All language subtitles for The Unnatural History of London BBC Natural World 2012 720p HDTV_Subtitles01.ENG

Winter in the suburbs of London.

It's late. People are tucked up,

or watching David Attenborough
on the telly.

'And the vast herds follow.

'Wildebeest are free to travel

'wherever the quest
for food leads them

'and they home in
on the scent of wet soil

'that carries the promise
of fresh grass.'

There's a migration
going on here, too.

The last bus does its rounds

and the old residents of this place
are looking to reclaim the streets.

Fallow deer
are stepping into a world

where nothing is quite natural.

Above them, this leaf
should have fallen months ago,

but a tiny patch remains,
confused by the streetlights

into believing
winter has not yet arrived.

On the ground, the council's
lawnmowers encourage fresh grasses

tastier than
the brambles in the woods.

Like the wildebeest herds in Africa,

the deer of Essex are attracted
to their own suburban Serengeti.

There are not lions here,

but cars can kill, too.

They won't be deterred - the
manicured lawns are irresistible.

Finally they can eat their fill.

By rush hour, they'll be long gone.

And it's not just deer.

There are other mass migrations
and alien invasions,

a world most of us never see.

There are a lucky few

who have opened their eyes
to this wild subculture.

Is that one feeding now?

For them, London is a magical
wilderness full of opportunity.

Every building in London
resembles a cliff face.

Good dog.

No, there are no foxes
in the countryside now.

They're all in London.

They'll come right over
like helicopters.

We're surrounded.
This is the real urban jungle.

It's like a gang here and a gang
there, and it's all about territory.

I think she's camera shy.

Our window on to this world
is through some unlikely heroes.

This is the natural history
of London

as you have never seen it before.

'This train is ready to depart.'

To understand the nature of London,

we need to look at it as we would
look at any other habitat.

But there is no habitat on Earth
that evolves as quickly as a city.

London's wildlife has had to adapt

to this extreme eruption
of rock and glass.

Down in the streets,

spring reveals the city
is still throbbing to the seasons.

Trees, the giants of the old order,

now reach up
between towers and wheels,

living signposts
to the arrival of summer.

Despite all the changes,

London is still a handful of
gently rolling hills

that fall away to a flood plain
of drained marshes...

with a river running through it.

Before we tried to contain it,

the Thames reached over
five times its current width.

Fighting back this tide
is an ongoing battle.

You can never keep nature out -

it will always seep back,
bringing its magic with it.

One recent arrival swam in through
the lock gates of Canary Wharf

to an old coal dock that separates
the towers of industry

from Billingsgate Fish Market.

The Billingsgate Porters
are a London tradition.

For 500 years,
men have risen at 4am each day

to distribute fish to a hungry city.

But these tradesmen
have gone soft on an animal

most fishermen
would see as the enemy.

I think she's camera shy.

When I first saw her, it was dark

and right down the other end
of the docks there

and I was coming down the stairs
from the changing room,

and I saw this shape in the water and
I thought it was a man in the water.

No, I didn't think it was human.
I could see it was a seal.

I'm not that naive, you know?

Just kick this. Like that...

METAL CLANGS

And up she comes.

Like Flipper.

This seal can escape to the Thames
should she choose to do so,

yet she prefers to stay.

Certainly, catching fish here
is a lot easier.

She's a bit fussy - she won't eat
plaice or nothing like that.

She'll eat mackerel, herrings -
soft fish, like, you know?

What she likes the most are the squid

because they're nice and soft,
I suppose easy to swallow.

Salmon, I reckon. Salmon and trout.

Nice, big, juicy mackerel for her.

Bit hungry. Looks a bit narrow.

METAL CLANGS

She just puts it in her flippers
and claws and just strips it down.

Strips it right off.

It's an unlikely relationship.

Men considered
to be tough as old nails

raiding their stock
for the love of a seal.

She'll sort of go up and down,
follow you along.

She sort of performs, you know?
Especially when she's hungry.

There's a good girl. A lovely girl.

There's more fish in there
than there is in there!

