Episode 3 Springwatch

It's day three and already we have had action, intrigue and beauty.

Breaking news, beneath the shimmering surface of the swallow

something is stirring. And I am looking for creatures in the muck.

This is Springwatch. Hello! Welcome to Springwatch 2017.

It's day three from the wonderful Sherbourne Park estate here in

Gloucestershire run by the National Trust, 4,000 acres of fantastic

farmland packed with wildlife. Day three, what do you think of the

previous two, it's been going all right? I think so. We have had live

barn owls, peregrines, Jays, I could go on. What about today? It's all

been kicking off today. Certainly has. You start. There has been

breaking news. Literally. Let's start with our swallows, let's look

at our swallow live. As Chris said, she is a shimmering beauty and

underneath that beauty she hides a secret. You got a peak there, she is

in fact sitting on chicks and they hatched today. Let's have a look.

This was this morning when a lot of you were having breakfast. You can

see why she is a bit fidgety, there is the first chick hatching. She's

looking down and grabs that broken egg shell and drops it. Now she

should fly off with it or even swallow it, so that was an oops.

Settles down again. The other adult comes back. Celebrating the new

birth. Then almost an hour later she gets

fidgety again and that's because the second chick is breaking out of the

egg. Just think about how small these chicks are. They're absolutely

tiny. They're about the size of a Ely bean or kidney bean. This time

she gets that egg shell and does what she's supposed to do, she flies

off. She topples out of the nest and out the window. Back they both come

and they start to try and feed those brand new chicks. Not an easy job

when they're that small. Settles down again. Starts to brood. At 2.

55pm, gets fidgety, same reason. The third egg is hatching. You can just

about see that if you look into the middle of that nest. Not sure the

swallow realises what's going on. More interested in preening! But

that's brilliant news. Breaking news, four eggs, that's what she was

sitting on. Now three chicks. Interesting enough there is one egg

left. What do you reckon the chances are? 50-50, I think. This morning I

would have said there was a good chance of it hatching, if it's not

hatched by tomorrow we are with those three which is nice. It's

getting late. When I got into birds I was never into swallows, I didn't

used to rate them. Really? They're beautiful. I was into much more

obvious birds. But now they're a lovely shape, beautiful colours. The

way it falls off that nest and swoops through the window so

effortlessly. Acrobatic. Wouldn't you love to do that. Last night I

will be honest we got pushed for time, we were going to introduce you

to another nest but we ran out of time and couldn't do it. But let's

go live to it now. We would still like to show it to you. It's down on

the ground actually. As you can see, not a lot of activity there and

that's for the simple reason that they fledged. It's the nest of a

chiffchaff. This little warbler nests on the

ground. It's hidden amongst the nettles in the wood close to the

blue tits. They were in the nest for about 12-14 days and we have been

watching them the last few days. Very busy. The adult here bringing

in caterpillars, they bring in flies, beetles, a broad range to

feed the chickens. Initially we thought there were four. -- to feed

the chicks. It's like a Wren's nest on the ground. A little domed nest

the. Today they started to leave. They've been in and out. This is

proper fledging, this is how they leave. They can't fly yet but they

can hop out of the nest and scramble through the foliage. You might

wonder why they want to do that, you don't want all your chicks in one

basket. The sooner you can get them out, the better the chance some will

survive, if a predator finds the nest. Something like, well we have

seen adders and stoats, and mice in the woods there. Over a period of

time this afternoon all five of these chicks have hopped out.

What lays in store for them? The adults will continue to feed them

for weeks until they can fly themselves. Then they'll start

foraging. Those adults will immediately start to build another

nest and start another brood. Somewhere between six and eight eggs

down there in the same patch of woodland, I have no doubt. Then at

the end of the September, they'll be heading off to the Mediterranean or

even parts of North Africa and hopefully at least some of those

chicks will find a way back here next March. I am chuffed for those

chiffchaff chicks. Nice to see them leaving, we caught the end of it.

Yesterday we saw the jays leave, they fledged. One fell out of the

nest and three fledged. We promised we would let you know how they're

doing. I am pleased to say that all four of them are doing pretty well.

We have spotted all four branching out away from their nest and they're

all looking pretty good. They're all calling. The adults, we have seen

them come back and feed them. Fingers crossed, they should be

doing pretty well. So, the chiffchaffs have fledged and left

us. The jays have left and Martin is also leaving us! I thought he would

never fledge to be honest! He has fledged. Don't panic. He's not lever

forever, he is on a road trip. -- he's not left forever, he will bring

us a report from Wales tomorrow. We like to aim high when it comes to

trying to find wildlife that lives in this environment. After all, it's

not all excessible, it can be rare or shy. One creature we like to

capture here is the otter. Beyond the ridge in the dip is Sherbourne

brook and we have cameras out there where we hope to find these animals.

