- 2 months ago
Explores Britain and Ireland's grasslands, from beautiful flower meadows to the rich open landscapes of our mountains, and reveals some extraordinary and dramatic wildlife stories....
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AnimalsTranscript
00:05¶¶
00:30Our isles were once covered by ice.
00:35As the earth warmed, grasses became the first plants to reclaim the land.
00:44Today, they cover more than 40% of it.
00:50Most of that is farmed.
00:53But when these lands are well managed, they still provide homes for wildlife.
01:04It's early spring.
01:08In the fields of barley, a male brown hare is searching for a female.
01:16Using his excellent sense of smell, he can tell that there is one nearby.
01:30But getting to mate with her won't be easy.
01:39He must deal with three challenges before she'll consider him.
01:49First, boxing.
01:53To impress her, he must match her strength, but be careful not to hurt her.
02:02Only if he can hold his own will he be allowed to move to the next stage.
02:14He puts up a good fight and so passes her first test.
02:20Her second test?
02:24Stamina.
02:27Ares are Britain's fastest mammal and can reach speeds of 45 miles an hour.
02:37The chase attracts other males, all fired up and eager to mate.
02:49His final test is to get rid of his rivals.
03:01Despite their competition, he hangs on to the top spot.
03:11But distracted hares must be careful.
03:23Their courtship competitions have made them conspicuous.
03:33A golden eagle can spot one from two miles away.
03:42In a straight line, the eagle is faster.
03:46But by twisting and turning, the hare dodges its attacks.
03:53Nonetheless, she is relentless.
04:11Golden eagles once chased hares across all of our isles.
04:18But as our wild grasslands have diminished, these contests have become a rare sight.
04:45When I was a boy, back in the 1930s growing up in Leicester, I spent days on my bicycle exploring
04:54the local country.
04:56Back then, it was easy to find hay meadows like this one, rich with wildflowers and swarming with butterflies and
05:07insects of all kinds.
05:09But since then, we have lost more than 95% of these wonderful habitats.
05:17In this episode, we will show why our wildlife needs rich wild grasslands.
05:24And take you on a journey from the rare coastal flower meadows of the Scottish Hebrides, right up to the
05:33heather moorlands in the high mountains.
05:43Few things can tame this fierce landscape.
05:55But grasses can.
05:59Here in the outer Hebrides, their roots have bound the loose grains together
06:04and created a formidable barrier.
06:12Miles of sand dunes form a natural sea wall, protecting one of the most important habitats in the world.
06:21Macher Grassland.
06:27Five and a half thousand years of traditional non-intensive farming on shell sand soils
06:34has created these rich wildflower meadows, unique to Scotland and Ireland.
06:42Free from pesticides, they're home to hundreds of rare flowers and insects.
06:52Each spring, the Macher becomes a nursery for ground-nesting birds.
07:02It's alive with chicks, all doing their best to escape from their parents.
07:10Since 1960, lapwing numbers in Britain and Ireland have dropped by 80%.
07:20Which makes every one of these chicks very valuable.
07:27Just a day old, this youngster is starting off on its first food-finding mission.
07:41Common gulls patrol the nursery, hoping to pick off an unwary chick.
07:53Adult lapwings have excellent eyesight.
07:57And attack at the first sign of threat.
08:08And there are other wading birds here too.
08:15And a multi-species air force takes to the wing.
08:24A lamb calls wool all the chicks, whatever their species, to stay hidden.
08:47But the gull knows that the grass is full of chicks.
08:51And won't give up.
08:58This time, it takes a young oyster catcher.
09:07And the lapwing chick gets back to its mother.
09:15Across Britain and Ireland, habitat lost to intensive agriculture
09:20has caused numbers of birds like these to greatly reduce.
09:29But thanks to nature-friendly farming methods,
09:32the Outer Hebrides remain a vital sanctuary
09:35for our most endangered ground-nesting species.
09:46All our grasslands are now managed by people.
