North East & Cumbria Urban Jungle

When people talk about British wildlife, they're usually focusing on what you find in the countryside.

But wildlife is everywhere -

it's even in our towns, cities and industrial heartlands.

You just have to explore The Urban Jungle.

Coming up - sealed and delivered.

The first ever footage of a harbour seal pup being born in the North.

It's buzzing on Tyneside, where I'm otter hunting and deer-stalking.

And the sounds of wildlife from dawn till dark.

RAPID CLICKING

-Wow!

-Yeah.

There are some parts of God's not-so-green earth

where you just couldn't imagine animals being able to survive, let alone thrive.

But as Hannah Bayman explains,

wildlife can roll with the wheels of industry.

Industrial Teesside.

Not somewhere you'd expect to find a lot of wildlife.

But don't be put off by the unflattering skyline,

because here, between Middlesbrough and Hartlepool,

Seal Sands really is worth a visit.

At one time, there were around 1,000 seals at this nature reserve,

but rising pollution levels from the heavy industry meant

there were none to be seen by the 1930s,

before a clean-up in the '80s brought the seals back.

These just aren't the kind of surroundings

where you'd expect to find a thriving seal colony, are they?

Absolutely. We think this is probably

the only population in north-west Europe

where seals have disappeared from an estuary, come back and recolonised.

The seals make regular trips under the main road at Greatham Creek,

where you can see them chilling out on the mud flats.

Right now, we're in the middle of the pupping season for the harbour seals,

also known as common seals.

So far we've got, we think, nine harbour seal pups.

We're hoping to beat last year's record, which was 18.

So what would it tell you if there were plenty of pups born this year?

The key factor about this population is that it co-exists

so successfully with the industrial backdrop.

A continuing increase in numbers gives me a good indication about

the positive health of the River Tees.

So at the moment the volunteers who monitor this colony are working

harder than ever. Linda Watson co-ordinates the team

and I am the latest name on her rota.

This one over there, I think she might be due to pup.

She looks really big.

She's gone off on her own as well.

Yes, that's is a definite sign, once they've gone on their own.

Yeah. Shall I make a note of that?

Yeah, yeah, you can do.

And soon this becomes a very noteworthy moment

as the pup begins to emerge.

This is the first time a common seal,

which, confusingly, are actually less common than grey seals,

has been filmed giving birth in the North of England.

I cannot believe we have just seen that. How do you feel?

Oh! Elated, fantastic. It's just...

All the years I've done it,

I've almost seen it, but to actually watch her give birth there,

I'll never forget it. I won't

Just loved it.

A perfect moment in your life. It's made it all worthwhile.

-A great feeling.

-It certainly is.

As pups gain half a kilo a day,

it won't be long till it's able to fend for itself.

I feel really privileged to have seen that today.

I come down here quite a lot and it always amazes me

that, by a busy road, near all of this heavy industry, you can get such

a brilliant of view of one of Britain's largest and most charismatic mammals.

Seals aren't the only wildlife success story on the Tees Estuary.

You might have seen it before,

but do you recognise the species on the RSPB's logo?

It's an avocet, immediately recognisable

because of its thin, upcurved beak, and long blue legs.

They sweep through the mud, just filtering out tiny invertebrates.

Oh, yes! It is like a little shovel.

It is, yes.

Avocets returned to Great Britain in the mid- 20th century

after being extinct here for 100 years.

30 years ago, when we used to get the odd one,

everybody on Teesside came down to see it.

Now virtually everybody can come and see them.

That's because in 2008, avocets were found nesting here for the first time

when two pairs were spotted at a chemical plant on this saline lagoon,

created for the benefit of local wildlife.

It gives you hope for the future.

One of the most charismatic birds in Britain, nesting here on industrial land in Teesside.

Sandwiched between an industrial estate,

the A19 and a sewage works, Portrack Marsh Nature Reserve

is another unlikely wildlife haven on Teesside.

It's home to some rare species of butterfly,

and strangely, spoil from the industry that once occupied

brownfield sites like this, helps them to thrive.