Let's go live to one of them now. This one is down Back On Top the

Wyre. You can see the brook. There is a heron there. Yes on the right

side of the bank patiently waiting to find a fish. Plenty of fish in

here which is why the otters are about.

In the background on the left side you can see the boat house. I will

talk about that in a moment. Let's go underwater now. We have another

camera under the water. Look there is a trout.

It's a great view of a brown trout. That of course is otter food. What

we are hoping is that we have put that camera in exactly the right

spot for an otter to come up. No sign on those cameras yet. Remember

the boat house, well, we have cameras inside there. Let's go live

to that one now. If you look carefully in the

foreground on those planks you can see some otter spraint the otters

have been pooing in this spot, but no otters yet. Probably because

there are not too many here T might be this is part of one animal's

range and they will be moving up and down that brook visiting

occasionally. Obviously, we are manning the cameras 24 hours a day

throughout the night, as well. If one turns up, hopefully we will

catch a view of it. What about others, we have seen plenty of

stoats and badgers here, as well. We have cameras on no less than two

sets. What is that? It's a Hercules, that aircraft is a Hercules. We have

cameras on a couple of setts out there and we have been getting some

activity. Look at this one. Here are some cubs, lovely to see them at

this time of year. Very confident. Hopping around. Can't resist a bit

of playing. More in the background there. There were four cubs in this

sett. You can see the dominant female there who has given birth to

them standing centrally in the background. We have been counting

the badgers. We know that we have three adults in that sett and four

cubs, that's seven. In the other sett another five animals. We

probably haven't seen all of them as yet. Obviously, these animals play a

prominent role in the eco-system here and we want to understand how

they're using the land scape, where they're moving to and foraging

throughout the year. The open way to really do that is to mark them. The

best way to mark them is using a satellite radio collar. I went out

with Dawn Scott to put one on. Sherbourne Park estate is home to a

number of different badger setts and we want to find out how these

animals are using the landscape. To help me achieve this I have enlisted

the help of Dr Dawn Scott from the University of Brighton.

Lots of bedding here, Dawn. Yeah, this is fresh excavation. The

bedding is the straw inside. That's previous bedding that's been inside

a chamber. They've cleared that out and brought fresh stuff in. This is

a very active sett. Badgers are below ground. Beneath our feet

probably. Chris, look at the other big mound

up there. Yeah. More fresh digging. Look at that.

The claws. Oh, yes, very clear. Nice and smooth. No leaves down there.

All the leaves have been swept out constantly. It shows that it's

definitely in constant use. And see that, that's a perfect badger print.

You have the three at the back. And toes at the front. Not that it's a

precise guide to population, but if we count the holes it we -- we might

get an idea. One, two, three, four, five... Six, seven, eight nine.

Plus those when we came in. Yeah, and some going into the field, as

well. 12-14 at least. I think more, I think this is a main sett. It

suggests it's a main sett with an active social group. Talking maybe

up to six, eight animals. I think this is a really good place to try

to see if we can catch an individual and follow that territory and see

where it's going. It would be fantastic. So, plenty of badgers

living in this wood land patch. In order to under-Stanmore about where

the animals are roaming we want to put satellite collars on four

badgers. We placed humane cages in various habitats around the estate.

At dusk, Dawn and I bait and set the traps.

We have no luck catching during the night, but the following morning I

get a call from Dawn. By the time I get there, the animal is already

sedated. Oh, you got one then. I got one, yeah. Just checking she's OK.

It's a she? Yeah, it's an old adult female. Checking the body condition

to see if she's suitable. Check eyes. Teeth are quite worn, you can

see here. But no injuries, damage to the mouth. It's OK. Then we just

check all over her. Check she's all right. Right, OK. So we will get the

collar fitted and will take measurements.

Skroop it under like that. -- scoop it under like that.

Right. The collar has to be loose to make sure there is space for changes

in body weight. Badgers change body weight in the year, but also make

sure she doesn't pull it off over her head. It's got to be snug, but

enough to allow that changes in body weight. We need a name, Chris. A

name? I am going to seize responsibility here, Dawn and go for

pop icons this year, since it's female, what about Madonna? Mads for

short. Nice regular heart rate and breathing. It's fantastic. The heart

beat of a badger before breakfast. Honestly, Dawn, you have delivered

again. With the checks done and the collar on, it's time to release

Madz. She went off OK. Yeah, it was funny,

she went into this hole and there must have been another badger in so

she decided against it and ran off to another sett. Happy, yeah. Very

happy. Well done, Dawn. Bye, Madonna.

