The Secret Life of Birds (2010) s01e01 Episode Script

A bird's life in Wales must seem
the most pleasant existence
you could ever wish for.
What could possibly be better
than being on a perch,
singing happily all day
without a worry in the world?
And, of course,
there's that ability to fly.
To go anywhere you feel like,
totally free.
A life made in heaven.
Anything but.
Birds have to work
from dawn until dusk.
They have to find food
and water to live.
If they fail to do so, they die.
They have to battle the elements.
Survival, especially during
Winter, is extremely difficult.
During Spring, they're busy
raising new families.
Then they not only have
to feed themselves,
but also their hungry chicks.
They have to protect the chicks from
others who wish to do them harm.
They can be targets themselves.
And, of course,
they have to put up with us.
They have to find a way of surviving
in our artificial landscape.
In this series, I'm going
to be finding out
what a bird's life
is really like in Wales.
I'm going to be discovering the
vast array of species we have here.
And I'm going to be probing
into their secret lives.
The uplands of Traeth Mawr
in the Brecon Beacons.
Dawn's breaking
on a cold April morning.
The Beacons' highest peak,
Pen y Fan, is in the distance.
This first hour
is alive with sounds.
The day starts early for birds.
As the sun rises
and the mist lifts,
the birds are revealed
in all their glory.
In this programme, I'm exploring
the secret life of bird calls.
There can't be that many
places left in Wales now
where you've got a fairly
unspoiled area like this
with an incredible variety
of habitats in it.
You've got the tall grassland here,
you've got the gorse,
you've got the hills behind me,
you've got marshland,
you've got bracken-covered hills
over there as well.
And you've got so many birds here.
You can identify all of them
from their calls and their songs.
This is a dunnock.
A willow warbler.
And a sedge warbler.
These are all male birds and they're
singing to mark their territory.
And in their territory,
they've chosen the highest perch
on the tallest bush to sing.
There's this scratchy kind
of call here amongst the gorse.
That's a sedge warbler
just in from Africa now.
There are skylarks in this grass.
There are meadow pipits.
There's a pair of curlew over there.
There's a willow warbler
going away now.
There's been a cuckoo calling
from that hillside over there.
The best one, I think, of all
is in this marshy, wet area here.
It's a bird called a snipe
and it's got a kind of a
tick-tock-tick-tock kind of call.
But it also does a display,
where it doesn't use its beak,
it actually uses its tail.
It pushes out these two
outer tail feathers,
and when it dives down, it does
this most incredible noise.
This is the snipe's tick-tack call.
The snipe is calling
somewhere on the ground.
It's loud enough to attract
a female into its territory.
And then he displays.
The movement of wind through
his outer tail feathers
creates a unique noise.
This is Bute Park, Cardiff.
Here too, it's an early
start for the birds.
This is a song thrush,
one of our finest singers.
It'll always repeat a phrase
at least twice.
It's important to sing early
to be the first one to attract
the attention of a female.
Also, his sound will travel
further in the park
in the relative
silence of the dawn
than it will do later on in the day.
A lot of our birds actually start
singing in the middle of Winter.
That's a good thing because there
are no leaves and you can see them.
One of the earliest
and the smallest is the wren.
There's one singing away
in here now.
It's one of our smallest birds and
yet it has an incredibly loud song.
I think it's all lungs because
it doesn't burst into song,
it absolutely explodes.
This one is waggling
its wings like this.
He's got a rival somewhere nearby
and he's trying to make himself
look just that little bit bigger.
Cracking birds. I like wrens.
Tee-Cher-tee-Cher-tee-Cher.
Can you hear that?
That's a great tit.
There's one up here,
and there's another one
answering from over there.
It's a really common
garden and woodland bird
and yet, you look at it
close up and it's stunning.
Greens and yellows
and blacks and whites.
The song is interesting.
They've found that the males with
the longest and most intricate songs
are the most successful
at attracting a mate.
So what they do is, they'll steal
little bits of other birds' songs
and incorporate it into their own.
But they've always got that
tee-Cher-tee-Cher element in it.
There are lots of them here.
Great spotted woodpeckers too
are attracting each other,
but they have a different method.
They drum.
This is a female.
Both males and females drum.
The male has a red patch
on his neck.
And like all good drummers,
they select the best drum.
