Springwatch Episode 11 Springwatch

It's been a gorgeous day here at Sherborne. Chicks are thriving,

gliding and our kingfishers are diving. So why not join us for the

very best of British wildlife? It's Springwatch and I can promise you

that it will be really... Hello and welcome to Springwatch

2017. It's the penultimate day from the National Trust Sherborne Park

estate in Gloucestershire and it is a fantastic evening. We have been

very much enjoying our time here, we have a great mix of habitats, the

Sherborne brook which runs clear and clean, full of fish and all the

birds which feed upon them. You have the pasture fields with some of the

most magnificent parkland trees I have seen in a long time, beautiful

old oaks. Blocks of woodland with many species, particularly when you

have all of this lush undergrowth. We have come here with a different

mission, not a nature reserve but worked farmland and we are finding

plenty of wildlife coexisting with all those practices.

It is a beautiful place and it has been a beautiful day. As we are

sitting here on our picnic blankets by the river, we are missing one

thing, a little picnic basket with some cheesy biscuits, cashew nuts, a

bottle of Chardonnay, that would be nice. Chardonnay?! Note for

tomorrow! Do you not like it? About not drinking at the moment. Hot

chocolate for you. Let's look at the live cameras,

starting with the swallows. I think they are looking cramped. They are

ready to go. They have outgrown that nest. I might stick my neck out and

say fledging tomorrow. It could easily be. What about the wagtails?

This is the first time we have seen them properly, their feathers are

coming through, you can see their true colours, some yellow in their

breast and their brows. These animals are growing very, very

quickly. What about the kites? Always looking

gorgeous in this light is the son comes dappling through the leaves of

the tree. I know lots of you are living the kites, but let's look at

what they were up to a couple of hours ago. Look at what they are

eating. I am afraid to say that it is an adult stoat. We know it is an

adult because it is a black tip on the end of its tail, we think it is

probably carry on, probably roadkill because it was a little bit rigid.

-- we think this is probably carrion. I would say, don't worry,

it is not our stoat. I have nothing to prove that, nothing! Except I

will keep my fingers crossed. I know they have to feeds, but we don't

encourage them eating our star characters.

I am not sure. Was it rigid, did it have rigor mortis? Could you imagine

a kite taking a stoat? It would be a massive battle. It is most likely

roadkill. Another nest we have been watching this week, you can see

where it is buying me, bathed in sunlight, that beautiful Cotswold

stone building, one of the Barnes has a red's nest. I should say it

had, because it is empty. This afternoon, the wrens started to

leave. We thought they were on the brink of fledging yesterday, they

all left rather quickly, six minutes from the first to the last. If

you're counting carefully you will know that only five merged. What

happened to the sixth chick? We think it probably fell all fledged

during the course of the night. The adult came back always confused by

the fact that the young have gone, then she hears them calling, their

little contact call. They have space themselves around the barn, that is

the purpose of getting out of the nest, if a predator arrives it might

get one and not them all in one go. This one is perilously in the open.

One of them has settled on top of the roof. Michaela, I have to warn

you that when I was down there the other day looking at the village,

there are masses of jackdaws down there. Those little wren fledgling

's are a perfect jackdaw burger! Oh, Chris, you pour cold water on a

tellers about the jackdaws explanation it is not cold water, it

is reality. And the jackdaws have young as well, what about an aah

about the jackdaws?! Let's look at the buzzards. We know it is a one

chick, a single child. Because of that it has been doing extremely

well, growing rapidly, it has had plenty of food. Let's look at it

when we first met it. A lot smaller, obviously, it is being fed Wiggly

worms. A nice, sticky spaghetti of worms. The rain came and had started

to be fed amphibians, followed by small mammals, moles, and after the

mole came something quite surprising, because that is a water

shrew. We did not know for 100% whether we had them here. We never

saw a water shrew, we saw the boom. That is enough! Now we know for sure

that there is. As it got older it started to try to fob -- to swallow

the food hole, was not always completely successful. It managed it

at other times. And look bad, that as a frog in its throat! We are only

five minutes in! We think that this is probably a dead pheasants.

