Episode 3 Springwatch in the Afternoon

the Afternoon. We're coming at you live from the RSPB nature reserve in

Now we're going to be bringing you the latest store es from the nature

reserve, and we will be bringing you the characters behind the

characters, but we have the fantastic live cameras. Let's have a

catch up and see what's been going on since we last saw them yesterday.

Here, the weather so far has been terrible. Cold, and wet. The water

has been rising up around the water rail nest. The pairs are sitting

tight and building it up, but will this be enough to keep the eggs

safe? We have got a new character, a mall lard on a nest, but she is in

danger. She is very exposed and there are crows, rats and foxes in

the area. High up in the trees at the buzzard nest, the male has been

keeping his chick well fed while mum has been sitting tight keeping it

warm and dry. This family is looking stronger than ever. Both parents are

bringing in lots of food despite the poor weather. And finally, our

jackdaw chicks are under attack from their neighbours from hell! The

parents are trying to defend their family, but how long can they hold

family, but how long can they hold out? A nest is many things to many

of us really. For us at Springwatch, they are fascinating things and

entertaining, but to a bird, it is everything. It is the centre of

their universe. It is how they get their genetic information to the

next generation. Now, look what they had to put up with yesterday. Look,

at the rain. Everything was soaked and sodden, but they had pred dors

to deal with as well and this is what we saw on yesterday evening's

programme. Five little chicks and mum came in and fed them and she

took away and look what happens. They think there is mum and reach up

for food and it is a weedsle and the weedsle has come in -- weeds

weedsle. In a matter of minutes, everything goes. Mum comes back and

she has got nothing there. This is a uncomfortable to look at, I know,

but in order to find out more about this process, I wanted to hear what

Chris Packham had to say. I caught up with him this morning.

Our job is to show the reality of the natural world and provide an

explanation. Seeing the weazel was phenomenal. This was one in tens of

thousands. For us to show this behaviour is an extraordinary treat.

Now, of course, it is savage, but there is one thing you have got to

realise, the word cruel only applies in a human context. There is no

cruelty in nature. There is just reason. It is a numbers game?Yes,

the weazel needs food. It is about explaining the need for food and how

that balances out in what should be a functional ecosystem.

As that weazel turns its back, you can see there is a predator on its

predator? There is life on life taking a life. That's the cycle of

life and something could eat the weazel a buzzard could take that

weazel and foxes might help themselves if they happen across

them. Maybe on the way back the weazel got nabbed as well. Thank

you, Chris. That is the beauty of Springwatch, I

guess. We don't know what is going to happen in front of the cameras.

It is a struggle out there and there are other predators. This is one. It

is the common crow. They are particularly well particularly

observant. They are black and we have got lots of folklore associated

with them, but there is this little fella. It is another member of the

crow family and it is a jay. You wouldn't think that's a nasty little

predator, would you? It is a lovely jay, bau they end -- but they end

the nesting attempts of many birds. Let's look at our cameras because

they have - let's make sure they are still there. We saw the nest

yesterday. We met super chick and he is still there. He is the biggest

one of the bunch there. They are the great tits and he is still there. He

is the one in the middle dozing. Have we got any footage of him

earlier on? There comes mum or dad. It is difficult to sex a great tit

from above. They are grabbing caterpillars. They are grabbing

caterpillars and stuffing them into the mouths of the little chicks. Of

anyway, woodlands, look at that. Beautiful. If you want to immerse

yourself in the essence of the spring there is no better place to

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 84 seconds

camera. I revealed that yesterday. This is the log cam. Just look at

it. It is that. It is a hollow log filled with bait. I loved the fact

that it is stuck together with staples and the infra tred light is

jammed in with -- infrared light is jammed in with stones. This camera

reveals a secret world and Springwatch is dynamic as the system

and the challenges this woodland throws at us. Last night, our camera

team pimped this log. We have got a better camera in there than

yesterday. They revealed these shots. We have got a common shrew.

You have a rodent and that's all very lovely stuff. I'm pleased with

that. It is a bit hit and miss that camera, but I suggest after the

hours when Springwatch in the evening is over and when Unsprung is

over tonight, look at that little camera. Now, I love the woodland, it

is nice and peaceful and tranquil. And there are mammals out there.

screams -- habitat that screams sprinlg, it is the woodland.

