Episode 4 Winterwatch

It's our last show but the focus disappeared just in time to reveal

another twist in our foxy story. We will find out how one of our

favourite garden visitors is doing and is hairy little chap is in

search of love in the cellar. Believe it or not, this is

conservation in action. What's that all about? Welcome to Winterwatch!

As I said, it is our last programme this week, broadcasting live from

the RSPB reserve here in Dorset. We have a fabulous week although for

much of it we have been immersed in a thick coat of fog. Thankfully it

disappeared this morning and we could finally see the landscape of

the reserve in front of us. Lots of history here, this attracts a huge

and above wading birds and waterfowl throughout the winter. A lovely

couple of lapwings. They are looking for worms in the fields. Castro came

out first thing this morning, a young male there, looks like it's

trying its wings. -- kestrel. And the deer, we have seen them on the

salt marsh, they go down to the shore line, grazing. And with they

finally finished, it wrapped up with some colour which you like. It has

been jolly nice kissing colour because we spent three days in fog

and that seriously affected the behaviour of some of our wildlife.

For instant barn owls, this one we saw hunting in broad daylight right

next to National Trust land. Is that unusual? We know it's a nocturnal

animal but it does switch to hunting in the day in the winter with its

prey is more active. How does fog affected? They are solid flyers,

they have soft feathers which means that they are not very waterproof

will stop -- silent flyers. They tend to avoid hunting in wet weather

which includes damp fog. As a tough time of year for barn owls, they

have to catch three - four volts a day, if they have a couple of days

without being able to hunt, it affects them. And that fog was very

damp, I'm sure it would have condensed on them and they would

have been soaked. The fog may have gone but it's really cold tonight.

Let's have a look at our live cameras. This is a camera we had in

the same place yesterday, it our thermal camera. Once again, we have

got book section. Yesterday we the box fox Andy Woodcock which was

interesting to watch. -- and Woodcock. The bird takes off, it's a

single lapwing, it should be roosting on the harbour, the Fox has

missed it and also has missed that rabbit behind it. When it comes to

hunting, these foxes are not too sharp! Got to render, it is dark at

there! We've had lots of live cameras, and this is another one,

looking at a pond down in the woodlands. We have allowed on it,

posits, badgers, doesn't seem to be much there at the moment. We saw

this, badgers again, to them and they are not very happy. In fact

they're having a bit of a scrap. The first animal we saw, we thought was

a male, so it's likely they are both males. This is the time of year when

they are coming into their breeding season, soon as the Cubs are born in

February the females go, these could be males biting about access to a

female. There is a lot of trust pass, all was going into each

other's territories, or they could be from the same territory and

bickering over who is top badger. I think the one on the right could be

judged to be the victor and the other one makes an inconvenience

except. -- ignominious exit. I have seen badger fights, they can be

nasty than that, they can inflict serious injuries, they bite each

other in the neck and the rump and they have a powerful bite. I can

tell that the quotient is 109, more than a leopard, which is 93. For

their body size, they have a serious bite so they can input a lot of

injuries on one another and even kill one another. It certainly

sounded like a serious bite, incredible sounds coming from those

badgers. Last night we played the sounds of boxes fighting, they have

fabulous names, like mewling and watering but there is no official

name for the noise we heard the badgers make.

That's the noise. We want you to come up with some imaginative names

for that noise. Please send your ideas in using the hashtag Baghram

macro. It sounds like a mallet in the washing machine! -- Mullard. One

always chucking money in on a Tuesday. Martin has been out on a

challenge. He has caught a Woodcock in pitch black, it was pretty

fantastic. Tonight he is out looking at another method of practical

conservation which they implement here. The conservation work here

goes on all year round, it has to be to maintain the diversity of

habitats. If as part of that work you are faced with something like

this, and hold course Bush it would be easy enough to chop it down, chop

the branches down but then you get the down here. Don't know about you

but I had to chop down a holly tree at home, took me about five minutes

to chop the tree down and then two days of doing this to get the roots

out! We're going to show you a brand-new idea for dealing with this

sort of tough work, it was used here for the very first time today.