What makes it so attractive to butterflies?

Well, it's partly the dryness,

partly the stoniness, and there's lots of limestone,

these white coloured bits of stone kicking about,

just ideal conditions for butterflies to breed in.

One species that is rare across the UK but can be found here

because of these very conditions, is the dingy skipper.

Beautiful markings.

Absolutely splendid one, this.

Today I'm helping Dave and a group of volunteers,

who, as well as surveying butterflies to establish populations,

maintain areas like this for all the wildlife.

Young people these days spend a lot of time indoors

watching television and playing computer games.

We want to encourage them to move away from screen time to wild time.

-What would you say to other people thinking of volunteering?

-Go for it.

It's a brilliant experience. The people are fantastic.

I was concerned, thinking they would be all experts

and I'm going to be like, what am I going to do?

But they have been so welcoming, I would recommend it to anyone.

So we have plenty of spotters, but on a hot day like this,

there is only one way to get a good long look at a dingy skipper.

It is time to put my dubious tennis skills to good use.

You're actually trying to, rather like Roger Federer,

-swish it along in the net.

-Right.

There's a dingy skipper, look!

-Oh, yes!

-Now's your chance.

No!

Next time, try swinging your net a little bit quicker.

It's on that stone at now.

No... He's back again.

There he is.

Oh, there's two!

Quick, that's it, close the net! That's it!

I think you've got them.

Yay!

Have I got both of them?

You've got one of them, at least.

-Oh, yeah, wow!

-I'm very impressed with that!

HANNAH LAUGHS

Butterflies like this one live here

because of this specific land's industrial past.

More generally, Teesside is a wonderful example

of how, with the right intentions and management,

wildlife and urban life can happily co-exist.

To quote a Muhammad Ali, from floating like a butterfly

to stinging like a bee, hopefully without the stinging,

I'm off to meet some of wildlife's city slickers.

Northumberland Street, Newcastle.

Home to more than 50 retailers,

it's the must-visit destinations for city shoppers.

And up above one of Britain's largest department stores, it's really buzzing.

MUSIC: "Rock'n'roll Star" by Oasis

# But there's no easy way out...

Ian, hello. What are all these bees doing here?

They are bringing in honey and also improving the environment

throughout central Newcastle and Gateshead.

How did this come about as an idea, then?

I know that there are bees on the roof of the Paris Opera House

and also a large store in central London.

I thought, if it's good enough for them, it's certainly good enough

for the folks of Tyneside.

Ian's bees make around 500 jars of honey a year.

A lot depends on the weather.

We can see the honey capped off with wax,

which makes it airtight, which helps preserve it.

So that's the honey we'll be taking off.

If it means I might get to be a taste tester, I'm happy to help.

Scoop through as much of that as you can get into, into here.

What, literally in here?

Cut through it, yes, with a spoon. Go on, dig in.

Dig in. Right through.

Oh, my gosh, look at that. Easy. Wonderful! Oh, my word!

There you go, right?

Are they going to be angry that I'm taking this?

No, you'll be fine.

Really amazing stuff, isn't it?

Remember, one bee makes one half of one teaspoon in her entire life.

But to make honey, and for nutrition,

they need lots of pollen and nectar.

The problem for these city centre bees

is the length of their journey to get it.

They head from here up on the department store roof...

..to different parks like this one in Gateshead

which are all about a three-mile trek away.

That's because the bee can't always fly as the crow flies.

# So glad to meet you

# The long way round... #

Ian, why are the bees travelling this long way round?

Simply, the bees don't like flying over water.

They can, but they prefer not to because the reflection

of the sun, which they navigate by, confuses them.

They prefer to fly along the bank of the river till they come to

something non-reflective, like a bridge, like the Tyne Bridge,

fly over the bridge, and carry on flying from there.

A bit longer but it means they navigate more accurately.

Bees would rather go across on a bridge, like we would?

Absolutely. It's so much easier for them on the navigation.

