Forests Wild UK

Right now, nearly 4,500 miles away,

Matt Baker and the Wild Alaska Live team are witness to

the world's biggest feast.

After months of being frozen,

the arrival of summer brings a four-month rush to feed and breed,

attracting eagles, sharks, bears and wolves,

all triggered by the annual arrival of Pacific salmon

to this vast wilderness.

Wild Alaska Live is capturing this incredible spectacle on TV

and online.

The Alaskan wilderness may seem a world away,

but we are here every day this week

to show you the wilder side closer to home,

right here in the UK.

As a wildlife cameraman, I've travelled all over the world,

but the wildlife and wild landscapes of these islands

hold a special place in my heart,

and are full of inspirational and surprising wildlife stories.

As a zoologist, I love getting out and about to the wilder parts of

the UK, to discover conservation projects

that help keep places -

like this corner of the Western Highlands - wild.

Over this series, we're travelling from rivers to mountains,

from forests to seas,

and even celebrating some of our wildest cities

to bring you the best our country has to offer.

The UK is a lot wilder than you may think.

This is Wild UK.

Each day this week, we'll be looking at a different wilderness in the UK.

Today, we're revealing the wildness of our forests and woodlands.

This is the Caledonian Forest and, you know,

there's a real sense of wilderness here.

Perhaps because it's been here ever since the last Ice Age.

But, of course, it's a remnant of what was once an enormous forest

that, once upon a time, would have covered the whole of the UK.

It's made up of a mixture of Scots pine, birch and rowan,

and is home to some of our rarest wildlife,

such as the Scottish wildcat and capercaillie,

a bird which is found nowhere else in the UK

other than this unique Caledonian Forest.

It's also the habitat that was once home to wildlife

surprisingly similar to that found in Alaska.

European brown bears and grey wolves once roamed these forests.

And, once upon a time, you could even find wild boar here,

which is an animal that's made a dramatic recovery

in some of our southern forests,

and we're going to find out more about that success story

later on in the programme.

I'll be on the trail of the elusive pine marten here in Scotland.

If we want to do a proper job and identify it,

I guess we should actually have a sniff, though.

-We are going to have to put it to the test.

-OK.

We're joined by some familiar faces,

sharing their best past experiences

of the wildlife that rely on our forests and woodlands

and the conservation success stories that have helped them.

I haven't seen a red kite spectacle as good as this, ever.

And Colin travels deep into the heart of Kielder Forest

for some peace and quiet.

You don't have to go far into a woodland before you really feel

that you've entered an entirely new world.

But first, time for a snapshot of our wild forests and woodlands.

There are over 3.1 million hectares of wild woodland across the UK -

nearly a quarter of a million more than covered our landscapes in 1998.

Woodland now covers over a tenth of the UK's total land area.

These forest areas range in size and shape,

from old-growth, mixed deciduous forests,

containing species such as oak and birch,

through to large, human-made plantations of conifers.

Ancient woodlands support over 200 of our rarest

and most threatened species, such as dormice and goshawk.

They also play host to one of our most spectacular seasonal sights -

the bluebell blossoms of spring.

Natural and planted conifer woodlands

provide home for species such as pine marten,

as well as being the last refuge of

the charismatic red squirrel.

At the heart of Sherwood Forest today stands one of

the UK's oldest trees, estimated between 800 and 1,000 years old.

One thing's for sure,

if you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise.

One of the things that I really love about forests is they're just

great places to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.

I mean, your mobile phone doesn't really work

and you're amongst all of these ancient trees

and there's just a real sense of remoteness,

even in the smallest of woodlands.

Last month, Colin travelled to Kielder Forest in Northumberland,

where remoteness is a virtue.

Kielder Forest is one of the largest forests in the UK.

But, surprisingly, it is relatively new.

It was established after the First World War to provide

the UK with more timber.

Thanks to its enormous size and remote location,

it's the perfect place to escape into the wilderness.