Everything is on display except the mammals. Mammals are difficult to

see. But they are doing a little bit of spring cleaning and that means a

lot of the holes in which they live are more obvious. So here are some

of the top mammal holes that you might encounter when out on a

woodland walk. One resident mammal that you are likely to see signs of

is at badger. Badgers live in a complex labyrinth of underground

tunnels known as a sett and that can have as many as 40 openings. There

is about 30 centimetres across and it is badger-shaped. The other give

away sign is a pile of soil, a spoil heap around the holes. No other

British animals shifts rocks that big when they are excavate

excavating! That's clearly the work of a badger. The signs tell me that

badgers live here, but there is one test. A trick I learned of a Native

American, you lick your hand so it is covered in saliva and then you

press it on the soil in the mouth of the bowwow and -- borrow and it is a

badger hair. In the middle of the hair is a band of black and that's

what makes a badger look grey. There we are. This is the hole of a

badger. It ticks all the boxes. Right, this is a familiar sight

along the edge of a footpath of a bank. This place is riddled with

quite large runs and these are rabbit holes. They are rabbit

warrens. The size of the hole is a give away. It is much smaller than a

badger. The same sort of shape, I I guess, but it maybe eight to 15

centimetres across. It is half the width and there is one other sign to

look for. Right down here you can see these are rabbit droppings.

Rabbits are territorial. So this is a like a little sensory sign post

for the animals. All this tells me that the holes belong to rabbits.

Badger and rabbit holes are not too hard to identify, but when it comes

to foxes, it is not quite so straightforward. You see foxes are

opportunists and sometimes they inhabit someone else's borrow. This

is a confusing hole. It doesn't have a massive spoil heap, but it could

be a badger at some point, but there is a which have of fox here. It is

something which is tricky to get across on camera, but if it smells

strong and pungent, it is fox. I have also noticed that we have got

rabbit fur here which confuses things a little bit. Is that the

remains of binner or is that a resident -- dinner or is that a

resident of this hole? There is only one way to find out. If the old

days, I would have waited, but there is an easier way to play detective.

You can buy a camera set-up for �80. You get what you pay for, but you

get the answers and that's what they are all about. Right, let's see what

we get. So I know what the question is on the edge of your lips, on the

tip of your lounge, that's what I'm trying to say. What does live in the

hole? Well, I can reveal the answer now. I took my cameras down and

downloaded by SD cards and this is what we saw. Broad daylight after we

left the scene, a fox arrived and watch what it does now. It looks

around, it probably can smell us. It maybe watching us disappear down the

hill. It scented the area and that explains the smell of the fox. In

the evening, the fox came by again and it scents again and that's why

we can smell the odour of fox. I didn't get the shot of the fox doing

in the hole so it is a mystery. I need to re-position my cameras and

find out more. Cameras unravel the mysteries of our woodlands. Foxes

are a common and widespread animal and the chances are you have got

them near you so you can find where they are living, but there is

another British mammal that I'm rather fond of. It is an odd ball

and I'm talking about the hedgehog. I caught up with a couple earlier

I'm joined here by Woody, Lucky, Beryl who is a hedgehog saviour and

Laura from the Mammals Society. Thank you for joining us. Laura,

heblg hogs are in trouble? -- hedgehogs are in trouble? They are

indeed, they have under gone a drastic decline.

What sort of decline? We are not sure of the numbers. There could be

fewer than one million individuals left. We know it has been a gig

decline. -- big decline. This is picked up by the public. We

are not seeing hedgehogs where we used to see them? The members of the

public are saying, " We are just not seeing them anymore." Surveys are

saying they are not being picked up as frequently anymore.

We need to do something about it. Why do we think hedgehogs are in

trouble? As far as I'm concerned, I am sure it is environmental. It is

not global warming because they have been with us since dinosaur time.

is an ancient mammal? Yes, it is and it hasn't changeds much, but the

gardens have become more tidy with decking and concrete and all the

plants are tidied back. They like an untidy environment and we are

gardening techniques have changed and the strimmer injuries. This one

has been under a lawn mowe. It it is called Lucky.