For those of us who care to look,
London is full of surprises.

You've had whales
up the river, in't ya?

Had whales, dolphins.

Terns - red Arctic terns round here.

You see more in London
and surrounding areas than
what you can in the countryside.

It's all around you,

if you only look and see
for yourself what's about.

Some people walk about
with their head in the clouds.
They don't look at nothing.

Like I say, my garden -
toads, slowworms, frogs.

Middle of London, you know?

I mean, we'd never see
a slowworm when we was kids.

Grass snakes. You know, all coming
in. Where are they coming from?

See, what you don't see a lot of now
- hedgehogs.

When I first moved in
the house where I am

it was heaving with hedgehogs. You
know, there was too many of them.

The habitat of London
is not for the faint hearted

and hedgehogs have it
tougher than most.

They don't understand roads
and they confuse a pile of cuttings

as a place to doss down for the
night when it's actually a bonfire.

They have even developed a habit
for the sweet nectar of coffee

at the bottom of a Styrofoam cup.

If it gets stuck, it can be fatal.

They may not be streetwise yet,

but they muddle along
where they can.

Others have adapted brilliantly

and left their country cousins
far behind.

To the feral pigeon, the streets
of London are paved with gold.

Most Londoners barely give
these birds a second thought,

but Lisa, far from ignoring
the humble pigeon...

Stay, boys. ..has developed
an obsession with them.

It's all in the art of stealth.

She's not a scientist - she's just
a girl with an unlikely passion.

But you don't crawl around
the streets of London for six years

without picking up a thing or two.

We are in the middle of Soho,

so all these guys
basically live in Soho Square.

Scientists believe that pigeons
used to navigate their way

using the Earth's magnetic field

and there are actually
a lot of scientists now

that believe they just use roads
like everybody else.

So literally, you know,

a Manchester pigeon might arrive
in London by flying down the M1.

See the bobbing heads?

Because they've got an eye
on each side of their head,

they balance it up
by bobbing their heads,

which actually gives them
amazing eyesight.

They've also got a beak
that works like a straw.

When most birds drink,
they take a sip and knock it back.

Pigeons can literally suck up water
as if their beak is like a straw,

so it means they can literally get
a good old pint-full very quickly.

Lisa tracks them all over London,
and she thinks their characters

are defined by the neighbourhood
they come from.

God - easily spooked,
these pigeons of Peckham.

I've now filmed pigeons
or shot pigeons

in almost every borough
in London pretty much.

Kensington, obviously,
they tend to be

feeding largely off smoked salmon
and caviar.

A whole different kind of
posher type of pigeon, really.

And obviously this is the extreme,
which is south of the river.

The minute you go south,
they're quite different.

Just slightly more edgy, basically.

Slightly more edgy, a little bit
more of a gang mentality.

They're a slightly scarier pigeon
down here.

She has an online diary
about a pigeon called Brian

and with thousands of hits
on his website,

he's fast becoming
a London celebrity.

There's Brian.
That's Brian Pigeon -

see that light grey one there,
with the black stripes around him?

That's how you always know
that's Brian Pigeon.

The online diary
is what he gets up to every day,

hanging out with mates,
disappearing with mates.

Doing his own thing, partying.

He organised a protest flyby

that happened to coincide
with the G20 protests

and, literally,
I came down here to cover it

and there were thousands of pigeons.
Thousands from all over the country,

so he'd managed to get this
whole thousands of pigeons together

and then they did a mass flyby.

Did a huge flyby over to
the mayor's office, flew round it

and then flew all the way back again.

Lisa's blog may not be science,
but it's not all flight of fancy.

# Don't got a lot of time

# Don't give a damn

# Don't tell me what to do

# I am the man. #

The descriptions of Brian's
love-life all over London

taps into one of the keys
to the pigeons' success.

# God, shine your light down here

# Shine on the love

# Love of the loveless

# Love of the loveless. #

If you just care to look,
you will see pigeon courtship

going on all over the place
and all year round.

But the girls aren't easy.

Yeah, normally he will give it
a couple of goes first,

with most of the ladies running away.

