Springwatch Episode 8 Springwatch

The following action is based on true stories.

And no names have been changed to protect identities,

Tonight, a kestrel-barn owl bird-off, a sibling settles in.

It's the one to watch - it's Springwatch!

Please expunge that from your memory! What was I thinking?!

Clearly it is not my forte. Hello and welcome to the final night of

Springwatch 2017, week two, coming to you from the very pretty

Sherborne Park Estate. Run by the National Trust. 4,000 acres of

farmland, stretching over the environment with streams, woodlands

and lots of wildlife we have been enjoying over the last couple of

weeks. It's a shame you don't like cheer

leading, I thought I could sing the song for you,

# Oh, I think that I've found myself a cheerleader... No.

So, let's start tonight with the nest of the blackcaps. Here it is

live. It has not been so successful. It had five chicks, sadly, we have

lost three already. There are two left. They seem to have gotten stuck

in the nest or fallen through. So we were worried when we saw this happen

to one of the remaining two. Look... It's got its leg stuck in the same

hole that one of the siblings fell through and sadly afterwards died.

But they are bigger and stronger and it's managed to pull its leg out.

Now this is very encouraging to see. The male bird comes in, feeds both

of them and I think they're looking a lot stronger.

So, I don't know, they are certainly not out of the woods yet. No. But

there are less in the nest, there is more room. They seem to get back,

even if they are stuck on that wretched side and more food.

Yes, more food. But I am concerned as the bad weather, the wind and the

rain made the nest tilt even more. You are the prophet of doom. I am

fairly optimistic. I think that the pair might get out.

There is another nest we have been watching on the estate. The nest of

a grey wagtail. We can go to it live it is built on the mossy brickwork

there on the side. You can see there the youngsters are in the nest. We

know there are five. But you can't see them clearly, there are three

bakes. Five eggs, all five hatched and the adults have been busy

collecting insects. They have not struggled to find them in the warm,

wet weather. We can see what they've been up to, bringing them in fast

and furiously. Here are the chicks a little more active in the day.

Here's the male. His black throat that separates him from the female.

They're after anything that emerges on the water or blown on to it. Here

he is with a huge mouthful of mixed insect food and of course themselve

been doing well in the rain as they found that cleft in there to shelter

themselves from. They are so pretty and the nest is

gorgeous. I love that flash of yellow. It could be my favourite

nest. It is lovely. A bit complicated for me. But it is

beautiful and they are doing well. There are lots of birds around the

estate that we have live cameras on, here are the prey, this is the live

buzzard. There is one chick there. It is four weeks and the down is

beginning to come off and the adults feathers beginning to show. Now look

at that crop! This bird has been fed incredibly well! Let's look at what

it's been eating in the last 24 hours. It's had a hugely varied

diet. The adult comes in with prey. And you may be surprised to see what

it is... It's a mole. As I say, it's had a varied diet so

far, frogs, toads, worms, ducklings and now it's getting this mole. I

say it is surprising as obviously you think of moles as living their

lives underground, so where has it come from? It was not the only mole

brought as a treat. The nest watchers have seen five moles. Here

comes the other adult bringing the other one. As I say, where have they

come from? We think because of the rain they've been flooded out of the

tunnels. Once they are above ground they are an easier target. I'm not

sure that the chick is looking too pleased with that offering.

I am surprised they are eating this many moles. Not many animals do. The

only other animal that eats them regularly is the tawny owl. In some

studies conducted, is that the mole is very unusual. This is that they

have glands in their mouths that are not tasteful. Stoats kill them,

foxes kill them but not very much eats them but the buzzards are

enjoying a mole feast. Although I don't know about the

chick. Maybe later when he is hungry.

Now, for some niche separation, you wear aubergine, I wear lime green.

You know about cheerleaders, I know very little. It is when you have the

same thing in the same place at the same time. There are barn owls that

want to eat certain animals as the kestrels. So how do they cope? Iolo

and Martin have found out. Two iconic species hunting for the

same prey in the same habitat. In one corner, it's the king of the

wind, the kestrel. In the other, a master of stealth, the barn owl. Two

birds, three challenges but only one winner.

Now, Iolo, I would have thought that the owl was a more powerful bird to

see off the kestrel? It is bigger and heavier but the kestrel is

faster. But the owl can turn on a six pence.

But the kestrel, the eyesight it is ten times better than yours and

mine. But the owl can hear in darkness, it can hunt in the dark.

That sounds a challenge. Right, you get a barn owl, I'll get a kestrel.