09:52But they weren't always like this.
09:58Once, there were vast scrub-covered wildernesses
10:02studied with patches of grassland.
10:11Roaming freely across them were herds of wild cattle
10:16and wild horses.
10:21In some areas, such species are being reintroduced
10:26in the hope of recreating these once extensive grasslands.
10:41In Cambridgeshire, there are large, free-ranging herds of horses.
10:54There are five family units in this herd.
10:59Each ruled by a dominant stallion.
11:19They're regularly on the move, searching for the best food.
11:25They eat young trees, and so prevent grassland turning into forests.
11:33By disturbing the ground, they allow many species that were once common in such places,
11:41to return.
11:48It's late spring, and the herd's numbers are increasing.
11:56Just 24 hours old, this youngster is taking his first faltering steps.
12:07The stallion guards the mare closely.
12:15Having just given birth, she will soon be ready to mate again.
12:30A rival stallion notices her condition, and tensions begin to rise.
12:41Look's might be tolerated by the dominant stallion.
12:48But anything else will bring trouble.
13:00A well-placed kick could do serious damage.
13:27This time, the challenger retreats.
13:32This time, the challenger retreats.
13:36Traditional breeds of horses are now being gradually reintroduced to isolated grasslands across the British Isles.
13:46By expanding and connecting these reserves, we could restore large swathes of our lost wilderness, if we wanted to.
14:03Grasses, when allowed to grow tall and wild, can conceal animals that few people get to see.
14:12Here, there is a network of hidden trails, made by Britain's most abundant mammal.
14:25Yet, despite there being more than 50 million of them, this little rodent is tricky to spot.
14:35It's not a mouse.
14:39It's a vole.
14:40A small rodent with teeth specially adapted for chewing grass.
14:54This female is in a hurry.
15:06Because it's time to feed her babies.
15:15She has six.
15:17She has six.
15:17They're just ten days old and still reliant on her for milk and body heat.
15:23She doesn't leave them for more than half an hour at a time.
15:30But to feed them all and herself, she must eat almost her entire body weight in grass every day.
15:43Knowing every turn in her maze of trails, she can reach her favorite feeding spots without being seen.
15:54But she can be heard.
16:00Short-eared owls have excellent hearing and field voles make up 90% of their diet.
16:21At the slightest hint of danger, the mother vole deploys her best defense.
16:36She freezes.
16:45Short-eared owls can hear a whisker scratching against grass.
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17:37Field bolls breed successfully when grasses aren't cut short,
17:43meaning the owl's next meal won't be far away.
17:53In southern England, a few precious pockets of chalk grassland have remained unchanged
18:00for thousands of years.
18:04Light grazing by livestock maintains their rich variety of plants.
18:11On a hillside near Dorchester, an apparently empty snail shell is moving.
18:28There are a dozen different species of mason bee in Britain.
18:34Most nest in holes, but this one, the two-coloured mason bee, prefers to rear her family in snail shells.
18:51Many of those, of course, are still occupied.
18:58She needs help.
19:06Glowworm larvae are always hungry.
19:11These little insects might be slow, but that doesn't matter when you're hunting a snail.
19:27The meal may take a week, but once it's finished, all that is left is an empty shell.
19:40And that is perfect for the bee.
19:47Fresh shells are the strongest and will give her young the best chance of survival.
19:56She sets about filling it with pollen, food for her young when the egg she lays inside hatches.
20:10Using tiny pieces of rubble and glue made from chewed-up leaves, she carefully seals the front door.
20:25But that isn't the end of this mother's care.
20:30And her last trick is extraordinary.
20:38Because this bee is something of a witch.
20:44There are more than 250 species of wild bees in Britain, but this is the only one that rides a
20:52broomstick.
20:58She's collecting hundreds of dry grass stems to hide her snail shell nests.
21:12She may build up to 20 of them.
21:19About a third of our food comes from plants pollinated by bees.
