Episode 2 Winterwatch

We're here in the Highlands of Scotland following the trials and

tribulations of our wildlife at this, the most challenging time of

the year. It's got pretty nippy, but that is not going to deter us

from our quest. It's been a fairly unpredictable winter with

temperatures now below freezing, but our camera teams have been out

in the big chill to bring you some spectacular wildlife stories of

survival. Dramatic events are unfurling all around the country,

but of course, we're filming wildlife right here, right now.

Yes, welcome to Winterwatch. It's programme two of our four

programmes this week coming to you from the Agos Field Centre in the

Highlands of Scotland. Sadly, we don't have any snow, but there is

lots of snow further south in the country, which is perfect for our

Winterwatch programme. If you were watching last night, you'd know

that we'd been down to the north Norfolk coast to see the

extraordinary spectacle of the grey seals, which despite the fact that

this is the middle of winter, are giving birth, and very sadly, some

of the young pups are not getting along quite as you would like them

to. We'll show you that wildlife doesn't get dull just because it's

winter. It can bring some truly Around here our pine martens have

changed their behaviour. This one walked in and turned into stealth

mode. We'll show you what happened Is anyone feeling a bit nippy?

very chilly. Are you sure you checked the temperature tonight?

What does it say? Minus 3.1. That is truly cold, isn't it? It's not

the coldest place in the country. Do you want some stats? I'll give

you some. It has been minus 5.5 in Leak in Staffordshire. It's very

cold in the east, gloo East Anglia, Rutherham in Ipswich it had nine

centimetres of snow, chilly. Very chilly. That snow has allowed you

to go out and film some wildlife for yourselves. This mountain hare

was filmed by Sandra. Thank you very much. Now you can see why -

how useful it is for the hare to go white in winter. It's properly

camouflaged - absolutely ridiculous when there is no snow. Exactly,

then they get nailed by golden eagles. So they need the snow.

There's an animal that needs the snow. You have also been taking

beautiful stills. Look at that short-haired owl, David Newby, in

the snow. Look at that, a stag in the snowstorm. It has snowed over

the last 24 hours, and it looks so pretty on the loch. Look at that.

There's the snow, and there is our cabin. But what does the snow and

the ice do for our family of beevers. The loch freezes over.

They can either go under it or as you can with the trail, they go

over it, and what do you find at the end of a beaver trail? You find

a rather damp-looking beaver. wet, miserable... I don't think

he's miserable. Don't you? No. He's feasting. Can you imagine being in

that water plunging through the ice? You have to remember they're

perfectly adapted for it. They've got insulation in that fur. It's

very, very thick, so they are made for these sort of conditions, but

it does mean the colder it gets, they spend less time outside.

They're less active. They spend a lot of time in their lodges, so

they need to keep those lodges clean, and these kits have been

very well house trained, only seven months old. Look at them. They're

doing a nice bit of tidying up. Maybe they have just woken up and

thought, let's make the bed a bit. This is actually really unusual

footage to get, and the wardens know they do this, but they've

And they really are tidying that lodge up nicely. When they bring

fresh bedding in they need to bring it beneath the surface of the water,

which means it gets soaking wet, then they stack it against the side

of the chamber while it dries out, then they lie down on it. They

don't poo inside. They go into the lake to poo. Nice and clean! Thanks,

Michaela. Nice thought. Let's have a look in the lodge behind it.

having a snack by the look of it. Is it snacking? Yes. It's just

having a little nibble, chewing on a little snack there, possibly

gathered from its calf. Can you hear him?

CHEWING It's great! What's interesting is

we have been keeping an eye on these live cameras as lots of you

have online as well. There's been a beaver asleep in there for quite a

long time, which is surprising because they're normally awake a

little bit earlier and busy, but as the temperature gets colder,

they're going to spend more time in those lodges, which are incredibly

well insulated. They did test in Canada. When the temperature was

about minus 20 outside, it was still averaging around 1 degree

inside. Obviously, the snow on top is going to insulate that nicely,

but if it was really cold and I had a nice, cosy lodge, I would be in

it too. Certainly. Let me just give you a question. It's from Richard

Thornby in Kent: "Can you tell me what nutrition is in the sticks the

beevers eat?" Is a great question. What's in a stick? What it's after,

Richard, are the sugars that are inside there. It can't get any fat

from that. At the moment, the animals have stored their body

weight and the adults are losing it. They need energy. They have stored

the bark. Behind the bark, the protective layer that is keeping

the tree or plant safe and protecting the internal plants safe

are two sets of tubes. Inside of these there are lots of sugars of

they're gnawing away at that eating it and also the sublayer full of

sugars. They're topping up with sweets across the course of the

winter to keep themselves going. Amazing. There is another animal

which you can get fantastic views of here, very sadly, not very much

around the rest of the UK now, and that's the fabulous red squirrel.