We have come to Somerset to meet up with expert animal handlers, Rose

and Lloyd Buck and their magnificent birds. This little beauty is

Ashleigh. A male kestrel. He is 12 years old. He weighs 170 grams. Like

all falcons, pointed wing, rapid flight, and I reckon a kestrel will

beet a barn owl any day. What do you think? This is Lily,

she's a barn owl. She's three years old. As of this morning she weighed

310 grams. She's an ultimate predator. She is alert now as she

can hear... She's off! She's a barn owl, she's three years old and she

is not playing ball. Any how, so Lily, versus the kestrel, the

gauntlet is down! Two posts have been set up, 30 metres apart and

we're going to time each bird as it flies between them, doing the test

three times to get an average. Because of the different way they've

been trained, the owl is flying to my arm, the kestrel will follow a

lure pulled by Iolo. First up, it is Ashleigh the

kestrel. I promise to start the clock watch

at the correct time. If it is two minutes, I know you are

cheating. I will warm up. Great, I want to see how you are

going to do this. Oops! No chance! Ready? Yep.

Go! 3. .38 seconds. That's impressive.

1, 2, 4! Hey, pretty good. 3768. Iolo's tiring a little bit.

He's only just warmed up! 2.94. Seriously impressive. So with the

average speed is 3.3 seconds. That's over 30 metres. Not bad.

I have to say, Iolo, seriously, I'm nervous.

OK, here we go. Lily... ? Good girl! Brilliant.

What was that, Iolo? 4.56. I don't think you pressed the button

at the right time, mate. I pressed it early to give you a

chance! Good girl. What a thrill. What time was that?

4.50. Mate. 0. .06 faster than the last time.

Keep trying. She'll get there. I can't whistle

now! Oh, brilliant! Right.

What was that, then? 4 of 65. So your average is 4.57. Which is

roughly three weeks slower than a kestrel. So that is 1-0 to me, mate.

So the kestrel was 3.3? Yes. That is still pretty good.

I thought that the owl would be slower. So 1.7 seconds slower than

the kestrel. The kestrel wins, just.

Just, so it is 1-0 now. Oh, there we go... How did she come

to you? The silver tongued Welshman! It even works on owls! So, not

competitive at all. To be continued. But the idea for the challenge came

from footage sent in by Richard hop kins. He filmed this kestrel chasing

a barn owl that has prey. We know that the kestrel is faster than the

barn owl. It catches up but in that instance it didn't manage to snatch

the prey from the barn owl. Because of the speed it keeps chasing. We

know it did manage to get that prey off the barn owl. But I think in

celebration of the kestrel, let's have a look at our very own kestrel

nest we have here. Let's have a look at it live. Here are the chicks.

Four chicks, they are 11 to 13 days' old. They will fledge at 32 days. So

they won't go anywhere fast. Before now they couldn't control their

temperature. They had to be brooded all the time. Now some of the fluff

is beginning to come off, so they can thermo regulate a little better,

which is why the female is not there at the moment. Let's see what is

going on with them. Now look at that shot. I'm concerned about the little

one that you can see huddled down next to its siblings, that is

definitely a lot smaller. I had not noticed it before. Here is the male

bird with a vowel. That is their primary species. He doesn't hang

around. The female takes over for the feeding duties but look what is

happening here. Keep your eye on the runt. The small one at the front. It

is trying to get food from the mum and it is not succeeding. It is

being pushed out by its siblings. I can't believe how much smaller he is

but it is interesting it is just apparent now. Clearly a lot weak

than the other three. Despite trying he doesn't seem to get anything. We

know that kestrels are brilliant at hovering in the wind but find it

challenging when it comes to landing. A crash landing into the

window. Not easy but look at this one. Oops! Not very elegant. More

food and you can see the older chicks at this stage are managing to

feed themselves. The little one gets the leftovers

but you can see it is really struggling to pick any of it off.

So, as I say, I'm really concern bad that little chick. It's not looking

good. It's looking weak and it's clearly a lot smaller than the

others. We'll have to keep our eyes on it. But that nest, as we know,

it's in the church in the village down the other side of the hill in

Sherborne and that's exactly where Chris is.

This might be a Springwatch first. We don't normally hang out in

villages. Why have I come here? It's to explore the village as a natural

habitat. Schoenborn has been here since at least the Domesday book in

the name comes from Clearwater in old English and it still has

Clearwater. The key to its success of the wildlife resources the fact

it is old. It's an old village. Lots of wildlife likes old villages. A

study in Poland showed traditional old villages have somewhere between

20-25 species of birds. If they have less than 10% new houses. But if

whereas as much as 40-50% new housing, it drops to less than ten

species and there are plenty of reasons for that. Generally, if you

have old houses like this, then you have old gardens, and old gardens

invariably have more structure. They have things like mature trees and

bushes that you have here, and if people have a keen interest in

garden then you have all of these shrubs, like here, some sort of rows

here, catmint, geranium, foxgloves over here, and this diversity of

structure, plus all the different species of nectar they produce, is

great for insects, and you can get a tremendous diversity of insects in a

garden like this. As a resource it's incredibly important. There's 1

million acres of gardens in the UK, that's an area the size of Suffolk.