You don't have to go far into a woodland before you really feel that

you've entered an entirely new world.

As soon as you let it envelop you,

you somehow leave the rest of the world behind.

A whole host of creatures have made this forest their home,

including roe deer, the goshawk

and the crossbill, which has adapted perfectly to the food on offer.

It's also home to one of Britain's favourite animals -

the red squirrel.

But getting an encounter takes a bit of patience.

A red squirrel's going to be really difficult to see.

They spend so much of their time in the treetops.

But they find peanuts hard to resist.

And, sure enough, there's one now.

Beautiful little creatures.

I love their little tufted ears and it seems like he's using his tail

as an umbrella today.

It's such a pity that they disappeared over so much of England.

As soon as grey squirrels were introduced,

the red squirrel population went into dramatic decline.

Grey squirrels aren't so fussy about what they eat

and they tend to get to the food first.

But this is a real stronghold for the red squirrel -

50% of the English population is found in this forest.

Kielder Forest is also home to another successful tree dweller -

the tawny owl.

I joined Martin Davison from the Forestry Commission

as he was carrying out a population study on this year's brood.

Ah, look at that.

Just pop it in this bag.

Just get the chick out.

-And, here we go.

-Ah, look. I love them at this stage,

when they've still got that little bit of down on,

they look their very best.

But the feathers are starting to come through.

You know, as they grow, they start to moult their down out

and, as you can see,

they are starting to grow in their flight feathers.

Martin, is he just sleeping or is that a bit of a defence mechanism?

He's just having a sleep. They don't get fed during the day at all.

They just basically go into sleep mode

and then all night they would be fed.

It's the reverse of our lives.

How many tawnies have you ringed this year?

It's been an excellent year.

We've ringed just over 200 this year.

So, is that all to do with prey availability, Martin?

It is, Colin, you're quite right. The more food there is,

the more eggs they lay, the more chicks they have.

It's as simple as that.

I would expect this chick to do really well

because it's a lone chick.

And lots of food coming in,

so it's going to grow very quickly and fledge around 35 days.

Just pop him back in the bag now.

Thanks to Martin and the team,

tawny owls in Kielder are really thriving.

The vast size and remote location of this woodland wilderness

has given rise to another important scientific study,

which has nothing to do with Kielder's wildlife.

To discover more,

I'm off to the park's very own observatory.

Hayden Goodfellow is one of the astronomers here

and helps to operate the observatory's giant telescope.

-How are you?

-Hello.

Ah, it is pretty impressive.

It's a very nice piece of kit.

So, Hayden, if it's not a silly question,

how far can you actually see with something like this?

The furthest I've observed with his telescope

is a galaxy about 42 million light years away.

But some of my colleagues say they can see billions,

which is pretty much all the way out to the edge of the universe.

And, so, why is this here?

Is it just because it's so dark, is that a big advantage?

Yeah, it's just the darkness.

When you're in a city, between you and the night-time sky,

there is a huge blanket of yellow-white street lights.

By getting away from all of that light pollution,

we can allow that signal from the sky to come through

and we can see fainter, more distant objects.

I've heard that there are many people who live in England

who have never seen a really true night sky?

90, 95% of people in England can't go out into

the back garden and see the Milky Way.

It's kind of sad, really, isn't it?

One of the first goals of the observatory when we opened,

taking advantage of the dark skies, was to ensure they stayed that way.

There's no point building an observatory if,

in 20 or 30 years' time,

the light pollution from Tyneside has crept up the valley

and we are now surrounded by supermarkets and street lights.

We want to keep this area dark for generations to come.

Ah!

Looking for wildlife in forests can often be a bit challenging

because there is just so much cover.

But the animals do leave clues, don't they, Colin?

Thankfully, they do.

What do you reckon about that?

I'd say that is a red squirrel.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

The teeth have gnawed away at that.

This one, on the other hand, though, I think that's a crossbill.

Exactly. And, once they prise them apart,

they get their tongues inside and take out the little seeds.