Something is being done to stop this journey from hell for them.

Yes, the city council are planting

a bee-friendly meadow at the top of Northumberland Street,

which will mean the bees won't have anywhere near as far to commute

to pick up and collect their pollen and their nectar.

And here it is, the meadow at the end of Northumberland Street,

which looks to me like a flower bed in a park.

It is, to a degree, but it's the wild flowers,

it's the flowers they're using.

You see those cranesbills going back, the lavender will then come on

and provide a chain of supply and for the bees.

There's one of the bees already on here.

So these bees not having to tire themselves out

with a long-haul flight, which, let's face it, no insect needs,

is good news for them.

I've come prepared, brought my own spoon.

And because it'll help them make more of this stuff, it's good news for us, too.

I am not even kidding, that is delicious!

And you brought your own spoon, didn't you?

Sorry about that, I will have to take that as well.

I can only apologise!

SCHOOL BELL RINGS

At my school, all we had was a pet goldfish, but the kids

here at Kingston Park Primary in Newcastle

have acquired one that's much bigger and much more interesting.

This is Kingston the roe deer, who's set up home in the school grounds.

Tell me about Kingston. When did he turn up?

We have had him about a year, I think,

and he's been living in the woods around the school.

He must be a talking point.

Absolutely, we did think about having him as our school mascot

and maybe putting him on our school jumper,

but no, he's a special part of the school, an extra pupil.

Kingston-watch has become something of a school hobby -

out of lesson time, of course!

(Hi, guys.)

(Any clue where he is?)

There he is! There he is!

Did you see him? Keep still!

There he is, everyone. Look at him!

There he goes. Look!

He's fast, isn't he?

We've just seen Kingston - what was it like?

It was really exciting and cool

because we see him quite often, but not that close up.

The only place I'd see a deer'd probably be in a zoo or something.

It is amazing, having him in our school.

It's like, no other school has a deer.

We're trying to grow vegetables

but he keeps on going down and eating them!

Look at him go!

He's ran into the forest!

I think he lives in there.

That was a good, long run, wasn't it?

The River Tyne.

At one time you'd be more likely to see shopping trolleys

than interesting wildlife here, but not any more.

One of the most elusive creatures that lives on the Tyne

is the otter, and today, fingers crossed, I am hoping to see one.

Just over 30 years ago, otters were on the brink of extinction

in the UK, but a national clean-up of our waterways

has led to a resurgence, and they've even hit the big cities.

Scouring the river here. How likely is it we'll see an otter?

You know, unlikely, but you never know.

It is a secretive animal but it is here and they are not nocturnal

as everybody expects them to be.

Why are they so difficult to spot?

I think in some respects, otters don't want to be seen.

But the key thing is there are never very many otters.

They have a large range in terms of where males and females live.

It can be 12, 13, 14 miles, along the length of the river,

that they're on.

It is an awful lot of space for three or four animals to hide in.

But today isn't just about otter-spotting.

I am excited about helping Kevin with some vital, scientific

otter research. Or at least, I WAS excited(!)

How can you be sure that that is actually otter poo?

Erm, two things. The smell is very distinctive, for an otter.

It's not strictly offensive,

it just smells a bit like crab paste, fishy stuff.

Basically, that's what's inside it, what it is, just fish bones.

We're going to collect this mucussy stuff, then?

Yes, this is where you come in.

-You're going to collect this. Got you a nice little packet.

-Oh, joy(!)

You just scrape, in that sort of fashion.

Here's a career high!

I am glad of the stick. Is there a purpose to it?

Yes, just to avoid cross-contamination, really.

So that none of my DNA ends up in their...?

Yes, it's only pure otter we want, not yours!

-I've got it twice.

-There you go.

Oh, look at that.

-And you can see, clearly...

-I can, I can see!

-Lots of fish remains in there.

-Look at that - fishbones.

-Yeah.

So that will go back to a lab?

What sort of information will you get from here?