So if we all make an effort in our gardens, thinking about the

wildlife, and it can certainly improve things. There's a lot of

wildlife doing better in rural gardens like this, in urban gardens,

Barnett is in the wider countryside. The wider countryside can be a

difficult place to live. All of these insects are here in the

garden, lots of food plants for them, they are eating them. There's

lots of nectar for them, so the lesson is simple. Make sure you have

nectar running all the way through the season providing for insects all

the way through and a great diversity of species. There's one

species which is synonymous with villages like this, and housing, and

that's the house sparrow. House sparrows have been having a pretty

tough time. Between 1970-2014, there was a 60% decline. In the wider

countryside, due to agricultural intensification, but they've also

been disappearing from towns and cities as well. That's probably

because there's less gardens, there's competition with wood

pigeons, they come into contact with domestic cats, a negative aspect,

and best pollution. Here you see in Sherborne they have another resource

which is important to them, not only all of the insect food, which they

need at this time of year to feed their young, but nesting spaces.

They can ducking under the eaves, as you saw there. If you have a new

house you can make it effectively old, by getting yourself a house

sparrow box. I tried this a few years ago. I never had any house

sparrows at my house. I put one up. After five years house sparrows

moved in, laid eggs, they were just about to fledge, and a greater

spotted woodpecker came in and took the whole lot and they haven't been

back. I put up more boxes. That's which is what we should all do.

Michaela, how are you with bird boxes? Are you doing your bit for

house sparrows? I have put up an owl box and a bat box. Those are my new

boxes. And I haven't got any takers! But you have to persevere. You have

to try, and hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll eventually get

something. The village in the church may have kestrels, but Salisbury has

peregrines in the Cathedral and we've been having remote cameras on

them and enjoying watching an adult pair and their one chick, who have

been doing very well. If you were watching the show yesterday you will

know we had some very exciting news, because the RSPB found three chicks

in a nest, where they found the adults dead nearby. They rescued the

chicks and wanted to find a surrogate nest to going. They chose

our nest on Salisbury Cathedral to put one of the chicks in. They put

it in yesterday and it went remarkably well. Let's look at it

now. This is it come alive. It's obviously quite windy and wet there,

because the female is brooding the two chicks. We've been watching them

all day. It's amazing how well this little chick, this foster chick,

which is the one closest to others, has been accepted. That's the

original chick, you can see it has a lot more down on it, because it's

slightly younger. It's 20 days old. The other chick, which looks very

bedraggled, 26 days old. Let's look what happens when they were not

quite so bedraggled earlier today. They are so much more fluffy, aren't

they! The siblings are getting a bit use to each other. You can clearly

see the difference in age there. The older one is more mobile. The mail

comes in with a magpie. You can hear the screeching and bedding. The

female comes in pretty quickly afterwards and that looks like it

could be half a pigeon. Just have a look at what happens next. Both

adults are there. Both have brought him prey. The female starts feeding

her own chick and the male starts feeding the adopted chick. As I say,

this is incredible, how these two parents have taken on that adopted

chick, that surrogate chick, so quickly. We had so many comments

about this on social media. It's a real feel-good story. Finding three

chicks without any parents is obviously a very negative thing,

being able to put them into this nest is a positive thing, and we are

absolutely delighted that we can follow it and of course we will

continue to follow it over next week. But you know, they are doing

really well in urban areas. In the 1990s they reckon there were about

seven pairs, 2014, 178 pairs of urban peregrines. The that's

incredible, isn't it? They are not the only birds to make the most of

what the city has to offer, as Gillian discovered.