And you know, of late too, we've been able to use all sorts of

new camera technologies, and I love these

cos it means I don't have to spend all day in the forest!

But you can actually attach them, say,

on to a tree or something like that,

and they will record pictures when you're not there.

-And they often record the most amazing things.

-Yeah.

Badgers are an animal that are regularly recorded

in many of our woodlands, especially in the south and west.

Now, in the forest around Thetford in East Anglia,

there is a small breeding population of a rare golden pheasant -

a bird introduced from China back in the 1700s.

There's one animal that leaves very obvious marks in our forests

and regularly turns up on camera traps, and that's the wild boar.

Now, this is one of our long-lost beasts that would have been at home,

roaming around medieval forests, but was hunted to extinction.

But, as of 40 years ago, it's back,

and Sabet Choudhury went to the Forest of Dean to find out why.

I've been a rambler for 25 years,

and walked a lot of the English countryside.

But, for the last ten years... Spanky, come here.

..I've had a little companion.

Now, we've both grown up in Gloucestershire,

but we've never actually been to the Forest of Dean

and, what a day to come,

to find out about one of its largest inhabitants.

Wild boar have been in the Forest of Dean for nearly 20 years.

Since then, their population has increased rapidly

and some of their activities are getting them into trouble.

They root up the ground,

leaving their mark on the forest and surrounding areas.

This has a cost to local farmers, businesses and residents.

The job of monitoring and controlling

the burgeoning population falls to Ian Harvey from

the Forestry Commission.

OK, what we've got here, Sab,

is typical of the wallows that the boars create.

They're rubbing there, obviously, the wet mud will get on their coats,

any parasites, ticks, insects like that, bloodsucking insects,

will attach to the mud. Then, they rub on the post, as you can see.

They'll also rub on surrounding trees as well.

The same sort of thing. There are certainly boar in the area,

as all the evidence is suggesting.

What happens if you come across one yourself?

What's the safest practice?

The simple answer, really, Sab, is to give them some space.

If you've got a dog, keep it under control.

On a lead ,if it's not very well-trained.

Avoid areas of very thick vegetation, if you can,

stick to the main tracks because, again, that's one of the problems,

particularly as the year goes on and all the vegetation grows up,

it's hard to see the animals.

Is the forest big enough to keep an unchecked breeding population?

You've got...

12,000 hectares of perfect habitat for them.

Nice climate, favourable conditions, they're thriving.

Left unchecked, the only major cause of mortality would be

road traffic accidents, they would increase.

It's a factor of their population now that

the numbers can increase very quickly.

Without any natural predators,

there is no real alternative but to limit the population growth

by culling.

As the population increases,

the wild boar are coming into contact with people more and more.

Would you believe it? Along this busy road,

we've just spotted an entire family of wild boar.

There's the mother, the sow.

Now, she has got five or six little humbugs with her.

This is incredible.

They've brought the entire busy road to a standstill.

I've never actually seen a wild boar before and...

now I'm watching an entire family cross the road!

This is utterly, utterly amazing.

But what do the locals and visitors

make of this recent addition to the forest?

What do you guys make of the wild boar here?

I mean, it would be nice to see them.

Ah, I think, I like to see them,

but I think there are too many of them.

They are part of the ecosystem now, and they do a lot for it,

turning over the earth.

You go to some areas and it's completely dug up,

and it looks like it's a warzone, almost.

Culls are always a difficult thing.

Obviously, personally, for me, I don't think it's necessary.

We have culls on squirrels or the deer, so why not the boar?

We introduce the wolf, and that will keep them down!

So, the wolf is your way to keep them...?

-Yeah.

-As Gary says, if the wolf or something else was there,

there'd be a balance, but there isn't a balance.

Whilst not overly aggressive, boar can react to dogs -

the closest thing to a predator in these woods.

Are you scared of them?

I am sometimes, if I've got the dog with me.

-So, you still get excited when you see them?

-Oh, God, yeah.