The strimmer injuries are terrible. The people need to strim down to

that height and then strim when they know it is safe because there is

other mammals under there. Slug pel lets. We are obsessed with

slug pel lets? Yes, quite. The hedgehogs eat the poisoned slugs and

they get poisoned and there are other animals like this. The

blackbirds eat slugs. Live with the slugs and snails and

it will keep the hedgehogs. Yes and make access in your garden

even if it is a cat mrap in the fence.

-- cat flap in the fence. We are try and put numbers to them.

How many hedgehogs do we have left? Yes, that's what we are aiming to

How? We are asking the members of the public to get involved in

spotting hedgehogs. We have some other methods in mind as well.

By my feet here is this peculiar looking device. It the doesn't look

sexy, does it? It is a piece of plastic. What does this tube do?

is a footprint survey tunnel developed by a research team at

Nottingham Trent University. It allows memals, hedgehogs and --

mammals and other hedgehogs, there is food to entice them in and they

leave their lovely foot prints. We are going to see if we can show

this to you in action. Woody, in you go. Are you going to go for a run?

Look, there is a little ink pad and paper there. The paper has blown up

in the wind. Woody is going in the wrong direction. Never work with

animals. There you go. Come on, Woody.

Laura, Woody doesn't seem to be wanting to go through the trap. It

is performance anxiety. We passed a hedgehog through the tube and this

is the result? Luckily, we have something we produced earlier.

Look at that. You can identify the animal. It doesn't have to be a

hedgehog. You get to keep that print out as it were? You do, yes.

You get to notify the Mammal Society about what you have got and that is

citizens science for you. Get involved, go to the Springwatch

website and follow the links to the Mammal Society. Go out and have a

crack. You can get in touch. Last night I

got messages saying, " We want to see more of the live cameras." This

is not live. I am going to go what we saw on the buzzard nest earlier.

This is what happened. It is nice. Well, it is not nice for the animal

involved. Look, there is a mole. They are bringing in moles. It could

be worms. It could be beetles or grass snakes or frogs or moles. We

are going to have a look at it live now and see what's going on now.

Look, she is back. Isn't it nice to see the birds dry? She is still

covering it up. She is still protecting the chick and the egg. It

is very vulnerable. She is still broading the egg. We don't know if

the egg is going to hatch. If it does, you will see it here first.

That's a privileged view of wildlife. You can get your

privileged views of wildlife at home. Be out there and you have got

to be in it to win it, get out there and who knows what is going to

happen. Some people like Dave my postman gets privileges when he is

My name is Dave Edwards. I am the postman on top of Dartmoor. I

interact with nature on a daily basis. I get to see amazing sights

whilst I'm working and especially if you are into wildlife. A male

blackbird. We are lucky and privileged. Gough got -- you have

got from the moors down to sea level, you have got every echo

system and every type of bird and everimed type of mammals. The that's

a grey squirrel. They are all over the place. There is a buzzard. It is

just swooped across and into the fields here. There is a jay. This is

a haven for red deer. We have the roe deer. The real thing with the

roe deer ises the dignity, the grace, the peacefulness of them.

They are calm. I have been stood there and they have not been more

than six peat away from me and they stand and look at you and they are

not bothered. There is not many places in the country you will get

that experience and it does make your day. One of the main birds that

is sort of synonymous with Devon is the dipper. Because we have gone

from the tops of the Moore into the lower valleys, you are going through

the water courses and we get dippers. You see them every day and

again, that's a real privilege to see rare wildlife on a daily basis.

Another thing we have got, all the reptile species in the country in

the south-west. A lot of post boxes are set into the wall. You get to

midday, the sun is up, on a stone wall, by the post box, lizards. You

have to be careful because we have got adders. We have adders here.

They are dangerous vipers. You have got to be careful. A bird we see a

lot and is one of my favourites is the sparrowhawk. A lot of people

have bird feeders and one of the down sides is it does attract the

predators. You get some placeant. There is so much going up here.

There is probably people around the country who have never heard a

skylark, but they are here all the time. One of the best sightings I

have had ask a wild pole cat driving down the road in the ran and out

jumps a pole cat. You see stoats and weasels, but to see a wild ferret in

its natural environment, I doubt I will see another one. To be in a

position where I'm paid to go around delivering people's post and I can

pursue my interests, my joy, my hobby is just tremendous. There is

nowhere else you will get to do this. Good morning, your post, sir.

Is that it today? That's it.OK. Good to see you. Bye.

Apparently he is famous! From Dave's day of work. I think

that pole cat was a pole cat ferret. I'm going to ge over what we do. --

I'm going to go over what we do. This is the mini workshop. We have

got Neil. Now, you are dm charge -- in charging of rigging the cameras.

What is this? This is a camera for the marsh.

It is difficult. It is difficult for a naturalist. It takes time.

This is going in a brand-new birds nest. Can you reveal? There are

possibilities. It is a grasshopper warbler.

This is how we get the pictures to you. Thank you very much and we will

keep you posted if that gets deployed. Over here, we have tripods

and cases and this is important. This is a 24/7 operation and it is

fuelled with caffeine. That's their coffee. We are going to my favourite

room and it is over here and it is glorious. Look at this beautiful,

beautiful Welsh countryside and lots and lots of cables and Portakabins

and trucks and over here this is my favourite grey box because in here

is the mac roe studio. Come with me and in here we have Howard and Josh.

Hi. What are you filming? We're filming a grub who is living in wood

and chewing it up at the moment. That's more exciting than it sounds.

These guys, this is where I want to be. All they do is spend all day

piddling around with tiny little mini beasts. You are making small

things look beautiful. One of the things they have made beautiful

recent recently, it is the way I look at the world which is close up

and that is these painted lady caterpillarsment just look at that.

-- caterpillars as we work our way up the body of a caterpillar. Look

at the bristles and hairs and the little round things, they are the

organs to allow the caterpillar to breathe. They have got a shot of a

time lapse of these. Just look at this. This is the caterpillars

eating a leave, but with time sped up. This is one of those techniques

that is common within the wildlife and film industry, but Howard, how

do you speed up time? Mm, your average video is 25 frames a second

and by the time lapse, one frame every ten or five seconds and you

put them together and when you speed it up, it looks like time in fast

motion. Speeding up of time by simple bits

of trick. Thank you, Howard. I would stay, but I have got to move on to

other things. We are going to go and find Gary. Where is he? He is parked

up next to my van. It is a a handy place to be. Hi Gary. How are you

doing? Hi Nick. Gary is our resident sound man or

sound obsessive! You are out there recording everything. Have you got a

sound of spring that you have recorded that you like?

Or just a woodland sound? Yes, I have got a woodland sound. Here we

go. It is a bit windy, but definitely woodland.

That's a bizarre sound because it sounds like it is something small.

Gary has got many points, but the one point I have got him here for is

he is going to be delivering us our sound of the day. This is where we

can work out what the ound is. Let's hear today's sound of the day. Here

That's a gud noise, Gary. -- good noise. If you know, let us know and

we will deliver the answer to you we will deliver the answer to you

later. A trick one there. Are right, OK, now when you are out walking

about in the woods, you sometimes find treasure and when you find this

tresh rur, you have to -- treasure you have to marvel at its form and

you can't help, but pick it up. I have a shed full of these things and

I keep collecting them. I am talking about the stuff that falls off the

heads of deer and Martin made a film for us down his way where he

OK, we didn't find all these, we brought these, but now you can see

all the deer that are here. That is a Monk Jack. Small little antlers.

It is not native to the UK and they are spreading all over the country

thank you very much. And they are down in Somerset. Now,

I have only ever seen two in my life and they come belting out of the

undergrowth like a little gingery dog.

This is a a native species of deer. antlers get, and these are knobbly

bits down the bottom there. It snows it is an old male. And this one here

sz a sika deer. Everyone is up in arms with these because they

interbreed with our native red deer. It is magnificent though. And

finally, this beauty here, that is a fal owe deer -- fallow deer. It is

thought the Normans brought them back to hunt them. If you find the

antlers, you know what deer they belong to. Now one of the deer

species there Martin doesn't have is the largest of our native species

and that's the red deer. They are magnificent creatures. Rather,

rather large. There is a shot of some in velvet. Their antlers fall

off around this time of year. If you live in Scotland or Exmoor, you

could find some of these lirningd. These are the antlers of -- of these

lying around. These are the antlers of red deer. They are distinctivele.

I loved that film. Now, at this will time of year, these deer are not

wearing their head gear. How do we Well, if you are lucky enough you

will have at deer looking a the you, but more afternoon than not, it is

their bottoms you see as they flee off into the undergrowth. Here is

our guide to the bottoms of our British deer. Firstly, the fallow

deer. There is black mareither side. You are looking for three black

stripes on a pale bhit background. And then we have got the sika. It is

fluffy around the edges. It is only found in certain places as well.

They are on to the red deer. Look at that. There is no white at all. It

is a dirty colour, but mainly surrounded by red. A shorter tail.

The shortest tail of them all belongs to one of our commonest deer

species which is the roe deer. No white at all and barely a tail. Bet

you never saw that on day time TV, the bottom of our deer! We have been

asking for your favourite spring things. We wanted to know and asked

you to get in touch via thing blog! My favourite one is one is from

Terry. I don't know your surname and he says, " The adder says it all for

me." I couldn't agree with you more. I love adders too. Fan Fantastic

things. Ellie Harrison is one of my colleagues and she is holding

holding together and very much part of the BBC's summer of wildlife and

here is some of her favourite spring things. The things I love most about

spring are first of all, before any animals the light. It is the one

thing that we can guarantee in this country and the real advantage of

living at this latitude so it is energy, it is keeping us in sync

with the natural world and it is what I live for throughout the

winter. The second thing, swifts, swallows and house martins. When you

first spot them, you see them frequently and they are glorious

sights. Seeing the swifts so high in the sky. There were times when the

swallows were heading for me when they feed. And last of all, what

could be better than this? The woodland flora in spring. This focus

of blue, a really unnatural colour of blue in the natural world and

what a sight this is. Now, one of my favourite sounds of

spring is the great spotted wood peck her. When they are getting

territorial they will drum and vibrate their heads against a hollow

tree and they make a sound a bit like this.

The way it echoes around a woodland is a special. The beautiful thing

about this, they have been doing it late this year, you may catch that

ut. Now, we have had -- thaz out in the woods. We are going to go to the

feeders. They keep coming regularly and earlier on, we did have a great

spotted woodpecker. It doesn't matter if you don't have these

beautiful birds on your feeders, we have got a feeder for you. There it

is doing that for you and you can tune into that camera on our website

at any point in the day and you may get lucky. Now, we have three

species of wood speck pecker in this -- woodpecker. We have the green

woodpecker and the great spotted woodpecker and the lesser spotted

woodpecker. The great spotted woodpecker. Now there is ale trick I

can share with you. It is well-known among birders. Normally, when

Springwatch goes out, it would be late for this because you have got

to do it when woodpeckers are at their most territorial. If you have

a woodpecker drumming near you. Grab a stick. Find a convenient dead

tree. And just do that. Little tapping noises. You can try to drum

like a woodpecker, but it is impossible. You can't do it fast

enough. Do that and if there is a woodpecker around, it will come down

and see who the intrude intruder is. He will think you are another

woodpecker and when it does work, you can get within meters of these.

It is fantastic. Anyway, earlier we caught up with our nest finders.

These are the people that are out there finding birds nests for us to

put cameras on sods we can show you what's going on in. So -- so we can

see what's going on in them. This is our nest finding team. Thank you

very much for joining us on the sofa here. How long does itting take to

find a nest? That's a good question for Steve because Steve does most of

the nest finding. How long is a piece of spring. Half

a day of tapping the top of little nests. I went off at 6am and came

back for breakfast at 9am and didn't have it. Went back up to the Moore

again and took an News of the World or two hours, but I -- took an

hour-and-a-half or two hours. But I got there in the end.

These are little concentrated boxes of resources. You are almost getting

into the mindset of a crow or a fox or a stoat really? You are just

watching and watching and trying to let the bird give you a clue and the

bird is doing its best not to give you a Claw! She is -- clue! She is

staring you out. It is a Battle of Of wits. This is

an ongoing process. You are getting good, important data from each nest

that you find. That isn't wasted information, but something might

happen to anyone of our star nests. This might fail. You have got to

have something else ready in place, is that right? Absolutely. The more

nests the better. We always lose nests to predators because that is

what is happening out there. Some species have suffered 70% to 80%

failure rate in nests. You can't rely on finding a handful and

guarantee to get them. Receive it will find a long list. We might have

three or four black caps on stand-by so if one goes down, we switch to

another nest. Nigel passed to you, but one of the

nests that's been found this yoer is a special one -- this year is a

special one and you did find that. Well, the bird in question question

is the water rail. It is looking for the reed warbler nest and a few food

from where I was -- feet feet from where I was about to step, I walked

into the nest. You knew it was one immediately?

have never seen one. No one has.I thought, " What could this be?" You

don't like to say until you double check.

Did you feel smug? Well, particularly as I set Steve a

challenge this year to find a water rail. You sent me home so he could

go behind my back. What a brilliant job. I would love

to come out with you one morning. Well, find us a lesser spotted

woodpecker and then we would be happy.

You set me a challenge. That ain't going to happen!

These are the real stars of Springwatch.

We gave away a few species there. We have lots of nests mentioned. Some

of them haven't had a camera attached to them and the need has

not been put up on site and we have not mentioned them. We are teasing

you a little bit and who knows what we will show in the next couple of

weeks. We did see the jackdaws there. What the jackdaw is up to.

They are getting bigger. They are getting bigger. They are being

looked after by brilliant parents and is despite the activities of the

nasty neighbours. They are still knocking around. This was earlier

today. This happened earlier and the nasty neighbour is around, but the

parents are so attentive. They are pushing them away. As the days go

by, the chicks are getting bigger and bolder and the chance of the

naughty neighbours messing up the nesting plan is reduced. The

jackdaws are looking good. We have Gary with us. He is tucked into our

tea. Seeing Gary wz my finest bone -- seeing Gary with my if finest

bone china. I love a bit of china. Right, sound of the day. Let's hear

it again. Did you guess what that was? That

was a bat. It wasn't was a bat. -- it was a bat. The bat detectors

allows us to use the ultrasound that bats use to help them navigate and

feed. You can get hold of one of these.

There are cheap ones out there and it allows you to tap into the world

of sound that you didn't even know existed. Fantastic stuff. We will

reveal what the sound of the day is. Have he got any answers? Thank you

very much. OK, we have got wrong guesses. We got, somebody said it is

something underwater, maybe a catfish. It sounds a bit weird. We

have had a few close guesses. I thought it was a benton's bat, but

it is not. It is the sound sound of our largest species of bat. Thank

our largest species of bat. Thank you very much, Gary.

Woodlands are a tranquil place. It is a place we have talked about and

celebrated them today. They are a great place to enauto joy spring,

but they are under threat. There are lots of things going on. We heard

about Sudden Oak Death and last year, this disease ash dieback

arrived in this country and it he may, it concerns me, it may well

concern you. What can you do to help? We feel like our hands our

tied? Well, an organisation which is associated with the Natural History

Museum, they have brilliant resources. If you are into citizens

science and want to learn stuff, they are a good place. They have

developed this woodland woodland health pack. They have given you

clues and questions and a form to fill in which let's you know what

information they need and that's what it is. If you want one of these

or want to find out where you get one, get on our website and follow

the links. One last chance to go back to our live cameras. So let's

have a little look. What have we got? Nothing. Oh, there we are. We

have got a single buzzard. It is beautiful. She is lovely, isn't she?

She is still incubating that egg. We don't know if the egg is going to

hatch. We are hoping it will. She has got a chick. We are going to go

has got a chick. We are going to go to the water rail. It has been

making interesting vocalisation. Some bizarre noises which we don't

know if anyone heard before. It is exciting stuff and you are getting

excited by that. Let's look ats -- at the log camera. I always set

myself uch for a fall and there is -- up for a fall. Most of the

34578als are nocturnal. We have got Unsprung tonight as well. We will

see you later on. That's it for now. Spring carries on. It is on the

website. Just follow the links. We have got the evening show tonight at