MUSIC Gulls have made our cities their

homes, but they've only been nesting here since the 1960s. By the year

2000 there was an estimated 240 colonies. Today, that figure has

more than doubled, to over 500 colonies, and counting. Here in

Bristol, gulls are doing so well that the council has spent millions

trying to disperse them. But they keep coming. So what draws them to

this urban environment? Gull researcher Peter Rock has been using

cutting edge technology to find out and his new research reveals some

surprising secrets about these metropolitan migrants. Peter, this

is an amazing view up here. You can see little congregations of

different gulls. What species are here? We have two species in

Bristol, Lesser black backed gull and herring goal, the one with the

silvery coloured back. I bob in some sitting on the nests already. A load

of nests on the roof against the rich. Breeding season is well under

way. What are their favourite nesting sites, the different shapes

and structures? Lesser black backed gulls... The nesting towns, lesser

black backed gulls on flat roofs and gently sloping roofs, and herring

gulls on odd, difficult places, like in the house over there, tiny little

space. It shows how some of their natural traits and behaviour and

characteristics have translated in this very urban landscape. If you

think about it from the gull's point of view this isn't an urban

landscape. It is a series of islands, steep cliffs, with a huge

advantage that there aren't any predators. But the most important

thing is heat. Towns are heat islands. They are between four and

six Celsius warmer than the surrounding countryside. It means

urban gulls can start nesting before their rural counterparts. The first

eggs in Bristol are about two weeks ahead of the first eggs in the

Scilly Isles. How weird is that. That is surprising because the

Scilly Isles are so much further south, you'd expect the gulls there

to be getting on with it earlier, but they get a head start here

because it's warmer. Soak our buildings and rooftops actually

offer better nesting opportunities for gulls than the natural

environment. In fact, Peter's research shows that the gull hatched

in the city will never repatriate into a coastal colony. So are they

also relying on our cities to deliver all their food requirements

as well? A lot of people think that that's the sole draw that brings

gulls to the city, but it is untrue. An adult gull will require about 135

grams of food per day, so if its chips that would mean for a

population the size of Bristol, which is about 6000 birds, that

would be about a tonne of chips. How many chips can you see lying about

here? Of course what they do is never turn down an opportunity for a

free lunch, but actually that's not where they are getting their major

supply of food from. For that, the nutritious stuff, the really good

stuff, they go elsewhere. This is where the new technology comes in.

Peter, working with the University of Bristol, has managed to tag four

urban gulls with GPS trackers and the results might surprise you.

These Bristol City gulls are actually roving up to 30 kilometres

outside the city, into the countryside, to feed on the

surrounding farmland. So Peter, is an urban gull expert, this is the

last place I'd expect you to bring me. What exactly are they feeding

on? OK, it depends on what agricultural practice is going on at

any given moment, but let's for instance take silage making. They

are feeding on whatever gets chopped up in the grass. So small animals,

small birds, frogs, invertebrates, all sorts of things, ploughing,

which honours all sorts of worms and larvae and all sorts of things. Is

the food here more valuable than the our chips? Well, adult gulls will

eat anything, as long as it will fit down their throat, but the important

part of their lives is the breeding bit and they have to produce food

for their offspring from egg sized a full-size in six weeks. So they have

to have stuff which is really highly nutritious and chips don't cut it.

Peter's work shows that our urban gulls are much more than the city

slick as we might assume them to be. As well as taking advantage of the

abundance of nesting sites, the warmer environment and the many

feeding opportunities the city provides, these gulls are heavily

reliant on the cycle of farming in our rural areas as well. So next

time you see a gull tucking into last night's takeaway, just

remember, you only are seeing a fraction of their busy and located

lives. -- complicated lives. Another great piece of revealing

science, what a surprise is the gulls are going into the

countryside. Something with tracking devices we can prove and we can

learn so much more more quickly about our wildlife given that new

technology that we have access to. We've seen one or two gulls down

here on the estate, but there were lots of other birds that have

adapted to live in this sort of environment, in a man-made

environment, not recently like the gulls but literally thousands of

years ago. I'm enjoying the spectacle this evening as they are

flying around in the sky. We have swifts up here, plenty of swifts

overhead. These birds would have classically been nesting caves.

Wagtails would have been on stream sides picking over the boulders.

Jackdaws like this traditionally a Cliff bird, or a bird of woodlands

nesting in hollow trees. Housemartins would weld their nests

onto the sides of cliffs. They only gave up doing so in the early 1900th

and now it's a rare sight. Most of them are on houses. The same as

follows. This one takes a tumble in the wind, it's collecting mud. They

are swooping in and out of the barn is here and rather than plastering

their nest onto the underside of rows on trees they are putting them

in Barnes. Where you have all these small birds you get a few small

predators as well and it's fantastic to see the little owls hanging on

here in Sherborne Village. I can show you one of our life nests now.

In this barn over here is our live wren's nest. The Swallow has beaten

me to it, it's gone in there. If I take a peek up here, you can see the

wren's nest. I'm disturbing that swallow. It needs to come out so I

will back off immediately and come round here. Let's see what the

wrenss have been up to, they've been feeding furiously. They've got six

youngsters in that nest there. The interesting thing is that the insect

life is so rich here they don't have to go very far. They are probably

not foraging any further than about 50 meters away from the nest and

they will take anything they can find pretty close to the ground. You

rarely see a wren foraging higher than two meters. In this time of

year in the undergrowth after any of the insects. She's teasing those

youngsters. A couple of times one has almost fallen out of the nest.

