Episode 7 Springwatch

I am closer to the action than ever before. I'm going to be reporting

down here from the Scrape, where the battle for survival is reaching a

crescendo. And I am down on the beach, where young animals are

facing a fight of their lives. It has been a day of high drama in the

woods. We've had a stoat on the rampage, and add on the attack --

adder and before we came on air, and incredible encounter. Strap

yourselves in for an incredible show. Oh, yes, it's Springwatch!

What a day, I can't remember a day on Springwatch when we've had this

much action. Switch the cattle off, there won't be time for a cup of

tea. Stay on the sofa and watch some of the best wildlife action you will

see for some time. Welcome, we are here at Minsmere, as we are at this

time of year, and this is home to the Scrape, this habitat is home to

15 different species of bird. One of the Keats PCs that we've got here,

these black headed gulls Mac -- the key species. These islands, they are

surrounded by shallow water and they choose them because they are secure

from ground predators, things like foxes and badgers can't reach them.

They are fenced out. They are having a great time breeding. But they are

and are listed, so we have to look after them. Poor Amber -- Amber.

There is a larger BC 's of Minsmere -- gull, the blackhead gulls. Trying

to drive them away. This is in slow motion, you can imagine how this

happens, the lesser ones are real masters at sweeping in, grabbing the

check and within a couple of seconds they have swallowed the black headed

gulls chick. Things are tough here, it is eight tough place and there is

little place to hide if you are a check. One place we have been

following, the avocet. We can go to their nest now. I can't tell you if

it is a male or not, both of them incubate the eggs, but beneath this

bird there are four eggs. They are very good at looking after them, I

have to say. If anything gets too close, both of the adults will rush

in and chase it off. We saw it last night, when the programme finished

be carried on watching and look, a Canada Goose is having the temerity

to stray within about five or six metres of the avocet's nest and

immediately it chased it away. And here at the moment, while they got

eggs, as long as the bird is sitting, that black headed gulls

shouldn't be too much of a threat. The other member of the pair goes

straight over and chases that gull away. This is a hive of activity and

it has its own ecology, a lot of interactions, a lot of prey and

predators. Let's see what we can find. There they are, that is the

lesser black backed gull out on the Scrape or it could be a heron gull.

One of the larger gull species. They might be nonbreeding birds because

with the gull population you always get large numbers of loitering gangs

of gulls like this. And some youngsters. That chequered one in

the foreground, one of the younger ones. And in the foreground clearly

with the charcoal back, the lesser black backed gull. We have about

310,000 pairs of them in the UK but they are important, Amber listed

because they are in decline. One of the predators here, as many of the

gull species are, even the blackhead gulls art partial to eating others'

young. This one is wolfing down gull's chick. Another one swooping

in. This time they are successful at driving it away. And here's another

predator. We see these birds all the time, I'm scanning around because

they are normally in the air. OK, we can go live now, we have a lesser

black backed gull that seems intent on raiding, taking a cheque. There

are the blackhead gulls -- taking a chick. It seems younger, maybe it

hasn't mastered the art of taking a chick. No, I think they've seen it

off on this occasion. The colonial nesting habits has worked and that

is one of the reasons they do that, if a predator comes in, you get more

than one bird chasing it away. One thing worth saying, you mustn't

demonise these gulls, it is tempting to anthropomorphise, eating these

cute chicks but they have their own two feet -- they have their own that

they must feed. They are rare birds, they need looking after. In fact the

avocet, which we can go to now, is a bird which is on the increase in the

UK. But we'll keep our eyes on the avocet and see what happens when

they hatch. OK, let's have a last look around now. Here we are.