With their ears and fluffy tails, they really are delightful. We

thought we'd set our squirrels a bit of a challenge. We have

prompted for optimal foraging. When you haven't got much energy and

need to go out looking for food you need know exactly with a you're

looking for. What we did is we got three jars. In the one on the

right-hand side, we put raisins, sugar and spice. In the middle we

put hazel nuts with the shell taken off and in the left-hand jar hazel

nuts with the shell on. The squirrels soon arrived, but the

question, which we're going to pose to you is which one did they favour

and why? Contact us via the website and tell us which ones you thought

that squirrel might want and also the reason it's going to choose

We'll give the answer a bit later in the programme. Many of you have

been watching that trial as it has been going on today. Some of you

might even know the answer already. Remember, we have got our webcams

on 24/7 so if you want to keep watching them, you can do so or on

the red button overnight. As the snow comes down, the animals face

more and more challenges. Our garden birds - the first thing they

have to try and do is find food. We have been filming some of the birds

around here. You'll have seen this going on around the garden.

Everything is looking for food either on the bird tables or

wherever it can find it. Here is a little robin feasting around -

omnivores, as we discovered yesterday. Finding food is one

thing, but what you also want to do is try and keep warm. Let's look at

one of our smallest little birds, a long-tailed tit, gorgeous little

birds, sometimes see them in the garden on feeders, generally in

groups going around. This little bird weighs nine grammes. That's

about the weight of a one pound coin. It's nothing. It's a little

speck. So what are they going to do when it gets very, very cold? Now,

this is something that we've read about, but we've never seen. Now,

this is some quite astonishing footage sent to us by John Walters

in Devon. Here they are. Here's a little long-tailed tit. Here comes

another one. They'll probably snuggle up together. This is in the

evening. That's why it's in black and white. As it's getting darker.

Another pops in on top - oi. Out of the way. This may be a family group.

They tend to go around in family groups. Is that all? Somebody comes

in. When we told our friends that the British Trust for Ornithology

said we were going to show this they texted everyone and said,

"Watch this!" Because they have never seen it before. Is that it?

You think they have all settled down, and then there is a spoiler,

Just watch this, and it muscles into the middle because it knows

that that's the warmest spot. What's interesting is lots of birds

will huddle - penguins famously huddle but they circulate, so each

one spends the same amount on the inside, the warmest place, as the

outside. Not so the long-tailed tit. The adult males are the ones after

all the jockeying for positions end up in the middle every single time,

but what's it about, and is it worth it? It certainly is because

these birds are tiny. Over the course of a night, they'll lose

lots of body weight by heat. If they can stay warm, not generating

body heat themselves, they'll survive longer. During the course

of one night for instance one of these little birds can lose 10% of

their body weight, so huddling seriously can be difference between

life and death in the winter for these birds. I'd read about that -

I don't know about you with these long-tailed tits - I never thought

I would see it. That is a unique and fabulous piece of film. It

really has excited us. Amazing. have learned something important

from that film, so excuse me, chaps. Here we go. So I am going to come

in the middle and keep warm. That's much better. Many birds roost in

the winter to keep warm, but some do it in spectacular style by doing

it in enormous numbers. One such forbidding place in midwinter.

And yet since time immemorial, one bird has sought sanctuary here in

the coldest months. In the chilled morning light, only

a few rooks are visible. But before the short winter day is out,

they'll flock in vast numbers, dominating the landscape with their

raucous calls. Rooks are the same size as their more familiar cousin,

the crow, but they can be distinguished by the pale,

featherless path around their steady beak.

Their beaks are the key that helps them unlock the hidden food sources

in this apparently barren landscape. Piersing through the frozen earth,

they extract insects, earthworms and seeds of grain. Food may be

drawing the rooks here in winter, but it's their highly sociable

nature that allows them to survive. They can only find enough food to

eat by working together in small groups, sharing their discoveries

of food. These flocks may travel up to 40 miles a day to forage.

Remarkably, food isn't the only thing these birds have on their

minds in the depths of winter, when survival hangs in the balance.

Young male birds need to catch the eye of unattached females.