Well, the DNA information we'll get from it

will tell us the sex of the animal,

its relationship to the next animal that we find.

So the numbers we collect over the next period of time will

indicate brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and numbers.

That's an important sample. Really good.

We haven't really done this before.

We're not sure what we're going to find.

So there you go, otter poo in a bag.

Wildlife volunteering is enjoyable but it's not always glamorous!

As our search continues, we find less smelly evidence of otter activity, just away from the river.

When you see a very clear otter print in the mud, it looks like a baby's handprint. It does.

It's one of those things.

You might be just taking a walk along the river

and if you just slightly detour off, and you're careful, and you look...

Yes.

And there are more otter tracks

leading out of the water to an animal.

But it's just an indication of what powerful predators they are.

You are seeing perhaps the darker side of the otter. That was a swan.

There is nothing to say that an otter wouldn't have killed that,

if the otter is there and it's hungry, that's what'll happen.

So unfortunately, no otter sightings for us,

despite a full day's searching.

But they're definitely here on the Tyne.

Kevin even has video evidence.

We have footage of them on the jetty that we're on.

They drag their backsides across the ground to leave a scent

and at the same time you hear them farting as well

when they go to the loo.

That is the way they talk to each other.

They leave smells behind and they do it in all manner of ways.

Sounds to me just like your standard bloke!

If what you've seen so far has whetted your wildlife appetite,

there's lots of info and tips on our website -

And you can head to Teesside and see the seals

or maybe down here to the Tyne to try and spot an otter.

Even if you don't manage to catch a glimpse of the animals

you were really hoping to see,

sometimes the sounds of wildlife can be as interesting in themselves.

Just ask Chris Watson.

He is a BAFTA-winning television sound recordist who spent years

working with David Attenborough.

VARIED BIRDSONG

I've always been fascinated by the sounds of nature.

And just a mile south of Carlisle city centre,

there's plenty to see and hear in this picturesque cemetery.

It's even won awards for the environment it provides for wildlife and visitors.

So what I want to experience here

is nature's most wonderful soundscape, the dawn chorus.

And that means a very early start!

OK, it is just after 3am.

Conditions are perfect. It's quite calm.

I'm setting up three sets of microphones

in different parts of the cemetery.

It's a really good location because there's lots of mature trees

here, and some very good ground cover.

So I'll get ground nesting birds, and also, arboreal birds as well.

I woke this morning with a fantastic sense of anticipation.

I plugged the microphones in, put my headphones on and listened,

see if there is actually anything there!

CHIRPING

(OK, it's 3:16am.)

(I've just plugged in and the first bird to sing is a robin.)

(This is a long way off.)

(That it is the first solo of what will be the dawn chorus.)

BIRDS SING

HE LAUGHS

I get to travel a lot, with my work as a wildlife sound recordist,

around the world, but I am definitely of the opinion

that our latitude, 55 degrees North,

we've got the very best dawn chorus anywhere in the world,

between March and June. This is proving it now.

CHORUS AND SQUAWKING

I've just heard a heron so I don't know if they're nesting

in some of these larger trees nearby, this huge squawk of a heron.

I can hear a chiffchaff singing nearby

and I want to record its distinctive song with a parabolic reflector.

It's ideal for picking up individual birds singing in trees.

That is a really good recording, really close up.

A very simple song, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff, onomatopoeic.

Adjacent to that chiffchaff,

which is a migrant, is a resident bird singing, a chaffinch.

What's evident and interesting is that the these two birds,

the chiffchaff and chaffinch, are singing side-by-side as part of the chorus.

That's it, that's the dawn chorus concluded for this morning.

And what an amazing experience.

Incredible outpouring of song. And some surprises.

I didn't expect to hear the heron calling. They must be nesting.

It just goes to show if you want to experience some of the most amazing

wildlife sounds and song anywhere in the world, all you have to do

sometimes is put your head out of the bedroom window at 4:30am and listen.

From early morning in Carlisle Cemetery...

..to early evening at the spectacular Durham Cathedral.

Once voted the nation's best loved building.

But it's home to a less popular flying mammal,

for whom sound is all-important.

Here in the cloisters, there can be up to 600 bats.

As creatures of the night, often linked with Count Dracula,

bats are feared by many.

But not the Durham Bat Group,

who are here on hand to rescue cathedral casualties.

BELLS RING

This site here does have a lot of juvenile bats,

six to eight weeks old, who have just left their mothers.

Just like teenagers.

They go out on their own for too long and get tired and basically just crash out.

It is just a case of giving them a drink or something to eat

and they'll fly off quite happily.

And this is a common pipistrelle?

-Yes. This one is actually called Barry.

-Barry the Bat!

Barry needs some grub. Mealworms are on the menu, and I'm the waiter.

See how the mouth opens.

Look how beautiful.

BAT CLICKS FAINTLY

You can hear that clicking.

What fascinates me is how bats see with sound.

Contrary to popular belief, their eyesight is good

but to find their way around in the dark

and catch up to 3,000 midges a night,

they use echolocation, bouncing these calls off their surroundings.

What's great for me as a sound recordist is to get

such privileged close-up views of an animal such as this

and to see its head and ear and face structure

and just see how it's evolved with echolocation.

-Is it OK just to touch his fur?

-Yes, it's fine.

Incredibly small. Warm as well. Warm-blooded animal.

He's actually vibrating at the moment, his ears.

Vibrating. It is sending out echolocation.

Barry will be up and flying again soon.

But we can see his friends in the cloisters with an infrared camera.

We can't hear their echolocation calls

because they're at a frequency well above our hearing range,

but we can tune in to them using a bat detector.

RAPID CLICKING

Whoa!

So what we have here is a common pipistrelle bat flying past us

and each of those clicks you can hear is a separate shout.

It's using that to find its way around.

It's bouncing sounds of the walls, bouncing sound off me and you

and hopefully off some insects, which it will catch.

What I love about this device is that, with it off,

it is a calm, quiet, peaceful evening here in the cloisters

but you turn it on...

And there you go. It opens up a whole new world

of what the bats are hearing, really.

If we could hear those bats, it would probably deafen us.

You can hear something called a feeding buzz on there

where the bat is actually homing in on an insect.

The call gets faster and faster

and it sounds like it's blowing a raspberry.

The insect has bitten the dust. It's caught one.

CLICKING SPEEDS UP

There you go.

The Durham Bat Group organise bat walks around the cathedral grounds for volunteers.

I'm a real townie.

Up until 30, the only bat I knew was probably Christopher Lee!

You do not realise how interesting they are until you get into it.

You can hear them and you can't see them.

There is that mystery, and it pulls them out of the darkness.

It opens up a world that we can't see, usually.

When you hear that raspberry for the first time...

HE IMITATES SOUND FROM BAT DETECTOR

You did it! That was a good impression!

-I thought there was a bat above your head!

-No!

There are 18 different species of bat in the UK

and down by the River Wear, it's Daubenton's that are most common.

There we go, Daubenton's.

-Daubenton's.

-Absolutely, yeah.

Daubenton's, also known as water bats,

echolocate at lower frequencies than pipistrelles

and there are subtle differences heard on the bat detector.

RAPID CLICKING

A bit like bacon frying, sizzling.

A bit of a spitty tone to it.

Really sort of rapid machine gun-like clicks, as well.

That's it exactly. A rapid machine gun.

These Daubenton's bats are feeding a few centimetres above the water.

Absolutely. Close enough to get insects on the surface

with their back feet.

For the bat walkers, it's a great opportunity

to experience these mysterious, intelligent animals.

For me, it is a fantastic chance to indulge my favourite activity,

eavesdropping on the sounds of the natural world.

BAT DETECTOR CLICKS

And Chris is a man that's filmed wildlife at both poles of the earth,

getting excited about it here in the North East.

So there is no excuse for you.

Even if you don't live in the countryside,

you can find fascinating wildlife all around you.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd