Original subtitles

'A bird's life in Wales must be wonderful.

'A life made in heaven.

'Anything but.

'Birds have to work from dawn to dusk to find food and water.

'If they don't, they die.

'They have to battle with the elements too.

'Survival, especially during winter, is always difficult.

'And during the spring, they're busy raising families.

'They also have to put up with us

'and 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 above Llanberis,

'and a ring ouzel is collecting food for its chicks,

'which are hidden somewhere on the mountains.

'It's related to a blackbird and looks like one,

'except for its prominent white bib, its distinguishing feature.

'It has flown all the way from the Atlas mountains of Morocco

'to spend the summer in this part of Gwynedd.

'It can probably carry more in its beak than I could with my hands.

'And of course, as they have no arms, beaks are very important for birds.

'They come in all shapes and sizes.

'And they're used in different ways.

'A beak is a very useful tool that birds have that other animals don't.

'They also have many other fantastic features that are unique to them

'and can do extraordinary things, such as fly.

'They're very special living beings.

'In this programme, I'm finding out how their different forms allow them

'to do what they need to do to survive in the Welsh landscape.

'It's mid winter on the Nevern Estuary in Pembrokeshire

'and an egret and a spoonbill are feeding on the mud.

'The spoonbill is the one on the right.

'Although they're both feeding in the same habitat,

'their bills have completely different shapes,

'which allows them to feed in different ways.'

It's fascinating with these two birds

because they're very similar but yet they're very different.

They're both quite big white birds with long legs and a long beak.

But you watch them feed.

The little egret has got more of a dagger-like bill.

He'll walk along and he'll dart out looking for a fish here and there.

The spoonbill, on the other hand, has got this huge spoon-like bill

and he just opens it.

He works his way through the mud and it's hyper sensitive.

So when he feels invertebrates or fish or whatever is in that mud,

all of a sudden it will shut.

Then he eats, and then he puts it back in again.

So even though they're both in exactly the same spot,

they're feeding in very different ways.

'It may be that the reason why the egret is staying so close to the spoonbill

'is because the spoonbill through its actions is disturbing the mud

'and releasing food into the water.

'This is precisely what the egret does when it feeds alone.

'It uses its feet to loosen the mud.

'And this releases shrimps and other invertebrates into the puddles,

'which makes them easier to catch.

'The Severn Estuary and the Newport Levels

'near the mouth of the River Usk.

'Wetlands and estuaries are fantastic places

'to see the range of techniques wading birds use

'to catch their food, and the tremendous range of beak sizes.

'These are the wet lagoons of Goldcliff on the Newport Levels.

'It's first light and one of Wales' rarest breeding birds is feeding.

'It's an avocet and it must have the most ornate beak of any Welsh bird.

'It uses it to sift the water for small insects and worms.

'Dyfi Estuary near Machynlleth.

'It's high tide during a very wet winter period

'and the land has flooded.

'These wet fields are at Ynyshir.

'Because of their position next to the Dyfi Estuary,

'they too attract a great number of waders.'

High tide is the best time to come to Ynyshir

because once the rising sea water has covered the whole estuary,

the birds come over the sea wall in their thousands.

They'll settle in some of these wetter fields

and shallow lagoons here.

'Wet lagoons are excellent feeding sites,

'especially during the winter when the fields are waterlogged.

'One of the prettiest birds you find here is the lapwing.

'It has a small stubby beak and large eyes with excellent vision

'to help it catch small grubs on or near the surface.

'A redshank can go slightly deeper to find invertebrates with its long beak.

'And a dunlin can go just as deep.

'But the ultimate wading bill belongs to a curlew.

'It can go deeper in the mud

'than any other estuarine bird to find its food.

'Curlews migrate from Europe to Wales in their thousands during winter

'and they join thousands more of different species on our estuaries.

'The variety of beak shapes allows the different species

'to exploit different parts of the habitat,

'yet still live on the same estuary.

'Woodland and garden birds also have a variety of beak designs

'that allow them to exploit the same habitat.

'This woodland is in the Conwy Valley.

'One of the most common birds you'll find here is chaffinch.

'It has a short, strong beak that allows it to eat seeds.

'A blue tit's small, pointed beak is ideal for picking off small insects

'and in a conifer woodland, for extracting small seeds from pine cones.

'In the spring, migrants from Africa,

'such as the willow warbler, arrive in our woodlands.

'They too have thin, pointed beaks for eating insects.

'Also during the spring,

'bullfinches use their stubby beak to eat fresh shoots.