At a time when food is so essential, a male proves his worth by feeding

a prospective female from his crop. If he's a good provider, she's

likely to think he's worth keeping. Once paired, couples can stay

together for many years, building nests, raising chicks and roosting

together. Barely six hours after sunrise, the

light starts to fade and the rooks are gripped by the urge to find a

place to roost before the cold starts in.

They're joined by jackdaws as they make their way to their traditional

roosting site. Soon, thousands of rooks from across the parish are

streaming towards the trees that form the roost, calling noisily as

There's a lull just before sun set, as the birds assemble for a last-

minute feed and unite as one immense flock. Then on some

invisible cue, they rise and the Now numbering in tens of thousands,

they fly directly to a small stand of alder that rooks have been using

as a roost for centuries. They dance over the trees, before they

descend into the branches to find a perch, still calling to each other.

The rooks come together in these giant roosts for warmth and safety

in numbers, but their deafening chatder suggests they also need a

time to communicate, before they succumb to sleep. Only then does

peace return to rural Norfolk. It's a true spectacle seeing a

roost like that, absolutely stunning. I've seen it. It blew me

away. The sound as much as seeing all those birds, all those rooks

and jackdaws coming in, it was like a water fall of avian white noise,

incredible. That's what our sound man said, it was unbelievable to do

the sound. You could torture people with the sound. Rooks have inspired

street names. Rookly in the Isle of Wight, Rooks Nest in Somerset. I

could go on and on. Rook Avenue, round our way. After we finished

filming with our normal cameras, we went into the woods at night with

the thermal cameras to see where the rooks were. This was pitch

black. Those orange blobs that you can see are the rooks. What we

found was that quite often, when we were looking through them, they

were in pairs. This didn't surprise us too much. These birds pair up

through the winter period because they breed early in the spring.

They'll stay together in pairs through the winter because they

maintain those bonds, often for many years. We found that the

dominant rooks were actually at the tofpt trees. You would think that -

- top of the trees. You would think they would suffer thermal stress.

You would think that they would muscle into the heart of the roost

to stay warm, but they don't. In fact they'll only move when

conditions are really, really cold, very windy, then they'll go to the

side of the roost and protect themselves. If things get really

tough, you lose some of the invariably juvenile rooks. One of

the reasons we think they go to the top of the trees is quite

straightforward. Think about it yourself. 60,000 rooks in a colony

and you're at the bottom, all night long and they've been eating all

day. Know what I mean? Seriously, they don't want to get pooed on.

Aside from being an inconvenience to preen away, it takes the oil off

their feathers, so they're not water proof when they're in the

fields. They get cold and waste energy. We think that they're up

there to stay out of the way of tons and tons of poo.

tons and tons of poo. All sounds very messy. Feathers,

critically important. Can you hang onto that. Worthwhile having a

closer look at them. They're not all the same. But these are some

duck feathers. Let's look at this one. That one there is a flight

feather. You can see that it's quite stiff. It's quite strong.

Actually the bird can use it for a bit of colour. That's a flight

feather. That isn't going to keep it particularly warm, unlike this

feather. That's a bit more like it. This one has all the down close to

the body of the bird, to keep it warm, and a more streamlined bit at

the end of the feather. That wraps around the bird's body and gives it

a streamlined shape. Deeper down again you have feathers like that.

That is just really pure, warm down. Lovely. Some birds, pigeons and

owls in particular, they have down powder feathers. They lose bits of

the feather all the time that creates a powder. They think it

acts as a sort of insecond side. Feathers, complicated and

fascinating. Best place to see that is with collared doves. The way to

see it is when they unfortunately fly into your patio window. Often

they leave these impressions on the window. That's been left because as

they have unfortunately struck the window, all the powder down has

come off their wings. That's why that's left there. We've been

looking at how ab malls -- animals have adapted to cope in cold

conditions. It makes you realise how badly we've evolved. We

wouldn't surprise without all this on. We didn't survive. Whole

populations of humans were wiped out bit cold. For a long time it

controlled just how far north and south we could get on the planet.

It's an interesting subject, keeping warm and roosting. If you

have any questions at all, send them in to us. We will try to

answer them in the programme. If we can't, they might be able to answer

them on Winterwatch extra, online straight after we finish. A few

weeks ago, cameraman Gordon Buchanan went on a wild and windy

quest to investigate reports of a true marine spectacle, a fabulous

For wild animals we tend to think of winter as a time of adversity, a

season of scarcity. In these waters there is food, not just a little

bit. There's enough food out there to feed giants. Just off the coast

of southern Ireland, a gathering of fish heralds a great wildlife

spectacle. Sholz of herring and sprat

congregate in huge numbers to breed. This bounty of food draws in

predators. Seabirds, dolphins, even whales migrate here for a winter

feast that is too good to miss. When I saw these photos of hump --

humpback whales taken by the public, These short winter days mean it's a

race against time before night falls. I'm joined by a -- Padraig

from the wildlife group. We've spotted birds over there. That's a

good place to zone in on. These birds are feeding on fish near the

surface. Birds like these gulls spend most of the year out at sea,

searching for food hot spots like this. Oh, amazing! Look at this.

We've got some common dolphins just under the water there. They're

going right under the front of the boat. Like the seabirds, these

dolphins are here for the bounty of the winter breeding shows of fish.

-- shoals of fish. What an absolute treat. Oh, just

incredible. Now these are just dolphins having fun. There is

absolutely no reason whatsoever for dolphins to swim in front of a boat.

They're having, I was going to say a whale of a time, they're having a

There's an amazing array of wildlife out here, but the ultimate

would be one of those humpback whales, also here for the winter

feast. How will I find one? What should I look out for? What we're

looking for initially are clouds of seabirds, gannets, some of the gull

species, also lots of areas where you might have surface disturbance

by dolphins. The seabirds and dolphins have better optics that we

do and they've been doing this for a lot longer. Then you have the

vapour plume that hang in the air for ten, 15 seconds and then

dissipate. I normally associate hump backs

with places like Alaska, Antarctica and Hawaii. It's amazing to think

the winter waters off Ireland have enough food to sustain an animal

this big, the size of a double- decker bus. Each whale will eat

More than two hours of searching, still no humpback whales. It's very

frustrating because they are out here somewhere. We're just having a

very hard time trying to find them. And the proof that they are here?

Right where I'm searching, look Jumping clear out of the water like

this, called breaching, is thought In many ways it's a perfect end to

the day. We've got dolphins following us. We've got hundreds of

seabirds. Absolutely stunning scenery, but I'm after hump backs

and we haven't seen a single one. As the light fades I have to return

to dry land. The following day, a true winter storm prevents me from

getting back out to sea. So I decide to track down Simon Duggin,

the man who took this extraordinary photo, which got me out here in the

first place. It was just here? was right off the beacon here. A

very lucky photograph. How far from your house was this shot taken?

Probably about a mile. Literally on your doorstep. From here, it was

about 500 metres. Wow. It's an iconic photograph. That's one of

these photographs that in years to come, people will still look at it

and make them smile. Yeah, hopefully. It's great to put a

smile on people's face. It's testament to the rich ocean waters

here that such a spectacle occurs in our seas in the depths of winter.

So, if you're at coast -- at the coast, keep your eyes peeled, you

may be in for a real treat. That photo of the whale in front of

the boat is not only a fabulous photo, but it's a comedy photo.

They all have their backs to the whale. They're facing the wrong way.

Look behind you. It is so exciting going dolphin and whale watching.

I've done it numerous times. Every time I do it, I behave like I've

never seen a dolphin or whale before and jump around screaming. I

really recommend it as something to do. If you want ideas of places

where you can do that, see that on our website. If you want to see

those particular humpbacks off the coast of Ireland, you need to be

fairly quick. I'll tell you why. I happen to speak to Colin Barns, the

guy driving the boat that Gordon was on. He's identified 20 separate

humpbacks there - you do that by the markings on their tail - and at

the end of February they disappear. Why? Lack of food? No, they

disappear to give birth. Those waters there are just too cold for

a baby whale to be born into. Nobody quite knows where they go,

but they disappear off to the south, give birth and come back to Ireland

in the spring. If you want to see them do that before February.

frankly, who needs Hawaii when you can go to the south coast of

Ireland. About 600 metres away, just over the top of the hill that

you can see behind us there, we have a pine marten feeding station.

Let's go live now. I think we have a couple of pine martens there.

Look at. That -- look at that. One of Britain's rarest mammals in its

thick winter coat. Showing how agile it is too. Straight up the

vertical branch to get to the bait that we put there for it. Very

little effort needed by the looks of it. They spend a lot of time up

trees exploring and perhaps finding some of their food there. This

one's clearly on the look out. I don't know where the other one went.

There were two apparently just before we came back from our whales.

It looks in very good condition, doesn't it? They do. Thick fur.

We've got to remember, it's pitch black. There that animal is moving

around in complete darkness. It's amazing, it knows where all the

Where else in one evening do you get the sound of a beaver gnawing

and the sound of a marten munching? That's surely quality TV. Now that

pine marten feeding station - obviously we're baiting it to bring

these animals in, and for all the food we're putting out, it's not

just the martens arriving watch. We've seen arriving here are plenty

of smaller mammals too, notably wood mice, and every night when our

cameramen are looking, our story developers are looking or perhaps

you're looking on the web, you'll see these animals running around,

but of course, they've come to get a meal, but they could also be a

meal, because those pine martens are out to feed on small mammals -

about 31% field vole, 2.6% wood mouse. Look at this. Here's the

pine marten. It's coming along the top of the wall, and all of a

sudden, its behaviour changes. It goes into stealth mode and then

dives down really quickly - a bit of repositioning, and look what we

see. I'm afraid that wood mouse has had its last peanut. We looked at

it very closely. Initially we thought it was a vole. In fact, if

you do look closely, you can see its tail is too long, and it's

undoubtedly a wood mouse. What's unusual here is you would expect

the pine marten to gulp that down - fresh meat, freshly caught, instead

of which it just carries it and puts it on the wall, and then it

seemed to abandon it! I was reading today about the diet of these

animals, and they certainly prefer field voles all over their range,

and particularly here in Scotland. Only a tiny percentage prefer wood

mice, so perhaps they don't like the taste of those. One thing I

found out they do like the taste of is deer carrion. About 30% of their

diet is deer carrion, so there is every chance that pine marten could,

if we're very lucky, end up on our carcass cam. Let's go back now

because I think we can see two pine martens at the same time - one at

the top of the vertical thing. You have noticed we have put some food

there in a container. We're determined to test the agility of

these animals to see if we can tempt them off the upright trunks

out onto the rope to see if they can get the food that's hanging

there - so far, no takers. Let's see what's happening here. No. That

would be too good! It's found some rope? My goodness! Go on! Ah! It

bottled it. But it thought about it. It did think about it for a moment.

It climbs down head first, twisting its ankles. But you know what?

There is a lot of food around, and if I was a pine marten and I could

get food on the bottom, then I They would eat that first, then

they're pushed and have to go for that. I suggest we cut down on the

peanuts on the ground and put something really tasty, deer

carrion, perhaps, hanging on the rope. A couple of comments: "I saw

a pine marten Saturday morning in broad daylight at Sterling

University campus." What was it studying? Cookery I think! And

someone from Devon wanted to know if they'll ever get pine martens

down south in Devon? They used to occur all over the UK. They were

ruthlessly persecuted sadly. They're spreading from the north.

We think they have been found as far south as Newcastle, some even

in Yorkshire. It's going to be a long time, unless we're allowed to

reintroduce them, but some people aren't very keen on that idea,

unfortunately. We have been talking a lot on the programme about how

animals struggle when the temperatures drop, but some animals

thrive in more arctic conditions. Martin headed off in his thermals

to the Cairngorms to do a little bit of off-piste twitching.

The Cairngorms, where temperatures could reach minus 27 Celsius, is

not the easiest place to make a altitudes, there is one hardy

little character which seems to thrive in these hostile

environments. little compact bird, and a male has

a bit more white, particularly on his wings, than the female. Now,

sometimes, you'll see little flocks of snow buntings feeding around

patches of snow, and they think what's going on is that insects,

invertebrates, have been blown up the mountain in the wind, and I can

easily understand that, and when they get to a patch of snow,

obviously they can't live there, so they'll become comatose or they'll

die. The buntings just work their way around the patches of snow, but

you have to exploit any food source if you're going to try to live up

here, so these buntings are working around the ski resort as well and

eating little bits of bread, anything they can find - proper

survivors. They're actually a very rare breeding British bird. Maybe

50 pairs breed here, but here's the interesting thing - there may be

about 11,000 of them in the UK right now. They're immigrants from

Scandinavia. Now, you might think you would see them up here sort of

in a snowy mountain, snow bunting, but you don't. You see them on the

cost. If you live on the east coast of the UK, go down the seaside and

look for them on the snoreline because you might have a surprise.

You might see a snow bunting, although you can see them on the

coast. For me, this is where I want to see them. Snow bunting up a

mountain! Oh, sometimes they're called a snowflake because they

just drift down and land like a I think they are rather lovely. Was

he lucky to see them, or was that pretty much guaranteed at this time

of year? It's a pretty good place to see them at this time of year at

that car park near the railway. I was driving in my car along the

north Norfolk coast and a flurry of them went over. You do see them on

the east coast as well. Having said that, I would like to see them in

the snow. They look better in the snow than in the sand because they

hang around on the beaches when they're there. I have never seen

them, fabulous little birds. They're beautiful. When they go

white and start singing, they score a 4.8. That's quite low! There is

another species we have that only breeds in Scotland. That's the

extraordinary crested tit at this time of year they'll come into

gardens and visit bird feeders. We filmed these down near Avimore a

couple of days ago. You can see it's pecking at the nuts there, a

cham charming little bird. Another little habit they have - perhaps

not so charming you might think, is they'll scavenge from CARE

carcasses. They'll take anything from deer they can find, looking

for the fat and the meat. This is a particular habit of theirs. It has

been noted for many, many years. These are extraordinarily sedentary.

The adults will stay on their territory throughout the winter, no

matter how harsh it gets. They'll all nest in Scotland. They're not

terribly common. We think they're restricted to the native Scots Pine

Forest. One of the reasons we think is they need standing timber to

make their nests. You can find them as far south as Spain and in all

sorts of habitats. For us, it's restricted to one habitat. Another

little bird... A scruffy little crest. I think it was gorgeous

myself. We have cameras all around, not just on the beavers and pine

martens, but on a bird feeder. We have had something unusual come to

our feeder,sies kins. How unusual are they? They would have been very

unusual before 1963 because it was only then that they first started

coming to bird feeders. People started hanging up peanuts in soft

bags. You could buy them in a hardware store when I was a kid -

you don't see them much anymore. People think they were attracted to

the feeders. This happened in gidford, Surrey. After then, they

started to flood to feeders. Since the '60 to the late '90s they

increased their population by two- thirds. They spread out all over

the country. As we put more pine plantations in, they have done well.

It's certainly a bird you should look out for on your feeder, so

smaller than the greenfinch, males, beautiful, yellow, black cap, about

1.7. That is so low. You're mean. You're a mean judge. You know as

the winter sets in and the temperatures get colder, you will

get unusual things in your garden. We have had a couple of people tell

us what they have. Charlotte, a male and female pair of yellow

hawks are regularly preying in her garden. Another viewer has a crow

on her feeding station. 3.8. It's really important this time of year

to feed the birds in your garden because they really need extra help.

At the top of the show we showed you a squirrel experiment. We asked

you to identify which food our squirrels would take. If you

remember, we had three jars on the right-hand side, raisins, hazel

nuts without their shells and hazel nuts in their shells. We want to

know which one you think the squirrel will favour. Of course,

we'll give you the answer at the end of the show. Raisins for me

perfectly. Have they a sweet tooth? Does the squirrel want sugars or

does it want something it might save until later? I actually meant

me. Sorry. Me! If I was doing that test... It's the middle of winter.

It's the harshest, tougher time. Who on earth would want to give

birth at this time of year and then have a massive punch-up? Well, it's

our grey seals down on the north foreknock coast, and today the

result -- Norfolk coast, and today these punch-ups have a rather sad

This is Blakeney Point. It's winter. Temperatures are barely above zero.

The final grey seal pups of the final colony to breed in the UK are

pup whose mother seems very caring and attentive. And also we met

Sebastian, the bull whose home they live in. He's keeping a close eye

on the males around him, Mr Red and the One-Eyed General, wary they

might steal his females, though as yet, all is quiet.

But that's not the story out on the beach. Here, males are constantly

competing with each other. If one challenges another's patch, he

sends a threat, a thumping shudder that ripples through the ground.

This is quite likely a good gauge of size - the bigger the shudder,

the bigger the animal. Each contender must assess the other.

Some can weigh a quarter of a tonne. If one rolls over, it's a sign of

submission. The fight's off, but if beach, and amongst this chaos, it's

easy for pups to get separated from their mothers, which is what's

happened to this individual. The forlorn cries and gaunt looks make

it clear that it's lost. It's skinny and obviously hasn't fed for

days. In a desperate search for sustenance, it mistakenly

approaches an older pup, sniffing for a scent of milk. Nothing. 7% of

all pups born at Blakeney Point die, and this one is in danger of

becoming another statistic. Dragging itself onwards, it weaves

between mothers not best pleased by Perhaps one last attempt to find

its mother. An attempt that will safe and caring environment

millennium's in. The scenes look idyllic. But pressure is building

here. Unbeknown to the sleeping Sebastian there's a new male on the

scene, a large, dark-coloured bull has arrived. Looking for the last

chance to breed, he's come to cause trouble for everyone. He's called

Mr Sneaky and next time, we'll find out why.

Oh, it's so sad to see that abandoned seal pup. Absolutely

tragic. Obviously, the temptation would be to rush in and rescue it,

but the National Trust are there to monitor the pups, they're not there

to interfere and certainly our camera crew wasn't allowed to

either. In fact, if you see an abandoned seal pup on the beach,

then please don't go and rescue it or do anything with it straight

away. The best thing to do is monitor it for 24 hours, because

these pups are often left on their own. If their mum doesn't come back,

phone the RSPCA and make a report. Again, don't try and rescue it

yourself. That really is not a good idea. In our seal diary tomorrow

we'll find out why Mr Sneaky is so- called. There's a bit of male

aggression going on. You know what makes those pups so attractive,

there are two things: Firstly, their very large eyes, which makes

them look very nice. Secondly, their lenugo. I was thinking that

myself. What does that mean?! Lanugo, that's the white coat that

they're covered in. That makes them look so beautiful when they're

first born. They don't keep it for very long. Soon they lose that and

move into a spotty winter coat. The interesting thing is that many

young animals have lanugo. We had it when we were in the womb. It's

one of the signs being born prematurely that you still have

this hair on you. Whilst we're in the womb we shed that hair as many

animal species do and reabsorb it. But in the case of these seals

because in some parts of their range they give birth on ice, it

would be great camouflage, they keep it. We are born with big eyes,

so we're attractive. We may not have the lanugo but we have big

eyes. When it comes to looking after your fur, look at our beavers.

They've been spending a lot of time doing this, plart the kits. Lots of

grooming going on -- particularly the kits. Lots of grooming going on.

They have a habit of very slowly teasing their fur through their toe.

The second toe on the hind foot is divided into two. What it does is

it use that's as a comb to comb the fur. The other thing they do is

spend a lot of time grooming each other. This slightly puzzles me,

because normally you see mutual grooming between pairs reinforcing

the pair bond or they're forming that pair bond during courtship.

But these are young animals. Obviously they're not going to mate.

They would disperse. Why are they spending so much time grooming? One

thought I had was that if you have two of them in the lodge, nice and

warm and dry, and then the other one comes in, soaking wet, that's

going to ruin the party. The last thing you want on the sofa is a wet

dog on your lap. Perhaps they - and we notice this, when another one

comes in the other two will clean tup. It's possibly because it's

more comfortable for them. That's a good theory, Chris, but I've seen

them do that grooming throughout the day when they've just woken up.

And they're dry and warm already? Yes, a good theory. Back to the

drawing board. Beavers are used to living in a flooded landscape. It's

exactly what they want. But not all our animals like. That so to find

out how they've been dealing with the disastrous floods that we've

had throughout the course of the year and particularly this winter,

March. Then it rained. Then rained a bit more. Then it rained a lot.

So much so, that now we're nearly January and it looks like this.

2012 was the second wettest year on record in the UK. This rainfall has

had a devastating effect on the lives of many people. The average

annual rainfall over the last 100 years is 110 centimetres. In 2012,

however, it was a whopping 130 centimetres. That's almost a fifth

more than normal. What effect has this had on our wildlife? I'm at

the RSPB west sedge more reserve to look at this winter's floods with

Steve Ross the site warden. The levels flooded in December. Seen

from up here, they're an amazing sight. Around four square miles of

countryside are now under water. Is this higher than normal? Yes, it's

a lot higher than we normally have. We do get winter floods, but not

like this. You just have a quick scan now and you're seeing pin tail,

tufted duck. It looks pretty good for the birds. It's great for them.

There's more areas to feed and daytime roost. These winter floods

are a great opportunity for wetland birds but they can be a death

sentence for small mammals like moles, voles and mice, when their

burrows are flooded and they don't Escape In Time.

This is where you feel you're in the mid. Birds.

Despite -- in the middle of the birds.

Despite this many of our birds are well adapted for winter rainfall

and are mobile enough to move out of severe flooding. But that's not

the case in the spring. Animals are raising their young and tied to

their nests. This makes them much more vulnerable. In the spring of

2012, we suffered torrential rain possible time and had a devastating

effect washing away the nests of ground-nesting birds like lapwing,

redshank and curlew. In a nest of ospreys we were monitoring in Wales,

two of the three chicks died in the rain. For a lot of the wildlife,

it's been a dreadful 12 months. Do you think you'll see a long-term

effect on some of the breeding birds here? Well, it's difficult to

say, for now. This water, come breeding season, should be gone.