Yeah, I've been trying to find them today but, you know,

they're one of those mythical things that are out there somewhere,

but if I bump into them, then, yeah, great, it would be amazing.

So, after a 300-year absence from our forests, the wild boar are back.

And, while they're not problem-free, they are here to stay.

They are really just so beautiful to see.

They're not even bothered by

the huge amount of traffic that's going past this road.

This is a busy road we're talking about.

The mother's just a little bit further on from them.

They know we're here.

That was amazing. That was truly amazing.

I had so many mixed reviews about these animals but, actually,

seeing them up so close...

..it's totally blown me away.

Now, I think it's great that such a substantial mammal

has found its home in our forest once again because

once they were an integral part of our woodlands,

and, in fact, they're very beneficial for them.

But small animals can make a big impact as well.

I mean, just take this Scots pine here.

You can see it's riddled with holes.

And you can see here what's made them - this is a tiger beetle here.

And this soft wood of the Scots pine is favoured by its grubs.

And these very neat,

round holes are where the grubs have made their way out naturally.

But these more jagged holes here are where woodpeckers have

pecked away to have the grubs for dinner.

And something bigger has been in search of them too.

That looks to me, maybe, what do you reckon -

badgers, pine martens or something?

Pine marten, could be either, couldn't it?

So, knowing where to look is really key

if you want to sort of unravel the mysteries that

the forest has to offer.

And in 2014,

The One Show's George McGavin travelled to Devon

for a surprise encounter with a very special animal.

Dartmoor National Park,

home to some of the wildest

and bleakest country in southern England.

It's most famous for rugged moorlands,

but its wooded valleys are home to one of Britain's rarer

and lesser-known creatures.

I've only seen the blue ground beetle as a pin specimen

or a picture in books.

It's so rare, it was once considered extinct in the UK.

Without inside information, they're almost impossible to find,

so I'm meeting expert John Walters

who's been studying the blue ground beetle for almost 20 years.

It's Britain's biggest ground beetle, it's quite a monster.

It's very rare, just found in a handful of sites,

maybe ten sites along the southern edges of Dartmoor and Bodmin.

Now, this ancient woodland is prime habitat, isn't it?

It likes warm places, but they also need to be damp and moist as well.

So, in this valley, the lovely south-facing valley on

the side here, it's nice and warm,

whereas the north-facing side over there is a bit colder,

and they don't like that so much.

The beetles are restricted to rare ancient woodlands like this,

rich in deadwood and moss, where they like to hide.

Once darkness falls, they emerge to hunt,

so we settle in to wait for dusk.

The common name "ground beetle" sort of implies

you find them in the ground. That's not actually true, is it?

Not with this one, this is an unusual type of ground beetle

which lives up trees and it hunts the tree slugs.

And that's what it's after.

This is one of the world's biggest slugs, the ash black slug.

And this is quite a small one, actually.

And this thing can grow up to 20, 30 centimetres long.

I have to say, there's always for me a really special thrill when I know

there's a very good chance that I'm just about to see something

that I've never seen before.

As night falls, and the slugs start to emerge from their hiding places,

we begin our search.

And remarkably quickly, we have success.

-There's one.

-What? Where?

-Here we go.

The blue ground beetle.

Look at that.

It IS very blue, isn't it?

It's a beauty, shimmering in the torchlight.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

This one is a male, I'm pretty sure.

-I'll pick him up.

-How do you tell?

Well, the main features are... Get your torch on that.

If you look closely at the front legs,

-just at the end it's got a series of pads, quite broad.

-Yeah.

And they are used for the male while he's gripping hold of the female

-while mating.

-That is an amazing colour.

The males are much brighter than the females as well.

What I'd love to see now is it actually eating a slug.

After a bit more hunting,

we find something that's not quite what we were looking for,

but it is an incredibly rare thing to see.

Oh, wow! A mating pair.

Oh, it's two!

Now, I've seen maybe 800 of these beetles,

but I've only seen them mating a handful of times.