'In the autumn, a goldfinch's strong beak is ideal

'to pick off the seed heads of dying plants.

'But the most specialist seed eater of all is the crossbill.

'They literally have bills that cross over each other

'and they're shaped that way so that they can prize open pine cones.

'Birds do what seem to be odd things sometimes

'but they always have a purpose.

'One of the best places to watch bird behaviour is in a town.

'Here, they're so used to people they perform in full close-up view.

'This gull is on the seafront overlooking Colwyn Bay.'

Look at this herring gull over here.

It's quite comical really.

She's running on the spot and looks like an athlete warming up.

But what she's actually doing is mimicking rain falling on the earth

and the earthworms then in the soil think,

it's raining, it's going to flood, I've got to get out my burrow.

So they come up.

If you watch, in a minute, she'll pick up the earthworms and feed.

It's funny. It looks really silly. But it's very effective.

'The shape of a bird's foot changes considerably

'depending on what the bird does and where it lives.

'A heron and moorhen walk on wet ground,

'so they need big feet to stop them sinking.

'Geese and ducks spend a lot of their time in water,

'so they need webbed feet to help them swim.

'Webbed feet are also handy as breaks when landing.

'Treecreepers and woodpeckers spend a lot of their time climbing trees.

'So they have strong thumbs to give them added support.

'A blackbird uses its feet to perch, mainly.

'The house sparrow and wren have the tiniest of feet,

'which grab the smallest perch.

'Birds of prey need to use theirs to catch prey.

'They also use their beak to tear flesh.

'Both feet and beaks are useful tools for birds.

'The herring gull's beak has another important feature.

'It can be used to signal.

'The red dot against the yellow bill stands out,

'and chicks can see it clearly.

'This gives them a target to peck at

'and stimulates the adult to regurgitate food.

'Puffin bills are also used as signals.

'They're the most brightly-coloured beaks you'll find in Wales.

'Puffins nest in burrows

'and this colony is on Skomer Island off the Pembrokeshire coast.

'The beaks are big because they use them to catch fish.

'But again, they've been adapted to double-up as signal devices.

'Outside the breeding season the beaks are not brightly-coloured

'but during courtship they are stunning

'and are used as attractive tools by the males and females.

'We have many colourful birds in Wales.

'Amongst woodpeckers, the green woodpecker is the most handsome.

'Even one of our commonest crows is striking.

'Though not a particularly popular bird,

'because it preys on small chicks

'and generally makes a nuisance of itself when raiding bins,

'close up, it's plumage is beautiful.

'The jay is even more striking.

'The detail and variety of colour and patterns

'on its feathers are startling.'

Why is a bird like the jay so colourful?

Just look at this environment, a big, dense woodland like this.

Woodland birds need to attract and keep a mate

and they also need to keep other male birds away.

They do that in one of two ways.

Either they sing tunefully, like the blackbird,

or they can be really colourful.

In the case of a jay, it uses both.

Very colourful bird, and it's got a...not a tuneful song, exactly,

but this screech that carries a long, long way.

Both of those act as a warning to other males and to attract females.

TWEETING AND SCREECHING

'Some birds live in very hidden habitats.

'The males need to stand out to attract a mate.

'This is Cosmeston Lake, near Cardiff.

'It's a site of an old stone quarry which is surrounded by reeds.

'It's virtually impossible to see any small bird in the growth.

'But living here is one of our most spectacularly patterned birds.

'It's a male bearded tit.

'It's also one of our rarest breeding birds.

'Because he's small and agile,

'his colourful plumage isn't a great disadvantage,

'as he can soon fly away if a predator is about.

'But a few miles from Cosmeston, a bigger and less agile bird

'has to be less conspicuous in a similar habitat.

'This is Hendre lake in St Mellons between Newport and Cardiff,

and it's one of those places you find now and again in Wales

which is surprisingly good for birds.

I say "surprisingly good" because you've got houses all around

and a busy railway line over here.

And yet, in winter, it attracts an incredible variety of birds.

It is also a good place to see bitterns.

Bitterns are a really shy, quite rare, brown heron.

They like staying in the reeds and they don't like coming out.

They've got everything they need here.

You've got reedbeds that are full of fish

and because the reedbeds are not very dense,

they don't go far back they're just a narrow strip,

it really is one of the best places in Wales to see the bittern.

'In a more extensive reedbed,

'this view of a bittern would be very rare indeed.

'It would be hidden deep within the reeds.

'But here, you can watch it clearly stalking its prey.