What about that? The heart beat of a badger before breakfast. Before

breakfast! It was long before breakfast. We got up really early,

about quarter to four. You were a bit late, I saw you running in! You

nearly missed it. You obviously slept in. I did not sleep in. I

happened to be looking for a badger somewhere else.

Honestly, slept in! That's... Of all the insults you have ever thrown in

my direction, that's about the worst. The relationship's over. We

now have a tracking device on Imagine the badger. Where has she

been going? We have a map here. This is where we fitted that tag over

here. This is the sett she's been. Look, this is all of the recordings

we have subs request kwent to that, all the data we have from her. She's

spending most of the time in the woodland. There is another sett

she's moving to and here, as well. What's interesting is when she's

foraging she is in that's pasture fields, it's damp down there and

it's been raining so I wouldn't be surprised if she hadn't been after

earth worms. This field is given over to oil speed rape, so if she's

around the edge of the field, only once did she go to the middle of the

rape there. Had that been barley and mature, or corn and mature, she

might have gone into that actually because badgers will roll on that

corn and then nibble the ears. Currently she's occupying an area of

about 24. 6 hectares which isn't much when you think about it so

she's obviously finding enough food. We have three more tags and hope to

put them on other pop icons before the end of the year.

Over the last year, we have learned a lot from a tag on a feathered

favourite, the golden eagle. If you remember, last Springwatch, we

featured a golden eagle chick in a nest in south-west Scotland. We

started filming it at five days old, and we have watched it grow at an

incredible rate. The parents were extremely attentive. You can see

there, it has quadrupled in size. When it was eight weeks old, we

filmed them tagging a chick. This will provide us with amazing

information. Not only is that a GPS, it will also tell us about the

altitude and body temperature. It means we can follow that chick,

hopefully, until she has chicks of her own.

Then at 12 weeks, we watched her leave the nest and fledge. There she

is, looking very resplendent. At this point, we asked for viewers to

come up with a name for. The name we chose was Freya, which I think it's

a perfect name for such a glorious bird. Fantastic. And of course,

equally fantastic, the data we have collected from Freya ever since. If

you watched automatic Winterwatch, she didn't move very far by that

time. She is going into her first winter,

if she has learned the lie of the land and where food is, it may make

sense to stay there. In spring, adults breed again, and they will

turf her out. Where has she been? We have a map of Scotland, and she has

covered a vast area of this part of Scotland. If I show you the close-up

of that, here she is. This is where she hatched and we tagged her.

Subsequent to that, she has roamed over no less than 4521 square: that

is, a vast area. In February, she went all the way over here to

Stirling, flighting over Stirling University, I wonder if any of these

boarded her. Then she drifted back to Argyll. In May, she has been out

in the island, Duran mole, and now she is back in the core area or she

has been. Roaming about like this is something we expect golden eagles of

this age to do. She is looking for a territory to eventually start

breeding in, meeting other eagles, learning how to be an eagle,

effectively. But the reason the tag is on, Dave Anderson who helped us

and you saw in the clip, and Forestry Commission Scotland, are

interested in how the Eagles will respond. Too many trees would crowd

out the space, it is an investigation into how we can keep

the number of eagles viable. We will continue to follow Freya, all the

way through until she finds a territory and set up to breed

herself. That is the news on Freya. But we also have news on her

parents. Good news, Chris, they have successfully bred again. They are on

a nest, and it looks like they have got one chick. That is a fourth

attempt, so hopefully that chick will be as successful as Freya. Good

news for Freya and her family, but unfortunately, not so good news for

other tags golden eagles in Scotland. A paper that came out

today by Scottish natural Heritage has revealed that a third of all

tagged Golden Eagles have died under suspicious circumstances in the last

12 years. The majority of those have been found near driven grouse moors.

That information and those statistics have prompted, today, The

Scottish O'mara Meant Secretary to announce that she is looking into

coming up with stronger ways to protect birds of prey in Scotland.

That in itself is very significant, and it is good news. What is really

upsetting is how many birds of prey we are losing in Scotland. Imagine

if it was Freya and how upset we would be.