And the male is a slimline creature,

and he is mounted on top of her,

using those pads I showed you earlier.

Now, the female is considerably broader than the male.

She's obviously full of eggs.

What an evening for me.

That's the first time I've seen that species ever,

and I have found a mating pair!

We carry on looking and find plenty more beetles.

But after hours of searching, we don't manage to spot one hunting.

Luckily our cameraman was out with John last night

and got some unique footage.

We managed to see this. Fantastic.

This is amazing.

As soon as the beetle has grabbed it, it's really got no chance.

Squeezing it out, isn't it?

Squeezing sort of toothpaste.

This is unbelievable film.

You can see the way the pads are just sort of around the slug.

It's gory, but yet it is fascinating.

It just draws you in.

You can't take your eyes off it.

Oh, it's a shame I couldn't see that first-hand.

This is just as good.

So few people get to see these secretive beetles that, for me,

it's been a real privilege to find them and film them in action

in their natural habitat for the first time.

What a great little animal that was.

I often find that the smaller the animal,

the more interesting lifestyle it has.

Absolutely. And such surprising woodlands.

I mean, the river valleys of Dartmoor

are not normally somewhere you associate with trees,

it's more heathland that you think of.

And yet, that is one of the last strongholds of that beetle.

Our woodlands are, in fact, home to probably

the greatest diversity of species in any landscape in the UK.

In fact, over 200 of our rarest animals depend on forests

and woodlands for their survival.

But there's one that is particularly synonymous with woodlands

and almost disappeared in the 1900s.

But now, with a little help, it's making a comeback.

And Lucy was lucky enough to go in search of

the elusive creature in Strathyre.

If you want to find a pine marten, the clue is in the name.

This tree-loving mammal was once our second-most-common carnivore

and its range stretched right across the UK.

However, during the 18th and 19th centuries,

deforestation and persecution caused their numbers to plummet.

And by 1915,

the pine marten was confined to our most remote landscapes.

Luckily in 1988,

the pine marten was thrown a lifeline

and given full legal protection.

Since then, the numbers have been on the rise

and I've been told that woodland like this, just east of Loch Lomond,

is a great place to go pine marten spotting.

Lizzie Croose has been studying the pine marten for seven years.

So, what makes an environment like this good for pine martens?

Pine martens are a woodlands specialists,

so they are really well adapted to living in woodland.

They are really reliant on woodland cover, for finding shelter,

raising their young, avoiding predators and also finding food.

And how can you tell if there are pine martens about -

are they easy to find?

So, we can look for their scats or droppings,

which they leave on forest tracks.

So, is that what we are going to do today,

go and search out some pine marten scat?

Yes, let's go and have a look.

And it didn't take us long to find our first potential poo.

So, here is a scat, Lizzie. What do you think that is?

I actually think this is a fox scat.

Oh, how can we tell?

So, the main way to tell is fox scats

are very disgusting and smelly.

Oh, great.

If we want to do a proper job and identify it,

I guess we should actually have a sniff, though.

We are going to have to put it to the test. OK.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-It's not nice, is it?

-We'll just leave that.

-Yeah.

How does it contrast with a pine marten poo?

So, pine marten scat is very sweet smelling

and just not unpleasant at all.

With that in mind,

we continued our search for the pine marten poo

and soon found what we were looking for.

Gosh, there's a lot here, isn't there?

Yes, so where you get a lot of marten scats together,

it is often the sign of a territory boundary,

so you have different martens marking their territory and saying,

"Hey, this is mine, I live here."

So, how can you tell this is a pine marten scat?

So, if you look at this one,

it has got a characteristic twisty appearance,

which is what you tend to get with pine martens.

It's very dark in colour.

You can also tell by the smell.

-OK.

-So...

-Should we dive in?

-Let's do it.

The joy of my job.

OK. What am I smelling for?

Well, you might get a sweet smell.

Some people say they smell like Parma Violets.

Sometimes you might get a kind of fishy undertone as well.

