working mother, working so hard she looked

ragged. She was bringing up her chicks. Then we found out they were

adopted, not even blue tits, they were great tits. Then drama started,

there was a near break-in by a stoped. They were just about saved,

then started to fledge. -- by a stoat. Three of them were taken.

Would the remaining ones survive? Yes, it was a happy ending. It

fledged. Honestly, you couldn't write it. I love that story.

LAUGHTER Calm down! Can we see it on stage?

I've written it, it's called the sound of bluetit. Any guess,

sparrowhawks. The sparrowhawks, not the peeping eggs but something even

more poignant today, we saw the first feed. This could be the first

feed for the adult, it obviously is for the chick, she has brought in a

young bluetit. Emphasising the circle of life we've been watching

here. Look at this. She's breaking it up into tiny little pieces. So

delicately putting it into that chick's mouth. Having trouble with a

feather. Look at this, instinctively, the adult picks up

the feather and eats it. Goes back to the bluetit, tears off a little

bit more. Perhaps this is inexperienced in this adult, she has

given it a mouthful of feathers, the chick doesn't want it, so she eats

them herself and goes back to feeding its neat little slivers of

meat. What a fantastic thing that is, absolutely amazing. That has

been superb to see. Let's go live. Live sparrowhawk, there she is. I

wonder if any more of those eggs have hatched. She's been fidgeting.

Keen to keep incubating. How long does it normally takes, Chris,

between the first and second hatching? It'll be a few days. As

long as that? She's fidgeting a lot, this is what she was doing this

morning before the first one hatched. Shall we look at the Little

owls to say goodbye. They've been fantastic. They are branching out,

semi-fledging, they've come on the branch to wave goodbye to us. That's

all we've got time for for this series. Join me tomorrow night on

BBC Two at 6:30pm for unsprung. George McGavin will be my guest.

Time for a quick round of thanks to all of the RSPB staff here who have

been tremendously helpful and hospitable. Too many other

organisations and individuals across the country, the British trust for

ornithology, wildlife trust and Woodland Trust. From all of us, a

big thank you. The people of Seahouses, such a welcome. The cake

ladies to the boatmen, William and his crew, who were fabulous. To

natural England and all those wonderful rangers. Thank you very

much. And anyone else who knows him! Thank you in particular to you, the

viewers, for being with us through this, in particular anyone who has

done something special for nature. Did I say that right? Do something

great for nature. Even got that wrong. Nature needs our help. We're

online, on Twitter and Facebook through the year. You can catch up

on any of your favourite bits from these three weeks, there will be

updates, photos, blogs, and news of our chicks, sparrowhawk chicks, and

gorgeous golden eagle chick in Scotland. What I think that is.

There is a very good chance David Anderson will be helping put a

satellite tag onto that eagle, meaning we'll be able to follow it

when it leaves the nest, takes to the air and sores around the Glens

in Scotland. What a fantastic thought. We'll hopefully catch up

with it in autumn watch but fought a night we'll leave you with

highlights. The very special highlights of Springwatch 2016.

Goodbye! Why are we back at winds because

it's a top spot. We turn up at these places, sneak about, find nests,

stick in tiny cameras then stick our noses into the private business of

the wildlife here. It's a Springwatch fest, Chris!

I like the hairdo, it reminds me of... What do you reckon? I think

we're in for a treat. Then he ride a horse? He can ride a

motorbike. -- can he ride a horse. We promised you drama and we've got

some. I've reinforced my trousers with Kevlar because I'm stroking

them so furiously into light at this ornithological miracle. What a bird!

-- furiously in delight.