But finally, when he meets one
who's up for it

and a little bit of eye contact,

a little bit of the puffing
of the chest.

And then the turning round
in circles, and I've often thought

it's just a, kind of,
"Look - here's me from all sides."

When they do finally manage, though -
he's done the puffy chest bit,

he's done the dancing round in
circles bit and she's gone, "Yeah,
all right, then. I'm up for it."

Yeah, then there can be all sorts
of lovely entwining of necks,

pecking each other's beaks,

feeding each other bits of spit,
which is nice.

And, yeah, then finally, up he jumps,
has a little wiggle around.

But, of course,
they don't actually have penises.

They're not actually well hung
or anything like that.
They actually do have a little hole.

Well, I think that's generally
why the female's a bit like,

"I'm really sorry -
I'm not in the mood.

"It's all going to be over
and done with in about ten seconds.

"And frankly it hurts my back."

The male tends to bask
in the wonderful afterglow,

the female's going, "Oh, my back.

"He was a little bit heavy,
that one."

But the male's all kind of like,

"Yeah, look at me.
Check out me and my packet."

Six weeks later, loads of eggs.

The pigeons hide their nests

on the rocky crags
and cliff faces of our buildings.

If you think about it,
you never see a baby pigeon.

Like many London teenagers,

they stay with their parents
until they are fully grown.

They'll only come down
when they look just like an adult.

Once fledged, the pigeon is free
to fly the canyons of London

to places none of us can go.

But up here, a predator's
moved into the neighbourhood

and it's the fastest animal
on the planet.

During the Second World War,

Parliament ordered all
Peregrine to be killed

because they could hunt
the carrier pigeons

bringing messages from the front.

The raptors have returned
with a vengeance,

even nesting here in the capital.

Most of us have no idea
what is going on above us,

but there are a few intrepid types

climbing high up to Peregrine level.

Peregrine! Mark, Peregrine.

When you do get, you know,
a large bird of prey

gunning through the centre
of London, it's just...

It's a marvel, you know,
it really is.

And a phenomenon of only
the last ten years.

Up here I can see
five Peregrine sites.

There are up to
around 23, 24 pairs now.

In the early days, it was
probably three pairs in London.

Beautiful. Beautiful.

And it's not just Peregrines
they're looking for.

Buzzard! Passerine. Swallow.
Just below the horizon now.

Peregrine just below the plane.
Swift just above us up here.

Nice one, Jamie! Where are we?

Standing on the pinnacle
of one of the biggest banks,

each month this group of birders

holds a vigil
over the London skyline.

Below them, global finance
hangs in the balance.

Up here, they're following
global movements too -

migrants from as far as Asia
are tracked and logged.

Looks like - talk of the devil - an
immature lesser black-backed gull.

Gulls are fascinating,
but they're an acquired taste
for a lot of people.

You'll often look up and if there's
a very distant speck soaring,

thermalling like raptors, more often
than not it's a cormorant or a gull.

They're kind of like the ground mass
that you're working through

to try and get to the good stuff.

Most birders are solitary types.

This gathering
is a rare collaboration,

each of them coming together from
their own special patches of London.

It seems to be coming
closer towards us.

You might get some film here, yeah.

We communicate online a lot,
don't we? Yeah.

And we're always seeing things
in different parts of London.

We actually met up here,
didn't we, Pete?

Yeah. I'd heard of you before.
And you, too.

Yeah, we kind of follow each other's
sightings and exploits.

Yeah, we've got our different patches
that we cover,

so everyone covers a certain area,
and together we all cover
the whole of London.

Yeah, gotcha. Cheers, mate.

This is mutual territory,

but what happens if one of them
starts birding on another's patch?

That's called poaching.
THEY LAUGH

Mark's patch is in
the council estates of Hackney.

You mention Hackney to most people

and it does conjure up
images of poverty and crime,

the archetypal concrete jungle.

It is the birders who know the
wild places of our cities the best.

At dawn, behind the estates,

Mark has a secret oasis.

