Springwatch Episode 2 Springwatch

We've only just begun and already the wildlife is delivery pure drama!

Britain has a lot of wildlife talent. Flying fish, frolicking

foxes, some magnificent mayfly, and tonight we bring you jostling jays.

And Gillian and I are at an old World War II airbase...

..on a heated mission to uncover some if it's more

secretive inhabitants. BOTH: Welcome to Springwatch!

Hello and welcome to Springwatch 20s and 19, coming to you from the

glorious Sherbourne Park estate in lost issue. Look at it, and

unintentional twirl. It is a fantastic place run by the National

Trust. The reason we have come to typical countryside and not a nature

reserve, our mission is different this year. Typically, we gravitate

to nature reserves where everyone is working 24 hours a day to farm

wildlife. This is made up of farmland. What we have done here is

explore how wildlife lives alongside farm animals, farming practices, and

how it struggles to do that sometimes. That is our mission. But

the wildlife mission at this time of year is to reproduce. There are

broods and litters of animals across the landscape struggling to survive

and stay alive. They have all sorts of threats, predators out there, of

course, but there is one universal threat to all that wildlife, and

sometimes to us, too. It is the weather. Last night it was the rain.

Where did the blue skies go? And why is it raining so? It is so cold, I

can't sleep tonight, everyone is saying, everything is all right.

Still, I can't close my eyes, I'm seeing a tunnel at the end of the

light. Sunny days, where have you gone? I get the strangest feeling

you belong. Why does it always rain on me? Is it because I lied when I

was 17? Why does it always rain on me?

I can't believe it. You have started the show with a 12 and a song. It is

musical theatre! What is happening? Lovely, Chris. You saw at the end,

the jays. They were bedraggled. Last night aftershow, torrential rain.

Being wet is not their only problem. This is the nest we introduced to

you yesterday, in this spruce tree at you can see our camera there, and

the camera is on the nest. Looking at the nest, it is ludicrously

precarious, it is like a leaning Tower, at a ridiculous angle. At the

end of the show last night on Twitter, there was a vote, will they

fledge awful? By the end of the evening, at 84% of you reckoned they

would fledge, 16% said they would fall. An optimistic audience. Very

optimistic, given the slope on the nest and the rain. Let's see if

either of you were right. This is what happened at 5:23 this morning.

You can see at the bottom of your screen, there is one of the chicks

out of the nest. It didn't fledge, it fell. So, 16% of you were right.

It is flapping its wings and trying to get back up, and it is falling

through the foliage. The question, I guess, that is on everyone's lips

is, did it survive? Well, let's have a look. Did it

survive? I'm pleased to tell you, it did. It survived the day. There it

is. Looking sorry for itself. Those feathers to me look like feathers

that are ready to fly. It is partly because it got so wet. There it is,

having a good, old stretch. It starts to call, and the adult bird

comes in. And starts to feed it. Obviously, that chick is very

vulnerable at this stage. You can see it flapping its wings, but not

managing to take off. That was definitely a fall. What about the

others? Did they fledge awful, are they still there? There is one way

to fight out, take a look at the live nest. Looking at it live, you

can see it is empty. There were four chicks in there, now there is

nothing at all. What do you reckon? Fledge awful? This happened a fewer

hours ago, and you can judge for yourself. Yet, they fledged. The

last three definitely fledged. You can see the way it is branching,

semi-fledging, flapping its wings, and successfully fly in a bit of the

way. All of those four jay chicks are out of the nest now, and we will

keep a close eye on them. They are all quite vulnerable at this stage.

It is fantastic that they fledged, but it is a little bit of a shame,

Chris, because it is the first time we have ever had a jay nest on

Springwatch. By Day two, they have all gone! We will keep an eye on

them to see if the youngster close to the ground survives. There are

plenty of threats, plenty of buzzards. Buzzards often take the

young out. When they make all that noise out of the nest, it makes them

vulnerable, but we will keep an eye on them. The jays are nesting down

in this block of woodland. It is a nice block of woodland. Quite a few

mists are down there. When it comes to terrestrial habitat in the UK,

woodland is the most important, supporting more life than any other.

