All language subtitles for Big.World.in.a.Small.Garden.2016.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG

(siren blares)

(traffic noise)

- [Narrator] This small
garden in the heart

of a British city is
home to naturalist

and wildlife filmmaker
Martin Dohrn.

Martin's inventions
have transformed the way

we can see the world,
especially the world

of small creatures.

- It feels as if I've
been a wildlife filmmaker

for centuries, but
actually I think

it's only a couple of decades.

I've been lucky enough to
film pretty much every kind

of animal: lions, monkeys,
eagles, butterflies,

and quite a lot of
insects, a lot of ants.

Over the years, I've invented,
designed, hastily constructed

many different devices
for filming insects

and small creatures, and they
all rely on very tiny lenses

on a camera with a
very small chip size.

What that gives us
is a perspective

that is utterly
different from the

world in which we normally live.

I mean, it kind of makes
the world sort of 50 times

the size that we
perceive it to be,

which means that this
garden here is more like

a kind of 10 square kilometers
of unexplored nature reserve,

with unknown creatures
and drama and action,

every bit as exciting as
anything that you could see

on the plains of Africa.

(wings fluttering)

In order to discover
something, you see something,

you film something.

I didn't have to go all
the way to Kilimanjaro

or the forests of Sumatra.

I can actually just come
right here in my backyard

and see things no one
has ever seen before,

and film species that while
they are known to science,

their behavior is
often undescribed.

For me, this is half the fun.

Just trying to make
sense of it all.

(electronic music)

If you reduce your field
of view to the very small,

even a city garden
like this is brimming

with an astounding
diversity of life.

The thing that amazed me
most when I started to look

closely at this garden is
that, besides the honey bee,

I've seen over 50
other species of bee.

(bee buzzes)

They come in almost
every imaginable color.

Some of them even
look like wasps.

Unlike the honey bee,
most of the garden bees

live solitary lives.

(buzzing)

Wood holes in the fence are
perfect for the tiniest.

But probably half of the
bees here nest in the soil.

The mining bees have
a constant battle

with nest thieves of all kinds.

But the owners usually
win, because in nature too,

possession is
9/10ths of the law.

The wasp-like cuckoo bees
are a more serious threat

where they spend their
days searching for burrows

of the mining bees in which
to lay their own eggs.

She can only find the rough
location of the nest by scent.

By wafting air
over her antennae.

To get the exact position,
the cuckoo bee has to wait

for a mining bee to reveal
herself as she leaves

to gather pollen,
and follow her.

(bees buzzing)

At first, the mining
bee acts confused,

as if she knows
she's being tailed.

But then, quite often,
the cuckoo bee will land

as if she's pretending
to be a leaf.

Perhaps so as not to draw
attention to herself.

When the mining bee
thinks the coast is clear,

she goes to her burrow, closely
watched by the cuckoo bee.

Now all the cuckoo
bee has to do is

wait for the mining
bee to leave again

before she can lay her own egg
in the burrow unchallenged.

The problem with insects
or any small creature

isn't just one of physical
scale, it's one of time scale.

Some insects have been
shown to perceive events

10 times as fast as we do,
and so when something happens

in the insect world, it's
just a blink of an eye

to human senses.

The only way for us
to actually reveal

what's actually going on is to
use slow motion photography.

(whimsical music)

Slow motion brings out
the comedy of male bees

as they desperately
search for mates.

Just trying to focus on
a bee dancing around,

especially a male that's
rampantly trying to

locate the female of his choice,

it's almost impossible.

Here I'm filming at
250 frames a second,

which is slowing
life down 10 times.

I have a chance, but
still my difficulty is

having the bee in the frame.

To help with this, we've
built this thing called

a megascope, which has a wide
angle lens on the end of it,

but away from the camera
so the whole thing doesn't

threaten the bee.

Can focus very quickly
and it's much easier

to have it pointing in
the right dtion.

The female, she uses
this patch of flowers

for nectar, mostly.

And that's where the
male is waiting for her.

He patrols up and down here
and he attacks anything

that vaguely
resembles the female.

He's easy to distinguish
because he looks more bee-like.

He's kinda brown.

And the female is actually
beautiful velvet black.

When he sees the female,
his first task is to hover

in front of her, and
it's almost as if he's

displaying to her to say,
"Hello, look, I'm this cool.

"I can hover.

"Look at the way I can hover."

And she is, as
far as I can tell,

invariably just ignores him.

(whimsical orchestra music)

Eventually, he jumps on her.

And I've never
actually seen the male

court a female successfully.

I've only ever seen
his efforts rebuffed.

And the female flying away
as quickly as she can.

People say the most important
thing about photography

is to be in the right
place at the right time.

But for small creatures,
that's extremely difficult.

That's why we built frankencam.

We called it frankencam
cuz it's an unholy alliance

of bits of other machines
all tied together,

and a few specially
designed circuit boards.

To make the images, we borrowed
a camera from a microscope,

we got some optics from
the 70s and coupled them

with a lens from a web cam.

Well the re is
that frankencam can
glide into position

without frightening
anything and can wait

as long as it takes.

Or until it rains.

As an example of the
kind of drama we can find

just by flying in
between the leaves a bit.

Today, I saw a wolf spider
carrying its babies on its back.

We have hundreds of
wolf spiders here,

but I've never actually been
able to see it in close up.

Today, quite a few
females allow us to get

very close with the lens,
but they also just allowed us

to kind of float among them
and watch what they were doing.

Which is mostly just basking
to get the babies some warmth.

Scorpions do exactly
the same thing,

but we don't have scorpions,

so it's fantastic to be
able to find creatures,

even though they're really tiny.

They're only three or four
millimeters long, these spiders.

But it's wonderful to
see such complex behavior

in such allegedly simple animal.

Frankencam also gives
us the means to go deep

into the undergrowth
and there we can find

another range of animals.

In close up, from the side,
wood lice look utterly different

from how we normally
see them from above.

We managed to get a
special medical endoscope

on frankencam and we've
been able to actually

drive it under a flower
pot to see what they do.

Most of the time, wood
lice eat rotting leaves,

but sometimes they'll feed
on the old dead animal,

even if it's their own kind.

They seem to use their
front legs in a way

that's more rodent-like than
primitive crustacean-like.

It could be that we've
underestimated wood lice,

we've just ignored
them for so long.

But for me, they are truly
the stars of the dark,

damp corners of the garden.

A garden like this at just
10 by 30 meters can be,

if you look closely, if you
look in amongst the plants,

can become a really quite
large nature reserve

with all kinds of
incredible behaviors

and rare events
happening every day.

Just waiting for
someone to have a look.

(buzzes)

(bangs against lens)

(soft music)