The hidden nature of the city

can be better than anything
found in the countryside.

Living here has really
intensified my appreciation.

It's more isolated,
it's more specialised -

I think that creates an enormous
sense of well-being,

which you can't
necessarily quantify.

You can't really put a price on.

It's a reservoir
of London's drinking water

where heron and cormorants
have taken up residence.

No self-respecting heron
would nest at water level,

but in the city deviant behaviour
is more acceptable than elsewhere.

When out on a date,
Canada geese may not be deviant,

but they are certainly not
gentle lovers.

With the arrival of spring,
Mark's secret place

can give up one of the greatest
spectacles of London wildlife.

It's a love story -

a courtship ritual that would
knock the hardest of urban hearts.

The grebe
is a world-class performer.

They represent
a dash of real exotica.

You wouldn't think
they were out of place in, perhaps,

Africa or Asia, but they're
very much a British bird

and they are very much
a Hackney bird.

This is the start of the courtship,
where they both approach each other
fairly fast, heads down.

Straight for each other
and then, as they arrive,

the head-shaking
and the dance begins.

What the birds
are actually doing now

is they're approaching
each other with vegetation,

almost like
a Valentine's Day present.

It's very much a symbolic offering,
almost Egyptian.

It seems like a lot of work
for a bit of old weed.

It's not all about value, isn't?

The bigger the rock on your finger,
the better the marriage?

I don't think so.

That judging them
by human standards,

which is, you know, an extremely
flawed way to enjoy nature.

The grebe's display is...

something that's indicative
of spring.

I think it's one of nature's signals

that spring is
well and truly on its way.

And that makes you happy?

I think... I think it'd be very odd
if it didn't make me happy.

While most of us
are still supping cornflakes,

Mark's tapping into
a Planet Earth special.

Unlike Mark's secluded haven,

over at Pete's patch,
there's a riot going on.

It's a huge party,
with an all-you-can-eat deal.

For them, it must be heaven.

Because they're scavengers, so it's
the ultimate scavenger paradise.

They've got more food
than they can wave a stick at.

London's waste attracts

one of the greatest gatherings
of gulls in the country.

To be close to this,

Pete has even bought his house
overlooking the site.

When the wind is blowing
from the East

it can actually get
almost unbearable some days.

This is junk food - literally.

The gulls' success is all about
the distinct lack of fussiness.

It's not just the fast food
that lures them in -

around the coast, there's no longer
the same opportunities

for seagulls to socialise en masse.

This is one big seagull party.

Herring gulls got their name

because they followed our boats
for the herring we threw overboard.

There are over 2,000 of them here,

yet on the coastlines of Britain,
they're becoming endangered.

In the future,
London's children may wonder

why they are called herring gulls.

The relationship these birds
once had with fishermen out to sea

will have been lost
for the pull of the city.

Herring gulls,
lesser black-backed gull...

Where we see a mass of birds,
Pete sees rare individuals.

There should be greater
black-backed here as well.

There's one there now, look.
Going past that bulldozer.

It's hovering. Down and right.

Coming towards us,
just a single bird, there.

Some of them
come from a very long way,

you know, all over Scandinavia,
Norway, Finland...

We get Caspian gulls here as well -
they've come from central Asia.

Uh, we get, um...

We get Iceland gulls,
which come from Greenland.

We've had gulls that have come
from as far as Alaska.

There could be up to 15,000 gulls
here today.

That's a lot of birds.

Every hour in Britain,

we throw away enough rubbish
to fill the Albert Hall.

It's not just the gulls
that are cashing in on this.

Foxes like to scavenge, too,

but the swirling mass of live food
above his head is just too tempting.

Old instincts die hard.

SOMEONE WHISTLES
This vixen has learned to do
an extraordinary thing

for an even more reliable
source of food.

First, all she has to do
is follow the whistle.

SOMEONE WHISTLES

Then she's learned that sitting
politely is a small price to pay

for a steady stream of sausages.

Do you want this?

Sit.

Good dog.

And I just call her White Legs.
She's the mother.

And this one's Greedy. Yeah?