Shelduck is another species that we see on this water. They don't breed

here, they come here to feed and that is what that bird is doing,

sifting from side to side, filtering out in vertebrates in the water. But

it is too shallow for them to breed here. Martin is just down here, I

can see him on the beach and that's the perfect place to explore the

breeding habits of the shelduck. It is, I can see Chris over there on

the Scrape, over there. I am here by and as Chris said, this is,

curiously, is where shelducks might choose to breed. Why, bizarrely

because they breed in burrows underground, often a rabbit burrow

and this place along here will be a perfect place for them to breed and

in fact they have done. When the chicks have grown up, the adult

leads them out and they go to a body of water, sometimes up to a mile

away, but not a mile away here, and they go out to sea. Generally that's

a good idea but it doesn't always work out. Look at this, this is the

beach and there are two shelduck ducklings, being knocked around by

the water. Why are they there? Out at sea, the adult, that is the

mother, the female and she has four shelduck ducklings with her. She has

left these two behind and they don't seem able to get through the surf to

join her. Oh, dear! It's a good idea for them to be out there in the sea

because predators, they are quite advanced and they can dive under the

water. Look at this, these are the gulls. When the chicks see it, they

dive underwater. So it's quite a good protective mechanism to get out

at sea but these poor little chicks, these ducklings, they can't get out

to join the mum. It doesn't look great and there they are, left on

the beach. Mum and their siblings are out at sea. But don't worry,

folks, because there is another serious aspect of shelduck behaviour

meaning they might be OK, the ducklings. We didn't see them

predated, we think they are all right because shelduck ducklings,

which is difficult to say, often join together in large crashes with

other ducklings. They might be all right -- creches. Another bird that

is well adapted to live on the beach, come with me if you can.

Let's go down onto this shingle beach here. What word could possibly

live on this? -- bird. It isn't very prepossessing. It is the ringed

plover, the common ring plover is a misnomer because they are rare, only

a few of them breed here. They make a nest on this. All they do, they

scraped a little hole and that's it, that's good enough for them to have

a nest. You'd think if they were sitting there, the gulls would wreck

their nest instantly, so how do they do it? Superb camouflage. There is a

ring plover nest in this picture. Can you see it? We are moving in.

Can you see it now? It's just moved its head. You can see how

brilliantly camouflage they are. We filmed the nest, the camera team

found the nest, very rare, down here on the beach a few days ago and when

we looked closely, we saw the eggs underneath. She's just keeping them

nice and warm. Look closely at the egg, you can just see that there's a

little bit of cracking. That isn't damaged, in fact it was just about

to hatch, and hatch, it did. You can just see the little chicks, three of

them hatching out. They are pretty social birds, they are ready for

action as soon as they hatch out. Keeping cosy and warm, but not for

long. When they start moving around, the camouflage is gone and look at

these birds, when the little chicks come out, there is dad keeping watch

in the distance, they are off! Scuttling like clockwork toys,

whizzing around, packing away at the food. Not very good at finding the

right food to begin with, they will peck at anything. The adults are

very fierce in protecting them and they will attack anything coming

close. When the chicks stop, they will disappear again into the

camouflage. Marvellous, the common ring plover, which isn't common. I'm

going to go in search of the rarest mammal here. I will have to delve

into the watery world. I am in a very different location to

Martin and Chris on the other side of the reserve. I am up the hill in

the woodland and this is home to a variety of nesting birds, we have

the sparrowhawk and the little owl and quite a few small garden birds

nesting in trees. Let me tell you, there has been so much drama in the

woodland today and it started at lunchtime with a bird that we

introduced you to just yesterday, this one. It is the whitethroat

family. Five chicks in there. Eight days old, they are due to fledge

over the weekend. Both parents have been diligently feeding, bringing

plenty of insects and the chicks have grown incredibly over the last

few days, so things were going pretty well for the whitethroat

chicks, until lunchtime today, when this happened. This is one of the

adults, flying straight over the nest and it makes an alarm call.

Look what happens, the chicks hunker down and then they exploded out of

the nest. They are obviously not fledging, something has scared them

away. If you look, we can see it is an adder. We have seen this on

Springwatch before. This one isn't lucky because the chicks have

escaped. This is a female adder which have very poor eyesight, so it

hasn't seen the chicks and it is relying on something called chemo

reception, which is like smell but it uses its forked tongue, like a

modified nose. It is still smelling the chicks in the nest. It soon

realise that there's nothing there. It comes up and has a good look at

the camera. Obviously the chicks are extremely lucky to escape predation.

We were watching that on the live cameras, as some of you were at

home, and the first thing we wanted to know, where have the chicks gone?

We sent out a cameraman and this is what he saw. He saw the adult.

Obviously the first thing the parents have to do is locate the

chicks. There is one, quite low down in the shrubbery. The nest is only

about waist high. It has exploded out of the nest, landing there. This

is the male looking for more checks gull chicks. They need to round them

up as quickly as they can -- for more chicks. Here is the female

coming back to make sure nothing is left.

It is amazing to see that. It is only with those little cameras that

we can catch that action. To see that survival instinct of the Cech

is really something quite privileged. -- of the chick. As long

as those parents can continue to find and feed them, they have a good

chance of survival. But the drama did not stop there, it continued

through the day, particularly in our bluetit nest box. We will tell you

about that later. First let's travel north from Minsmere up the coast

where we are still celebrating and still rather in all of the

record-breaking turn. -- Arctic tern. Today we unlock the

secrets of this little Arctic tern and her incredible migratory journey

of almost 100,000 kilometres. That is truly amazing. I'm pleased to say

she is back in her nest, happily incubating away. We've also since

discovered that this Arctic tern is seven years old, which means she's

travelled well over 600,000 kilometres in her lifetime. It's

truly staggering. And great to see this little record-breaker's doing

just fine. However, one of our other characters is not faring quite so

well. You may remember Cathy, our shack, had shacked up with a new

partner, and they were attempting to build a nest together in order to

breed. Come and look at this. This is where the nest was. It was right

here. No nest there now. We've had very windy days recently and I'm

sure that would have blown some of the material off. I suspect what

happened is these two pairs have stolen whatever was left. And Cathy

has gone missing, we can't find Cathy. We will keep looking for her

and if we come across her we will let you know. But in the meantime

we've got some very exciting news indeed. Puffin X have finally been

hatching over the last few days. How do we know that? We certainly

haven't seen any puffin 's, they are underground, but we have spotted a

lot of other activity. At this time of the year, puffin is up and down

the country are returning from the sea laden with sand eels. We have

been watching this feeding frenzy and whilst watching we observed this

fascinating new behaviour. As the puffins has been toing and froing,

they have also managed to catch another species' very BDI. Look at

this. -- beady eye. What happens is because the puffin eggs has been

hatching over the last few days, we are seeing this more and more. The

puffin adult has to go to sea to bring back sand eels, the gulls know

this and hang around and waiting for a puffin to come back, then they all

jump on him. Normally a black headed gull will clip to parasitise alone.

But here in the fans we've been seeing them doing it en masse. It's

fascinating group behaviour. If the puffin is lucky, it manages to dodge

the gulls. Now, personally, I've never seen black headed goals do it

before but then again I've never seen a colony of puffins with black

headed gulls nesting with them. It is quite an occurrence, to see this,

it really is something quite unusual. The black headed gulls

usually feed on invertebrates, large insects, earthworms, that type of

thing, they would fly over to the mainland and feed on the wetland

area there. Here they have a ready-made food supply brought in

for them by the puffins. So why fly to kilometres to the mainland when

you only have to fly 50 metres and get your food. It's like a takeaway.

It does make sense when you think about it, though I'm not sure the

puffins will see it that way. Thankfully we do have a puffin pick

me up to report. We have an update from our collapsed puffin burrow. We

cannot get any footage because the camera is completely covered in

soil, but we can hear inside and we hear the birds. We see them going in

and out of the burrow. So the good news is they are still alive and by

now they may well be incubating an egg. With the recent hatching

activity it really does feel like spring has finally sprung here. Look

at this. Not just the puffin chicks have been hatching but the guillemot

chicks as well. There is a herring gull down there, she can see that

guillemot has got a cheque. A couple of the guillemots are really feisty.

The gull knows that there is food she wants for her own chicks. She

has given up and walked off. That's one for the guillemots. I do like to

see an underdog win for a change. What a day. There's been hatching,

catching and snatching aplenty as these birds battle it out for the

next generation. It's all kicking off all over the Ireland at the

moment. Hatching, catching and snatching, I like that. It's quite

catchy, isn't it? But you have to feel sorry for those puffins,

imagine coming home with your shopping, your bags are in your

hands and you get mugged every time. By your neighbours! He did say that

one of those puffin cameras underground has been trapped but

don't worry because we have got another one and we still hope to see

puffins underground. It has been a dramatic day, hasn't it? And there

is more to come. There is. So let's take a breather and look at a nest

that's had a rather, day, our little owls. -- a rather calmer day. They

are fed well, huddled up. No doubt they will get lively later on,

because they have been branching out a bit. They have been quite active,

although they have not strayed outside the nest yet. Of course the

thing about owls, a lot of the activity is nocturnal, so we've been

out with our thermal cameras watching these little owls. Here is

an adult perched on a post. That's the nest tree on the left. The owls

are low out from late afternoon to early evening, taking advantage of

the last of the light, catching insects. Plenty of earthworms. They

sit on a post, listening and looking for their prey. This is a curlew

that has found itself a very juicy worm. You can see the worm glowing

like a bright piece of spaghetti, rapidly dispatched. Find the worm

here, despite not to pursue it. Plenty of rabbits of course, and a

hare. Larger ears, different gait. It looks like the rabbit is close to

those fox cubs but there is a perspective difference. I love this.

This is like our very own Maasai Mara, rabbits in the foreground, a

pair of badgers in the left, the foxes just exited on the right, and

in the background you can see the years of the red Deer. We have been

looking at the stoats here. I don't think this is a stoat, the way it is

moving and the shape of its head I think it could be a feral. It's like

a night-time safari, isn't it? It is. There is just masses of stuff he

has. It's really rather lovely. The last couple of nights we've been

enjoying our wild boar family in the Forest of Dean but not everybody

enjoys them being there. We have been looking at the rising

population of the wild boar in the forest and seeing how that affects

the people who live there. I've been around the 25 years and

walked a lot of English countryside. But for the last ten years I've had

a little companion. Now, we've both grown up in Gloucestershire but

we've never actually been to the Forest of Dean. And what a day to

come to find out about one of its largest inhabitants. Wild boar have

been in the Forest of Dean for nearly 20 years. Since then their

population has increased rapidly. And some of their activities are

getting them into trouble. They root up the ground, leaving their mark on

the Forest and surrounding areas. This has a cost to local farmers,

businesses and residents. The job of monitoring and controlling the

burgeoning population falls to Ian Harvey from the Forestry Commission.

What we've got here is typical of the boars. They are rubbing mud onto

their coats. Any parasites, ticks and insects will attach to them,

then they rub on the posts. And the surrounding trees as well, same sort

of thing. There is certainly boar in the area. What happens if you come

across one yourself? What's the safest practice? Give them some

space. If you've got a dog, keep it under control, on a lead if it is

not well trained. Avoid heavy vegetation, stick to the main

tracks. When the vegetation grows up it is hard to see the animals. Is

the Forest big enough to keep a breeding population? You've got

12,000 hectares of perfect habitat for them, nice climate, favourable

conditions. They are thriving. Left unchecked the only major cause of

fatality would be road traffic accidents. Their numbers can

increase very rapidly. With no natural predators the only option is

to limit the population by culling. As the population increases, the

wild boar are coming into contact with people more and more. Would you

believe it? Along this busy road we've just butted an entire family

of wild boar. There's a mother. She's got five or six little humbugs

with her. This is incredible. They've brought the entire busy road

to a standstill. I've never actually seen a wild boar before. And now I'm

watching an entire family cross the road. This is utterly, utterly

amazing. But what do the locals and visitors make of this recent

addition to the forest? What do you guys make of the wild boar here? It

would be nice to see them. I like to see them. But I think there are too

many of them. They are part of the ecosystem now. They do a lot for it,

turning over the Earth. Some areas are completely dug up, it almost

looks like a war zone. Culls are always difficult. Personally I don't

think it is necessary. We have culls of squirrels and deer, so why not

the wild boar? I think we have to keep numbers down. I don't wish to

kill anything, but we couldn't sustain if it kept on growing.