Conservation work is a long-term thing coming to keep at it, couple

of weeks ago Chris went to Somerset to look at a conservation project

that has been opened seven years and is really bearing fruit. In winter

the Somerset levels and morals are on the internationally important

numbers of birds, over 10% of the country... Heel and shoveler is the

roost here at this time of year. Along with another very special

species. I want to RS PE West Sedgemoor for a spot of big birding

with Damon. Look at that. What a spot. There is a massive waterfowl

out there. Whereas the cranes? Where do they go during the day to find

their food if not here? They tend to travel off to land where they can

find worms, pulling up leather jackets, they will go to damp

fastest but also go on to, they will be seen far from the wetland. In

terms of the crane roost, they are looking for somewhere they are safe

from ground Princes, they are worried about foxes. They are not a

perching bird, so they can only relax with their feet in water. If

all the cranes in this region came in to roost, how many might we see?

We can see maybe up to 50 in different areas. I can see the small

green trailer, which doesn't look terribly well integrated. All well

provisioned. I can't see a lead to a flatscreen TV or even a toilet! But

you have a plan? The plan is to head out there this afternoon and weight

feed to get dark and cranes will come in to roost. -- wait for it to

get dark. This makeshift hide was installed beside the crane's

favourite roosting spot to give us the best chance of seeing them up

close. This is the most generously ventilated hide I have ever been in

and consequently the draft it and potentially the contest. The sky has

clear, it's absolutely beautiful. But what it needs is an icon, 50 of

them, in the form of cranes. You can hear the delicate bustle of

all the other wildfowl out there. That is cranes, that people in call,

I can hear them now. -- bugle in call. It's frustrating, we can hear

them but not see them. You look out here and it's like

standing in a Turner painting, it's so beautiful. Although the light was

fading and it was difficult to see, we couldn't leave yet for fear of

blowing our cover. An hour later we slipped out of the hide and addicted

and snuck back in in the very early morning. -- undetected. We all slept

overnight in the RSPB officers on the floor and arrived here just

before six o'clock, 5.57 to be precise. We waited for the site of

50 cranes roosting outside. We waited and waited, we waited and

waited. What happened? Not a lot! Where are they? They're not here.

They haven't roosted yet, they have a choice of sites, they have been

using this one on and off but have decided to spend the night somewhere

else. It is hot maintain the Enigma of the crane! -- helps maintain. It

was far from a wasted journey. Our disappointment was completely

overshadowed by several thousand birds taking flight before our

bleary eyes. It's a whole bunch of lapwing out here, absolutely

amazing, lots of starlings, will flock down, change speed, change

shape, it's really spectacular. Who needs a crane? Who needs a

crane? Long live the things! We have the greatest lapwing despite I have

seen in years. Which, shoveler, teal, one of two swans... West

Sedgemoor has just surged into my birding charts on a global level.

Absolutely stunning. Who needs a crane? That lapwing

narration was absolutely sensational, are you to visit that

reserve, it was fantastic. Let's go live to our pond camera, we have a

badger down there. We saw this the other night, I'd better come down

and trunk from it's important for them. This one is eating. It is

found something to eat. Either that or it has popped down for around two

and its opponent hasn't turned up yet! We will keep an eye on that. As

I said, it's been a body so we haven't really enjoyed the beauty of

Arne for what it's well known for, which is its birdlife. -- it has

been faulty. Arne is surrounded by Poole Harbour. 307 species of birds

here it's this time of year that the wages and wildfowl turn up to

overwinter. Why is it so important? Is one of the largest natural

harbours in the world. It is a complex estuarine system which

creates bays and creeks and provides excellent breeding grounds. A whole

variety of birds come here, you have got the oystercatchers, the avocets,

Khalid, -- curlew. Avocets are very important for these guys,

spoonbills. I like a spoonbill, like the extension beak and there rifle

hair. We made a robotic spindle which we put in the harbour, hoping

to attract the resident flock and we weren't successful but we came back

in Winterwatch with renewed vigour and I was certain it was going to

deliver but unfortunately it didn't in this happened last night.

Nice try, but no cigar. No cigar. But then you see in life there are

those sorts of people who give up, and those sorts of people that just

keep going. The hard-core crew were out late

into the night, rereading Robo Spoony, having rescued it from the

dustbin. But would it pay off? Let's take a look. There he is, down on

the shore, in fact, quite close to the shore. At about midnight, the

tide came in more than we thought it was going to and we thought we might

have to rush to rescue it, because it's isn't waterproof. But then this

morning, when we woke up, what did we see? Adjacent to Robo Spoony...

LAUGHTER Just feel the satisfaction! What

about that? The spoonbills! The spoonbills had come in. Absolutely

fantastic! Just a few feet from Robo Spoony, so he delivered. What can I

say? Extremely smug! He hasn't stopped all day. I do like spoonbill

so. One of the things which is unusual, given that it has such a

characteristic beak, we're not entirely show how the beak works.

It's typically thought they sift through the water with it, as

avocets do, but that seems a bit too random. A couple of new theories

have come out, one is they are using a system of remote touch, they feel

vibrations in the water. When you look at the microscopic structure of

spoonbill's bill, you find it has up to 20,000 pigs in a honeycomb, each

one of which has a little nerve ending, so it can feel things in the

water. We have seen them chasing prey through murky water, so

obviously they can't see it, they are using another sense. Another

thought is they are using electro reception, just like duckbilled

platypus. In fact, they can detect one nano vault, that's one one

thousands of 1,000,000th of a vault of a charge being emitted by

potential prey on the water, so maybe spoonbills are using that as

well. Remarkable words. And then, you know, the spoonbill's job still

wasn't done, was it? It delivered even more. Have a look, because this

is quite funny. There's our spoonbill at night, not moving

terribly. Look what turns up. One of the foxes. Look at the look, Chris!

He gives Robo Spoony that puzzled look and trots off, can't quite work

out what that is. Realises there's no point in trying to catch it! It's

a fox deterrent as well, what about that, protecting the other

spoonbills! Now, we all know that a very harsh winter can affect the

survival rate of a lot of our wildlife. So last winter was very

mild. So how did that affects one of our favourite garden visitors, the

hedgehog? Gillian Burke went to rescue centre in Gloucester, to find

out. It's hard not to love a hedgehog.

Are unmistakable balls of spiny cuteness. So if we love them, and

they love our gardens, then surely this is a good news story? Last

year's warm Winter gave our hedgehogs along the breeding season

than normal, but that meant some females gave birth to autumn babies.

The late arrivals are too young to hibernate, so where highly

vulnerable to rose dying of the cold weather and more susceptible to

disease. Hello. How are you doing? And that has meant hedgehog rescue

centres, like this one, run by Vicki Oliver, are overstretched. So I've

come to help for the day. How many do you have in here at the moment?