You want this? Fox. Sit.

Sit.

Good dog.

You see? He sits.

Do as your mother tells you.

There are four or five foxes who
have this relationship with Lillian.

The White Legs is the mummy.
She's got five little ones to feed.

Greedy, I think, is her sister.

You want this one, Greedy?

We've got two Greedys here
and they've got the daddy there.

Sit. Sit. Sit.

But, of course, this isn't
just about the foxes. Good dog.

This is about our need for
a connection with nature.

This is about a lady
high in a concrete tower

who finds solace
through the animals below.

Oh, the other one's there. That's
three, that's four there. Sit.

Now, watch him.
When we give him...

He'll go straight over there
and take it to the little one.

Hey!
SHE LAUGHS

Now he's got it, he's going to go.
He's going to go.

Yeah, here he goes. Go on.
He's gone to where the cubs are.

Only we humans go out of our way

to intentionally sustain
another species.

I'd like someone to feed me
if I was out there,

especially if I've got five cubs.

You want this? Sit.

Sit.

When animals respond to us,
they can bring extraordinary joy.

And that can come in many forms.

For a chef in Bethnal Green,
it's not foxes -

but sparrows are important
in his life.

For Cyrus, these small birds are a
reminder of his childhood in India.

Ah, look who's here - a good friend.

There's one bird
I grew up with in India,

and we had hundreds of them there.
They used to perch inside our house

and we used to get little sparrows
coming out and I used to

actually have them
in my hands sometimes.
So sparrows make me very happy.

I was amazed when I first came here
that the sparrows were dwindling

and I didn't see many sparrows.
I only saw them in a few places.

It's an amazing bird - very
industrious, very hard-working

and every one of them
has got a character.

If Cyrus is to help
his little friends here in London,

then he must do battle with
an invader

that some consider to be overrunning
the city in plague proportions.

My biggest problem is the squirrel.

A squirrel becomes
cleverer by the day.

What I'm going to do now is apply
lots of Vaseline on that bar,

and just really keep on smearing
Vaseline, coat after coat.

Cyrus is an award-winning chef and
he has another trick up its sleeve.

To ward off my little devil
four-legged friend,

who seems to get into everything,

I mixed some crushed
chilli seeds inside.

I know it's a bad thing to do
because I love animals of all kinds,

so I won't kill him, but what I
will do is keep him away from here.

So the chillies get into
his nose and it's amazing

because he takes a somersault,
he takes a backward flip,

shakes his head about,
and he doesn't come back.

If you tried to eat a spoonful of
that, you'd be suffering miserably.

London is amazing
from the point of view that

there is still so much wildlife.

Just look on the canal
in the early morning.

The swans are floating past,
the geese are there,

the ducks are there, the coots are
there, of course, crazy as they are,

screaming and shouting at two in
the morning, waking me up sometimes.

In India, they would be cut.

Somebody's little dinner
would be ready.

You just see birds floating
around like that, aimlessly.

They would get them.
If you come from a city like Bombay,

wildlife has virtually
been exterminated.

Where I grew up, in our little
suburb of Bombay, we had snakes,

we had monitor lizards,
we had parakeets, parrots, the lot.

I don't see a single bird now.

There is no city like London
in the world.

The amount of parks we have got,
the amount of open spaces we've got,

tiny little spaces also are green.

I think that is something that
London needs to be really proud of.

Coming from India, of course,
this is like magic.

'Good morning, London.
It's five minutes past six.'

'As London basks in a mini heatwave,

'it's perhaps difficult
to imagine the capital...'

'Phew, what a scorcher!

'If you watched John Hammond a bit
earlier on the national weather,

'you'll know the hotspot today
is Northolt in north-west London.'

London is indeed magical.

It is home to eight million people,

yet each day throughout its history

it has greeted a wild population
bigger than its human count.

'Habitats on land and in water
are still works in progress,

'but already drawing praise.'

'The rivers look a lot cleaner.

'Everything's been trimmed down,
so it's wonderful.'

The rivers are now full of fish,

grebes and herons,
even otters are back.