So sorry.

Does it smell really bad?

That was a fishy undertone I got!

There was no Parma Violets, I'm not convinced by the Parma Violets.

So, we can actually tell a lot from scats.

So, we can get the DNA analysed, and you can actually get

an individual fingerprint from each scat,

which will tell you which individual pine marten left that scat.

And if you do that throughout a whole forest,

then you can estimate how many pine martens

are in that particular forest.

In 2015,

Lizzie and her colleagues started an ambitious project to help

the pine marten spread the range further.

So, we have been translocating pine martens from forests in Scotland,

where they are doing really well, to sites in mid Wales,

where the pine marten population was almost extinct.

And over two years,

we've translocated 39 pine martens, and the population is doing really,

-really well.

-Fantastic.

All of the reintroduced martens have been released into

the Ceredigion Valley,

with the final release due to take place later this year.

The project has proved to be a resounding success,

with tracking data showing that each released marten

has set up its own home territory close to

the original release site.

And a few months ago,

one of the project's remote cameras

recorded some incredibly special footage.

So, this family here, it is a female with three kits,

they were born probably March this year.

This female was translocated in 2015

and this is the first family that have been conceived in Wales,

so these are Welsh kits that have been born and bred in Wales,

so we now have a self-sustaining,

healthy pine marten population in Wales for

the first time in probably over 100 years.

Oh, congratulations, that's fantastic news.

-You must be very proud.

-Yeah.

And the next stage, of course,

would be to introduce the pine marten to England.

I remember, once upon a time, they were incredibly rare in Ireland,

and when I was a kid,

I had a little book and I can see the photo of them now,

and I thought, that would be brilliant to see them one day.

Never thinking I would, but they are actually very common now.

And they're such charismatic little creatures.

Yes, I was pretty gutted not to see one,

but it just gives me an excuse to get out there and try another time,

and that's what we want to do here at Wild UK,

is encourage you to go out and explore.

It's not hard to find a patch of woodland,

but if you need a little bit of extra inspiration,

here is our guide to where the wild things are.

In the autumn, our deciduous woodlands burst into colour

to deliver one of nature's most spectacular displays.

This phenomenon can be witnessed wherever you are in the UK,

but there were a few hidden gems in Northern Ireland's ancient forests.

If you look carefully, you might see some of our special butterflies,

such as the pearl-bordered fritillary.

It can be found as early as April in

the deciduous forests of Scotland and southern England.

We have three species of woodpecker -

the greater, the lesser spotted

and the green.

The green woodpecker is the biggest

and can be found across most of England, Wales and Scotland.

It is often heard before it's seen

and uses its long tongue to tuck into its favourite snack - ants.

The dormouse is one of our nocturnal favourites

and leaves its own unique mark in the hazelnuts it nibbles.

While you are unlikely to see one in the wild,

you've got a good chance of discovering its evidence trails

in forest across southern England and Wales.

One of the great pleasures for me of exploring wild places

is taking photos of them,

so I always try and make sure I've got a camera

or at least a mobile phone.

And it seems that you guys do too,

because you've sent some fantastic images of woodlands through using

the hashtag #mywilderness.

Like this frosty view of Thetford Forest in Norfolk.

And this, of bluebells carpeting the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.

Please do keep sharing your wild experiences online at

the hashtag #mywilderness.

Now, the wilderness of Alaska is being revealed all this week,

both online and on BBC One by the Wild Alaska Live crew.

Over the last few months,

their crews have been travelling far and wide to capture

the incredible wildlife that lives there.

In June, one of the teams was on a mission to capture

the lives of brown bears,

but things didn't get off to the start they'd hoped.

The bear crew had planned to film in the very remote location of

Katmai National Park in Alaska, to capture

the lives of the brown bears just before the start of the salmon run.

But all good plans can be derailed by the Alaskan weather,

as director Charlie Bingham and wildlife cameraman Ian Llewellyn

know too well.

We allowed four and a half, five days.