The one that will make
the most noise.
Although birdsongs can be complex
and varied within species,
some birds make do
with a very simple one.
This little bird is singing
above Ceibwr Bay near Cardigan
on the North Pembrokeshire coast.
When we think of birdsong,
we tend to think of really tuneful
songs like the melodious songs
of robins and blackbirds
or maybe even the skylark.
But not all birds sing like that.
This is a whitethroat.
It's a little warbler that's just
come all the way back from Africa.
He keeps singing from the
song post he's got here.
In this case, it's an
old bit of bramble.
His song is what you could call,
at best, a scratchy song.
But it obviously works
because he's got a female
nesting just over the bank here.
There he goes. He's going off
to feed her for a while
before he comes back and sings
from exactly the same post.
This lucky whitethroat probably
has one of the best patches
of territory in Wales.
A Summer residence
with outstanding views.
Some birds are not so lucky.
Even very special birds.
This is a Dartford warbler.
It's one of Wales' rarest birds.
And his residence
overlooks Port Talbot.
The Dartford warbler
looks quite different
to any other small bird
that you'll see in Wales.
The view doesn't matter.
What's more important is that
he's found a small patch
of perfect habitat,
where he can sing and nest.
But he'll have to sing very loud
above the traffic noise
and this is something all urban
birds have to get used to.
This is Betws-y-Coed in North Wales.
It's early morning
and the A5 is very busy.
In the park, birds are also getting
on with their busy lives.
A song thrush singing away up there.
Singing its little heart out
from the top of that tree.
It'll do that all through
the Spring and into the Summer.
The problem is, it's decided
to nest in a town,
so it's got to compete every
morning with the traffic.
Research has shown that urban birds
may make their songs louder
to compensate for this noise.
The songs can also be
very different to the songs
of the same species
living in the countryside.
Not all birds sing from a perch.
Some Welsh birds live in habitats
where there are no trees
or suitable perches to sing from.
These are the Gronant sand dunes
near Prestatyn in North Wales.
Here, skylarks breed
during the Spring and Summer.
I don't think many songs
can compete with the skylark song.
It's a busy time for them.
It's Spring and the males
are setting up territories.
They are chasing each other around.
They'll sing and climb and climb
and climb and sing and sing.
It's like a competition
to see which one can do
the most complicated
song and climb the highest.
It's important they do that because
the territory that they establish
has got to sustain, not just them,
but a mate and a family as well.
That's why you'll get lots of them.
There are dozens of them.
They're singing all the
way through Spring into Summer
and into the Autumn as well.
It's a lovely sound.
Skylarks have incorporated
their song into an aerial display.
The males attract the females
by literally falling from the sky.
They will do it over and over
even when a female has been found,
to keep her, and the territory.
MUSIC
Since I was a lad,
I've been fascinated by birds nests.
A wall like this is ideal
for a robin or a wren.
Because they tuck the nests away,
one of the best ways to find them
is to listen for an alarm call.
An alarm call is different for
every bird but they are similar.
They are loud,
very harsh and often staccato
bit like a machine gun.
When you hear that,
you know the nest isn't far.
The alarm call
serves several purposes.
It warns me to stay back.
Also, it's to warn other birds
that there is danger in the area.
It's to warn the mate, who
will be incubating eggs or young,
to stay quiet, still and not
to give away the nest's location.
We've all heard this one,
an unhappy blackbird.
It's usually a cat or a person
walking under his tree.
It's illegal to go
anywhere near a peregrine's nest
as it's a protected species.
But the peregrine would soon let
you know if you were too near.
This is an interesting situation
in a woodland near Harlech.
A nuthatch pair has taken up
residence in an old woodpecker hole.
The nuthatch at the nest is alerted
by an alarm call from his mate.
A woodpecker is now an unwelcome
guest when he ventures too close.
The nuthatch pair do their
very best to scare him off.
Eventually,
the woodpecker gets the message.
This chaffinch has a nest nearby.
It's making a high-pitched
alarm call.
It's very high frequency and very
difficult for us to make out.
But it's meant for its chicks.
A sign to be quiet and not
to give away the nest's location.
All of these calls are
an early warning system
and are essential in helping birds
escape danger.
Some birds have calls
that are so complicated
it's as if they
have their own language.
This is Newborough Forest
on the west coast of Anglesey.
It's one of the largest
conifer plantations in Wales.
During Winter, around 800 ravens
roost every night in the forest.
It's one of the biggest
assemblages of ravens in Britain.
Ravens have the widest
range of calls of any bird.
During the day,
they scavenge the land for food,
and return here at dusk to the
security and warmth of the forest.
As they arrive and occupy
roosting positions in the trees,
the calls they make to each other
are fascinating.
I've sneaked in below the trees,
right at the edge of the roost now.
The main roost is to my left but
there are vocal birds to my right.
Listen to these noises.
They say that ravens have
more than 30 different calls
and I can well believe it.
It's a kind of language really.
A language we don't understand,
but a language none the less.
Constantly
communicating with each other.
Some of these noises are so weird.
There must be a reason why
ravens are calling like this.
They are not simply
calling for fun.
For the time being, it's a mystery.
We don't understand their language.
There's good evidence
they maybe sharing information
about food sources.
A raven cannot defend
a carcass on its own.
But it can if
it's part of a group.
It's thought the volume
and nature of a call
maybe giving information
about the location, distance
and size of a find.
By sharing this information, they
can go back together the next day
to benefit from the food.
All over Wales, fabulous views
of flying flocks are common,
especially along the coast.
And in these flocks,
birds often call to each other.
These waders are
near the Menai Strait.
It's a place where you'll hear
a fabulous range of calls.
These Canada Geese are taking off
from the Nevern Estuary.
Jackdaws are particular noisy.
These are returning
to roost near Llanelli.
But the most impressive
communication show in Wales,
both in terms of sound and vision,
is that performed by starlings.
These have arrived at Aberystwyth
to spend the night on the pier.
Oh! The sky here
is just full of starlings.
Back and forth. Watching them coming
into roost is really hypnotic.
This huge shape that is constantly
changing all the time.
The advantage with Aberystwyth
Pier is that it's so short.
That means that the display
comes right over your head.
And also, you can hear them.
If you listen carefully,
all these wings beating at once.
They call to each other constantly.
Because you are so close
to the whole spectacle here,
you feel part of it.
Here they go again, look at that!
A wave of starlings coming over.
Oh, wow!
By dusk, thousands arrive.
Maybe 20,000 or more.
No-one knows for sure
why starlings do this,
but they are certainly communicating
with each other for some reason.
They are constantly calling.
The flying display
itself may serve a social need.
They might be organizing themselves
into the strongest and fittest
to eventually get
the best roosting position.
They might be moving
around to protect themselves
from predatory birds.
It could simply be checking
out the roost before they land.
Whatever the reason,
it's an impressive sight.
They continue to call
and chatter after landing.
By the time every bird
has found a perch,
there's hardly a
single position free.
Huddled together, they keep warm.
The birds at the center of the roost
will not only be warmer,
but safer too.
No fox, cat or peregrine
can get at them here.
It's first light on Ruabon Mountain
near Llangollen
in North East Wales.
Dawn, literally, is stirring.
Strange noises can be heard for
miles across the barren Moore.
The sounds are made
by male black grouse.
They are displaying.
A contest is taking place.
The winner will be the
top bird of this patch.
He will be the
best and fittest grouse.
The one that will have
the pick of the females.
To win the contest, making
a big noise will not be enough.
The best grouse will
also have to look good.
These birds have made
themselves big and colorful.
Their body feathers
have a beautiful sheen.
The tail has transformed
to a bright white fan.
The red head pats or wattles are
normally a quarter of this size.
They have been engorged by blood
to make them more visible.
And all this massive visual and
vocal effort is for one thing only,
to earn the right
to mate with a female.
BIRDS WARBLING
And for this male,
all the effort has paid off.
MUSIC
The need for males
to attract females
has led to the huge variety of
beautiful birds we have in Wales.
Lapwings with headdresses,
goldfinches with
multi-colored jackets,
wagtails with bright
colored waistcoats
and colorfully adorned pheasants.
Male birds often change their
color from Winter to Spring.
This is the Winter version
of a black headed gull.
This is the Summer version.
Starlings change their beak color
and develop a very glossy coat.
Little grebes also grow
colorful feathers for the Spring.
The all do this to court females.
That will be my
next Secret Life of Birds.