Having said that, if we get more rain, the rain continues in the

spring, and we get other flood conditions like this, then yeah,

this could be disastrous for beautiful day and look, even the

floods look stunning. Let's hope that 2013 is a better, brighter

going to be difficult for us to assess the impact of this really

wet summer for years probably. is. I mean, birds did have a really

tough time. A lot of larger animals, fox cubs, badger cubs, deer for

instance, they all got terribly badly affected by the floods. You

can see in that picture. What about the smaller animals, a bit further

down? Some people reported when they were walking across foot paths,

which were under water, looking into the hedge rows and seeing them

festooned with mice and voles. Those things that could climb, like

this harvest mouse. Some creatures couldn't, they can swim well.

Things like hedgehogs. But after the flood receded there wasn't food

for them. But with a bit of luck, they can bounce back really fast.

They can. If they've got the food. But the bottom line, for me, what

I'm worried about is earth worms. What happened to the worms under

the water? They die. Not only the worms, all of the things like crane

fly larvae, all those things at the bottom of the foot chain which

support everything else. The effects of the flood can go on for

some time. Even though the water's gone. When birds come back to nest,

like waders, there isn't the abundance of food for them or their

young to eat in the following summer. So it could be some time

before we can fully understand the effect of all of this water spread

effect of all of this water spread across our landscape. It's not rain

that's causing problems all over the country at the moment, it's

snow. But what's going to happen once that snow melts? It means that

the water table will go up. That could mean more flooding. What it

will mean is lots more challenges for our wildlife, because there's a

lot more time for the winter to develop. Talking of challenges, we

set a challenge for our red squirrels here at the beginning of

the programme. We wanted to find out which type of food they would

go for and why. That's a question we asked you. We got some answers.

Samuel from Facebook says "The squirrel would take the Hazel nuts

without the shell for instant energy." Dianne says, "I guess the

red squirrel will choose the Hazel nuts with the shell. Paula says

they will like the Hazel nuts in the shells. Were they right? Let's

find out. find out.

The jars contain different foods. Whole Hazelnuts, shelled nuts and

raisins. It didn't take long for our squirrel to show an interest.

He went stkraigt for the whole nuts. other food. And no other animals

got a look-in. As you can only carry one at a time,

he was pretty busy and managed to empty the whole jar. In fact, we

worked out that he took all 87 nuts worked out that he took all 87 nuts

in just 77 minutes. What about that! That's a greedy

squirrel, 87 nuts. Clearly he didn't eat them all. No, that's the

whole point. What was surprising, because we thought he might go for

the raisins for instant energy. It didn't. It went for the nuts it

could cache. Those are the ones with the protective shell. It

spread them all over the wood. We think it may have covered as many

as two kilometres, going backwards and forwards. Why didn't it take

the other food? I think it saw the super abundance and thought I'll

store these for later and then I can come back and getd the other

food later. -- get Bad luck, because I have another experiment.

We're going to replace the food stuffs in the jars and see if it

can solve another problem when it comes to foraging. I think the

squirrel made the right decision. think he did. But he used a lot of

energy. He did. Now he's got 87 Hazel nuts hidden where only he

knows where they are in the wood ready to eat. Brilliant. Shall we

look around the live cameras. Let's look around the live cameras. Let's

go to the beaver lodge. Can we hear it gnawing? This is interesting

because this is probably a cache that it's brought in to the lodge

tonight. I think there's only one of the kits in there. The others

must have gone out. They're around the frozen loch at the moment.

love to know whether things are more tasty than another. They like

alder. They don't like pine. They go for the broad-leaf trees.

can keep your eye on those live cameras on the website and on the

red button throughout the night. I think we've come to the end of the

show. We're back tomorrow at 8pm. Lots more wonderful winter wildlife

Lots more wonderful winter wildlife for you. I'm going one step beyond.

When it comes to a cunning idea to test our red squirrels to see if

they're in the woodland optimally forthing or not. I'm hands-on with

delightful reindeer and find out how they survive. Of course, we'll

keep an eye on our pine martens, the beavers. We'll check out how

the squirrels are doing with the new test you've set them and we'll

keep an eye on the bird feeder as well. Don't forget, we'll be back