Because it is a single chick it is being fed extremely well, a huge

variety. If you look at it from 15 days ago, it has developed extremely

well. Great to see it grow like that. It is getting all the food

itself, fairly unusual just have one buzzard, three kites, four kestrels,

three barn owls. There is a lot of small mammal prey. The National

Trust tellers that last year they had a mail which was servicing two

females, it may well have been badgering the time, if that is the

case, he was feeding two females in two nests, he was not giving them

quite enough to lay enough eggs all proved them properly and they have

ended up with a smaller clutch sides. Another nest we have been

watching is on the other side of the stage, the blackbirds. We can go to

that live. These birds are growing very rapidly as well. They are

gaping. One of them has hopped onto the side of the nest. I don't think

they are fledging yet. I don't see these going tomorrow. They are doing

really, really well, the adults are bringing in masses of food for the

five youngsters. This was the mail on Monday when we first introduced

you to the nest, look at the eye, it has an injured eye. This was it

yesterday, it is weeping pus at this point, clearly deteriorating. The

good news is he is still coming in with plenty of food, doing his duty,

desperate to get his genes into the next population because I think his

time in this is probably coming to an end. A bird with one eye is not a

very good idea. If a sparrowhawk passes on the right-hand side, that

will be an ex-Black bird, but he has almost in his duty. I thought it

looked like an old injury when we first met him, maybe I was wrong.

Maybe because he is blind he knocks into twigs and it has caught it

again. Picking his scabs?! May be the twigs are picking his scabs?

Let's see the chaffinches, one fledged yesterday, did the other two

go? On the life nest, we can see it is empty so we had a successful

fledging today. Let's look at that. The second chick, spreading its

wings, looking ready to jump. At eight or 6am it decided it was time

to go, flapping its wings, and I call that a heli fledge. You had

semi-fledging, now you have heli fledge?! It looks like a helicopter!

The third chick took quite some time, it stepped out of the nest at

10:27 and it fledged... Ish. It hung around on the twigs. It was

stretching its wings but it was a few hours before it went any

further. It is a bit of a concern about that chick, the nest watchers

noticed that the adults did not come back for about four I was, it was

not fed football hours. Usually they come out, the adults are there and

they entice them with food. -- it was not fed for four hours. I think

they must have been closed because you could hear them, it was just

catching up with the other chicks. Chaffinches are easy to see, many of

you will have them in the garden, they feed beneath the feeder when

birds have dubbed the seed. Other birds are difficult to see and

sometimes when your friend gets to see them you are pretty envious, as

the cases here. A couple of weeks ago Martin went to Wales to meet

Steve Roberts, a licensed bird wringer, to get his hands on

something that I would have loved to have got my hands on. Oh, yes!

It is that the top of this skinny pine, and old grows' nest. Lots of

the branches are rotten. They are not, they are fine. One of the

amazing things about working on the watchers is because of people like

Steve, I really get to see things that you would never, ever see in

normal life. This is a first for me. Safely in the bag. Well done eggs

Umesh Mahtre only three. They are beautiful. -- well done eggs here is

a rare treat, pure natural history magic. I have never seen one of

these before in my life. Oh, can you see inside their?! Can you see what

we have got? Do you know what those are? That is three law needs -- long

eared owl chicks. But clacking noise, he's threatening me, snapping

his beak. The eyes exclamation mark fantastic. Let's get them out so

that they get some Allah. They are very different sizes. -- let's get

them out so they get some air. This one is the biggest one, he hatched

first. Over here is the next one, the medium one. This is a little

one. They all look pretty good. Let's get Steve down, he can do the

processing. Absolutely brilliant, mate. Aren't they amazing?! The most

beautiful of all the owls! Absolutely beautiful. What a lovely

owl. What will we do to them? We will ring them, we will weigh them.

We will take a ring length, which tells us what age they are. -- a

wing length. That halons are tremendous, plenty of poker mammal

ready. -- their talons are impressive. 2.20, he will survive.

248. There was always one! Troublemaker! I am amazed they can

get around quite so much. When you think he has never walked before in

his life... He is pretty good. If he does it again, he is going in the

bag exclamation that is a threat. Crucial question, why? What is the

point of putting the rings on them? You can see where it has originated

from, how far it has moved. A stack of information if you get the ring

back. If you get enough back to make it worthwhile. I read that a long

eared owl was recovered 3300 kilometres away in Russia. It does

not surprise me. They can do long-distance migration. This one is

nothing but trouble. Lovely job. All done, back in the nest.

That is one back in. And another. All safely back. Brilliant.