Because of the weather closing in,

that has been reduced to what will now be...

Well, once we get there...

Well, two, two and a half, absolute max.

So, it's going to be a real challenge,

we're going to work round the clock. One good thing,

it basically doesn't get any darker than this.

At this time of the year, I don't think it's going to be

particularly difficult to find the bears,

but we are pushing it in terms of getting a really beautiful sequence.

-Right, let's go.

-Don't forget, I have bagsied the front seat.

-Yeah.

With the weather window finally open for them,

the crew were keen to get to location.

It's a 19-minute flight from Homer across some of

the most remote wilderness Alaska has to offer.

And at the end, there isn't even a runaway -

the landing strip is the beach.

We made it.

What a journey in. I've done a lot of plane journeys,

but I don't think I've ever done one as beautiful as that -

that was spectacular. And it's amazing to finally get here,

I'm really happy, very, very happy.

Let's film some bears.

Time is of the essence,

but before the crews can head out to find the bears with expert guide

Samira, they are given advice on how to behave around these large

and potentially dangerous animals.

All right, sitting is a very nonthreatening body language,

that's why, as soon as we get to an area,

we sit down immediately and we let them see us doing that.

And you will see that activity as well.

If there's a bear in the meadow and another bear comes in,

you will see that the bear that is already in the meadow sit down,

and the other one will sit down because they are showing each other

that both of them want to be non-confrontational,

they just want to share the meadow together.

Standing is more of a threatening body language,

so we want to keep the bears as comfortable as possible.

There are no vehicles in this part of the park, so to get anywhere,

it's all on foot.

And the crew need to take all their equipment with them,

so travelling light isn't easy,

as cameraman Mark Sharman is discovering.

It's a very heavy set-up.

Not perfect for trekking for a 45-minute journey, that's for sure.

I already regret having such a large tripod.

Their trek takes them through the woodlands and finally to a meadow

where the bears are regularly found.

But not today.

And it's not until the crew are heading back to camp

that they get their first encounter with a large male grizzly.

He's not wanting us any closer.

He's cowboy walking, he's being very territorial right now,

so we aren't going to get any closer.

It's a start, but it's just one shot.

They need more, and they've got just one more day to get it.

Thankfully, day two begins much more positively.

After all this waiting,

it looks like we've got a mum and three cubs on the tidal flats.

This could be exactly what we've been waiting for.

They move into position,

the family of bears are hunting for clams

which live just under the surface of the beach.

You'll see the mom swinging her head back and forth

as she is walking across the tidal flats.

The clams underneath can feel the pressure of her footprints,

and when it moves all of a sudden,

it shoots out a little shoot of water that comes up.

As soon as she sees one of those, she starts digging.

Hey, bear. Hey, bear.

I've filmed grizzlies quite a few times now,

but that was a really special little moment.

You could actually see them digging the clams out

and very delicately opening them up

and extracting that very nutritious meal inside,

so that was a fantastic spectacle,

and they came right past us with the mountains in the background,

that's up there with the best things. Yeah!

As the weather cools down,

the bears move off the beach and into the meadow,

and the crew follow.

They need to make the most of their last filming day,

and there's one bear that is giving the crew all the close-ups

they could ever wish for.

I never thought I'd be this close to a grizzly bear!

That was awesome.

Two long filming days have finally paid off and the crew have got more

than the bare necessities they came here for.

Wild Alaska Live will have more about those bears

on Wednesday night, BBC One, 8pm.

Many of our birds rely on woodlands and trees for building their nests

and for roosting,

and I remember the first job I ever had as a wildlife cameraman

was to go and film one particular nest,

and the exact location had to be kept a secret

because the bird at that time was in danger of extinction.

That was the red kite.

And it only seems like yesterday.

And now, of course, they are the stars of Springwatch.

These large birds of prey build pretty untidy nests

and have been known to build on top of abandoned crows' nests

or squirrel drays.