Reintroduced the wolf, that would keep them down. So the Wolf is your

way to keep them down? Yeah. If there was a wolf, there would be a

balance. Whilst not overly aggressive, the wild boar can react

to dogs, the closest thing to a predator in these woods. Are you

scared of them? Sometimes, if I've got the dog with me. Does he get

excited when he sees them? Oh yeah. I've been trying to find them today,

but they are one of those mythical things out there. If I bump into

them, great, it would be amazing. After a 300 year absence from our

forests, the wild boar are back. And while they are not problem free,

they are here to stay. coming back to make sure nothing is

left. They are really just so beautiful to

see. They are not even bothered by the huge amount of traffic going

past this road. This is a busy road we are talking about. The mother is

just a bit further on, they know we are here.

That was amazing! That is truly amazing. I had so many mixed reviews

about these animals, but actually seeing them so close... It has blown

me away. Be honest, you'd be disappointed if

they didn't do this to me! I am down at water vole level, down on the

water here. Water voles are one of our rarest mammals but there are

water voles here, Minsmere is a stronghold for them. How do you find

them? Let's have a look and see if we can see any real evidence of

them. Now, I don't know if you can see, it's quite hard to see. Can you

see a little hole there? It doesn't look like much but if I put my fist

in, it goes right back and that's a water vole hole. Volunteers come

along and they check all along the area, this is called transacted 11,

and they look for water voles. How else can you see them? You can see

runways along the edge here. They go into this secretive world here.

Let's remind ourselves what they look like, water voles. Beautiful

creatures, very busy, quite big, lovely brown. They are curious

because they don't look like they should be very good in the water,

they don't have webbed feet but they can move like the clappers. And

there isn't very waterproof and they spend a lot of time cleaning it. --

their fur. How can we be sure if there are water voles here? When

they eat, they eat the end of the grass. I don't know if you can see

that, they eat it at a 45 degrees angle. Can you see? That's very

characteristic of water voles. They have to eat up to 80% of their own

body weight every single day. Can you imagine eating 80% of your body

weight? They munch through all of this vegetarian diet. Oh, there it

goes! This time of year, the female water voles are very territorial.

How do they mark out their territory in this watery area? They used their

poo. I got this out earlier. Can you see that poo? It is just vegetable

matter and if I picked up a bit and have a little sniff of it, it

doesn't really smell of anything at all. No, not at all. Just vegetable

matter. How do they make it smell enough to tell other females that

this is their territory? They use a special glands on their feet and a

drum onto the poo and they leave the message, the scent message, saying

it is their territory. If the female ignores her, it turns into a girl on

girl fight. Here they go. Look at this, two females, this is as tough

as it gets with them. You can hear the pop sound, -- plop, that's a

good way of finding a water vole, that sound. That can tell you that

there is a water vole around. As I said, they are very difficult to

see. What we've managed to do is to get a life water vole camera. Let's

see if there's anything on it now. Absolutely nothing. A similar kind

of area. Let's see what we filmed on that camera. We have a more Hend

chick here, very gangly looking -- more Hend. Look at that, a giant

water beetle, they can give you a nasty nip. Look at this, a water

shrew! Our only venomous mammal. This is what we are really after,

the water vole. Go on, jump! Go on, jump! Oh, it did it in the end. As I

say, they are becoming very scarce. You can help because you can join in

the national water vole monitoring survey. I got it right! There are

details on our website and you can help by going out, maybe to these

beautiful places, a bit smelly, and finding them for yourself. Now I

will float around here for a while as we go back to Chris and Michaela.

At the risk of sounding like an old geezer, when I was a kid, water

voles were very common, we would stroll along and you would often

hear the sound as they jumped in. Amazing how rapidly they have gone.

If you see any, join in with the monitoring scheme. As you know, an

Springwatch we nearly always have live cameras on a bluetit nest box

and we really enjoyed watching the chicks grow and hopefully fledge but

this year it has been an extraordinary story so far. This is

our female, the bluetit female and the first thing you notice, she was

on her own, feeding the chicks. Then we noticed that the bluetit chicks

were actually great tits chicks. -- great tit chicks. She is feeding

them really well and as you can see, they have been growing at an

incredible rate. It is a bizarre situation, the female bluetit

raising great tits but she's doing a great job and it is going along in a

weird and wonderful way. It was until just after lunch today because

then, we saw this. Look very carefully, there is the nest box.

The youngsters have hunkered down. This is a behaviour you see when

there is a predator around and here is the predator. It is a state. It

has climbed up the tree -- eight stoat -- a stoat. It is a ferocious

animal, it is on top of the box. It is never going to chew through that

would, it would need to squeeze in. Very fortunately for these great

tits, it is trying but it can't get in. You can see its nose and its

eyes. They are hunkered down out of each and -- out of reach and it has

one more sniff and then it disappears. And that is what we call

a close shave! It has been a stressful day. Goodness me. Then,

just over a minute later, ten minutes later, the female comes back

and there they are inside jumping up. They know that it is her, she

has produced a call, they hear her coming, they jump up and then they

are being fed again and it is a sigh of relief. Like the whitethroat

chicks, that was a lucky escape. It wasn't just any old stoat, it is the

one that we have been following with eight kids to feed. Do you think it

used our camera for its advantage? I don't think so, fledge are very good

and climbing trees and it might have rested on top of the box. I love the

way that it is joining up, the female stoat is interacting with

that bizarre family situation, everything is going swimmingly

well... Not exactly, I'm afraid. Just before we came on air, just

before we came on, we saw this. The tits were in the box, one of them

jumps up, and here comes a jay and it is over in seconds. That is

incredible. My word. It must have been listening, the jay must have

been listening to the chicks, just waiting for them to pop up, have a

peep, thinking about fledging soon. What an incredible day for those

chicks. Let's see if there are any more in the box. If you look, there

are three of them. It's a shame because they were ready to fledge,

they should be fledging this weekend. I tell you, the stoat knows

about it, she can't get in, but now the jay knows about it. This is what

we have been saying since the start of the programme, it is pray and

predator, part of the ecology, it isn't horrid, that's the way the

world works. But it didn't stop there, the drama continued in the

woodland with another nest. Indeed, we found a nest, we put up a camera

and started watching it. We were going to show you it pretty soon, it

is a woodpecker's nest, about seven metres up. A green woodpecker's

nest, you can see one of the adults exiting the hole. This is the

female. We can hear the youngsters inside. We weren't sure how many

were in there at this stage. Look at her throat, she is beginning to

regurgitate some insect food that she is gathered. She passes it into

the chicks. They climbing up to receive it. You can see the big of

one of them sticking out, -- the beak. I like the green woodpecker.

It is a great nest but there has been another drama. There is a bit

of a gruesome bit, I must warn you. This was just a few hours ago.

That's stoat is back and it gets into the nest. SHRIEKING. That nest

is the birds calling for help. It is like being in the box with a

terminator. You wouldn't want to be in there. Maybe it is looking to see

if it has enough time to finish the job. That's exactly what the stoat

does. It has killed one of the chicks and it is coming out. This is

seven metres up a tree, so the stoat must have heard them when they were

feeding and it has climbed all the way up. Then it is using its sense

of smell. This is the same female, we think it is the same stoat, we've

seen it killing rabbits, we saw Ed trying to get the tits and now it

found a woodpecker's nest. It has eight kids to feed, Chris. Very sad

for the woodpeckers. But brilliant for the stoat, what a diligent

mother, working so hard in one day. She had a rabbit at lunchtime which

we haven't shown you. I don't know what it is about Wednesday's and

woodland, it is like prebeta read -- predatory Wednesday. We are going to

show you more of the nest tomorrow but now I think we need to cheer

ourselves up. Definitely. We have been promoting our campaign, do

something great for nature and many of you have been out volunteering

and making a difference. You know, some people are so passionate,

they'd don't just do something great for nature, they do something

extraordinary. David Waters is one of those amazing people.

I've always had a really strong interest in wildlife and as soon as

I was old enough to walk I had a pair of binoculars around my neck.