From eagles to owls, and tawnies particularly. Back in March, Martin

went on a night-time mission to see how tawny owls are doing in a

man-made conifer forest. Tawnies are one of the UK's most

recognisable species of owl. Their call is a classic night sound of

winter and early spring. Typically found in broad leaf forest, tawny

owls can also thrive in parks, gardens, even urban areas. But no

one really knows how well they are doing in man-made forests. Lee

Barbour from the British trust for ornithology wants to find out. He is

undertaking a study in Thetford Forest, the largest lowland man-made

forest in the country, to understand the size and age structure of the

publishing living there. -- Thefford forest. To do this, he has been

catching and ringing owls through the winter months. That goes in

there. That's it. It is now mid-March, and tonight is the final

chance to put up nets before he has to stop for the remainder of the

breeding season. Tawny owls are very, very aggressive, very

territorial, aren't they. They are thinking about nesting now.

Both male and female tawnies will respond to any owl that enters their

territory. Lee harnesses this aggression. He plays a recording of

various calls to draw birds into his net. He also put out a decoy to

complete the illusion. I have been going out catching every

week, once a week, since October. Once a week since October? Are you

married, Lee? Just about! Very exciting. We can hear that

call, that is your recording. Yeah, that's it. But there's another bird.

That's it. Another bird is calling a bit further away. That is coming

into your calling. It is another male as well. You can tell that?

Yeah. I can hear it, I can hear it. Hearing those EU recalls coming out

of the darkness. At this time of year, it is

important not to distract the birds for too long, Liaoning plays the

tape had ten minutes before moving it to another spot in the forest. We

are kind of running out of time, aren't we. It is time to check the

net, I think. You don't really know what you got until you get to the

net. Sadly, this time, no luck.

Nothing. There is the tawny owl. Just there. We can't turn it on

again? We have to find another territory, unfortunately.

It takes three more attempts before we finally strike owl gold.

How amazing. It is a wee trap as well.

We soon have the owl out of the net. And then I get my first close-up

look at a wild tawny owl. Fabulous colours, aren't they.

Absolutely incredible. Around the big, we have the whiskers which are

just the feather shaft, without the outside of the feathers. It helps to

protect prey when they go in. It is taught about how they fly silently,

and they have a feathered edge on the feathers. Yes, yeah. And not

being able to do that. On the leading edge of the feather, there

is a rough edge. I can see it all the way down there. That increases

turbulence and helps the bird fly silently. What an amazing

adaptation. Because this bird has been ringed

before, Lee knows he is a male. His vitals to system indicate he is in

really good condition. But to understand how well tawnies are

doing overall, Lee needs to work out the age structure of the whole

population. But until now, ageing and adult bird has been all but

impossible. Look at that. Please, Lee, what are

we seeing under the UV light? The pink is the porphyrin in the

feathers. A chemical in the feathers? It reflects back pink if

it was quite a young feather, and gradually with age, that faves.

Tawnies moult wing feathers at a specific point in development, like

us with our tea. Combining this knowledge with a porphyrin pattern,

revealed under the UV light, Lee can age the bird.

This is at least four years old, this bird. We know exactly where we

have ringed this bird. Now we know where we have caught it, so we are

getting an ideal territory size. Fantastic. We are doing that with

all the birds in the area. It helps you build up a detailed picture of

the population here in the woods? That's it. We better get this one

free as soon as possible. I think so.

To help its eyes adjust back to darkness, we turn off our tortures.

-- temperament. Top work.

Back to our original question, how are tawny owls doing in man-made

conifer forests? It's early days, but Lee's research has revealed

surprisingly high numbers of territories in this apparently

unlikely habitat. They are actually doing remarkably well.

And that's actually really good news that they are doing remarkably well

in that forest, because generally across the UK, tawnies are in

shallow decline. And they are amber listed. Tawnies are one of three

species we see at Sherborne. This is one of the other species of owl, the

little owl. I love the little owl. Such a cute looking, little owl. It

is half the site of a tawny, but it is percussive killer. That means it

hunts at dawn and dusk. We often see them hunting for small mammals,

pulling worms out of the ground, because they do that, and pull so

hard that they fall over. It is a real tug of war taking place.

Sometimes they are on tip toes. It is comical. That is tawnies and

little owls. We all know the third hour we get here, because we have

been showing it to you live, the barn owl. Let's look at them live

now. We know that this on owl has three chicks. Quite interesting

because they have taken a gap between the first and third attach.

The first hatched on the 31st, on Sunday. The second hatched on the

26th, Friday. The third on Monday. We are still waiting for the fourth

egg catch. Did you see what it was doing? Breaking up the pallet to

soften the nest. When they come out, they can be clustered on the

surface, not soft. What she is doing is breaking it up to crumble it into

a dust, so it is more comfortable. It is a good bit of behaviour. This

is interesting behaviour from the barn owl as well, something that was

quite curious for us. First of all, it is feeding the large chick. As I

said, there were 8-9 days difference between the first and third chicks

being born. A huge size difference. But listen...