Dear, oh dear! What a lucky chap, getting your hands on long eared

owls, what a lucky job. I am envious. He will not be very envious

of me. I have an adult long eared owl. This is quite an old bird, 13

years old, called tests, it is male, I know that is confusing, but it is.

-- called Tess. It has been rescued and brought in from the barn owl

Centre. They are quite small owls, look at the eyes, bright orange. You

can see the black markings around the face. And the tufty years,

although they are not actually years. They are purely the

decoration. That is why it is called the long eared owl. It only weighs

about 200 grams, quite late, which I'm grateful for. Absolutely

gorgeous. Stunning. We are so lucky to see it because these owls are

very shy, very nocturnal, not easily seen. We are lucky to see the

adults. Martin was very lucky to see the chicks. I am pleased to tell you

that we know that all three of them successfully fledged and can be

heard in the woods making a squeaky door call. If you don't know what

that sounds like, Martin does a remarkably good impression.

IMPERSONATE SQUEAKY DOOR. That does sound like a squeaky door,

although actually it is more like a squeaky gate. Oh! That is a bit high

pitched. My little friend Tess is not impressed. They are nocturnal

and they also hunt in woodland. There are about 3500 pairs in the UK

and they are scattered all across, in the north of Scotland and a few

down south West. They have to find a way of separating themselves from

tawny owls. First, they nest in different places and tawny owls need

older trees. What we see is the long years owls in young woodland, but

the tawny owls need older woodland so they have got crevices with deep

holes like these, just these trees on the Sherborne Park estate. Last

night during our badger can we saw a tawny owl and one of its young. Over

time the fortunes in terms of the UK population of these long eared owls

has gone up and down in relation to tawny owls. Basically they do not

get on. When the tawny owl population was decreased in the 19th

century due to persecution, the long eared owls went up. Tawny owls are

much larger and it is likely they predate these birds, or certainly

take the young out of their nest. There is not enough isolation for

both of them to live in the same place at the same time. That is the

tawny owl and the long eared owl, but what about the little owl and

the barn owl? They found their niche by adapting to live alongside us.

This is the little owl and we have a few on the estate, about five or six

pairs. They make the most of the buildings on the farms and here you

can see it hunting for worms. Barn owls also make the most of farm

buildings, as you know we have them nesting in the barn. But they hunt

at night and predominately on small mammals. Voles are favourite. A long

association with barn owls and Barnes is how they got their name

and before that they would have nested on cliffs and in hollow

trees. We have got one and we can go live to its nest now. We have got

three young in the nest. The largest is on the left-hand side. Huddled

together in the middle is the youngest one. One is smaller than

the others. The adult female bird was out for 11 hours yesterday. It

came back last night as we saw. Soon after she arrived back, the chicks

were ravenous. They were hissing and demanding food. Nothing for 11

hours. The mail soon came in and started bringing food for the

female. First there is a vole. The second largest chick gets this one.

Already these birds are swallowing them whole. Please do not try this

at home, not without significant lubrication! I am not sure if this

is a common shrew or a pygmy shrew. The good news, is that your owl has

got the perfect package when it comes to pray. . This is a

practising looking at things with its head on the side. They are

beginning to exercise their senses. Listing as well. Those are the hen

feathers. This is telling. This is the line-up. The one on the right is

the largest. Look at the difference in size between that and the

smallest one in the middle. We said the other night we were offering a

prediction of how many items they would need in the box every night

and last night how many did they have? Was it eight? Before that they

had nine and ten. They will have to keep that number up to keep them

going. I do not think I have ever seen such a size difference in barn

owls. That is ridiculous. As long as food comes in, it has a time. We

have also got a runt in the kestrel nest. This one I am not so worried

about the cause this one is a little fighter. Look at the light coming

into the church. Let's have a look at it during the daytime. Every time

the adult comes in, the little one is the first in line to have a bite.

It is a feisty, spirited, little thing. Maybe a small owl, but it has

got a big attitude. Kestrel. I was staring at my owl on my arm, so I

got confused. I am not concerned about this kestrel, I think it will

do OK. It is much smaller, but it will fight for every scrap it can

get. We have been watching them and each time food is brought in, it has

managed to get some. They may squabble during the day, but then

they soon settle down. This is when you can see the size difference. It

looks like Billy bunter on the right. But it looks like Billy

bunter with jaundice. It is unusually yellow. I do not mean the

stuff around his nose, it is the flesh which is unusual. Maybe the

audience will know what it is about if you are breeding kestrels. If you

see yellow on a bird's skin it is because there is fat underneath it.

Let us know what is going on with our yellow kestrel. We have been

following the fortunes of some egrets in Sussex and it will be

interesting to see whether they can actually fledge in this weather.

Spring has finally come to Somerset and the waterways are fringed with

Iris while along the fields other plant stand sentinels. Height in the

canopy of the home poker, amongst a rowdy rabble of grey herons and

rucks lies our little egret nest. In it are four fast-growing chicks.

Finding enough food for these hungry manners is a full-time job. It is

time for a shift change. One parent will look after the nest whilst the

other flies off in search of food. Unlike their colonial nests, feeding

is a solitary pursuit for the egrets and each has their own preferred

area out on the levels. They are not fussy eaters, small fish, amphibians

or insects are all on the menu. It is a game of patience, skill and

timing and even then Emile is not guaranteed. The favourite tactic is

to slowly wade through the shallow waters looking for any sign of

movement. Perhaps a bit of a foot staring might help by extending one

leg forward and vibrating it for a few seconds some prey might just be

lowered out. Success. But providing enough food

for the hungry chicks will take more than this small snack.

Back at the nest the meal is regurgitated for the chicks straight

onto the nest flora. It is a relentless schedule. Every day the

parents complete up to ten foraging trips, allowing the chicks to grow

up to 25% larger every 24 hours. But life can be tough year. Despite

their best efforts, one of the chicks has disappeared. It may have

starved as the parents struggled to find food in the early spring, or it

could have been a tragic accident. Chicks are known to fall from their

nest. And for the three remaining chicks things are about to get

worse. After one of the driest spring is on record, a storm has

blown in over the colony. As the rain lashes down, the parents

desperately try to cover the chicks. Their soft, downy feathers are not

yet waterproof and if left exposed, the chicks could freeze. It is going

to be a long night, even with the mother and father's devoted

protection. Thankfully the next morning three spindly sets of legs

can be seen clambering out of the nest. Storm over, it is time to dry

off in front of an engrossed audience. Some stretching and a bit

of flapping does the trick. Over the next few weeks these exercises

become more and more important, building up the newly developed

muscles and allowing the chicks a degree of freedom in the branches.

At four weeks old and they still cannot fly, so one false step could

be disastrous. But as the weeks pass, they become increasingly

confident. For these early birds it looks like the gamble has paid off

with three healthy chicks weeks ahead of the colony. They must now

learn how to fly, hunt for themselves and find their own patch

and maybe push the little egret colonisation of the UK one step

further. The gamble for the early nest did pay off and the chicks are

doing pretty good. They are still doing well, this was just last week.

You can see plenty of birds in the trees in the colony. We think these

are our three. It is very difficult to tell. They are less ungainly than

they were. They are flapping their wings and testing those flight

muscles. Even when they fledge from the trees the adults will be with

them for quite awhile until they are totally capable of fishing for

themselves. But great to see they are doing well. Boosting the

population up to 700 pairs, something like that. There may be

more next year. There are others in the colony as well and they are

doing well. If you have been watching, you will

know there is a great deal of variety when the egg hatches and

what a chick looks like. Sometimes they are born blind, pink and

helpless. We call them altricial, they are incapable of movement and

not capable of looking after themselves. The word is Latin and it

means the adults have to provide them with a lot of nourishment.

However, other chicks are precocial and it means they are perfectly

capable of moving around by themselves as soon as they hatch.

That is like a precocious child that runs around a lot and is quite a

show off and slightly irritating estimation mark more irritating than

boring. That is true. Let's have a look at some of our altricial

chicks. These are the swallows. They weigh less than two grounds. They

are helpless. Naked, eyes closed and not very well developed. These are

the bullfinches. Although they are active, they are largely helpless.

Those are the altricial chicks. What about the precocial chicks? They are

mainly water birds. We saw this last year. As soon as they come out of

the eggs, they are up and about. They are in a group following both

adults, these shell ducks. We have all seen them on ponds, rivers and

lakes. Look at this little Good which has

just come out of the egg and it is off. We saw the ring to blow the

last year, it is literally out and running to the verges for cover --

we saw this winged plover. The different strategies are about

parental investment and when you make that. If the female bird is

able to put resources into the egg so it can deliver more fully --

develop more fully than it can do that, some birds cannot do that,

such as swallows. If this is an altricial birds egg, the typical

Birdseye, it comes with a limited amount of resources in terms of and

proteins. The precocial is represented by Scotch the egg, it is

the same type of egg with added value, the sausage meat, the

potential extra energy and protein. Real birds don't add sausage meat,

they do it by having a yard chip yoke relative to the size of the

egg. It is not the size of the egg, it is the size of the yolk. 20% of

starving egg is made of yolk, it is only bad that much energy to get a

bird to this size. Black headed gulls, 30% is yolk. Then properly

precocial birds like the tufted duck, 40%, to write as much as the

Starling, meaning it can emerge from the egg and be a lot more

independent. Just out of interest, this Australian species has 50% yolk

in its eggs. This is quite an unusual bird, the mail looks after

about 30 eggs, it cooks them in a sort of compost heap. When they

hatch, they are mobile within an hour and can virtually fly within a

day. They are pretty much the ultimate precocial birds. Brown

Kiwis beat them, 70% yolk, when they emerge they are virtually a mini

version of the adults, just a shrunken form. They come out almost

perfectly, they cannot fly but looked just like an adult. That is

fascinating. Being an altricial birds is a gamble when it comes to

predation. This is in week one, basically you are putting all your

eggs in one basket. We saw this with the Swallow nest and the jackdaw.

Once a bird finds the nest, it will clean the whole thing out. It is

like a Lada, those chicks are not capable of escaping. It is a Ritz --

a risky strategy. Precocial birds, the Peregrine has predated on the

little duckling, but because they can scatter, they are not all the

eggs in one basket, although it's got the one duckling, the others

probably got away. What would you be? I think I'm definitely

precocial, I think you are more altricial. You are more precocious,

no doubt about that. I will go more altricial, there is a loose

relationship but it is a loose relationship between brain size

relative to body mass and whether you are altricial or precocial. At

the point of hatching, altricial birds have a smaller brain which

ultimately grows larger. Precocial birds have to hatch with a more

developed brain because they need to be independent and have their senses

to be working, they need to hear and see and affect locomotion, they

start with a bigger brain but by the time they are an adult their brain

size is smaller relative to body size. I think you are right egg

formation archiving your brain just seems to get bigger and bigger and

bigger, and your memory, and I think my memory gets smaller and smaller

as I get older. There is a fade from my curve, I had to tell you. Here at

Sherborne, as we said at the beginning, there are lots of

habitats such as Woods, hedges, grass and farmland, the River

binders, but to get to know any of those habitats intimately you need

to spend lots of time in them. What better way than to find out about

what is going on in a river than to be a river keeper?

The favourite time to be on the river, I think, is very early in the

morning, just after daybreak. Everything is fresh, you often have

the mist still hanging in the Meadows, nothing much is moving so

you get true tranquillity of being on a river.

I'm Rob, I am river keeper on the River Kennet at Hungerford. I have

been here for 26 years now. I grew up on the banks of the Hampshire

Avon, all our spare time as children was spent in the water meadows,

fishing, swimming, that was the playground. It is through those

early years in that environment that I grew to love rivers and all that

they stand for. Trout spawn late winter, early

spring. They lay their eggs in a gravel depression which they

excavate with their tails. Eggs are very high in protein and

they tend to be predated on by others. Trout or Grayling,

particularly ducks as well. One of the strangest little creatures we

have on the River lives its whole life within the river here. When

they become sexually mature, they will move out onto a clean gravel

area in the spring, mate, lay their eggs and then die. In spring,

everything comes back to life and the river is no different. It goes

from looking quite dour to actually being very colourful and very

beautiful. Not only visually does the river change, but you begin to

get all the birdsong of the litter -- of the returning migrants.

Warblers love to nest in the reads very close here.

Then you get the willow warbler is returning with their little

descending song. Within a week or two Mark Rutte you go from a very

quiet environment -- within a week or two, you go from a very quiet

environment quite noisy one. They sit in the and chat at you. One of

the most important jobs in managing the river is woodcutting. If a river

gets too full of weeds, it will back up and the banks will become eroded.

If you allow the banks to become eroded, the river becomes overly

wide, the flow down the river is lost in the whole environment will

go downhill. As we move through spring it is

fascinating watching the different birds nest. The very early birds

tend to be the Swan, followed by the goose and some of the ducks.

Gradually you see the moorhens making their nest, the coots will be

nesting, there is always something happening. One of our constant

companions on the river is the work table. You will often see them

perching on a rock, midstream, so that they can catch flies.

The mayfly season is the absolute feast of the year on the river. When

it starts, every bird, every fish in the river, is leading with abandon.

They are taking everything they possibly can. There will be a rush

of activity for perhaps 20 minutes, half an hour, and then the river

will just go to sleep. All the fish, all the little birds are sated, they

could not eat another mayfly. Learning to pause and observe is the

only way you will get the true understanding of what is within this

environment. Your enjoyment is from seeing a river in pristine condition

and all the aquatic life that goes with it. And the birdlife around it.

Learning to pause and observe, it is something we all forget to do in our

busy, hectic lives. Chris, come on, let's pause and observe river. I did

not quite get that right. Try again. Walk... Pause... And you observe.

What are you like?! We observe the river. This is the Sherborne group,

we have a live camera on the River right now. Let's see what they are

seeing. Anything there? It is literally -- has literally just

gone. Seconds ago, we were getting very excited about this. This is a

wagtail. We actually think this is the female of our grey wagtail nest.

It is very scraggly, it is quite easy to recognise. There she is,

busy out foraging, getting lots of things to be able to feed her young

with. Great to see. We also saw a kingfisher just stay few seconds

ago. Just before we went to live. You should have been here earlier!

Let's look at the live grey wagtail nest. Here it is. Not very far from

where we are standing right now. In the brickwork, five little chicks.

All looking rather gorgeous. Let's look at what has happened throughout

the day. Things have been going pretty well for this nest. This is

the mail, the female was the slightly tatty one, the male one

with the Black on its throat comes in, feeds these chicks, all of them

readily taking the food. They have been very diligent, both parents,

the female giving a few more feeds. As soon as you stop feeding you

coward down back into the nest, which is good protection. They are

quite protected now because they have their figures but they are all

Trisha is, of course. We have had a question, lots of people have asked,

Susan wants to know wider wagtails wag and dippers dip? This is a very

good question because nobody really knows. Lots of theories. I cannot

give you a definitive answer but I can tell you some of the series.

Wagtails might wipe their tails because they need long... This is

what people say, long tails to be manoeuvrable and the rate of wiping

increases when they are foraging. Let's look at the wagtail wagging.

Another theory is it indicates their vigilance, they tend to wag more if

they are in the presence of a predator. Could it be that they are

saying I know you are there, I am working my tail? That is one theory.

They are not the only birds living near fast flowing water that Bob or

wag. The dipper does this, some people think it is a form of

communication to other dippers. The rate of bobbing goes up when there

is conflict. Others think they are peering into the water. The common

sandpiper frequents fast flowing streams, this one bobs its tail.

Another theory is that it is a form of camouflage. The body bouncing up

and down amongst all of that turbulent water helps hide the bird.

I honestly don't know, no wonders at this point, definitively knows the

answer. I don't buy into the dipper doing parallax or refraction, the

herring does not do that, it has adapted to see through the water. It

seems like a lot of wasted energy, all the bobbing up and down and the

flapping of its tail? I may complete fool of myself?! Animals do not have

energy to waste, they would not do it unless there was a reason. It

might be a complex of things, not one reason.

Let's move on to a great piece of practical conservation, I am keen to

champion this. Black tailed godwits are quite numerous in the winter, 40

3000, 40 4000. They are very low inbreeding numbers, somewhere

between 40 and 60. Staff at the WWT and RSPB went into the main washers

and took ads the next -- eggs from the nests, incubated them at rates

them in captivity. Earlier this week, things changed. It was time to

release them. They had been put into an outside aviary to mature,

protected from predators. This is what it is all about. The nest which

they took the eggs from, all of the adults that matter it is about

potentially doubling the number of godwits that we have on the Ouse

Washes where they were released. There they are, flying out of the

aviary. They join up with the other young godwits, you can see them, a

slightly shorter bill. The hope is they will get into flocks with these

birds, initially they will move to the coast of East Anglia but they

are migrants, they will move down, perhaps to Portugal, some even over

into North Africa, but they are site faithful, that is key, they hope

these birds will come back to the Ouse Washes to breed, maybe next

year. Some thought some of the females might breed in their first

year or maybe even the year after. It is a great project with lots of

supporters, HSBC, the European life project, they are very keen to

champion them, again, the Heritage Lottery Fund. Did you know that is

the biggest non-government donor to practical conservation in the UK?