In this room, we have 33. Have they all just come in in the last few

weeks? October onwards, the ones in here, yes. Is this what you would

expect at this time of year, this money coming in? It's busier this

year compared to certainly last year. I'm closed to admissions

because we are full. It's just a lot of the small ones are coming in now,

where they've been born late on, the cold weather is coming in, mum has

gone off to hibernate, so they are left to their own defences a lot

earlier. We have our work cut out forest. Yes. Make use of me! You

will need some gloves! Ready. 80% of the hedgehogs Vicki sees at this

time of year have parasite infestation is and they need

treatment, for things like long worm and ticks. This little guy has a

ring worm, which isn't actually a worm. It's a fungal infection which

can cause him to lose a lot of the Sir off his face. If it gets really

bad, he will lose his spines. He's not going to like this but really

the best thing for him is a bath. Parasite infestations are more of a

health risk to younger, weaker Hogwarts, but hopefully after four

of these treatments this one will be clear of infection -- hoglets. He's

nicely tucked up and hopefully will settle down after the bass. It's

best to keep him in the rescue centre for the whole winter and

hopefully he will be released in spring. Cleanliness is key to

preventing the spread of infection. My goodness, look at that. So every

day, every enclosure needs to be stripped. It's pretty fruity and

here! Cleaned. And re-laid, with fresh bedding. Just grab a pilot put

it in. -- just grab some and put it in. And last but not least, the

all-important food and water. In the wild hedgehogs have a hugely varied

diet, beetles, worms, slugs, pretty much anything they can catch hold

of, but here they have cat food. If you are going to feed any hedgehogs,

leave any food out for them, please, never bred or milk. Bread buns them

up, and they are lactose intolerant. Two down, 31 to go. These two still

have a long way to go before they are released.

But anything above 500 grams and they are good to go. 777 grams. What

a big hedgehog! This one is now clear of parasites and all that's

left to do now is released him into the wild. Let's pop you back in

here. Yeah, I mean, honestly, you've changed your home over. Our urban

gardens can be the perfect habitat for hedgehogs, so this lucky boy

will be released right here at the rescue centre. The last few hours of

daylight now, and what we're doing is taking this big guy and putting

him in that halfway house so he has a few hours to get used to the

temperature and light levels and hopefully, by nightfall, he will be

tempted out. And in no time at all, the scent of

freedom draws him out. One healthy, happy hedgehog back in

the wild. Presumably now he's found somewhere cosy and sheltered to

hibernate, although they hibernate, they don't actually stay inactive?

They don't sleep through the whole winter? No, they don't. It's easy to

think of hibernation is a long, cosy sleep but it's not. It's pure

survival. Temperatures are getting cold, food supplies are dwindling.

They need to find a way to get through the winter, dropped their

body temperature and save energy, and run their metabolism right down

to the point where it is just ticking over. But there are a few

instances where they do need to bring themselves out of hibernation,

even in the middle of winter. Most hedgehogs, this is quite surprising,

wake themselves up about once a week for a few hours just to get a few

bodily functions sorted. Another reason would be they move their nest

sites, at least once a year, sometimes a bit more if they get

disturbed. The final reason is cold. When it gets freezing, there's a

real risk of frostbite, of freezing solid, so when the temperature

starts to approach one Celsius, they need to warm themselves up, to stop

themselves from freezing. The way they do this if they need their fat

reserves. The fat reserves aren't just there to get them through the

winter, it actually needs they mean web macro -- they need them to

restart their metabolism. When they get to the winter and if they are

not at least half a kilo, they are not going to make it. That's women

need our help. Say that a half a kilo is difficult to look at a

hedgehog and wonder if it needs help. Most of us don't have our

scales with it. Is there another way of seeing if it's a healthy

hedgehog, ready for hibernation or not? That's a really good question.

When we were filming that piece, I came across a lovely photograph.

It's like a work of art. It's gorgeous. You can see there's a size

scale as the hedgehogs get bigger. On the left, you have an apple,

which is about 200 grams. On the right, you have a melon. It's a

really great way to judge, without having to be hands on, because if

they are big enough you want to leave alone. The apple is here,

about 200 grams. Then you have got the melon, which is just over a

kilo. Bang in the middle, roughly in the middle I should say, is the

grapefruit. Basically, if you come across a hedgehogs that this size or

smaller, it probably needs help. Any bigger around that and you can let

it get on its way. We've always got questions on Facebook and Twitter,

how can we help our garden hedgehogs? There's loads of

different ways you can help. Some of them are very simple, aren't they?