How much woodland do you think we have got in the UK? Is it about 13%

of our land mass? Land surface, 30%. It adds up to 31.36 million

hectares, which sounds like a lot of woodland. But I have to tell you, it

is the second lowest in Europe. Only island and the Netherlands have less

woodland than the UK. The good news is, since the end of the Second

World War, we have doubled the amount of it. Clearly, if we want to

improve things for wildlife, we have to keep planting. In the Cotswolds,

we have 20,000 hectares of woodlands. Here we can see the

woodland in winter, transforming into spring. It balloons with all of

those leaves. All the leaves are highly edible, lots of things are

eating them. And things are eating the things that eat them, and one

species that does precisely that is the blue tit. They aren't nesting in

the woods in a nest box. Let's go to it now. Here is the exterior of that

box. You can hear the youngsters calling. There they are, inside

there. There were nine of them in that box. They might have just had a

feed, they are quite active and vocal. If you have been watching

those on the red button or WebCam, you will notice of the line, two are

smaller than the others. A couple of rumps in the brood. -- runts. They

seem to have been breezy over the last few days. We have been doing

food counts. Here they are, slightly younger, lots of caterpillars going

in, those are the things eating the leaves. The blue tits are eating the

things that are eating the leaves. We have calculated they need 900

caterpillars a day, a brood of nine new tits. At the moment, they are

getting 450 something. Rain watches caterpillars off the trees and makes

them inaccessible to the tips. A lot of hard work for the blue tits to be

doing down there at this point. We will keep our fingers crossed for

the two. If the weather stays fair, there might be a chance for them.

You pointed out that the nest is down there, the same area as the jay

nest. As we know from last year, if you remember last year's

Springwatch, we had a blue tit nest box that had this happen to them. AJ

comes and snatches the chick out of the hole. The Jade took three

chicks, leaving just one. I am pleased to say the final one did

fledge and survive. We called it Gloria Gaynor. You called it Gloria

Gaynor. As in I survived. What about this year? The nest box is near the

jays, are jays going to be a problem? Not at the moment, but

there is another bird that could be. This one, the great spotted

woodpecker. Look at it. It is listening in the hole. It can hear

them tweeting away. It had a jolly good look. That was on Sunday. We

have seen the woodpecker twice near the hole. It happens, though. It

often happens. They do, it happened one year in my garden, I had a

couple of wooden boxes out. One Saturday morning, I was woken up by

the tapping. Half an hour later, no great tips. As the chicks become

more and more vocal and start climbing out of the nest hole, that

is when they had to watch out. We will keep an eye on that. Another

iconic bird of our woodland this north of the border in Scotland, a

huge member of the grouse family. We can rate it as one of the most

boisterous and bolshie birds in the UK, clearly a braid man -- brave man

had to confront it. With its stunning mountains and

beautiful glens, it's no wonder that tens of thousands of people visit

the Highlands every year. And for the bird watchers that come up here,

they would choose the bird more than any other, not the golden eagle or

white tailed eagle, a woodland bird that has been in decline for four

decades. It's the capercaillie. In the 1970s, population estimates

of these striking birds stood at around 20,000. But today, they have

dropped to only one or 2000. It makes the capercaillie a red listed

bird, and extremely difficult to find. Those that are left are

closely monitored to see how they are faring. Today, I am joining

Gareth Marshall from the RSPB, who carried out daily studies on a vital

population in one of their Scottish strongholds.

Why is Speyside so good for capercaillie? There is an abundance

of Scots pine woodlands. They feed on the needles most of the year,

particularly in the winter. It provides the right light and ground

conditions to get play brie and the ground. It is a key plant for the

capercaillie. The chicks feed on the insects that live in it. These are

big birds, like a woodland turkey. They are massive. A male

capercaillie is four kilograms. The wingspan is 1.2 metres, typically.

That is a big Bird, I wouldn't want to bump into one of those on a dark

night! When the birds come together, it is

an even more impressive sight. Every spring, the males gather on sites

where they displayed to each other and attempt to win over a hen. In

order to establish a hierarchy, the males lack make clicking and popping

noises. If that doesn't happen, it can result in real violence.

Where is it here? Over there. There is nothing about the area that is

specific, you wouldn't go there specifically, but it looks like the

rest of the forest. We know it is a site because of hard work and

fieldwork going out and looking for signs of capercaillie. By that, we

mean droppings, looking at capercaillie droppings. Here, you

have two male droppings at the front, and two female droppings at

the back. You can see the difference. The male are thicker and

chunkier for a bigger bird and skinnier are still big, but skinnier

for a female. We know the capercaillie are around.

To check on the numbers, our best chance of seeing them is to be here

at first light. The hives go up and we make ourselves comfortable for

the night. It is now just after 5am. I woke up

this morning to a series of clicks and pops, followed by wheezing

noises all around me. It's unique. No other bird has a

call anything like this. They are quite spread out. Most of

them are behind me, at least two, maybe three behind me. One maybe two

are amongst the crease in front of me.

What a weird, alien noise this is. A very odd thing to wake up to.

Amazing, though. Well, what do you think? The males

was quite spread out. I think a count of six males. I know it is

early days yet but does it look as if the population is holding its own

this year? Yes, it is remaining relatively stable. A few ups and a

few downs and others but on average holding its own. Well, you carry on

packing away your hide and I'll pack away mine and the least I can do is

buy you a cup of tea. Thank you! What a fabulous bird. Well, I am up

on an old World War II air base and you can see the old control tower.

This is RAF Windrush. If we get some old photographs we can see what this

place looked like during the Second World War. Here are some people, the

crew, the jolly crew around an aeroplane which is being serviced

there. And if you have a look, they also had barrage balloons here, set

up to try and bring down enemy aircraft, and also, if you go above,

you can see the whole site. You can see the runways there and all the

outbuildings, some of which are still here. And extraordinarily,

lying around, if my beautiful assistant could just pass this!

This, believe it or not, is an actual bit of a German bomb. It is a

huge lump of shrapnel and these bits and pieces still turn up here. That

was 70 years ago but things have changed, have a day, Gillian? They

have indeed because today nature is reclaiming this site. If you look

behind me there is a pillbox which is almost completely overgrown. Over

there to my right you can see a woodland that was planted just after

the war to hide the buildings there, the barracks and

the bomb stores. But today it looks completely different, and if we take

a look at these shots, you can see what I mean. Absolutely beautiful,

tranquil, peaceful. It is so hard to imagine this was once a wartime hub.

Life is literally bursting through all the relics there. Some of our

favourite wildlife now makes it home. A little owl, gorgeous. As

well as little owls there are other birds like skylarks, yellow hammers

and farmland birds that perhaps you would not see so commonly around the

UK now. As well as those things, there is something a lot more

secretive here, I hare. The hares hideaway in the ground here and

every now and then you get a tiny glimpse of them. Watch this, there

they go. The ears of a hare. The ears are longer than a rabbit's and

the eyes are more to the side of the head. They do not go to boroughs

like rabbits do, they will go to the field and they will feed mainly at

night. They are incredibly difficult to find, really difficult to find so

we are going to have a go at finding them using a bit of super high

technology. How will we do it, Gillian? Ladies and gentlemen, be

prepared to meet Ronan cam. Drones have become a familiar sight these

days but this one is different -- drone cam. This one has a heat

imaging sensor. This might be a site you don't want to see down a dark

alley! This is hot tea which I am trying not to burn myself with.

Hopefully Lee you can see it is glowing white. And if I do this, I

have no idea if you can see that but hopefully it is white hot. And now I

am guessing everyone will want a cup of tea! The plan is that we will try

and send this drone up into the air and the thermal camera will scan

around the fields and try and see if we can find a hare or a leveret, a

young hare, lining up in its fawn. Shall we back off? Can we spark it

up, please, Kevin? I fell down a whole! Lets if we can a picture of

this. Here we go. Hopefully, you are seeing some thermal images from

that. Comeback in the little while and we will see if we managed to

find a hare or a leveret out there in the field.

See you later. It is slightly barking but at the same time

wondrously brilliant, using a thermal drone to look for a hare.

There is another species of animal that we find here on the Sherborne

Park estate which you do not need a drone to find at all, I'm talking

that rabbits. Rabbits are a non-native species. They were

brought here initially by the Romans and then certainly by the Normans as

another introduction, all the way from Iberia. They proliferated.

There are millions and millions of rabbits across the UK. They have

been in critical decline for some time but there is no doubt at this

point in time, they represent not just a beautiful sight in our

countryside for the bunny huggers out there, but also they are bunny

burgers because same in the animals eat them. Foxes and buzzards, there

population is dependent on them. I have really felt for bunnies. Did

you know only 10% of them make it to add altered? Everything eats them.

They are bunny burgers and the other thing the eats them is this creature

we have been filming over the last couple of days. One of our cameramen

spotted this adult female stoat. It is climbing a stone wall. This is a

great habitat for this animal to hide out. It can run along the wall,

it can hide in the wall and it can make dens on the wall. They make

multiple bends in their territory. So lucky to see a state like this.

Some often you see a fleeting glimpse, you cannot say if it is a

state or a weasel but we can see this is a stoat because there is a

black tip on the tail which is lacking in a weasel. We have noticed

it is going into this then. This is its nest. They move them. It is

using it for its kit. You might have noticed a bit of movement behind the

adult and now you can clearly see the young. We can see a couple

there. Our cameraman spotted three or four he thinks. There could be

anything up to six or nine which is an average litter. They are

obviously quite old. They are quite big! They will be bursting out of

that den and running around and exploring quite soon. The females

will move them from dented den. I'm not surprised they have chosen to

have a dome inside one of these dry stone walls. The key is in the name,

dry stone walls. The core of the wall is dry and they can remain dry

for hundreds of years. They are a great place for wildlife. All sorts

of things make their home in there. We spoke to the dry stone wall

association and they said the most familiar thing they founded there

were toads but also lizards, rodents, rabbits, all sorts of

things. Also these jackdaws. Perhaps the jackdaws are after insects at

this point in time. Here on this estate in the Cotswolds, these stone

walls are very much part of the landscape, some of them dating back

to 3000 years, although not in wall form. The same technique was used to

build burial mounds. One of them built in the 1740s is a particular

gem, made from a type of limestone. And where to think we might find

70,000 tonnes of illiterate limestone crafted into one of the

most magnificent edifices in the whole wide world? Bath? Wrong.

Salisbury Cathedral. You can keep your Taj Mahal. When you walk into

Salisbury Cathedral and UCB magnificence spire, it would stop

the heart. It would certainly stop the heart if you had climbed or the

stairs. That is where our cameramen been going to film the peregrine

falcons. They had a peculiar laying pattern this year.

It is early May. For the last three and a half weeks our female has been

incubating a clutch of five eggs. It has not been an easy task,

particularly in the unpredictable British spring weather.

Her nest site is pretty special. A parable that 70 metres up on the

south side of Salisbury Cathedral. It makes for a pretty spectacular

home and it mimics the cliff sites that peregrines traditionally on.

Peregrines strike other birds in midair at speeds of up to 200 mph.

They are fearsome apex predators. With the female largely confined to

the nest, the male must keep her well fed and he has been religious

in his attention. This black bird is today's offering.

But the Cathedral surroundings provide a rich and varied menu.

Recently, he has brought his mate great spotted woodpecker and there

are also kingfisher feathers littering the floor. Pigeons are a

favourite food of peregrines. But because most praise killed on the

wing, this would pigeon is probably safe.

Although you would think there must be far less risky twigs to be found

elsewhere. The female does most of the

incubating, but the male does relieve her from time to time. He is

a third smaller than she is, and also it makes it impossible for him

to cover this large clutch. The female returns and order is

restored. Back in 2013, this pair laid their

eggs on the bare stone walk way. They failed to hatch because they

kept rolling apart. After that, the Cathedral and the local RSPB

installed a nest box to help keep the eggs together. But it seems she

has not forgotten that first attempt and she carefully shores up the

nest. But even with such attentive care, nothing is guaranteed. With

such a large clutch, some of the eggs may not make it through. They

should hatch in the next week, with this unpredictable pair, only time

will tell if they do. What a place to nest. If I was a

peregrine falcon I would choose the top of a cathedral like that. I

would choose the Cathedral. A beautiful place and the beautiful

view. I would not want to nest in the Taj Mahal or the pyramids of

Giza, a load of rubbish. Well, they are world Heritage sites, not

exactly rubbish. Let's move on. We saw some of the food they have been

eating there. We have got some of the feathers here. This is the one

from the kingfisher. You can see the blue which identifies the back of

that bird. I love the colours of that one, that is great. You could

make a pair of earrings out of them! Old macro good idea. These white

spots are indicative, they are unusual species for a peregrine.

This is a song thrush and this one? That has got to be a blackbird. It

is about that. And this one is a female black bird. A guy called Ed

Truitt who wrote a book about urban peregrines has been looking at food

and recovering feathers and he has found no fewer than 98 different

avian prey species brought into those nest sites.

What is interesting is, clearly these birds are not trust feeding on

urban species such as pigeons, jackdaws or goals, they are

venturing into the countryside. There are few king -- kingfishers,

or we wanted to see where they were foraging. So we climbed the tower

and caught the male bird. Here it is in the hand. We were hoping to put a

tag on the male, because this is doing most of the hunting. We fitted

it with a colour ring. But when Ed Wade the bird, it was underweight

for the tag. It is important not to put too heavy a device on them, so

we had to release the male. It was a particularly small male. Thankfully,

the female was a regular size, so we colour ring this bird, and she was

big enough to have a satellite tag fitted to her. This is a practice

that is tried and tested with other bird, a light device that sits on

the back. She came back to the nest within an hour or so, and was

brooding and integrating the! -- the eggs there. We should be able to

follow the bird to winter, and see where she will find food for the

young, and what she does after that. Many urban peregrines stay on the

territory, roosting on the cathedral, or church where they have

chosen to breed. It is a great project. Thanks to the guys are

climbing up and fitting the tag. We will follow that up in Autumnwatch

and Winterwatch. Peregrines are not the only ones that have chosen

religious real estate, we will introduce you to a brand-new nest.

This is such a beautiful place in Sherborne Village, in this old

church. Absolutely picture perfect. You can see the window there, it is

a window that they nest in. The village is just over there. Let's go

live to our kestrel. Let's look at them. Here are the chicks. That is

the adult. It is quite surprising to see that the adult isn't brooding,

though. It is feeding them instead. That is highly likely to be a role.

Just before we came to be shot, we heard that it sneezed all over the

lens. You can see it is smudgy. That is fantastic! That is what you pay

the licence fee for!! Kestrel 's not! Oh, yes! Lovely! Let's see what

they have been getting up to other bands sneezing. This will be the

female, usually the female kestrel broods the eggs and looks after the

chicks. The mail comes in. You can see a lot of vocalisation between

the two of them, bringing in, highly likely again, to be a vole. It flies

off into the distance. This is the female picking of little bits to

feed the chicks. If you look at the chicks, they have got very white.

While they are that colour, they can't regulate their temperature, so

they have two be rooted all the time by the female. After 10-11 days, it

will turn darker, and they can firmer regulate. Great to see. It is

a first for us, a kestrel nest in a church, and it will be great to

follow their progress. Look at it, snuggling down and keeping them

warm. Let's go back live. Is she still the? Come on, it look at the

sunlight glinting on the side of the unit it limestone. The chicks being

fed a vole last thing in the evening, that is great. Kestrel are

having a good year. We spoke to a lady called Emily Yocham, who is

working in Wiltshire, watching 55 pairs of kestrels, and she has 12

pairs with six eggs, normally 4-5 has been the limit in recent years.

And one with seven. The first time that has been recorded for 35 years.

They are having a good spring. Some of her young are more advanced than

the ones in our nest. She sent us this picture. They have the second,

grey coat. They do look quite comical. They have got a comical

look. Sensational things. The reason we think they are having a good

spring is because we had a mild winter, which means lots of voles

survived, which is food for them. We are on Day two of Springwatch, and

we are still exploring the surroundings in Sherborne. We saw

yesterday, Chris did a look around, did a mammal survey, and a couple of

wins ago, I came here to look at what is in the ponds. To give you a

clue what I was looking for, Chris will do an impression...

That's really good. Gormless. That's why you are so good at it.

Here in the UK, we have three species of newts. Smooth is the most

widespread, spots on their either side, and they can grow up to ten

centimetres long. This species lack the spots on the ropes. The great

crested is the largest, up to 50% bigger than the other two, and also

the rarest, fully protected under UK law. Newts spend the winter

hibernating, but as the weather warms up, they emerge to start to

mate. I want to discover which species live around the Springwatch

HQ. And to do that, I have enlisted expert help. David Dewsbury has

invented a neat, little trap, which safely catches large numbers of

newts. I will help him set some. Can I look at a track? Of course. That

is your lunchbox, not a trap. A big difference to a normal trap. His

ingenious trap has a slot along one side, lined with netting, so the

newts can get in but can't get back out again. Instead of a lid, there

is a plastic bag with a float attached, and a small hole to let

air in. It gives the newts plenty of space to move around. The most I

have caught is 88. 88?! I don't expect to catch that number of

newts. The box feels with water and sinks

to the bottom of the pond where the newts are most likely to stumble

into it. We place several around the edge of a small pond to maximise our

chances. Is that it for this pond, just

three? Just three should it, hopefully. Now it is off to a second

pond. Ready? One, two, three... This one is a lot bigger, so needs

more traps, best positioned in the deepest parts towards the middle.

So that is it now? Until tomorrow. Let's take a bet, how many will we

get? 30. I will go for 35. We will find out who's right

tomorrow. Newts are most active in the evening, so relieving the traps

overnight means we're more likely to catch higher numbers.

The next morning, I am full of excitement to see what we have got.

We start with the smaller of the two ponds.

Yes, we have got one! Usually, a female smooth newt has spots under

the chin, and has bigger spots. This one has hardly any, actually. So it

is quite easy. Definitely a female. Something in there. Look, we have

got lots. Fantastic, how many are there? Six? Yes, two males, four

females. We have a fewer again. We have loads. It is a great crested

newt. Look at the size difference. He looks like a monster in

comparison. You can see that is a male. With the white stripe. He has

a crest. The quest will come up? Yes.

He really is rather handsome with his orange belly and large crest and

dark, warty skin. It is completely unmistakable.

One of my childhood memories was when I was nine, going on ten,

seeing my very first male crested newt, and I saw the white stripe

disappearing down into the water. I thought, that must be a dragon or

something! Little did you know, decades later, you would be making a

trap to catch them. Here I am, 60 years later.

It is fantastic that these rare amphibians are using a small pond.

And as well as the great critic, we also found 14 Palmeiras newts. But

that's not all. We still have another pond to check. Straightaway,

it is looking promising. In fact, we have caught more newts in the first

two traps than we have in the whole of the other pond. And unlike the

last pond, these are all smooth all common newts.

If we have got our calculations right, that is 57. 57, thereabouts.

Wow. This is the kind of nude that people most likely get in their

garden pond. They see the crest, which is quite striking, and they

think it is a great crested newt in their pond. But you would agree,

having seen that one before, you couldn't really mistake them

side-by-side. You couldn't, no. I am really impressed and amazed at

how many newts we have caught. It is all thanks to your trap, the

Dewsbury trap, named after you. I looked up to see if there is a

collective noun for newts, and there isn't. I think we should call it a

lunchbox of newts! Yes! Do you like that? A lunchbox of

newts, I think it is quite good. No. What would you have? Acorn of newts.

I will have that registered as the official collective noun. -- a call.

We saw the species we were hoping to see, but we didn't see one of these

newts. Look at this, sent in by Leeson House field studies Centre.

It is at the bottom. The yellow wee one is a leucistic newt. That's not

an albino newts, it is a mutated gene that events the pigment getting

up to the skin, feathers or the fur. Extraordinary looking. It is. You

see quite a feud this is that animals, I have seen a leucistic

badger. People tweet pictures of leucistic blackbirds. But look at

this, Mark Douglas has found a leucistic puffin. I'm not up for

that one, it is not symmetrical. But I am up for this one. Brace

yourselves. What about that, a barn owl. Terry has a super photograph of

one of the best birds in Britain. That is extraordinary. Stunning.

Keep them coming in, we love to see them, there are plenty of ways to

get in contact with us by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr. All the

details are coming up. Time to get back to the airfield, to see how

Wing Commander Hughes and Burke are doing using the drone.

We have been out here during the show, looking for hares and

leverets. We have a drone with a thermal camera to help us. Martin,

what have we got? Suck it up, all the people saying it is a

harebrained scheme. We have got one! Let's have a look. It is on the

move. We keep losing it. Can you see it? It has just disappeared. Anyway,

that was it. OK, so the thermal camera did manage to see... Syahrin

you have it right now. There it is. There is a little dot. I will zoom

in on it. It is sitting totally still. OK, we have lost it now.

Fantastic. That was great. It can be done! Well, that was amazing. So the

question is, why... We think it is a clever, if not, it is a hare. Why is

it sitting quite so still in that field? What is going on? Let's look

at shots of leverets. It is hard to see these, but these are some

beautiful close ups. It is a treat to see them like this, actually. But

it is this leading, because leverets spend very different time,

especially at this age, moving around. -- very little time.

What happens is, almost from the point where they are born, the mum

leaves the leveret as a way to avoid attracting predators. When they are

on their own, the best thing they can do is stand still for almost the

whole day. It is only in the evening that the dough will return looking

for her litter, maybe up to four of them. When she does, she will stop

and look around, and they will come back towards her and have a feed. A

fantastic bit of behaviour. They could be four leverets, spread out

in the undergrowth, and in the evening about now, as Gillian says,

they will come together to the place where they were born and meet up

with their mum for suckling. It is difficult to film that, but we have

got a photograph, a still of that actually happening. Look at this.

There is the mother, and there are the two Leveretts suckling, that

might last five minutes, no longer. Then she will go away and leave

them, extraordinary. But there is a problem. There is a problem because

quite often, occasionally actual, people go out for walks and come

across a Leverett, they will look around and won't see the mum

anywhere. The assumption is they have been abandoned. And that is

exactly what happened to this one. We have got to be quite quiet and

move quite slowly, because this is a rescue leveret. Look at that.

They are very nervous. A well-meaning person picked this one

up. It is probably about six weeks old, this little leveret. The good

news is that Susan, who is looking after it, at the Hare preservation

trust. They will gradually release this and it will have less and less

human contact and it will be gradually back into the wild. What

is the crucial message? If you do come across these, it is best to

leave them alone. Unless they are in obvious danger, really, they are a

pair. I don't think we should handle it too much! Lets go from one place

that is returning from an industrial site to another teeming with

wildlife. The yard is about half an acre,

mostly car parts, now overgrown. You leave the front of the premises,

come through the garden, into the back of the yard and the whole world

changes. It is like a little paradise. Peace and tranquillity.

Birdsong which you can probably hear. It is a different world. The

wildlife thrives here because it is understood. Whenever you stop

moving, things start growing. My family bought the plot in 1899. Then

in 1932, my grandfather established the yard and started vehicle

braking. I have lived here all my life, grew up in the yard, played in

the yard and have worked in the yard ever since. I have grown up and

everything has grown up around me in that time. Early memories of

childhood and nature, collecting newts. One or two slow worms in the

garden. Grass snakes and then in the yard we had foxes and fox cubs. The

bats are up in the EU. -- they are in the eaves. Sometimes we find a

little pile of moth wings where the bats roost and they the moths. All

sorts of insect life in the yard. A few weeks ago I discovered some

unusual bees in the garden. And they would just hover in front of a plant

like a hummingbird, from one flower to another. Even the tiny little

forget-me-not heads, they would plant their proboscis in the centre.

I found it quite fascinating. Last year we had wasp spiders which I've

never seen knew nothing about will stop. I then Chile counted 30

cocoons in the garden. A great variety of creatures live here. One

spot we have lizards, they come out in the sunshine, they bask in the

summer. They seem to thrive in that environment. The way the yard has

grown and developed it, it no longer functions properly as a business

premises, it is more of a nature reserve. I sort of subsidise a

nature reserve basically. It is just unique. You can't produce it

overnight. It has taken 80 years to get to this stage. It harms nobody

but benefit the wildlife. I disappear down here and it is just

heaven. I spend more time looking at things and watching things and less

time working which does not please my good lady! The future of the

premises is a conundrum. I would like the yard to stay as it is

forever, but unfortunately, times change, because I shall be the last

person here to run the yard. What happens after them, I don't know.

Maybe sold and then redeveloped, or hopefully, it will stay as it is.

What a marvellous location. I would love to go and take some still

there. It would be great. All the rotting old bits of mossy car with

the wildlife growing. I hope you can find someone to keep it going as a

scrap yard. For sale, a pile of rusty old cars in a wood, a few blue

tits. Good luck! But it is a fantastic place. We are running out

of time that I would like to introduce you to a new nest. Let's

have a look at the outside of it. It is in

a hedgerow. Very nice hedgerow. You can see the of camouflage material

there. That is hiding some of our camera. The bird that is nesting

here is one of our favourites. It is an absolute treat. Let's go live to

the Bulfinch now. We have two macro chicks in this nest and the female

should be brooding. She might have just nipped off. Both parents have

been attending them regularly. We will come back to it. In the

meantime, let's have a look at what they have been up to. These birds

are special. There is the male on the left. He is regurgitating some

seeds. There were five eggs initially. One of them got stuck to

the female. Probably because it was cracked. We saw it dangling from her

breast. Three of them hatched. At the moment we are down to two

chicks. Both parents are attending them. Sometimes the male comes and

passes the food to the female and he cannot resist feeding them himself.

Look at the beaks of those little birds. They are already quite a big

powerful bill. That is what gives them their name, Bulfinch. They are

such handsome birds. They are like posh and Becks. They'll

good-looking. They are obviously a Springwatch favourite. We featured

regularly on Springwatch but last week introduced you to a nest which

is a first for us, the nest of the red kite. This is it live. There are

three chicks in there. One of them is having a good snooze. Two of them

are sleeping. That is the adult we can see the back of. It looks like

it might be feeding the third chick. Once they have gorged, they have got

nothing else to do at this stage, other than sleep it off and

digestive and eat some more. We have seen a little bit of wings

stretching and flapping the feeding is what it is all about at this

stage. They certainly do a lot of sleeping but they also do a lot of

squabbling. I think they are a bit squashed in that nest, they have had

too much of each other. You have done this with your sister and I

have with my brother where I have had enough of him. Except my mum did

not ignore me, I was sent to my room. Does funny that that adult is

not doing anything! They are all bickering and squabbling. And then I

love this. They all settle down. How gorgeous is that? This one finds

eight week and starts bashing its sibling over its head! The sibling

is not putting up with that nonsense. Get off, I am having a

kip. That is an annoying twig. Every time it comes up it hits it in the

chin. It is annoying me. But I would not get it and bash you over the

head with it! I think there is a good chance that you might. We are

running out of time. Michaela, have you got any questions? Let's go to

the swallows. This is the female sitting on a nest in the barn. We

reckon the eggs will hatch by Friday. Fingers crossed they will

hatch while we are on air on Thursday. But if it is on Friday you

can see it on the webcams. We have a question, from Elsie Burroughs. It

is funny because it is about heads and rabbits. -- it is funny that her

name is Burrows. There is very short grass and not many pesticides. Once

I spelt a delightful day on Belfast Airport looking for Irish hares. It

is a very good place for them. Have a look at this jay. It is having a

fantastic bath. It has a prominent crest. A striking bird. And this is

wildlife does the funniest things. This is the stoat we have been

following and these are the kits. How embarrassing, I fell off the

wall! The sibling is saying, what are you doing, youthful! Martin,

Gillian, you are back! I have brought you a World War II German

bomb. Oh, my word, it is so heavy! That went better than expected out

there, didn't it? It was a buzz, it was amazing. It was a harebrained

idea. Martin, you are leaving us this evening to go on great journey

of the UK. I am going on a grand tour to look at some of the

highlights of England, or Wales, Scotland and fingers crossed we

might get down to the Isles of Scilly. I have had to run here! You

will be out of breath. I am not going to run, we will go in a car!

Tomorrow we will take a look at some badgers. There are a large number of

these animals and we hope to get them far better and we will also be

keeping an eye on our kestrel. Look at that, what a beautiful sight.

Four chicks in there. We will see if all of them get to fledging stage.

And did they fledge Horsfall? They did both. We will keep our eye on

them and see how they get on. I think we have time for another very

quick question. Actually, that might be pushing it a bit. We will save it

for tomorrow. Goodluck Jonathan your travels! Thank you very much. Have a

fantastic time and we will see you tomorrow night. Goodbye! -- good

luck on your travels.