They've been taking advantage of the swallow cup to give its strength, so

it's unlikely to fall down. You can keep your eyes on that nest on the

live cameras. One of the villagers alerted tours to a rather unusual

nest the other day and one of the wall a bit further along the main

street that runs through the village share. Here it is. You typically see

these birds nesting in trees, or maybe an nest boxes. That's what

nuthatches will do, they particularly like old woodpecker

holes. But as you know they have a habit of sealing them up with mud,

if it's not quite the right size. I can tell you that the size of the

hole is incredibly important with nuthatches. The tighter they can

make it, the greater the degree of success they have when it comes to

fledging their brood and when it comes to sealing it up they

sometimes face problems. Typically they use mud, of course, but what

happens if it's dry and there are no puddles? How do you make a nest?

Researchers in Antwerp and Norfolk have seen them using different

material. Guess what it is. Dong. They will come down into farmyards

like this and use animal dung to seal them up, things like cattle and

recently they've been recorded picking up dog to and the young have

fledged successfully. Nah moving on to another nest. We

launched this morning at 10.00am. We invited you to have a sneak peak on

Facebook. It is a new swallow's nest. They had five young, then

predated and ended up with three, then predated by the jackdaws. We

have another nest live. It is in the barn behind me. There are five

chicks, they managed to hatch all of the eggs. This they are up there in

the rafters. There is an adult coming in. They are doing really

well foraging. There is a big rain storm coming in, pushing up large

numbers of insects so that is why the swifts, the swallows and the

martens are active. We have been following them throughout the course

of the day. Just look at this... I would never suggest that a bird

flies for the sheer joy of flying but that is a joy to watch.

Aren't they absolutely stunning?! Absolutely stunning! And here they

are. Dipping into the barn, feeding the

youngsters. Do you know, if I could be any animal on earth for five

minutes, I would be one of those swallows. Imagine being that blue,

that manoeuvrable, and able to fly that fast. It would be absolutely

sensational! What do you reckon Michaela? I can see you as a

swallow, flying all the way to South Africa! As Chris said, the birds

watching the flights on the walls but it is not just birds, there are

stoats. And they have found a new den in the stone wall. These are the

kits. They are about eight to ten weeks old. They are mobile, out and

about, they're very active. But just as they're getting used to their new

surroundings, mum comes in and decides that they are on the move

again. There's a jolly good reason for this, it's because there are

five kits in there, lots of food. It becomes very smelly, very dirty, so

she has to clean it out every so often. That's what she's doing. Once

she's moved the kits, she is back in to get the various bits of prey

she's caught. This stoat has been extremely busy. She is so strong and

agile. There with the rabbit. We reckon she did about 15 trips, that

is almost a kilometre. A female stoat averages at 210 grams. The

average person, 62 kilograms. The stoat carried the kits and the

rabbits over 900 metres, the same as us carrying a male polar bare 265

kilometres. I mean that is just crazy, isn't

it?! It wasn't me that did the maths, I must be honest. We will

follow the stoats, the camera man says he is getting absolutely

incredible footage. Time for the second half of the bird of prey

challenge. We have Martin with the barn owl, Iolo with the kestrel. It

is 1-0 to the kestrel on the speed round. But there is lots to play

for. The kestrel took the comfortable win

in the challenge of speed, Ashleigh. But it is time to see if Lily, the

barn owl can even up the scores. We are looking at the animals and

how they use their senses and agility to bag a meal.

Hunting. To me there is no question about which will be the winner. The

kestrel hovering in the breeze, nothing compares to that.

I agree... It's impressive. But, I think the owl can compete.

Well you are in for a treat, right? Because we are going to drop down

right here and get a grandstand view of our kestrel hovering up above.

You'll she was it's like then to be a vowel! Fantastic. Let's go. Ouch!

It's nettles! It is, right in the middle of the nettles.

Oh, look at that. I know! Hovering loo like this, the

bird is flying into the wind at exactly the same speed as the wind

is hitting the bird. So it is actually putting a lot of effort

flying into the wind. It doesn't just hang there, it has to beat its

wings. Look at that. Look at the tail. It's like a big

fan. It's big. If there's a lot of wind it will

close a little bit. If the wind dies out it will open up again, a

compensating all the time. I read somewhere that the head never

moves more than six millimetres. The body could be going all over the

place but the head never moves. Martin, I can see the sweat on your

brow, you know you've lost. I am slightly lost for words. This

is magical. Look at that. Wow! Fabulous.

I got quite badly stung. Kestrels, hovering, hunting,

supreme. The ultimate killing machine. Top that

I will. I'm about to top that. I'm going to use this. Technology. If I

press the button this will biological weapon. Let's tree it.

BEEP. Can this owl find this hidden bit of food just by the beeping

sound -- if I press the button with this bit of meat.

Now, let's back off right back here. Right, the first one.

Conclusive. That was pretty coal.

That was really good. She was listening from over there.

Look at that. Beautiful. Look how acrobatic it is. It has

heard the bleep. And down on to there, head first. A new test, more

difficult. Flying straight across here like a bullet. We will divert

her with the beep and see if we can stall her.

So reaction time? And also agility in the air. Let's give it a try.

I rest my case! What a brilliant catch.

That was good. Heading straight accost, then you saw her look and

turn. That is very impressive.

Very good. OK, kestrel's eyesight, awesome but

you have to admit, the barn owl hearing is spectacular.

You are not comparing like with like, it is visual with oral. But

were our purposes, will you agree, 1-1.

Gougeingly, 1-1. Right, the decider. This is the final decider. Killing

power. It's all about the killing -- grudgingly, 1-1.

Let's have a look at the kestrel. Look at that. Those talons can exerd

7800 kilograms of pressure per metre. How cool is that? Impressive.

But we can top that. There the acrobatic turn. You can see the

talons, look at the length. That in human terms is the same as an 80

kilogram man being hit by a 12-tonne truck.

I think what we have here are two very different birds, using very

different hunting techniques. The barn owl is mainly a low-light

hunter, using its hearing more than its lives. The kestrel uses its

wonderful eyes. So we have two very different hunter, equally good but

different. And the winner, Martin, the winner, de is... Wildlife.

Oh, Iolo, you are so eloquent. It's because you're Welsh! It is! It is!

He is indeed Welsh, he is indeed eloquent and he is indeed right.

Both of the species are perfectly evolved to fulfil their niches. They

can live together eating the same food. The one thing that interrupts

of course is the weather. We have seen the barn owl earlier.

We have a youngster there. It's like a big face of fluff. It

is. Where is the adult? Maybe she's out? We have seen the adults leaving

them over the last few days for a longer time. It could be as they are

getting bigger, or that she or they are hungry and she is hunting more.

But how much food are they get in this weather? I have a

representation here. What we found is that over 48 hours when the

weather is clear they've brought in 17 items. When the weather has been

poor and raining. They brought in five. How does it come pair with the

kestrel? Here is the kestrel by comparison. 17 items in fair

weather, matching the barn owl but look it does better in the rain. 11

items. We explained that barn owls don't like hunting in the rain. The

feathers get water-logged, they can't hear the prey it is not good

for them. This is borne out by the results. One more piece of data from

the kestrel. In the same period we found that the kestrel got three

items in fair weather with no wind but when the weather was blowing, it

got sixth items so hunting better in the wind. They like hunting with a

little bit of wind. Then they can hover and look for prey anywhere

rather than sitting on a post if there is no wind whatsoever. What

about that, Michaela? And this gives me an opportunity I've been waiting

to do for years, here's the barn owl forecast, and it is scorcio!

Scorcio! That one has gone over my head a little bit.

Scorcio! No, I like the pictures! When there is a problem for the

birds, and that is the weather, yesterday we introduced you to a

pair of king rushes. They build their nests in the bank of the

river. If the water rises up, we have seen it before, it floods out

the nest. Fortunately not a problem for our pair.

Here they are. This is the female. She has caught herself a lovely big

fish. But it is still alive. So what do you do with a live fish flapping

around in your bake? Find the nearest branch and trash it about

with obviously stuns it. It is interesting, she is getting the tail

in the mouth but head first. Maybe she will pass it to another

Kingfisher? This is the male. Over the last couple of days the female

has not been seen. The male is going into the nest. We presume she is on

eggs. So exciting. I think she is in there.

Here are other fledgelings, so clearly there's been another

successful Kingfisher nest. You presume that's a good place to nest

but look at this... That is a stoat, swimming across the river not far

from the nest! So rain, certainly isn't the only problem for these

Kingfishers, we have seen it before on Springwatch, if it finds the

Kingfisher nest and can get to it, it will clean it out. And we've seen

them. You would have thought on the bank they would struggle but they

are arborial and scramble up and get in.

You see them scrambling up after the sand martens last year? Exactly.

Kingfishers don't like frozen conditions. But there are many bird

species that aren't doing so well. Here is one of them. It is the

black-tailed Godwit. Across Europe, the species declined by about 75%.

This is the limossa subspecies, that breeds in the UK. We have only 40 to

60 pairs of them in East Anglia. There is an influx of visitors in

the winter time, there can be as many as 40,000 of the birds here

then. Be but we want to look after our own breeding preservation. I'm

pleased to report on this conservation taking place.

There are a partnership that have collected eggs from the nest there.

From seven or eight nests. They are taking great care of them.

They have taken them to the WWT Centre at well any, put them into

the incubators and they've all hatched out. Here are the young

black-tailed Godwit hatching from the eggs. The plan of course is to

get them back into the wild. They are feeding in captivity initially,

and they have taken them outside as they have gotten bigger. They are

very attractive birds. A tray of water to learn how to forage in the

water and on the land of course. Super things. This is a method that

is used to get the birds to double clutch. They took the eggs as soon

as they were laid from the adult birds. This would mean that they

would relay immediately. I can tell you all of the nests that they took

the eggs from relayed. They will hopefully hatch and have a chance of

surviving in the wild. But the reason for them being in captivity

is to increase the chances of getting through the vulnerable stage

when they are small chicks like that. We will catch up with them

next week when they release them. But I have to give a nod to the

sponsors for the project. We like conservation support. RSPB and WWT

have been doing the work. But EU life honour. HSBC and indeed the

Heritage Lottery Fund. So massive thanks for clubbing together for the

pioneering project. Lots involved.

As Chris was showing as earlier in the village, you can find break

wildlife habitats in all sorts of unlikely places. If I tell you that

military areas are amazing places for wildlife, you might be

surprised. Well, Porton Down in Wiltshire, which is a government

military science Park, is actually called the defence science and

technology laboratory, and they do extraordinary things for wildlife

and biodiversity, as biologists, or actually is a botanist, Trevor

Dines, discovered. My name is Trevor Dines. I grew up on new Manor Farm,

just outside Winter Slough and it was really wonderful place to grow

up with lots of woodland and fields and things. There was one place we

were not allowed to go. Porton Down. We knew where it was, because of the

huge red flags, the big fences, we were not allowed to go there at all.

Ironically it's one of the best places for wild plants and the whole

of Britain. It's massively exciting to get this chance to go on to

Porton Down, 40 years later. Most of the chalk grassland that you see is

really heavily grazed. It is farmed. It's a farmed landscape. But Porton

Down is different. I don't know where to look! I'm like a kid in a

sweet shop. Absolutely amazing. I'm quite emotional. Wow, look at this

milkwort. I've never seen as much as this. If you look at a map of chalk

milkwort in Britain, it's down here in Wiltshire. It's in Hampshire, is

on the southern downs and down in Dorset. It's a very, very special

plant. To see it in this quantity here is just... It's breathtaking.

Botany is a feast for the eyes, but it's also a feast for the other

senses as well. Walking over the grassland here, you get that smell

of marjoram coming up, you get thyme, followed Burnett, juniper.

It's like being in the Mediterranean. It's that rich smell

you get in the heat. It's that resinous, rich smell. That's what's

really special about it. -- you get salad Bernard.

Meadow clary, yes! Meadow clary is a lovely planned, because it's what we

call the Mediterranean species. You go down to the south of France, it's

like a weed, it grows everywhere. But in Britain we just have it in a

handful of sites and it struggles. It doesn't do very well. So to see

such a big patch of it at Porton Down is really wonderful. The real

treasures at this time of year armed in the chalk grassland, they in the

woodland. -- they are not in the chop grassland. Birds Nestor kidded

fascinating, you can see there are no green leaves at all -- bird's

nest orchid. It's growing in this thick, dark beach woodland in a

dense litter of leaves and it's the rotting leaves that are giving it

its nutrient. You normally find one or two together, so to get a little

group like this, it's a lovely thing to see.

Wow! That's an orchid! Wow! It actually becomes quite an emotional

thing for me, because you are familiar with these things through

books and photographs and things, but nothing prepares you for that

first sight. I want to have a moment and drink it all up. I'm completely

gobsmacked. Just in this quiet little woodland. It's called Lady

orchid and it looks like a little lady. You have that hooded bonnet on

top of her head, her arms sticking outside and this beautiful little

petticoat skirt. It only flowers for about a week or so, so you have no

guarantee that it's going to be in flower when you visit. It's

something really special amongst British orchids.

I'm a little bit overwhelmed, to be honest. I was expecting to see that

typical chalk grassland that I'm familiar with, but in fact, this is

very, very different. It builds and builds and builds, and for a

botanist that is wonderful because you are not just interested in the

individual plans, you are interested in the community of plants, how they

have come together and what they form as a habitat. That's what's

really exciting and this is a unique community of plans.

What a bloke, what a fantastic enthusiastic and was a place.

Defence Estates, that owns the land, have fantastic places. 240,000

hectares of land across the UK, that's 1% of the UK's land surface,

and it includes 190 sites of special scientific interest and why is it so

good? The principal reason is that there's not intensive agriculture

there, much of it has never been sprayed, no pesticides, no

herbicides, no mining, no drilling, and perhaps most important of all,

no people on a lot of it and a few years ago I had a chance to go on to

some of their land and it was absolutely fantastic. Just like

Porton, which was brilliant for wild flowers. Not enough people get into

flowers. You are absolutely right, which is why I'm going to inspire

and did these people, because I'm going to tell you all about the

great British wild flower hunt run by

going to tell you all about the great British wild flower hunt run

by Plantlife. They've designed this fantastic interactive guide to lots

of different wild flowers and what you do, if you see one, like a

meadow buttercup, you tick it and you get all sorts of information.

What's even better, if you are a bit competitive, you can earn points. It

gives you a score. It's a great thing to do with kids. You get

something more rare, like the heliport, you have loads of

information, you get three points for that. -- hellebore. There are 50

flowers and it can help you to learn and expand your knowledge. Get

involved. Lots of naturalists know lots of birds and butterflies, but

hardly any plans. Everyone on the Springwatch set is looking out there

and thinking, are we ever going to get any spring here? A man who will

know the answer is Nick Miller, and the BBC weather Centre.

The search for Spring goes on and you won't find it this weekend. What

a week it's been. What an image, our soggy red kites, they look how we

feel. We want a break in the weather. Briefly tomorrow, with a

few showers rather than anything else, but over the weekend here

comes another area of low pressure, bringing more range. The North and

the West rather than the south and east, it's harder to hear the

birdsong in the trees when it's this breezy. Not a huge amount of rain on

the way for Sherborne this weekend, not so many worries for the

kingfisher, the nest holding in the swollen river. Elsewhere in the UK,

rivers rising so some of the kingfisher cousins may be more

worried and maybe better hunting for the barn owls, not left -- the

chicks not left alone so much. There will be some rain at Sherborne, not

very much. There will be some sunshine, just not very much. It

stays breezy. It's next week we have a weather transformation on the way.

From this, to something more like this. Hang on in there, red kites!

Spring is fighting back. By this time next week, it might actually

feel like summer. Like summer, likes! Yes! That's good

news. Remember Michael Fish, they are not always right! It's been an

extraordinary few weeks but I hope lots of you have been involved in 30

Days Wild, which is run by the Wildlife Trusts. It's encouraging

you to do a random act of wildness every day of the month of June. You

can do anything you like, from going out looking for birds, to posting

wildlife wild flower seeds through letter boxes. Think of something

wild and do it. It's to encourage you to connect with wildlife in your

everyday life. Let's look at the life bullfinch, we have two Young in

the nest. Look, they are on the brink of fledging. They fledged

between 15-17 days and today was day 15. Let's see what they've been up

to today. They've been doing a bit of wing flapping at times. That's

interesting, what's it doing? Clicking their beaks. Here's an

adult coming in, you can see wing struck a big -- wing flapping. These

are one of the birds that will hop out into the bushes before they can

fly. They are likely to fall onto the ground, they are in dense

bramble. Keep your eyes peeled on these bullfinches, because they are

likely to go soon. You can do that by visiting our website, where if

you scroll down you can look at our live cameras, not just the bullfinch

is but our barn owls and kestrels as well. The I have to tell you, we

have had a cameraman out tonight following a barn owl that has hunted

in the same area every night, and he's just seen this. Look at that!

Wow. It's not an easy thing to film, is it? What's it got? It's four

minutes ago, we filmed this. Taking advantage of a gap in the rain. The

owl has come out. We think this could be our male, it's difficult,

we can't quite see where it's gone. It's gone right down in the grass.

No doubt... Most of see at hunting and catching voles to take to the

nest. You can catch it on the live cameras. Sadly that's all we have

time for this week but join as next week. Martin and Gillian Russ-macro

to the Isles of Scilly. What else have we got coming up? We might be

saying goodbye to some of the cameras. Let's look at the

blackcaps, there they are. We might say goodbye to them, either on

Sunday or Monday. Let's have a quick last look at the peregrine. This is

our foster chick, that's doing extremely well. I know we will enjoy

watching that over the weekend and next week as well. Very sadly that's

all we have time for this week. Do join us again. We'll be on at 8pm

every evening and there's Unsprung to morrow night at 6:30pm. I have a

quick question, from RJ Mitchell. Some people called bats flying mice.

Are there any real-life flying shrews?

I can answer that question using this model of a Second World War

aircraft. You see, this is a Spitfire but its inventor, RJ

Mitchell, wanted to call it a Shrew. Imagine people scrambling into a

Shrew, in World War II. It first flew on the 6th of March 1936 at

Eastleigh airport. It was number... In Japan, art and life are

intrinsically connected.