Remember, that is you buying more lottery tickets, if you have been

buying tickets, on this occasion you have been helping godwits. Thank you

very much, brilliant project. You made so many people feel good about

not winning. It is not winning, it is contributing. I was being

serious. In the last few weeks, in conjunction with Wellcome Collection

in London, Lucy has been meeting people with fascinating stories

about houses this -- specific objects connect them to nature or

have inspired them to have a love for nature. For her final film she

goes to Somerset to meet a passionate Burda.

In woodlands and gardens throughout Britain bird boxes provide a safe

haven for nesting birds. I have come to lie in court to seek a box that

has given its creators so much more. Unknowingly this nest box has helped

me cope with so much in life. It may be old and tatty but it has opened

up a whole new world of nature for me. Paul Turner was born and bred

here in the beautiful Somerset countryside. He has a huge passion

for the wildlife around him, but it all started with this one special

belonging. And here it is. Fantastic. It looks like it has been

around for awhile. How old is it? I was eight years old and I made it

and I had seen it on blue Peter. I nailed it together and into dad's

Garden it went. The blue tit nested there. I would sit there for hours

watching them. How did it feel to see those first birds? It felt

wonderful because you were engaging with wildlife and enhancing the

wildlife and helping it. With this box and because of that link with my

old barn it is no longer here, so this box is really special. But all

my boxes are. I do not see them as my boxes, it is their food and it is

what they provide for them. They are not yours, they belong to nature?

They belong to nature, but it enhances my life. Can you show me

the others? Paul has since taken bird box building to the next level.

He built an entire barn on his land which has housed barn owls and a

pair of kestrels. But his providing of homes for nature does not stop

there and some of them are quite inventive. I can see you have got a

watering can. I do not think anyone is using it this year, but I have

had blackbirds and robins and wagtails and in the shed there is a

little can and there are wrens nesting there at the moment. I

thought I saw some. Yes, they are busy in there. You were inspired by

that first nest box and you have really enhanced what there is here

so more nature can come in, more birds that would not normally be

here. In everything I do I try to think how can I be doing this to

enhance something? Whether it is insects or birdlife or plant life,

nature is where my passion is. I am that kind of person in any thing I

do. Sometimes Paul finds daily life challenging, but he copes by

surrounding himself with wildlife. The times when I have struggled with

human beings and their behaviour towards me because of how I am,

being an autistic person, there are some things I cannot do. For a lot

of people that is hard to understand and I get put under so much pressure

and it causes stress and anxiety and depression and nature has always

been there for me. It has been my backbone to life. It has been my

refuge. And when Paul says refuge, he means it quite literally.

Climbing up into a tree helps him to immerse himself in nature. Perch

yourself, get yourself comfortable and just sit and wait and listen.

Sometimes just close your eyes and take it all in and just listen.

When you are up in a tree at dawn and the birdsong is truly amazing.

It is also for anyone who is not experienced and a great place to

spend the whole night. Have you ever done that? Yes, when I was at home I

was a bit of a monkey. Each tree will make you feel differently, I

can feel that in my body, and the movement with the tree. And you are

connecting. He talked to me before about how you sometimes found

connecting with people difficult. Have you ever found this is a way of

retreating from the human world and connecting with nature more? Yes, it

is very much a sanctuary. Unfortunately some of my inabilities

or my behaviour can upset people and that in turn upsets me. I feel

pretty lousy and then in those times I need to escape and get away from

the realities of life. It gives you strength to get back to it. You

recharge your batteries if you like. Get yourself up a tree! It is

incredible to think that such a lifelong connection with nature was

forged by a humble bird box. I like that film very much. I

thought you would. What a wonderful guy. A while ago it was mental

health awareness week and we put stuff on Facebook and I am going to

redo some things. Nicola White wrote, on a very similar note,

nature and wildlife photography has been a constant and I have been

struggling with depression. Macro photography allows me to concentrate

on little details and stops me being overwhelmed. Lee Cooper said, my

five-year-old daughter is autistic and shows signs of anxiety. She

feels relaxed when she is outside looking for snails and building them

a home. Lastly, Liz says, I am a carer and both my sons are autistic

and I suffer from depression when things get too much. 18 months ago I

rediscovered my childhood love of nature and found the peace and

serenity of nature transfers to me. We have known that being in an

actual space is beneficial both mentally and physically. Healing

rates in hospitals improve if you can see green spaces outside the

window. There is something primal that still lurks within us which,

when we enjoy that connection, it improves our physical and mental

health. The Wellcome collection exhibition opens on the 22nd of June

in the Museum of modern nature in London. You can go to that yourself.

They are still inviting digital submissions. Details are available

on our website. It is amazing how much you can go out in nature and

you feel the stresses and strains of life left off you. Early in the

morning I go out to the woods with the dogs. I never appreciated it

before, but it calms you down. I am in contact with that environment and

I am at my own pace and in my own time. It is the best thing and

settled me down. What has inspired a lot of people on the live nests

either Perak greens. This is a remarkable story. Let me remind you

what happened. We had a remote live camera on a nest with one chick. It

was on the Cathedral and the RSPB rescued three chicks from another

nest where the parents were found dead and put one of the chicks into

our nest as Sarah get nest. You can see the two chicks are snuggled up.

The adopted one has got more feathers and is slightly older.

Let's see what they have been getting up to. -- surrogates. You

can see the biological chick is the one in front. But both of them I

been so well looked after and it is amazing. It was only this time last

week that that chick was introduced into this nest. You can see both

adults totally accepted it. The other chick has totally accepted it

and it all seems to be going incredibly well. What is interesting

is there were three rescued and the other two were put into an nest in

the Midlands. They are a bit older than that one and they are getting

ready to fledge. It is amazing because you look at hours and it

will need a while. What a great story that is, turning it around.

You will know that the peregrine female on Salisbury Cathedral is

carrying a satellite tracking device and we know where she is going. We

have got an update. Salisbury Cathedral is in the middle and that

is where most of the recordings are coming from. The ones in red are

pre-hatching. So she is up here in an old quarry, potentially where she

was roosting in the winter. After they were hatching she visited just

that one bird. She is arranging further afield, perhaps helping the

mail find some of the food for that one. Then the extra chick was added

to the nest and we have got the yellow recordings. When we zoomed in

on Google Earth we found she was foraging on feels. What is she doing

out here? We do not know what is growing in those fields, but it is

likely she is after pigeons. Let's see what she has been bringing in.

It is difficult to ascertain because the mail delivers lots of food to

the female. We are not sure if what she arrives with is something she

has caught herself. They are also good at dismembering it. She is

obviously going down there after something. I cannot think what else

it would be except wood pigeons. Have you noticed on this programme

we are obsessed with what is eating what. The mayfly are eaten by the

fish, the fish are eaten by the small birds and the small birds are

eaten by the big birds. But without sounding too cheesy, it is all just

the circle of life. MUSIC PLAYS: "The Circle

of Life" by Elton John. It is a circle of life that. What a

finale. I couldn't finish like that myself. I am glad about that. We

have got a live camera down on the river and we have got something on

that right now. Oh, do not tell us it has just gone! Let's have a look

at what was that if we can. Oh, look, there we go. A beautiful

kingfisher. Lovely to see on the river. We have just about enough

time to squeeze these in. We found these pictures on twitter. It is a

kestrel trying to rob a vole from the barn owl here. Fantastic action

pictures. I feel a little bit for the role in midair falling to the

ground. Reaching terminal velocity! Great photos, even you have got to

admit. That is almost it for now. We have got one more show tomorrow.

Gillian and Martin will be there from the Isles of Scilly. You have

got 24 hours left to check our live cameras. All of it is available

online and on the red button. We can go live to our life kites. Check

these out on our cameras. What about our kestrels? It is the last chance

to cheer on the run to. And what about the fledgling is? Keep your

eyes peeled for tomorrow. It is the last show tomorrow and an important

announcement, it is 7:30pm tomorrow. What time is it? It is 7:30 p.m.. We

will see you then. It is a whole Springwatch evening tomorrow. See

you then. Goodbye. You'll favour me by never setting

foot on Trenwith land. Sir Francis did not explicitly offer

me the position of magistrate. But I can see myself

dispensing justice.