Peregrines and gulls fill the sky.

It's one of the greenest cities
in the world.

Away from the canyons of the city,

rising above the floodplains
of the Thames,

lie the ancient oak forests
of Richmond.

This is a place where
Old England still remains,

that harks back to the
original habitat of London.

This man is no stranger to
the history of these woods.

Nice old oak trees here.

Massive, big, old tree.

These are probably
400,500 years old.

Henry VIII probably alive
when these trees were around.

He's probably done what I've done,

just lent against it while
he's chasing the old deer.

It's almost like Robin Hood country.

You expect to see a bloke come out
in a pair of tights in a minute.

It's John's job
to manage the deer here.

He's been a London gamekeeper
all his life.

There was a female
here a minute ago,

cos she's got a baby
here somewhere.

Right now, he's looking for a fawn.

At the start of summer, the mothers
stash their young in the grass.

It's the one time when female deer
are aggressive to anything

they think may be a danger
to their calves.

There's a hind watching.
Be careful of her.

She's got one here somewhere.

Most at risk are
the dog-walkers in the park.

If we had a dog here,
you'd be in serious trouble.

I mean, if there was a dog
chasing a calf here now,

all of those hinds
and those up there,

there'd be 50 hinds chasing the dog.
And God help the dog!

Their feet are called slots

and they're extremely sharp
on the tip end of the toe.

We have had dogs killed here.

Got some people here with dogs
which are going to be in trouble,

cos they're heading
right towards them.

If you let the dog
off the lead, actually,

and if it was scared of deer
and was running away,

you could run away with it and
it would attack the dog, not you.

You'd get away that way.

With the deer
distracted by the dogs,

it's a good opportunity to sneak in
to catch a young fawn.

Got one, just down here.

It's 20 feet in front of me now.

Hopefully, if I can just walk up
to it and just hold it, you know,

come in slowly, keep it calm,
there's less chance of it bleating.

But once it bleats, we've got some
girls behind us, some hinds...

Once he bleats, we've got to get out
fast because they'll come running.

John wants to tag the young deer.

They will not move for anything.

Catching it is the easy part.

But avoiding the attention
of the females is the problem.

Let me get an ear tag in fast
because...

BLEATING

CONTINUES BLEATING

Number ten. There you are.

Oop! Get out of here quick.
Here come the girls.

Stay with me, John.

You see what I mean?
You have to be careful.

But I would back out now
if I were you guys.

She's going to follow us, see.

Just keep walking.

The tags help track the fawns
as they grow up.

Come winter, many of the deer
will have to be culled

in the dead of the night.

We'd all like to live in
an ideal world,

where predators will take
care of things,

but we're not in that world no more.

You know, if you didn't
cull these deer, I mean,

they produce between 100 and 150
babies every year.

And you've got to think, you've only
got to give it three, four years,

you'll have doubled your herd size.

Then, anything green
you're looking at will be gone

cos they'll have eaten it all.

There'll be nothing left.

Who wants a park like that?

Here, nature has been managed
and controlled

since Charles I built a wall
around Richmond

and claimed it as his garden.

I'm afraid you have to act as God.

The really wild spaces of London
are somewhere else.

not the parks and gardens,

but the forbidden zones.

The railway verges

are some of the most important and
undisturbed green spaces in London.

Behind electric fence
and barbed wire,

they are as difficult to reach as
any sea cliffs or deserted island.

They thread through London
like green arteries.

Plants which normally live
oceans apart

find their place to thrive and reach
every corner of the city.

Here, the seeds of ragwort,
knotweed and willowherb

commute on the slipstream of the
Circle, District or Northern lines.

Here, foxes and feral cats
migrate through the city,

seeking their fortune.

And there's another animal that is
rumoured to be using our rail links.

If it's true, then pigeons have
taken their relationship with London

to a whole other level.

Pigeons visit stations because
there are plenty of crumbs about.

But Londoners are reporting
a new phenomena.

Some birds, after
feeding at one station,

are happy to go to
the next one...by train.