My parents bought me a subscription, I think it was a monthly magazine,

The World Of Wildlife and I would look at the exciting wildlife and it

all seemed to be hundreds of miles away. And then I learned of the

great bustard. Great bustards have a natural aristocratic nature to them.

The bill is slightly elevated and you can imagine them as Spanish

grandees as they strut around. They really do look like a classy bird.

When I learned the great bustard used to live not only in England but

in Wiltshire, where I lived, and it had been persecuted to extinction, I

was quite miffed about it, very disappointed. There was a place in

Russia, Saratov, where the nests are destroyed by their agriculture. I

formed the great bustards group and the idea was that we could rescue

the eggs and rear the birds. Now we can go and source our birds from

Spain and bring them back, and do all of the rearing here in

Wiltshire. When a great bustard chick hatches, they are like idle

Joanna Soros -- like a little dinosaur, getting out of the egg

takes up two four hours, exhausting work for them. -- up two four hours.

They can't feed themselves for the first five, ten days and they rely

on their mother to bill feed them. I can't pretend I make myself look

like a female bustard, but I at least this guy is my features so the

bustard doesn't realise I'm human. Currently we've got somewhere plus

or minus a couple 40 adult great bustards. Early in the spring or

tail end of winter, the males get together and they leck, they do a

very elaborate display. They are sorting out who's who, who's going

to be the dominant male. The full display of an adult male rate

bustard is very, very spectacular, but it is also very bizarre. They've

got this ability to turn their wings and tail almost sort of Inside Out.

It's got this inflatable pouch that runs down the front of the throat,

and it inflates it right up. All be under further 's art on

display -- all of the under feathers are on display, and they are very

white. It doesn't even look like a bird, it is a white blaze appearing

on the hillside. When the males are displaying, it

seems to be about size and whiteness. The great bustard season

ultraviolence. We know the feathers are highly reflective for

ultraviolet -- great bustard sees in ultraviolet. So the females will

choose the big, heavy males with the best, brightest plumage, and those

successful males probably account for a lot of the meetings. -- a lot

of the matings. Nothing happens particularly quickly with great

bustards. Males are thought to be five years old before they breed.

I'm hoping that within the next three to five years we'll be able to

say the UK great bustard population is self-sustaining. That's been the

aim of the project but the last couple of years have really taken as

close to that point. To have created a new great bustard population would

be a fantastic achievement, I think. What a fabulously showy bird. I'll

tell you, Chris, that is a bird that would win strictly. Quite absurd

with its little dance. I always wanted to see one when I was a kid,

and when I eventually saw one it was a big day for me because they are a

big Bird. They are big, but you only notice the size difference when you

put them together. You've got the male. Up to 16 kilograms and a

wingspan of five and a half metres. One of the heaviest flying birds in

the world. You can see the size difference is pretty obvious, but

it's five kilograms, a third the size. Wingspan of 1.7 to 1.9. It is

the largest sexual size dimorphism of any spaces, which basically means

the difference between the female and the male. What a silly bustard.

There is good news for that project. It is a brilliant project and David

has had good news this year because he has had success with some of the

wild chicks. There are five wild nests. One nest was lost. Two are

still in debating and three have successfully hatched chicks. So

there are three wild chicks this year and David reckons if you add

those to the chicks from the Spanish eggs, in three to five releases,

there should be 100 birds, which means they will be sufficient for a

natural population growth. I've been following this project the years and

I can safely say that I've never met anyone who has worked so hard on a

project as Dave Waters has worked on this one. I mean honestly, the man

has put absolutely everything into it. Fantastic. Done something

extraordinary to nature. I think we've got a water vole. Then it is,

on our water vole camera. I love the water vole. Do you? They are not

your favourite, I know, but I think they are incredibly sweet. I'm not

getting a T-shirt with one on. I might, actually. I might get a water

vole T-shirt. Lets not go there. It's very exciting to reintroduce

animals to the wild but equally exciting to rediscover them and

biologist Gillian Burke has news from Cornwall about an animal that

was thought to be extinct from British waters.

My background as a biology biologist means I am naturally curious about

this. There are very amazing things to see off the coastline. If you

take your time, the reeds are full of life. Britain is a very densely

populated Ireland. What I found fascinating is there are still areas

of wilderness, still mega fauna that visit these shores. Basking sharks.

Seal colonies. Dolphins. We tend to be way more impressed with the big

things, the big animals. And of course they are impressive. But if

you take your time and you take the trouble to investigate the small

things, the little things, the Lilliputian world as I like to call

it, our whole new world opens up. And there's a tiny creature that has

recently been discovered not far from here that tells a huge story.

What's exciting about this story is that you don't have to travel very

hard to some exotic far-flung place. This tiny creature was discovered on

a very unassuming beach in the middle of Falmouth town. It's the

sort of place that you would rock up to with your deckchairs, windbreak,

grab a crab Sammut and have an ice cream. This is where two months ago

a group of volunteers made a find that I think is very exciting. What

I'm looking for is a rock pool where there's lots of hermit crabs. Right,

let's have a look in here? No sign of our little fellow.

OK, there we go. That's the common hermit crab in there, don't know if

you can see the little claw poking out? That's what I'm after. But this

is in the right species. I'll just pop them back in.

Hermit crabs are a type of crap that make use of empty shelf that are

found all over the beaches. They are incredible animals with bags of

personality. But the particular species of hermit crab I'm looking

for is really not easy to find. Hah. Found him. Soldier crab, male, with

red legs. And this one is being really obliging. Can you see that?

It's come right out of the shell. You can get a really clear view of

its red legs. What's remarkable about this, both legs are the same

size. With hermit crabs, normally one is larger. It doesn't have a

common name yet. So these little guys were found in Cornwall a long

time ago. This is actually the northern limit of their range. They

are found in Europe as well. But in the 1960s there was a massive oil

spill. The clean-up effort involved the use of lots of toxic dispersants

that cleaned up the oil but also wiped out a lot of invertebrate

life. And our two tiny hermit crab officially became extinct from UK

shores. That was until March this year when it miraculously reappeared

on this very beach. This is one of the things that I love about the

little things in life. The fact that these little animals have arrived

back on these shores after what was, at its time, one of the worst

environmental disasters recorded. It's an indicator that the Marine

life along these shores may finally have recovered. I'd love to think

that they are here to stay. Adrian Rollins, a wildlife photographer

from Truro rediscovered that crab. That's fantastic, must be so

exciting. He was out on a beach survey and he found that crab.

This is the scientific name. And they are important, because they

cross language barriers. So they do have a purpose, but they are not

very catchy. The thing about this crab, it does not have a common or

an English name as we sometimes call them. So we are offering you a

unique opportunity, and an astonishing opportunity. How often

do you get to name a rediscovered species of animal in the UK? That's

what you pay your licence fee for. You've got until 8pm tomorrow to

name this crab. Just please don't come up with Crabby McCrabface.

Something like Sebastien clause? Looks like boiled to me. Boiled egg

crab? You could do better than us. How did you get on? Very good,

although I smell a little of the night. In transit 11, where I was in

2013 there was one borough, by 2016 there were eight by Rose, so they

are doing very well, the water voles. Please do join in the

national water vole monitoring programme on the website. We've just

about got time to look at a live camera before we go, and we'll have

a look at our little owl, because it is feeding on... What is that? Is it

a mouse? Mouse. I think it is, just the one on the left. They have woken

up, they are busy. They are active. They are moving around. And I think

we are going to see a lot more of that in the next few days. They will

be out of that nest and branching. Fantastic. That's all we've got time

for tonight. What have we got coming up for you tomorrow? Lots of stuff

as usual. We'll be looking at the varied diet of our growing golden

eagle chick. David will be out and about exploring the wildlife of

Newcastle. On BBC Two at 6:30pm Spring watch unsprung, and I have

the founder of the human league as my guest. I met him once before and

he was working as a waiter in a cocktail bar. You just knew it was

coming. Sorry. Hope you enjoyed tonight. More action tomorrow and we

will bring you the story of what happens with those woodpeckers.

Until then, good night.