21:24But due to habitat loss and use of pesticides, wild bee species are in decline.
21:38We can help them recover by restoring wild areas between our intensively managed fields.
21:58If grasslands are to be rich and diverse, they have to be grazed.
22:06And we can thank the Romans and the Normans for bringing with them one of nature's best lawn mowers.
22:15Rabbits.
22:22Unlike their cousins, the larger hares, they dig tunnels.
22:30Belt holes are essential if you're the favorite food of a buzzard.
22:40A foot thump raises the alarm.
22:46But not everyone pays attention.
23:16One less youngster.
23:18But then rabbits are rather good at breeding.
23:31A male, a buck, offers a female two kinds of gift.
23:41First, perfume.
23:46The gland under his chin produces a cocktail of pheromones.
24:00His second gift is rather less romantic.
24:08He pees on her.
24:16His particular smell helps her decide whether or not she will let him father her babies.
24:25His choice of aftershave, however, hasn't yet convinced her.
24:41Darkness does nothing to dampen his enthusiasm.
24:54Finally, the buck is in luck.
25:01This giant warren in Dorset is one of the largest in Britain.
25:10It's home to more than a thousand rabbits.
25:14And at night, they all feel sufficiently confident to leave their burrows.
25:22And foxes know that.
25:26So this is when they usually hunt.
25:42That was just a vole.
25:47Back at the den, his vixen is looking after their four hungry pups.
25:58Make that five.
26:13The rabbits watch the fox closely.
26:20As long as they can see him, they can outrun him.
26:33But they can't hide.
26:40It's a mistake to think that you are always safe in a burrow.
26:46If there is only one way out, a tunnel could become a trap.
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27:21A rabbit's life is full of danger.
27:27A big warren can lose hundreds each year,
27:30but without losses to foxes and buzzards,
27:33rabbits could soon eat themselves into starvation.
27:48As farming has intensified,
27:50most of our traditional meadows have disappeared.
27:58Species-rich grasslands
27:59now occupy only about 1% of the land.
28:06Their reduction in numbers
28:08is one of the reasons
28:10why half of our butterfly species
28:12are now at risk of extinction.
28:18But in Gloucestershire, one species is making a comeback.
28:25It has one of the most extraordinary life cycles
28:28of any insect anywhere.
28:35Most caterpillars find their food among flowers.
28:41This particular species, however,
28:43feeds in an entirely different way.
28:51A way that is full of risks.
28:58Ants eat caterpillars.
29:03But this caterpillar is a master trickster.
29:12First, she releases a droplet of honeydew
29:16from a gland on her back.
29:21Encouraging the worker ant to tend to her.
29:28Next, she does something even more remarkable.
29:35She takes in air, inflating her body.
29:45And then, she releases it.
29:49Making a sound that resembles the distress call of a queen ant.
29:57Whilst bathing the worker in intoxicating pheromones.
30:05In response, the worker ant picks up the caterpillar
30:08and takes it back to the nest,
30:10as if rescuing it.
30:16But will the other ants accept the caterpillar as a queen?
30:23She continues her royal squeaking,
30:26and amazingly, they do.
30:33Once inside the nest,
30:34the caterpillar can go wherever she likes.
30:40Surrounded by thousands of ants that could easily kill her,
30:44she finally gets the reward for her trickery.
30:53This caterpillar is one of the very few in the world
30:56that becomes carnivorous.
31:07Over the next six months,
31:09this fake queen eats the defenseless ant larvae
31:15until she is a hundred times her original size.
31:28Then, having consumed almost the entire ant colony,
31:35she pupates
31:38and becomes a chrysalis.
31:46nearly a year later,
31:48on one warm spring day,
31:52she performs her final trick.
32:08She emerges from the shroud of her chrysalis
32:11as an adult large blue butterfly.
32:24Forty years ago, the large blue was extinct in Britain.
32:30But once its extraordinary life cycle was understood,
32:34it was reintroduced from Europe to restored meadows here,
32:39and now we have one of the densest populations to be found anywhere.