The adult bird is communicating. We thought maybe it was communicating

to the smallest chick, to encourage it to eat. Apparently, we were

completely wrong. We spoke to the Barn Owl Trust, they said the young

chicks won't communicate at that age. It is more likely that she is

communicating to the male adult to bring food. It is strange that she

is over the chicks like that. If I was immigrating to my partner, I

would be saying, "Come on, bring food!" If you stand on your tip

toes, you are communicating like a barn owl. She still has the other

egg, so she is doing three jobs at the same time. She is brooding and

keeping them warm, she is feeding them and integrating the last eight

as well. Females do that, you know, three jobs at once. Moving swiftly

on... Now we have seen all three species

of owl, Michaela has mentioned the little owl spends time hunting in

daylight, let's look at their eyes. They are using their eyes in

slightly different ways. In front of me, we have three birds' skulls. We

have a little owls skull. It still has run the Tivoli large eyes when

you look at the size of that skull. The bigger the eye, the more light

you let in, and the better you should see in low light. Let's

compare that to the barn owl, this one here. OK? That one has got

slightly bigger eye sockets and massive ears, which occupy that

part, there. If you look at the face of the barn owl, let's call this one

up. It is very characteristic. It has prominent eyes, the facial disc

around it are the ears of the bird for catching sound. But if we come

lastly to this one, this is the skull of the tawny owl. Look at the

size of the eye sockets there. They are absolutely huge. 70% of the

tawny owl's 's goal is made up of its eyes.

In our heads, how much do our eyes of Dubai? Not much, two or five? 5%.

There's a replica here of the eye of the tawny owl that I can hold down

here like this. What's interesting is that the rear

surface of this bell-shaped eye which is so big that it can't move

in its socket when it's inside there, now this means that the owl

therefore can't move its eyes from side to side like this, can't see

the camera crew over there, can only look forward T needs to turn its

head to see which is why owls have it turn their heads through about

360 degrees to look over their own shoulder. In the tawny owl the

surface is huge. Let's compare it to Michaela. Look at that. The eye has

a larger sensitive area where it captures the light and then sends

the signals to the brain that develop the pictures. Tawny owls'

eyes are about two-and-a-half times more sensitive than our eyes in low

light levels. Let's look at the face of the tawny owl.

Here it is with those very, very prominent chestnut eyes. Yes, bigger

eyes than both the barn owl and the little owl. Principally because it's

more nocturnal and that's how the form influences the function and

behaviour and ecoology. You explained that very well. It's

fascinating. The evolution of eyes. When I was a kid I found a dead

tawny owl once and picked it up and took it home. I dissected it and

when - I couldn't believe the size of the eye when I took it out, it's

about the same size as a two pence piece. You can see that, it's

massive. Something else fascinating. Look at this picture, it's been sent

in by Sam Holman from near Bristol. Look, he asked us is that spiders,

are those spiders' webs? I can tell you they're not spiders. So the

question is what are they? Interestingly enough we also have

them on the hedges around the estate here. Gillian went out to

investigate. It looks like someone's gone really

crazy with the Hallowe'en decorations and a lot of people

think this is a spider silk but in fact this is the work of

caterpillars. These are ermin moth calmer pillars,

these gather -- caterpillars. They all use silk for all sorts of

reasons but these guys use it for protection so it makes it difficult

for birds to get at them. It's amazing to touch and to feel.

It's so effective. They eventually can cover whole trees and stretches

of hedgerow. It looks like a complete wasteland.

They have stripped this tree bear but by summer these caterpillars

will have emerged as adults and be on the wing. Beyond that it's hard

to believe but this tree will actually recover.

We are just a short drive from Sherbourne but you can come across

this anywhere in the country at this time of year. Don't be alarmed,

though, these are just hungry caterpillars. I think you should

count yourself lucky because this is a magnificent sight.

That was a magnificent sight. It's amazing. It was extraordinary. Even

I was surprised. It was lovely. So those are the caterpillars, what do

moths look like? Let's look at this photo. This is a photo of the

spinnedle ermin moth, the adult. The caterpillars we saw will be pubating

in a few weeks and will emerge to look like that. For them it's a

short summer. They've got from June to July to fly, emerge animate, lay

eggs and start the life cycle all over again. Now if you see anything

like that on your hedges, you know exactly what you are looking at. I

think I am going to fire some more questions at you. We are on a roll

here, Gillian. This is one with a picture, clearly this is a moth but

what type is it? It's a mint moth, they're dainty little moths, smaller

than a thumbnail. When the adults emerge they look more purple than in

this photo. They tend to lose their wing scales easily. So in that photo

it has this rich brown but those golden spots on the wings are

usually there. Beautiful moth. Is it easy to see? They're common in most

of the countries, not so much in Scotland but for the rest of the

country mostly find them in herb gardens landing on mint. Exactly!

Another interesting photo has been sent in. Look at this one. This is

from Kelly Hunt and she says what is this strange behaviour? First of

all, we should say what they are. Exactly. These are slow worms.

They're not worms. They're not snakes which is what most people

think they are. They're actually legless lizards. In that photo it

could be one of two things. It could be two males fighting. Or a male and

a female in a courtship embrace. My money is that these are two males we

were looking at. But if anyone out there thinks they can take a better

guess, let us know. Also, keep your questions coming in on all the

social media channels. Details on the website. Lots of you do get in

touch via social mediaen and tell us about your passion for wildlife. But

what is it that inspired you? What connects you to nature? It's

something that Wellcome Collection in London want to know. They want to

know what specific object represents your love of nature. It can be

anything. For instance, mine I reckon was the ladybird books, do

you remember there was a collection of books I had when I was a little

girl and I still have them now. I had one on spring and one on British

animals. That really inspired me and my love for wildlife. It can be all

sorts of things. Lucy Cooke has met lots of people that have fascinating

objects that connect them to wildlife. Her own object may seem

like it's an obvious thing but actually it has real sentimental

value. So these binoculars belonged to my

grandfather. I never met him but he was a shepherd on rom knee marsh and

he lived and breathed the landscape he worked in and had a deep

connection with it. -- Romney. When he died he passed these on to my

father who also inherited his love of nature and it was through these

binoculars that my father taught me about the natural world. And we

would sit and watch the birds and dad would talk about how they were

connected to the seasons and the trees. My father passed away last

year and now they belong to me. So, in a way these binoculars represent

three generations of wonder. My grandfather's binoculars may seem

like an obvious item to connect me to nature, but I have come to

Sheffield to meet someone with a much more surprising choice.

Sarah is creating a whole new dimension to wildlife in the city.

Sarah, hi. Lucy, nice to meet you. Is this a good spot for lunchtime

nature watching? Yeah, definitely. There's loads to see. What am I

likely to see today? Lots of herones, kingfishers are here most

of the time. Fantastic. Lots of little birds. Blue tits nesting and

great tits as well. All sorts really. What I love about this is

it's like we couldn't be in a more urban environment. I know, it's

great. Yet all this nature is still here. Have you always been into

nature? Yeah, my mum, we always lived in the countryside near a

canal, we have had a nice close relationship with nature through my

childhood. It inspires you obviously. Yeah, it's really

inspiring, definitely. Sarah's clearly passionate about

wildlife. And being a professional urban graffiti artist she's managed

to combine her passion and artistic flair to bring wildlife to some of

the more unusual parts of the city. Sarah's stunning street art can

sometimes take days or even weeks to complete. This kingfisher took most

of a day. She often does all the work herself but today I am lending

a helping hand. What could possibly go wrong!

Wow! Look at that!

Beautiful. You have done a kingfisher. Yeah. Fantastic. I did

get to see a kingfisher today, that's amazing. Yeah. How long have

you been working on that for? I started it yesterday. Then it still

needs some work finishing, that's where you come in. I am going to

hold the stencil for you. We are using a stencil, that's good. That's

it. Work your way down. OK. Take your finger off intermittently,

that's it. Start and then carry on again.

Great. OK. All right, there you go. That's my

first bit of graffiti. Sarah, why did you choose to put a

kingfisher on this wall? I liked the colours and they're an enjoyable

bird to paint. Half the time people want to see one and don't get a

chance to. If there is one here they'll get to see it. What is it

about putting wildlife on walls that you like? I like to bring the, you

know, nature imagery into the environment. People like to see a

bit of nature if they get a chance and it beautifies the area and

they're all the main reasons really. OK, there you go. That's actually

not that bad. See, you are a good stencil artist. I feel I have

cheated slightly but nevertheless I will feel proud of this moment. How

amazing to think that a spray can could connect us to nature in the

most unlikely places. Nice piece of street art there. It's

always remarkable how quickly they can do that art work. Lucy will be

meeting more people who have objects which have connected them with

nature later in the series. Meanwhile, you can add your own

wildlife stories, photos and films to the Wellcome online exhibition.

Details on the website. You may wonder why we are presiding over

this barrow full of muck. There is an expression, where there is muck,

there is brass. I am going to change that, where there is muck there is

biio-diversity. We brought this here from a giant muck heap. This is a

fantastic resource for wildlife. We have been keeping our eye on it to

see what's been turning up. Lots of birds have been visiting this muck

heap. It's composed of animal bedding. Also feed waste. There is

still a lot of seeds in there. That's why these birds, chaffinches,

Goldfinches and yellow hammers have turned um. They're lovely to see.

They're stunning. Of course, at this time of year if they've got young

they'll be taking invert braets to take them back to feed their young.

Look how this handles the corn. Twisting it in the beak, squeezing

it in the right places to remove the husk, leaving the seed in its mouth.

Imagine trying to do that in your teeth. You couldn't do it.

Lots of birds have been coming to exploit this. These are really

important resources. This one has been here for about 30 years, used

on and off. Farmers can't use them continuously. Bats turn up after

dark to take the insects here. Of course, animals like grass snakes

visit these muck heaps to lay eggs and they're essential when it comes

to grass snakes in the countryside. We have discovered is that if they

lay eggs in a muck heap like this 71% of them hatch. If they're laid

in a compost heap, 43%. If they're laid in an artificial grass snake

nesting area, zero. Muck heaps are really important. But not just for

vertbraets, but inverts too. Amazing. Let's look at what we might

have in here. The birds come from the worms and the insects but

they're also invertbrate predators in here. Beetles and look at this

coach horse, another predatory beetle. Wolf spiders. All of these

are skafagers that break down all this muck and turn over and release

an enormous amount of energy. It gets incredibly hot, somewhere

between 35 and 77 degrees in a muck heap. I couldn't resist a delve.

Here a wood louse and loads of worms. These are all brilliant food

for all sorts of wildlife. Now I am sure that most of you don't want a

muck heap that size in your garden. But you could make yourself a

smaller version of one. Here's how to do it.

This is a spring washer SOS, something everyone should have in

their garden. It is a compost heap. Why do you need one? Firstly, it

provides a great habitat for all sorts of creatures, invertebrates,

reptiles and mammals, but also a constructive way for you to use a

kitchen scraps and grass cuttings. Where is best to put it? In an out

of the way part of the garden. Somewhere that is sheltered,

although you need sunlight and moisture. Best to have it contained,

use something like this. It is brilliant, because not only does it

provide fibre for creatures, but they can make their homes in it.

Leave a gap so that hedgehogs can come in and make the most of the

worms and slugs. What do I put in it? This is where it is brilliant.

You can get rid of all your peelings, banana skins, bits of

letters that have gone off in the fridge. Lots of things from your

kitchen, a bit of cardboard, tear it up and put that in. Also, do you

want to put grass cuttings and anything you pick out of your

garden. What I need to do is put all of this into the compost heap. For

that, I have got help. One of you, take that. Cardboard in there as

well. Perfect. Mix it up. Other than that, sit back and let the creatures

get on with their work. In six months, a year, two years, that is

what it turns into. Kids, get your hands in there. Not only is a

compost heap brilliant for making compost to put in your gardens, but

it is also a fantastic habitat for wildlife. Nothing like getting mud

under your nails, is there? Have you got a compost he? I have,

actually. It is quite big, that big. I have a worm Marie. I love getting

handfuls of worms. Jolly good. One thing that is certain to visit your

compost heap if you live in suburban areas, robins. They will eat any

invertebrate they can find there. We have a camera on a robins nest here.

We can go to it live now. Let's take a look. The nest is down on the

ground. Look carefully, there is fluff. That fluff is the Tao of the

young robins in the nest. No activity at the moment. Both adults

are still out looking... Hold on, they have turned around. Two heads

of the youngsters. Let's see what they have been up to throughout the

course of the day. The nest is at the base of one of these trees in

the woodland. Robins will nest at all different heights. On the ground

isn't unusual for them. Tucked into a mossy nook. Adults are coming in

and feeding them. Chicks are quite advanced, actually. Although they

have still got feathers coming through. They want food as soon as

they can hear adults coming back. That is the first time we have had a

robins nest since I have been on the show. Quite a long time now. There

was one years ago when Kate was on. It is good to see.

There was a lot of jeopardy going on today. It was all kicking off.

Unfortunately, it is for our blue tit nest. The great spotted

woodpecker has been back twice today, in fact. He is lingering

around longer. Even when he flies off, he rests in that tree and

watches the adult blue tit comeback and feed the chicks. This is a real

concern, because once they start to fledge, that can be a complete

disaster. The more noisy they get, the more obvious they are, the

woodpecker will peck them out. They are building up their body mass,

then the woodpecker will sneak in and pinch them. Shall we have a look

at them live? There they are. There are nine chicks in there. Two of

them are still much smaller. They are in the middle. They are in the

middle. Every time we cut to the top shot, the runts or individual. --

are in the middle. Over the last couple of days, we

have been looking at a special nest on the spire of Salisbury Cathedral,

Peregrine falcons. These two have had an unusual Layun pattern, it

took them 15 days to lay eggs. The question is, would the eggs ever

hatch? Its mid-May, and around the country,

most peregrine chicks are already a couple of weeks old.

But here come in Salisbury, our female is still integrating a

furious clutch of five eggs, which took more than two weeks to lay all.

And now they are due to hatch. At 7:16am, the first crack appears.

And then three hours later, a chick begins to emerge.

At this stage, it's very vulnerable, so it's surprising that the mother

leaves it exposed to the elements. Buzzards and red kites also patrol

the skies above, and could easily take the chick.

Thankfully, the female returns and tries to tempt the chick with some

food. Although it looks weak, all

peregrine chicks are born with a yolk sac inside them. This provides

a nutritious source of food at, and tied them over for the first crucial

days, while they learn the basics. Peregrine eggs usually hatch close

together, but as the day wanes at the cathedral, there's no sign of

any other chicks. The following day, and the chick is

still alone. But at last, it's ready for its first meal.

Now, peregrine chicks eat an astonishing amount of food. Within

six days, the chick will have doubled its weight. And at three

weeks old, it will be ten times its hatching size.

All that died testing is an exhausting business. -- digesting.

Five days after hatching, and the chick is still alone.

Although peregrine eggs have been known to hatch 100 hours apart, this

chick now looks destined to face the future with out any siblings.

However, this does mean that it becomes the sole focus of its

attentive parents. And as it's the only mouth to feed,

it's growing fast. Peregrines usually choose well

shaded sites for their nest, but this pair have chosen the sunny

south facing location of the South spire. The chick unwittingly ends up

in a patch of sunshine, a bad idea in the warm, spring sun.

At this stage, it struggles to regulate its temperature, and could

easily overheat and die. The female's intervention might seem

unwelcome, but it is necessary. So far, this pair have proven good

parents to their solitary chick, but will have to wait and see whether

they do enough to ensure their only offspring successfully flanges.

I am loving the peregrine is, absently fantastic. I love Salisbury

Cathedral, so a double whammy for me. I must thank everyone here, and

a couple of people at the Cathedral, Marie Thomas, who got up at 4am to

let the cameramen in, and Gary Price at the Cathedral come without them,

we could not do the project. It is intriguing that the other eggs

didn't hatch. Are they just infertile? We don't know. We will

fight out because we have removed the eggs. They could have been a

hygiene is, if they had broken out, and had been rotten, they could

infect the chick. We always check them because they may have

insecticide or thin eggshells, it is worth finding out. The key thing is

we have the female tag. We have already got data. Here is the data

whilst she was in debating the egg. Here is Salisbury Cathedral, but at

that point, she was travelling over here. 3.87, matters to an old

quarry. She is spending some time not far from the Cathedral. Once the

egg had hatched, the pattern changed. Here, she is spending a lot

more time around the Cathedral. A couple of times guy she disappeared,

and we thought she had gifted of and had been irresponsible. But she was

just on a another part of the spire. For a peregrine, a glide of 30

seconds. She is sticking very close to the nest at the moment. It will

be interesting when she starts to forage and catch food for the

chicks. We can follow the adult because it is tagged, but we can

continue to follow the chick, because we have a live camera on it

now. Let's look at the live camera. We can't see the chick,

unfortunately, which is a shame, because it has really grown. Last we

saw it, it was five days old, and now is 12 days old. That is clearly

one of the adults. But you can continue watching the cameras from

now on the webcams, on the red button, and of course on the

Internet as well. You can listen to... You can listen to Brett who is

on live tomorrow at 8am as well as 1pm and 4pm, he has so much

information. We have just got time to show you something that you saw

yesterday, but now we can see it in slow motion, you can watch a kestrel

sneezing on the lens. And again, please! A kestrel with hay fever!

The spray! The golden writing of snort. Fantastic. That is it for

today. Martin will be back tomorrow, he will be in North Wales after sand

lizards. What else is coming up? We will check up on our family of

stoats. We have a new family for you, buzzards. We will see what our

sneezing kestrel and the chicks are up to. Join us tomorrow at 8pm on

BBC Two, check out the webcams on the red button or the website. Any

questions, send them in. We would love to hear from you. Until

tomorrow, thank you very much. Goodbye. Goodbye.