Yes, like I said in the piece, you can leave cat food, dog food, but

without any fish because along with bread and milk, another thing they

don't with very well. Also, don't be too tidy in your garden. Leave a few

areas that are messy, a few leaves left around so they have somewhere

to nest through the winter. Most of us love that advice! MS in your

garden! We do know their numbers have dropped dramatically and part

of the problem now is their population is fragmented, so it's

really important they have wildlife corridors. There's lots of

information about how you can help with wildlife corridors in your

garden on the website. Please check it out, we really do need to look

after our hedgehogs. Thank you very much. You may have just heard a big

noise there. It's Martin, he's gone a bit Dad's Army honours. I'm not

sure whether he's Captain Mannering, Sergeant Wilson, or is he maybe

Private Godfrey? On you go! Drive on! Here we go. This is a WMC, a

weapon of mass habitat construction. One of the reasons why this place is

so fantastically rich for wildlife is the mosaic of different habitats,

different habitats mean lots and lots of wildlife. But the trouble

is, some of those habitats get old and overgrown. Take something like

balls. A certain amount of gorse is great but when it gets old and

straggly, it becomes a problem. Great thick 30-year-old roots are an

absolute nightmare to dig out. It becomes expensive and needs a huge

investment of man hours. Here's the thing. Where does this magnificent

tank, an armoured personnel carrier, where does that coming? Look at this

here. The these fantastic tracks? Let's -- lets back off and see what

it can do. OK, Mike. Now that is a 14.5 tonne 300

horsepower 19 litre steel plough. And when Mike and the tank go out

under the guidance of the RSPB into those old, mouldy areas where the

grass has got rank and the trees have grown up, well, this is what

happens. Secondly work which would take it

team of humans of weak to do. This is the sort of thing that the tank

is having to grapple with, the stick approach, 30 weeks old, would is as

ground away you end up with not much more than this. All this is not much

more than compost, this isn't what the RSPB need, they will scrape this

off, get back to basically ground zero, poor quality soil. Then

animals meaty dive in to take advantage of the exposed ground and

you can see here, we have a rain, and picking up grubs, insect larvae

stopping is a robin. You know the Robins will follow you around and

pick up stuff. But the immediate effect, that is what the RSPB are

after, what they are looking for is what happens in spring and summer,

where on the bare ground, new growth comes through and that is perfect

for the specialist animals that live here. The sand lizards, the smooth

snake... All these creatures are going to benefit from that mosaic of

habitats, that's what they are after. The Dartford warbler, at his

planned specialist there. And of course the insect life, the baseline

for so much of the animals that live here. Tiger beetle, fantastic. Lots

of people were involved in this idea but hats off to Mark Singleton from

the RSPB here who had the genius idea of telling a weapon of war into

a tool for conservation. That is genius.

Turning something that was made for destruction into something which is

created for conservation, top work. I decided to use from Dad's Army,

Lance Corporal Jones! He is a bit! Over the last few days we have

introduced you to our family of boxes here at Arne and yesterday

without we had a completed cast list, they are all individuals, we

have given them names. Last night our story developers noticed a

different box, and it is this one. -- different folks. We can identify

them by different marks on their faces or tails, if you look at this

one, it's very nervous, it is a little notch out of the ear on the

right so we are calling that one Notch. It is an interactive much of

the other foxes but it's a new character to add to our growing cast

list. This try and put that into some kind of context. A lot of the

animals we have seen around the carcasses, we have been consulting

with our fox expert from the University of Brighton, she is go to

judge me on this, he was my theory. Cheetah, have been fox, this has

been roaming around by the carcasses, she is a dominant one. I

think that's our dominant fix and because in any social group we have

a male and a female and those are the breeding animals -- dominant

vixen. So an interesting altercation between her and Stumpy, she is

dominant to Stumpy. We saw another one between Stumpy and Road. We know

she is dominant to this female done here but in another frack, we saw

Cheetah beating Road. So it's a slightly different hierarchy. There

is another animal we saw, she is part of this social group, we have

seen her at the carcasses, interacting, they are not driving

her away but we haven't seen enough interaction to judge where she

stands in the hierarchy. Lastly of course is our alpha male, I

postulate that this is Tyson. He has been around a lot, he is alpha male,

we haven't seen him with Cheetah, he is a big bruiser with a scar on his

nose, he is dominant to these other animals. I think the carcass crew

for the moment, is made up of these animals here. What about our guest

stars? Yesterday we introduced you to issue who is blind in one eye and

today we introduced you to Notch who has a notch out of his ear. We don't

think these are part of the carcass crew, think they are outsiders. We

know they are males so what is happening is these two are properly

coming in, sniffing around, they are ready to mate. We saw them barking

down on the shore! They will probably try their luck with

Cheetah. She will go for multiple matings if she can at this time of

year. What do you think we will get, out of ten? I don't know, I hope you

get that straight! Forgot sake. We have really had quite a drama with

this cast of characters, but as you know, wildlife trauma can happen

anywhere, sometimes in really secret places. On Tuesday we showed you a

mouse giving birth in the attic. That's what I like to call, Call The

Midwife. Tonight we're showing another quest in the cellar, this

one is like Poldark with insects, maybe not quite so sexy. The

basement, warm, dry and dusty. Heat from the old boiler keeps it snug,

creating a welcoming glow. And a forgotten pile of books provide a

littoral relay for an unassuming addition to our hopes. This is a

fire brat. These tiny insects crave warm temperatures and are becoming

more common in our increasingly willing to houses. It's their unruly

behaviour around hot bread ovens that gives this plucky little

creature its fire brat name. With the temperature just right, the fire

brat's mind can turn to love but first he has to find the right lady.

No easy task in this dim, dark world. This won't be love at first

sight. The Firebird has tiny, almost useless eyes so he feels his weight

using a halo of sensory hairs. Darting into dark corners and

crevices, he will have two particular bump into a female if

he's to have any luck. Down here, love is truly blind. To keep up his

energy comic grazes on a piece of starchy paper, consuming the lessons

of literature. But when you are only a centimetre long and at the bottom

of the food chain, you need to keep your wits about you. There are

dangers at every turn. A female earwig. If she can catch, the fire

brat might make a tasty snack. But in a move straight from the ages of

Conan Doyle, a handy hiding place provides cover and she slips by.

With the danger overcome his back on the case. -- he is back on the case.

The basement has become a meeting place for a cast of overwintering

characters, all sheltering from the elements. A dozy peacock butterfly.

A dainty Seller spider. Thirsty lacewings. And a gigantic Seller

slug. But the fire brat is craving the company of other brats. Where

are they all? He heads to the local high-rise to try his luck but what

this lurking in the shadows? Centipede. Nearly three times the

length of the fire brat, this venomous hunter is top rate in this

tiny world. -- top predator. Any fire brat, distracted by the

dating game, went live to kiss and tell. -- won't live.

The centipede is fast and unrelenting.

Tripping over the stack of books commit you to antennae to feel for

its prey. Pausing only to primp for maximum sensitivity, it closes in.

Filling the brush of the centipede, our man looks to be toast but a

final desperate move propels him from harm 's way.

It is believed rather tough day but the thrill of the Chase hasn't

dampened his order. -- been a rather tough day. At last, he bumps into an

old flame and the good news is, she is hot. Fire brat needs to be to get

in the mood to mate. But as the heat of passion rises,

heading towards its conclusion, disaster. Any chance of a fireside

filling is extinguished with the flame. Given the cold shoulder, the

male fire brat strikes out again. Alone. Do you know, those animals

from the fossil record have been around pretty much unchanged for 400

million years? They have been making love in our sellers for that long?

We didn't have sellers! We haven't been around that long! They are more

successful than us! Put them in charge! Put them in charge! Move on.

We have been conducting a bird feeder experiment over the last few

days to see whether colour influences birds when it comes to

food so we put a controlled experiment out first where we had

three feeders, all natural colours. This is what happened. Over our

experiment time, they all went down pretty much equally. So there was

obviously no bias in any of the feeders. We then painted two of the

feeders, one we painted red, when we painted blue. So what happened then?

Now this is very careers. As you would expect, the natural colour in

the middle went down the most. Chris Packham predicted that they wouldn't

touch the blue ones, they would all go to the rate. By our results, he

clearly got it wrong. They have hardly touched the red and they have

gone to the blue. So you must make the minute ago about spoon bills and

now you have been pushed off your perch because you got your

prediction wrong. Getting things wrong is part of a learning

experience, I don't mind getting things wrong, the consultancy

experts, that's what we always do. We spoke to George Rayburn and Ed

Solo from Weston-Super-Mare, typically when we go to experts

which go to a university, or to somebody who has spent a lifetime

studying the animals, let me introduce you to them. Yes! They are

14 and 15! Fantastic! But they have been conducting experiments like

ours only better with more detail and more replications, reducing

extraordinary science. I cannot you how impressed I was with what I saw

today. These are top guys. What are their thoughts on the red versus

blue versus normal? They don't like the red, they think because that

associated with warning colours in insects and although birds might go

for red fruits and berries in the winter, throughout the rest of the

year, they are after insects for the young and we know the red and yellow

warning colours. That's why they don't go to them. But why do they go

to the blue? In the guide's experiments, they went to the blue

even more than the normal seed, it became even more attractive than

they painted the Betis blue. They think it's down to the way the

birdseed. Here is the visual spectrum that the human sees. We are

trichromatic so we can see this part of the spectrum. Birds are Tetra,

six they have an extra bit of vision on the end where they can see into

the UV spectrum. The brightest colour in our field of view is green

in the middle, that would stand out the most. Possibly that's why we

like green. But in the bird's vision, blue is in the centre. So

when they are approaching those feeders the thing that the standout

most brightly our blessings. And the guys think that's why they are

heading to the blue even more than the naturally coloured seed.

You don't often get things wrong, you have redeemed yourself with that

marvellous explanation. Do you know what? I love getting something wrong

to 14 and a 15-year-old, because to me, that means there is hope. Stick

with it, guys, one day you can have my job. In fact, if it carries on

like this, possibly next week! We've seen lots and lots of tits coming to

our feeders, blue tips, great tips, what you'd probably expect, but

we've also seen long-tail tits. Gorgeous little birds. You've

probably got them on your feeders in the garden now. You can hear them.

This one was beautiful, it was actually drinking the condensed fog

off the seeds and you can hear its friends. They are normally in a

group, chattering away in the background. Lovely little birds. It

hardly looks like they have a big, but then we managed to film one that

got into the most awful trouble. It's literally stuck by its

long-tail! So how on earth is it going to get out of this terrible

conundrum? It's still stuck, so it gets it the ground in the end and

tries to undo the not that has got tangled up -- it gets its beak out

in the end. It's awfully scruffy. What a mess that tailors. Nothing

that a jolly good session of jolly good old-fashioned preening won't

sort out. Etxeita details tit, isn't it? This may be our last show for

Winterwatch but it doesn't mean that used don't stop getting involved.

This weekend is exciting, it's the Big Garden Birdwatch. We want you

all to join in. Last year, 500,000 of you did it and you recorded 8

million birds, which is incredible. We want to get more than that this

year. Please get out, all the details are on their website. You

know what, it really does contribute to our knowledge of what is

declining in our gardens, and what is recovering. I urge you to do it.

The biggest bird survey in the world. Its great citizen science, it

takes an hour of your time, looking out of the window on Saturday,

Sunday and Monday. What you will see in the garden will depend on how

much food you put out and ultimately, the weather. What is the

weather going to be like over the weekend of the big garden

Worldwatch? Nick Miller knows the answer -- the Big Garden Birdwatch.

This could be a really exciting bird watch, especially where it's been so

cold. Today, there were parts of England that didn't get above

freezing, although it was past 13 in far North West of Scotland. We had

winter weather. The cold maybe did driving unexpected birds into the

garden in search of food, not just goldfinches, but Siskin and Red

Bull. Something more typical is arriving over the weekend, wetter

weather whether it's been dried. Rain pushing up from the south on

Sunday. Scotland is driest and sunniest for longest on Sunday.

Along with a change to something better, something less cold, where

it's been bitter. That might make life a bit easier for the hedgehogs.

What about the rest of winter? It looks like the Atlantic driven

changeable wetter, windy weather, less cold weather, will dominate the

first part of February. Maybe something cold coming back at the

end of February. Keep an eye on that. If you're looking for birds

this weekend, listen as well. The woodpeckers are coming near me. It

may look like winter, but there are sounds of spring. It's coming. Not

in our barn, it's chilly! If you were watching Springwatch you will

know one of the stars of the series was our golden eagle. We put a

satellite tags on the bird, named Freya. It hasn't moved very far, no

further than 20 or 30 kilometres on occasion from its territory. It

still spending most of its time there. Come Springwatch, we will

find out more about this fantastic bird. We have camera teams all

around Arne, and up and down the country. Richard Taylor Jones has

got out with his camera to a place that has very strong reasons for

him. -- resonance, for him. Winter is a time of hunger.

Some landscapes speak of it. Loudly. And the Hoo Peninsula, at the

northernmost end of Kent, shouts its seasonal claim to be the hungriest

of all. Here, human hunger for power dominates denuded marshes.

This is power created far from towns and cities, hiding the unwanted ugly

truths of our cosy, consuming modern world. Yet despite all we'd chuck at

nature, here on the Hoo, nature clings on at the edges, hungry to

battle against our industrial dominance.

A Fox trots through the grazing marsh. A hungry pace to its speed.

It stands, twitching, poor used to execute the kill. -- it is poised,

to execute the kill. Success. A stomach filled.

Above, a marsh Harrier hunt the reedbeds. Seeking its own

fulfilment. Its arrival spooks vast flocks of

lapwing and golden plover. They rise as one.

The confusion of wings and bodies, unnerving to the hunter. A beautiful

ballet of the winter skies. But how long to dance, to revel in

the safety of the air? Long enough to avoid being lunch. But not so

long it makes you hungry for your own.

Nature must manage its hunger to perfection in order to survive.

Unfortunately our appetite for destruction leaves wasteland

landscapes everywhere on the Hoo. The metal skeletons of abandoned

clay pits reach skywards, hiding the last hungry arrival of the day.

Launching quietly into the crisp marmalade skies of winter's dusk.

It dives the gain, and again, and again. It can find no parade. -- No

one. It will hand day and night to escape its winter hunger. Silent

wings work endless shifts to find satisfaction. And they shout of

nature's hunger for life on the Hoo. As night falls and all that's left

to see if the crackle and spark of the electric world beyond, I realise

the Hoo says so much about who we humans really are. And what we've

done to the natural world. And how it survives, despite us.

I love the cons trust -- contrast between the man escape and the

landscape, and how the animals are surviving, but how greedy we are,

something that might have to change. At the beginning of the show we

played you the sound of At the beginning of

the show we played you the badgers fighting. This is the sound.

We asked you to send in suggestions of what we should call that sound.

Hundreds of you suggested things. I'm going to read out a couple.

Wackering. Yackering. I like this one, scrowling. It might become

official. Scrowling, I love it. This is the last programme, sadly, but

you can keep in contact online. Facebook will have the latest news.

You can share your photographs. The website is great. We have the films

we have shown in this Winterwatch, and all the earlier films. Twitter

is great to keep in contact and keep the chat going. Indeed. Shall we

have a quick look? Let's look at the spoonbill can. Surrounded by wigeon.

He was a great success, the highlight of the series. That's

live! A Fox as well! We've had a lot of live action but sadly that brings

us to the end of the show and the end of a series of Winterwatch. We

hope you've enjoyed it. We'd like to thank the RSPB, our hosts, who have

been amazing, the organisation that has got involved online, the BTO,

and most of all you, for watching, thank you. And all those experts we

constantly ring up and say, can you tell us about this? We'll be back in

springtime. We hope to broadcast from a new, exciting location, so

joiners in May. We are going to leave you with the highlights of

winter 2017. Goodbye. Goodbye. We're here in deepest Dorset at a crucial

time of year for wildlife. It's cold, the ground is frozen, and food

is scarce. Look at that! Gorgeous. There's a

cormorant caught in a Mornay moment. -- Monet moment.

Pheromones. Femoral owns, smelly sex gas.

How's that? I've messed up. Looks good. That's going to hurt people I

love. That's the best, it doesn't get better than that. Nothing,

nothing beats birding.