'Bad news for commuters -
fare rises and tube strikes.

'The RMT has announced
a series of walk-out dates.'

'That's right. Four days of
strikes have been announced,

'all for the second half
of this month.'.

'South West Trains has said
it will review the way it deals
with disruption to its services..'

PA: This is a Circle line train
via Paddington and Baker Street.

This train is ready to depart.
Please stand clear of the doors.

Is this a new kind of evolution?

PA: The next station
is Goldhawk Road.

PA: This is Goldhawk Road.

This is Hammersmith & City line train
to Plaistow.

It's certainly a nice life
if you can get it.

Travelling by train,
visiting friends in the park,

constantly fed by
the upright apes all around you.

But a pigeon doesn't have
it all its own way.

There are dangers here, too.

There are 300 languages
being spoken in London.

And the multicultural flavour
of the city

is reflected in the animals
that live here.

The pelicans
have been here since 1664,

a gift from
a Russian ambassador.

They seem prepared to
get along with the locals.

It's hard to know what
sort of behaviour to expect

from a Russian pelican
living near Buckingham Palace.

But, surely, this is not normal.

WOMAN: Oh, my God!

ONLOOKERS LAUGH

It's not just the pigeons
that have to face

unnatural dangers in the city.

Nesting high in a tree or
on a rock face is normal for a duck.

The chicks jump down
soon after they hatch.

But this London cliff face
is a hell of a leap.

For some ducklings,
once in the water,

their troubles are just beginning.

20 years ago,

a ninja cartoon sent kids flocking
to the shops to buy baby turtles.

Then, they were no bigger
than a 50-pence piece.

Now, a London pond can contain
several hundred red-eared terrapins,

all grown up,

and doing what they've always done
in the Everglades and the Amazon.

London has always
provided a haven to immigrants

from all over the world,

and there's one refugee rumoured
to have Hollywood credentials.

Sometimes, dramatic changes
may be traced back

to a single human mistake.

These Indian ring-necked parakeets

first centred around
London's Shepperton Studios,

and popular opinion has it
that they escaped in 1950

from the set of
The African Queen.

Humphrey Bogart left a door open
for a moment perhaps,

and the wildlife of London
was changed.

And dusk, wave after wave
of parakeets

can build to a roost
of over 6,000 birds.

Of course, London is used to aliens.

Immigrant black rats off the boats
brought with them the plague.

Today, it's the Norwegian brown rat

which, in London, can now grow twice
the size of its cousins back home.

And new arrivals
are still coming in off the boats.

Go dancing down by the docks tonight

and the UV lights of the clubs can
reveal more than you bargained for.

The European yellowtail scorpion
is rarely lethal,

but you wouldn't want to lie around
in this gutter after a skinful.

There are now three
separate colonies of scorpion

living in London,
some several thousand strong.

Some immigrants arrive on boats,
others by train.

This man is hunting aliens
that are sneaking their way in

using the old Victorian canals.

Crayfish Bob has ideas of
big business down here.

He wants to catch the invaders
for us all to eat.

But in these murky depths,

he's stumbled upon a gang war
with crayfish invaders

from both Europe and America
fighting over territory.

This underworld is the scene
for a major turf war.

I would think, in this darkness, this
would be a very attractive habitat.

In this old brickwork,

the chances are they'll find
crevices to hide away in.

Yeah, I would think that this was

a fairly popular place to reside.

Well, that's a red swamp.

As you see - red swamp -
likes living in swamps and...

..is somewhat red.

What we have is four different
species of crayfish.

They're all invasive.
None of them should be here.

The old gang of white-claw
- folklore, gone years ago.

And it's like a gang here and a gang
here. It's all about territory.

The Serpentine, for example,

used to be absolutely
teeming with Turkish crayfish.

But now the signal crayfish
have come in.

Hampstead Heath - once Turkish
territory, red swamp move in.

It's like the sort of
gangland wars of the '60s.

The gangs are on the move.

In Maida Vale, a red swamp
has moved on a signal's patch.

A punch-up is inevitable.

The signal crayfish fights dirty.