32:54Throughout the British Isles, there are rugged uplands
32:58where grasses are replaced by other kinds of plants.
33:03For thousands of years,
33:05people have farmed these seemingly wild places,
33:09creating a landscape that is now dominated by heather.
33:14and in the wilder parts,
33:16lives one of Britain's rarest birds.
33:20Black grouse.
33:25The males come here at dawn
33:28to display competitively throughout the spring
33:31in special places called leks.
33:36Each male competes to claim a small area in the center of the lek,
33:41and then invites females to visit him
33:44by producing an extraordinary bubbling song.
33:58This particular lek in the Cairngorms
34:00is dominated by a formidable male nicknamed The Boss.
34:09Each morning,
34:11she fights off challengers.
34:20But now, a new cock on the block has arrived.
34:26Half tail.
34:31He's no stranger to a fight,
34:33having already lost some of his tail feathers
34:36in a close shave with a golden eagle.
34:41And now, he's set his sights on the boss's crown.
34:50For the past week,
34:52the two of them have been sizing each other up.
34:57And now, it's the showdown.
35:01And now, it's the showdown.
35:02And now, it's the showdown.
35:38Half tail has triumphed.
35:42This lek has a new boss.
35:46And his timing couldn't be better.
35:50Half tail has triumphed.
35:58This is his chance to impress.
36:01She might only visit this lake once this year.
36:24He's been lucky this morning, but Halftail must hold his position at the center of the lake if he's to
36:32get another chance.
36:41Our uplands have harsh winters.
36:46But there are some sheltered and undisturbed places that suit one surprising year-round resident.
36:57As the spring sun warms these slopes in Northumbria, a rare reptile becomes active.
37:13A male adder sheds his winter skin, revealing his zigzag stripe, the distinctive pattern that identifies Britain's only venomous snake.
37:30Now he needs to find a female.
37:37Guided by an acute sense of smell, this 40-centimeter-long male sets off to find a female.
37:47He may have to travel a mile or more.
37:51But he's in luck.
37:53A female newly emerged from hibernation.
38:05Sliding over her back, he begins a delicate courtship.
38:29But he's not the only one around here searching for a mate.
38:48Rearing up as high as he can, he uses his whole body to try and pin his opponent to the
38:54ground.
39:04These duels can last for up to an hour.
39:23Eventually, the challenger gives way.
39:31The male continues his courtship, gently tapping the female with his head while using his coils to massage her until
39:41she allows him to mate.
39:48But then, more eager males arrive.
39:56He must stay attached to her long enough to transfer his sperm.
40:01And fortunately, he has just the equipment needed to help him do that.
40:10A penis with barbs.
40:17Once mating has started, the adders remain locked together for up to an hour.
40:23And that means wherever the female goes, the male is also dragged along.
40:40She will mate with many males in the coming months.
40:45So, for her other suitors, all is not lost.
40:55At the end of spring, a more relaxed courtship takes place in the skies of the Scottish Highlands.
41:22The male hen harrier.
41:37Weaving and rolling through the air, he's doing his best to catch the attention of a female.
41:51But conspicuous behavior can bring danger.
41:57Decades of illegal persecution of hen harriers on some grouse moors has meant that this dance almost vanished from our
42:06skies.
42:13Fortunately, in a few protected places, hen harriers are now slowly starting to recover.
42:23And this male's efforts have paid off.
42:32But being a great aerial dancer isn't enough.
42:42He must also provide his mate with a meal.
42:48And he must deliver it in exactly the right way.
43:07Convinced by his performance, she chooses a nest deep in the heather.
43:18Six weeks later, it's full of hungry mouths waiting for food.
43:26The female has chosen a good mate.
43:35Only with both parents working full-time will the chicks get enough food to enable them to fledge and eventually
43:43help these rare birds to recover their numbers.
44:05Even in our crowded isles, there are still places that retain their wildness.
44:15In Ireland's County Kerry lies a land that looks almost untouched.
44:28This is a landscape being returned to wilderness.
44:35And it's the scene of an age-old battle.
44:46This red deer stag has spent his summer feeding in the mountains.
44:56But as autumn approaches, he comes down to lower ground to compete in the rut and fight for females.
45:14But a more experienced stag has already claimed this group of females.
45:23The newcomer declares his intentions.
45:31To win these females, however, he will have to fight.
45:44An antler in the eye would blind him.
45:48An antler to the body could kill him.
45:51An antler to the body could kill him.
46:13His inexperience has cost him this victory.
46:18But losing one battle doesn't necessarily mean that he's lost his chance to mate.
46:33Over the next few weeks, the dominant stag is so busy guarding his harim of females that he doesn't eat.
46:44And that leaves him weak.
46:50This is the opportunity the newcomer has been waiting for.
46:56The dominant stag is tired, but he has to fight once again if he is to keep his females.
47:13For the newcomer, it's now or never.
47:43To be continued...
48:12The harem has been taken over by the newcomer.
48:18At the end of this season, he will return to the mountains victorious.
48:33Almost all of the grasslands in our isles are now managed by and for people.
48:40Whether in the future we choose to make room in them for wildlife is up to us.
49:00Wild eagles have never been filmed hunting in the UK before.
49:05The challenge was to capture this behaviour with not just golden eagles, but also the larger and rarer white-tailed
49:13eagles.
49:14The team travelled to Islay in the Scottish Hebrides.
49:19The eagle numbers here have been increasing year on year, and in a good year you can have eight or
49:24ten different eagles visiting this reserve during the winter.
49:27The reserve is part of a working farm and managed in a way that benefits nature.
49:34Reserve manager James Howe was the first to witness the returning white-tailed eagles doing something extraordinary.
49:41It was probably four years ago that we started to see the eagles coming in and having a look at
49:48the geese.
49:49At that stage it was just one eagle.
49:51Over the last few years that behaviour has just increased.
49:54You've got these phenomenal flocks of geese here, and now we have apex predators hunting them, which it feels complete
50:02somehow.
50:02But it wasn't always like this. White-tailed eagles once lived across Britain and Ireland, but were so heavily persecuted
50:12that they became extinct at the start of the 20th century.
50:16These giants needed a helping hand to return. The first attempt at releases was back in 1968.
50:26I was, oh, crikey, 27, on the island of Fair Isle, and my boss said, look, I'm going to get
50:33four young white-tailed eagles from Norway and I want you to reintroduce them to the island.
50:39Back then, reintroductions were new and not always welcome.
50:44But these early efforts eventually paid off, and today there are more than 100 breeding pairs across Scotland.
50:54On Islay, the team focused their work around the eagle's favourite prey, brown hares and barnacle geese.
51:02What we were trying to attempt is so difficult here, because we're filming birds that can be over two mountains
51:09in five or ten minutes.
51:11And to get ahead of them, try and work out where their prey are going to be, there's no choice.
51:16You just have to put hours and hours and hours into it.
51:18The team spread out to watch as many geese and hares as possible.
51:24We have to have static camera teams, hide camera teams, roving camera teams, and we also have to have a
51:30huge team of spotters.
51:31But the famous Hebridean weather had other ideas.
51:37Um, ow. These hailstones are about two or three millimetres across. They're like being hit with BB pellets.
51:48How are we supposed to film in this? No wonder there are no eagles this morning.
51:53And one team member couldn't even make it across from the mainland.
51:58But we've been grounded because the bad weather and the storm, the ferries are not going anymore.
52:04But all I can do is wait until the storm finishes and then I can head over and see them.
52:11Once the storm blows through and the whole team are safely on the island, filming can finally begin.
52:20The tower hides enable views right across the grassland where the eagles' prey congregate.
52:27But first the team need to learn the habits of the individual birds and each day the challenge is to
52:33find them.
52:35OK, I think I've got them very distant, way to the east.
52:40The whitetails went off with an escort of jackdaws. Over.
52:43OK, one's taken off and is flying south-east now towards the field.
52:47Hamza, be much closer to you now.
52:50Uh, no, we don't have eyes on it just yet.
52:53If you guys can direct me to it, that'll be ace.
52:57It's still just going over the field.
53:00It doesn't look like it's got any hunting on the brain at the moment, though.
53:04Eagles don't always hunt for their food.
53:07Young birds often scavenge for an easy meal.
53:10So learning when they're in hunt mode is key to the team.
53:14It's getting the hang of who's who, because we can recognise four different young eagles now.
53:19And they do have a pattern and they do have favourite places.
53:21There's a hierarchy where they boss each other around.
53:24We've had four different golden eagles today.
53:27We've had six different white-tailed eagles.
53:29And we're still expecting more to come in.
53:32As the team get to know these birds intimately, it becomes clear how special this place is.
53:38You can only really describe it as an eagle school.
53:40You know, these young birds are coming here to learn to hunt.
53:43It's basically Top Gun for eagles.
53:46We are surrounded by eagles. That is amazing.
53:51We've just had birds fighting.
53:54Really, really lovely footage of all of them kind of like tumbling.
54:00After six weeks, Jesse captures their first hunt.
54:03A young golden eagle flushes a hare out on the flats.
54:09He bolted straight out across the short grass.
54:13He jinked from side to side.
54:15And the power that the eagle would have had in a straight line could have just mown down the hare.
54:20Who needs lions? Who needs polar bears?
54:23This is just as impressive.
54:26After weeks of watching and learning the eagle's routines,
54:29the white tails finally begin hunting in range of the cameras.
54:35Eagle! Eagle on the flats! Just going down!
54:40Whoa!
54:42Jesse's patience in the hide gives him a front row seat at the start of the chase.
54:47And in the tower, John and Rachel can pick up where he left off.
54:54Oh, he caught it by his tail. And then pulls up the goose.
54:58And it's now carrying it by its neck and its head.
55:01Whoa, that's incredible.
55:04That was something else.
55:07She just took off and went straight into the flock.
55:09One went up, singled one out, plucked it out of mid-air and landed with it.
55:13That was a very special thing to witness.
55:15The team's dogged persistence has paid off.
55:19And they film these wild eagles hunting for the first time.
55:24I feel so happy that we managed to get it.
55:27Like, words can't explain how excited I am.
55:33The return of these majestic hunters has taken decades of effort.
55:38And Roy is now broadening his horizons to the south of England.
55:42This is a young female white-tailed eagle.
55:46And it's come from the island of Skye.
55:49Two more will arrive from the Hebrides tomorrow.
55:52And then they'll go by plane to the Isle of Wight.
55:56In the early part of my life, nature was losing.
56:00And suddenly in this last 20 years, people realize that we can't live a future without nature.
56:08Top predators like eagles play a key role in maintaining healthy, robust natural habitats.
56:17This crucial work will ensure eagles might once again be seen across all of Britain and Ireland.
56:32Next time, fresh water.
56:38From source...
56:40...to sea.
56:53It connects everything.
56:57The Open University has produced a free poster exploring our wild isles and their diverse habitats and species.
57:06Order your copy by calling 0300 303 0265 or go to bbc.co.uk forward slash wild isles and follow
57:18the links to the Open University.
57:20If you'd like to play your part in restoring our wild isles and learn more about what you can do
57:27to help, just search wild isles on the BBC website.
57:36And there's also a book to accompany the series Wild Isles and it's available now.
57:41A medal awarded to one of the first soldiers to land on D-Day, poignant discoveries on the Antiques Roadshow.
57:48Next on BBC One.
57:49And on BBC Two, raging weather as Britain's biggest warship goes to sea.
57:54F
57:55So