'In the winter, it hunts for fish.

'In the summer, it will supplement that with insects and frogs.

'Once inside the reeds, it's perfectly camouflaged.

'Any sign of threat and it raises its head to look like a reed.

'There's one thing that birds can do better than any other living being.

'They can fly.

'And they have many different flying techniques.

'One of the best places to see birds flying is on the coast.

'They use the wind as it blows off the sea and lifts over the land.

'South Stack on Anglesey is a particularly good site.

'On the high cliffs, you can watch the birds at eye level.

'The wind is so strong that gulls and ravens can simply glide here, with very little effort.

'They are two very different birds with different shaped wings.

'But the end result is the same.

'They fly smoothly.

'But why do gulls and ravens have different wing shapes?

'It's because they naturally lead very different lives.

'Gulls have pointed wings, designed specifically for sustained gliding.

'Ravens generally live more inland and soar and circle high up above the ground.

'For this, they need more control,

'which they get from their slotted wings.

'This extra control allows them to be more playful.

'One of our most dramatic birds on the wing can be found on the coast

'near Llandudno, on the cliffs of the Little Orme.'

See that bird, then?

That's a fulmar.

It's kind of a Welsh version of an albatross.

It's one of our supreme fliers.

Spends nearly all of its life out at sea.

It comes onto these cliffs to nest, and nothing else.

Over the winter, it's right out over the open ocean.

If you look at the wings when it comes past again,

they're long, thin, very stiff wings.

Those are adapted. Here's another one, coming past now.

Those are adapted for a life out at sea because they can make the best

out of any little bit of wind hitting the waves.

They'll skim over them and move like this, completely effortless.

There are thousands of miles of ocean out there

and it's important that they use as little energy as possible.

That's why the wings look like they do.

There's another one below me, skimming along the rocks.

Completely effortless. Completely effortless.

Gliding is the simplest form of flight.

Fulmars are the best gliders of all of our birds.

They hardly flap at all.

The wings only need to twist in response to different wind speeds above the sea.

If there isn't any wind they can produce it themselves

by flapping gently, using their wingtips.

They also flap their wingtips when they need to slow down

and stall when landing.

MUSIC

'Buzzards need a different kind of control for what they do.

'They're often seen soaring above the land, scanning for food.

'For this they need long, broad wings,

'curved to provide maximum lift.

'They ride columns of air rising from the land

'and smooth out any turbulent air with their slotted wings.

'While some birds, like the buzzard and the red kite,

'glide or soar using the air, other birds, like egrets and herons,

'produce their own powered flight by constant flapping.

'Many of our smaller birds generally spend little time in the air.

'They simply make short flights from one perch to another.

'They also live in different habitats

'which have different flying problems.

'In a woodland or garden,

'birds need to be able to take-off quickly to avoid danger

'and they need to be manoeuvrable to avoid trees and other objects.

'A bird's control of fast take-off and landing

'can only be appreciated when it's slowed down.

'The way these great and blue tits coordinate their feet and wings

'for take-off and landing is astonishing.

MUSIC

'A coal tit is just as skilful.

'The tremendous power that's required to shift air on take-off

'is shown by fully-flapping wings.

'Waders don't necessarily need a quick take-off

'But need faster, sustained speed for long-distance flying.

'Especially as many migrate long distances.

'Some of our power flyers have evolved wings

'to enable them to produce aerobatic displays.

'Lapwings have very developed primary feathers on their wingtips

'which gives them fantastic control.

'They use this remarkable ability in their courtship display.

PEEWIT CALL

'There are also other specialist fliers in Wales.

'These are Arctic terns on the Skerries, north of Holyhead.

'They have long tails to give them extra agility.

'They can also hover by pushing the air backwards and forwards.

'They need these abilities to help them keep an eye on their eggs

'and chicks in this big colony during the breeding season.

'They also make the longest migration of any living creature

'and travel from here to the southern hemisphere

'as far as the Antarctic every year.

'Kestrels hover in a different way.

'This one is hunting on the Foryd, near Caernarfon.

'It stays in one position by flying at the same speed as the wind blowing against it.

It, too, uses its tail for control.

'And, like all of our birds, it's perfectly designed for a life in Wales.'

Just look at this magnificent view.

To me, this just about epitomises Wales.

This mixture of hills and fields, of hedgerows and woodland,

and I don't think enough of us really appreciate the fact

that we live in a fantastic country.

One that's packed with all kinds of habitats.

And in each and every one of those, whether we take notice or not,

the birds are getting on with their secret lives.