Their nests are often lined with sheep's wool

and found usually on tall trees on the edge of woodlands and forests,

which allow the large-winged parents

an easy flight path back to the nest

after searching for food in the surrounding countryside.

A couple of years ago,

the naturalist Mike Dilger headed to the Chilterns,

which is one of the birthplaces of this wild success story.

For the last 25 years, farmers in the Chilterns

have been welcoming a new visitor to their fields.

A former city bird.

The red kite.

This species was almost extinct in England towards

the end of the 19th century, and then,

just a handful of birds were released here into

the Chilterns in the late 1980s.

Now, with over 1,000 breeding pairs in just this area alone,

it's safe to say the red kite has made a storming comeback.

I've come to Little Horsenden Farm

to meet owner and farmer Neil McIntosh,

who has a special relationship with the red kite.

On my drive over here this morning, Neil, I saw a lot of red kites,

but I imagine growing up here, you never saw them as a child.

No, no, we didn't see them here at all.

Since their reintroduction 25 years ago,

feeding stations have driven the kites to record levels.

But these birds are naturally opportunistic scavengers.

And as farmland covers over two-thirds of the Chilterns,

216 square miles devoted purely to agriculture,

the kites have seized on an opportunity

which presents itself as farmers sow the seeds of spring.

Well, you would have thought that wildlife would stay well clear

of a huge hulking beast like this tractor.

But hopefully, this camera should prove otherwise.

Now the tractor is rigged up with cameras, it's time to get ploughing.

I just hope the kites are ready for their close-up.

So, it might take the red kites a while to see the tractor.

Do you think they know you are about to start ploughing?

No, it won't take them very long, not normally.

I can see them actually gathering.

They obviously know that feeding time is coming.

They're looking hungry, they're just waiting for it.

Wow! Two behind the tractor.

-Yeah, they're coming in already.

-Look at that, fabulous.

I can see one, two, three, four, five in the air.

What's the maximum number you've seen coming in?

I've seen between 40 and 50 behind me at one time.

-Really?!

-Yes.

The kites are coming down to feed on worms,

beetles and other invertebrates that Neal's plough unearths

as it churns up the soil beneath us.

Kites are diverse hunters

and although capable of spotting food from high in the sky,

it's their exceptional ability to surf the air currents close to

the ground that allows them to brave the blades of Neal's plough.

You get a real chance to see their lovely plumage as well.

You don't often get this close.

Lovely kind of powder grey hair, that gorgeous red tail.

On the top of the wings, that lovely kind of fawn band.

Look at that ahead of us.

They're just flying ahead of the tractor.

That's absolutely amazing, that is such a brilliant sight.

Weighing in at just over a kilogram,

and suspended on wings of almost two metres,

the red kite is a masterful flyer.

If necessary, they can remain stock-still in midair

with only their tail twisting in relation to airflow,

just like a rudder.

I love the way when they just want to come down,

they just fold their wings in, stall,

and then just spiral out of the air.

Beautiful. Look how close they are.

This farm has been passed down through three generations,

but Neal will be the first of his family to have had

the company of kites in these fields throughout his career.

I don't think there's many spectacles

I've not seen wildlife-wise,

I constantly think I've pretty much seen everything.

I haven't seen a red kite spectacle as good as this, ever.

Red kites are now found right across the UK,

not just in Wales and the Chilterns,

but also in Yorkshire and north-east England.

And for their continued success,

they're going to need areas of open countryside

as well as forests, in order to build their nests.

Tomorrow on Wild UK,

we turn our attention to seas, and the wildlife that make

the waters around our islands their home.

Colin travels to the Farne Islands for a sea bird spectacular.

I'm sorry, we are just passing through.

Lucy finds out more about the project that brought back

the spectacular white-tailed sea eagle to the UK.

And we set sail with the Wild Alaska team on the trail of the orca.

You can keep up with the latest news

from the Wild Alaska team online all this week.

And of course, join us again tomorrow, 9.15pm, BBC One,

for more Wild UK.