He carries with him a plague

that lays low all other crayfish
in its path.

He's already wiped out
the native crayfish

and his gang is set to take over
the whole of London.

He's killed most of our native
white-claws in many areas.

He's teeming on the bottom of
the rivers, and he's quite likely

to do what he's done in the rest
of the UK and become dominant.

In the waterways of London,
a new order is being established.

All over London, it's the same.

The ancient residents and immigrants

are pioneering a new future
with us in the city.

This unnatural habitat
is home for a new generation

and they're growing up in a place
that suits them just fine.

An unnatural life in the city

can be easier than
anything in the countryside,

never more so than in the winter.

'More heavy snow and freezing
temperatures forecast.

'Up to nine inches of snow
fell in some areas.'

It's two degrees warmer for a start.

It means pigeons can nest
even earlier here.

They may even get a break
from the London Peregrines

who've adapted to use the
bright lights to hunt bats,

instead of birds.

And when times are tough,
for those who look for it,

there's always a little extra food
to be found.

Modern life usually creates
a barrier between us

and the natural world.

But, just occasionally, technology
brings us closer together.

Ernie has his own
special relationship

with the foxes he feeds
around his nightwatchman's cabin.

ERNIE SHOUTS

It's the shouting out
that actually does it.

They seem to get to
recognise the voice.

Then he sits back for
his own reality TV show, live.

And like Lillian and her foxes,
and Cyrix and his sparrows,

he thinks of the wild animals
as friends.

You can hear them actually
walk across the weigh bridge

and you look up and think,
"What's that noise?"

Look at the camera and you can
actually see 'em coming across.

Is that one feeding now?

We've got one feeding
on the left-hand corner.

Ernie's seeing an important twist
in the story.

An old hand at urban living

is threatened by a new migrant
to the city.

If the fox is feeding first,
they obviously can sense the badger

and they can hear it, they will
look around and simply back off.

They walk away.

As his weigh bridge reveals,

this badger comes with
a formidable appetite.

10.2 kilos, that one weighed.

They're supposed to dig their
own weight in worms a day.

And I can imagine some of them
are quite a big animal.

This winter, Ernie's going to be
eaten out of house and home.

The fox very rarely
will try and intimidate the badger.

If you see the size of the claws,

you can understand why
the foxes would walk away.

I'm sure I would as well!

Here comes a car in now.

Maybe in a few years, the badger
will also abandon its country roots

for an improvised city life.

MUSIC: "Someone Like You" by Adele

Do you miss the badgers
when you're not at work?

Sometimes - when we're talking
to the grandchildren.

A couple of times, they'll come down
and watch 'em all come out and feed.

Not so much now.

They're growing up
and becoming teenagers

and girls become more important
than badgers, unfortunately.

We all like a glimpse
of an untamed world.

All around us, animals and plants

are being displaced from
their natural homes,

colonising the forgotten corners
of our cities.

Here, a global mixture
of emigres and refugees

have created a new life.

And there's no turning back.

They're Londoners now.

Who knows what weeds in the
concrete, or gang of crayfish

or scorpion, parakeets or
ninja turtles will arrive next.

Here, the animals
have a dependency on us,

but we also have a need for them -

a desire to be in contact
with a world

that is not shaped by human hand.

Most people live in cities now,
lost in their own world.

They only notice each other.

Yet if they look up into the sky,
down an alleyway,

or behind a fence,

they may meet a wild animal, and
that could change both their lives.

There is no city like London
in the world.

Coming from India, of course,
this is like magic.

I've got the job that everybody
wants. What could I want for more?

Pleasure. Just simple pleasure,

to know that they're surviving.

I think it'd be very odd
if it didn't make me happy.

When you're reincarnated
the first time around,

you come back as a bird which,
quite often, is a pigeon.

I'd love to come back as a pigeon.

# Never mind
I'll find someone like you

# I wish nothing but the best
for you, too

# Sometimes it lasts in love
But sometimes it hurts instead

# Sometimes it lasts in love
But sometimes it hurts instead. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd