Original subtitles

Our isles were once covered by ice.

As the Earth warmed,

grasses became the first plants to reclaim the land.

Today,

they cover more than 40% of it.

Most of that is farmed,

but when these lands are well managed,

they still provide homes for wildlife.

It's early spring.

In a field of barley,

a male brown hare is searching for a female.

Using his excellent sense of smell,

he can tell that there is one nearby.

But getting to mate with her won't be easy

He must deal with three challenges,

before she'll consider him.

First...

DRUM ROLL

...boxing.

To impress her,

he must match her strength,

but be careful not to hurt her.

Only if he can hold his own,

will he be allowed to move to the next stage.

He puts up a good fight and, so, passes her first test.

Her second test?

Stamina.

Hares are Britain's fastest mammal,

and can reach speeds of 45mph.

The chase attracts other males,

all fired up and eager to mate.

His final test

is to get rid of his rivals.

HIGH-SPIRITED MUSIC PLAYS

Despite their competition,

he hangs on to the top spot.

But distracted hares must be careful.

OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYS

Their courtship competitions have made them conspicuous.

A golden eagle can spot one from two miles away.

In a straight line, the eagle is faster,

but by twisting and turning,

the hare dodges its attacks.

Nonetheless, she is relentless.

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

Golden eagles once chased hares

across all of our isles.

But as our wild grasslands have diminished,

these contests have become a rare sight.

When I was a boy, back in the 1930s, growing up in Leicester,

I spent days on my bicycle exploring the local countryside.

Back then, it was easy to find hay meadows like this one,

rich with wild flowers

and swarming with butterflies

and insects of all kinds.

But since then, we have lost more than 95%

of these wonderful habitats.

In this episode,

we will show why our wildlife needs rich, wild grasslands

and take you on a journey from the rare coastal flower meadows

of the Scottish Hebrides,

right up to the heather moorlands

in the high mountains.

WIND WHISTLES

Few things can tame this fierce landscape...

...but grasses can.

Here in the Outer Hebrides,

their roots have bound the loose grains together

and created a formidable barrier.

Miles of sand dunes form a natural sea wall,

protecting one of the most important habitats in the world -

the machair grassland.

BIRDSONG AND BUZZING

5,500 years of traditional, non-intensive farming

on shell-sand soils has created these rich, wild flower meadows,

unique to Scotland and Ireland.

Free from pesticides,

they are home to hundreds of rare flowers and insects.

BUZZING

Each spring, the machair becomes a nursery for ground-nesting birds.

CHIRPING

It's alive with chicks,

all doing their best to escape from their parents.

Since 1960,

lapwing numbers in Britain and Ireland

have dropped by 80%...

...which makes every one of these chicks

very valuable.

Just a day old, this youngster is starting off on

its first food-finding mission.

Common gulls patrol the nursery,

hoping to pick off an unwary chick.

Adult lapwings have excellent eyesight,

and attack at the first sign of threat.

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

SQUAWKING

And there are other wading birds here, too...

...and a multi-species air force takes to the wing.

Alarm calls warn all the chicks,

whatever their species, to stay hidden.

SIREN CALL

But the gull knows that the grass is full of chicks

and won't give up.

CHIRPING

SQUAWKING

This time, it takes a young oystercatcher...

...and the lapwing chick gets back to its mother.

MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYS

SQUAWKING

Across Britain and Ireland,

habitat loss to intensive agriculture

has caused numbers of birds like these to greatly reduce.

But thanks to nature-friendly farming methods,

the Outer Hebrides remain a vital sanctuary

for our most endangered ground-nesting species.

All our grasslands are now managed by people.

But they weren't always like this.

Once there were vast scrub-covered wildernesses,

studded with patches of grassland.

Roaming freely across them

were herds of wild cattle

and wild horses.

HORSES WHINNY

In some areas, such species are being reintroduced

in the hope of recreating these once extensive grasslands.

HORSES NEIGH

In Cambridgeshire, there are large free-ranging herds of horses.

There are five family units in this herd...

...each ruled by a dominant stallion.

THEY GRUNT AND WHINNY

They're regularly on the move,

searching for the best food.

They eat young trees,

and so prevent grassland turning into forest.

By disturbing the ground,

they allow many species that were once common in such places,

to return.

It's late spring,

and the herd's numbers are increasing.

Just 24 hours old, this youngster is taking his first faltering steps.

The stallion guards the mare closely.

WHINNIES

Having just given birth,

she will soon be ready to mate again.

A rival stallion notices her condition

and tensions begin to rise.

WHINNYING AND SNORTING

Looks might be tolerated by the dominant stallion...

WHINNIES

...but anything else will bring trouble.

A well-placed kick

could do serious damage.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

NEIGHING

GRUNTING AND BRAYING

This time, the challenger retreats.

Traditional breeds of horses are now being gradually reintroduced

to isolated grasslands across the British Isles.

By expanding and connecting these reserves,

we could restore large swathes of our lost wilderness,

if we wanted to.

HORSE NEIGHS

Grasses, when allowed to grow tall and wild,

can conceal animals that few people get to see.

Here, there is a network of hidden trails,

made by Britain's most abundant mammal.

Yet, despite there being more than 50-million of them...

...this little rodent is tricky to spot.

It's NOT a mouse.

It's a vole - a small rodent with teeth specially adapted

for chewing grass.

This female is in a hurry...

ANIMATED MUSIC PLAYS

...because it's time to feed her babies.

SQUEAKING

She has six.

They're just ten-days-old

and still reliant on her for milk and body heat.

She doesn't leave them

for more than half an hour at a time.

But to feed them all and herself,

she must eat almost her entire body weight in grass

every day.

Knowing every turn in her maze of trails,

she can reach her favourite feeding spots without being seen...

CRUNCHING

...but she can be heard.

Short-eared owls have excellent hearing,

and field voles make up 90% of their diet.

At the slightest hint of danger,

the mother vole deploys her best defence.

DRAMATIC MUSIC CRESCENDOS

She freezes.

Short-eared owls can hear a whisker scratching against grass.

But she must get back to her babies.

SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC

Field voles breed successfully when grasses aren't cut short,

meaning the owl's next meal won't be far away.

BELL TOLLS

In southern England, a few precious pockets

of chalk grassland have remained unchanged for thousands of years.

Light grazing by livestock maintains their rich variety of plants.

On a hillside near Dorchester,

an apparently empty snail shell is moving.

JOCULAR MUSIC

A mason bee.

There are a dozen different species of mason bee in Britain.

Most nest in holes.

But this one, the two-coloured mason bee,

prefers to rear her family in snail shells.

Many of those, of course, are still occupied.

She needs help.

Glow worm larvae are always hungry.

These little insects might be slow...

...but that doesn't matter

when you're hunting a snail.

SINISTER MUSIC

The meal may take a week,

but once it's finished, all that is left is an empty shell.

And that is perfect

for the bee.

Fresh shells are the strongest

and will give her young the best chance of survival.

She sets about filling it with pollen,

food for her young, when the egg she lays inside hatches.

BUZZING

Using tiny pieces of rubble, and glue made from chewed-up leaves,

she carefully seals the front door.

But that isn't the end of this mother's care.

And her last trick is extraordinary...

...because this bee is something of a witch!

There are more than 250 species of wild bees in Britain,

but this is the only one that rides a broomstick!

She's collecting hundreds of dry grass stems

to hide her snail-shell nests.

She may build up to 20 of them.

About a third of our food comes from plants pollinated by bees,

but due to habitat loss and use of pesticides,

wild bee species are in decline.

We can help them recover,

by restoring wild areas between our intensively-managed fields.

If grasslands are to be rich and diverse, they have to be grazed.

And we can thank the Romans and the Normans for bringing with them

one of nature's best lawnmowers...

...rabbits.

Unlike their cousins,

the larger hares,

they dig tunnels.

Bolt holes are essential...

...if you're the favourite food of a buzzard.

OMINOUS MUSIC

A foot-thump raises the alarm.

But not everyone pays attention.

DRAMATIC MUSIC CRESCENDOS

One less youngster,

...but then, rabbits are rather good at breeding.

A male - a buck -

offers a female two kinds of gift.

First, perfume.

A gland under his chin produces a cocktail of pheromones.

His second gift is rather less romantic.

He pees on her.

JOCULAR MUSIC PLAYS

His particular smell helps her decide whether or not

she will let him father her babies.

His choice of aftershave, however,

hasn't yet convinced her.

Darkness does nothing

to dampen his enthusiasm.

Finally, the buck is in luck!

This giant warren in Dorset

is one of the largest in Britain.

OWL HOOTS

It's home to more than a thousand rabbits...

...and at night, they all feel sufficiently confident

to leave their burrows.

And foxes know that.

So this is when they usually hunt.

DROLL MUSIC PLAYS

That was just a vole.

Back at the den,

his vixen is looking after their four hungry pups.

PUPS WHINE

Make that five!

The rabbits watch the fox closely.

As long as they can see him,

they can outrun him.

But they can't hide.

It's a mistake to think that you are always safe in a burrow.

If there is only one way out,

a tunnel could become a trap.

SHRIEK

SOMBRE MUSIC

A rabbit's life is full of danger.

A big warren can lose hundreds each year,

but without losses to foxes and buzzards,

rabbits could soon eat themselves into starvation.

BIRDSONG

As farming has intensified,

most of our traditional meadows have disappeared.

Species-rich grasslands now occupy only about 1% of the land.

BUZZING

Their reduction in numbers is one of the reasons

why half of our butterfly species are now at risk of extinction.

But, in Gloucestershire, one species is making a comeback.

It has one of the most extraordinary lifecycles of any insect anywhere.

Most caterpillars find their food among flowers.

This particular species, however, feeds in an entirely different way.

A way that is full of risks.

Ants eat caterpillars.

But this caterpillar is a master trickster.

First, she releases a droplet of honeydew from a gland on her back...

...encouraging the worker ant to tend to her.

Next, she does something even more remarkable.

She takes in air,

inflating her body...

...and then she releases it...

MIMICS CHIRRUPING

...making a sound that resembles the distress call of a queen ant...

...whilst bathing the worker in intoxicating pheromones.

In response, the worker ant picks up the caterpillar

and takes it back to the nest - as if rescuing it.

But will the other ants accept the caterpillar as a queen?

SQUEAKS

She continues her royal squeaking

and, amazingly, they do.

Once inside the nest,

the caterpillar can go wherever she likes.

Surrounded by thousands of ants that could easily kill her,

she finally gets the reward for her trickery.

This caterpillar is one of the very few in the world

that becomes carnivorous.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

Over the next six months,

this fake queen eats the defenceless ant larvae,

until she's 100 times her original size.

Then, having consumed almost the entire ant colony...

...she pupates...

...and becomes a chrysalis.

Nearly a year later,

on one warm spring day...

...she performs her final trick.

ENTHRALLING MUSIC

She emerges from the shroud of her chrysalis

as an adult Large Blue butterfly.

40 years ago, the Large Blue was extinct in Britain.

But once its extraordinary life cycle was understood,

it was reintroduced from Europe to restored meadows here

and now we have one of the densest populations to be found anywhere.

Throughout the British Isles there are rugged uplands,

where grasses are replaced by other kinds of plants.

For thousands of years, people have farmed these seemingly wild places,

creating a landscape that is now dominated by heather.

And in the wilder parts,

lives one of Britain's rarest birds...

...black grouse.

The males come here at dawn to display competitively

throughout the spring in special places called leks.

Each male competes to claim a small area in the centre of the lek

and then invites females to visit him

by producing an extraordinary bubbling song.

GROUSE SINGS

This particular lek in the Cairngorms

is dominated by a formidable male,

nicknamed The Boss.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

Each morning, he fights off challengers.

IRATE COOING

But now, a new cock on the block has arrived...

HISSING

...Half Tail.

He's no stranger to a fight,

having already lost some of his tail feathers

in a close shave with a golden eagle.

And now, he's set his sights on The Boss's crown.

For the past week, the two of them have been sizing each other up.

And now, it's the showdown.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

Half Tail has triumphed.

This lek has a new boss.

And his timing couldn't be better.

A female has arrived.

HALF TAIL COOS

This is his chance to impress.

She might only visit this lek once this year.

COOING CONTINUES

He's been lucky this morning,

but Half Tail must hold his position at the centre of the lek

if he's to get another chance.

Our uplands have harsh winters.

But there are some sheltered and undisturbed places

that suit one surprising year-round resident.

As the spring sun warms these slopes in Northumbria...

...a rare reptile becomes active.

A male adder sheds his winter skin,

revealing his zigzag stripe,

the distinctive pattern that identifies

Britain's only venomous snake.

Now, he needs to find a female.

Guided by an acute sense of smell,

this 40cm long male sets off to find a female.

He may have to travel a mile or more.

But he's in luck.

A female, newly emerged from hibernation.

Sliding over her back...

...he begins a delicate courtship.

But he's not the only one around here searching for a mate.

Rearing up as high as he can,

he uses his whole body to try and pin his opponent to the ground.

These duels can last for up to an hour.

Eventually, the challenger gives way.

The male continues his courtship,

gently tapping the female with his head

while using his coils to massage her...

...until she allows him to mate.

But then, more eager males arrive.

He must stay attached to her long enough to transfer his sperm.

And fortunately, he has just the equipment needed

to help him do that...

...a penis with barbs.

Once mating has started,

the adders remain locked together for up to an hour.

And that means wherever the female goes,

the male is also dragged along.

She will mate with many males in the coming months.

So for her other suitors,

all is not lost.

At the end of spring, a more relaxed courtship takes place

in the skies of the Scottish Highlands.

A sky dance.

SOARING VIOLIN MUSIC

A male hen harrier.

Weaving and rolling through the air,

he's doing his best to catch the attention of a female.

But conspicuous behaviour can bring danger.

Decades of illegal persecution of hen harriers on some grouse moors

has meant that this dance almost vanished from our skies.

Fortunately, in a few protected places,

hen harriers are now slowly starting to recover.

And this male's efforts have paid off.

CHIRPING

But being a great aerial dancer isn't enough.

He must also provide his mate with a meal.

And he must deliver it in exactly the right way.

CHIRPING

Convinced by his performance...

...she chooses a nest deep in the heather.

Six weeks later, it's full of hungry mouths waiting for food.

The female has chosen a good mate.

Only with both parents working full-time

will the chicks get enough food to enable them to fledge

and eventually help these rare birds to recover their numbers.

Even in our crowded isles,

there are still places that retain their wildness.

In Ireland's County Kerry lies a land that looks almost untouched.

This is a landscape being returned to wilderness.

And it's the scene of an age-old battle.

This red deer stag has spent his summer feeding in the mountains.

HE BELLOWS

But as autumn approaches,

he comes down to lower ground

to compete in the rut and fight for females.

But a more experienced stag

has already claimed this group of females.

STAG GRUNTS

The newcomer declares his intentions.

To win these females however...

...he will have to fight.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

An antler in the eye would blind him.

An antler to the body could kill him.

ANTLERS CLATTER

His inexperience has cost him this victory.

But losing one battle doesn't necessarily mean

that he's lost his chance to mate.

Over the next few weeks, the dominant stag

is so busy guarding his harem of females, that he doesn't eat.

And that leaves him weak.

This is the opportunity the newcomer has been waiting for.

The dominant stag is tired,

but he has to fight once again if he is to keep his females.

For the newcomer, it's now or never.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

MUSIC CRESCENDOS

BELLOWING

The harem has been taken over by the newcomer.

At the end of this season,

he will return to the mountains, victorious.

Almost all the grasslands in our isles

are now managed by and for people.

Whether in the future we choose to make room in them for wildlife...

...is up to us.

Wild eagles have never been filmed hunting in the UK before.

The challenge was to capture this behaviour

with not just golden eagles,

but also the larger and rarer white-tailed eagles.

The team travelled to Islay in the Scottish Hebrides.

The eagle numbers here have been increasing year-on-year

and in a good year, you can have eight or ten different eagles

visiting this reserve during the winter.

The reserve is part of a working farm

and managed in a way that benefits nature.

Reserve manager James How was the first to witness

the returning white-tailed eagles doing something extraordinary.

It was probably four years ago

that we started to see the eagles coming in

and having a look at the geese.

At that stage it was just one eagle.

Over the last few years, that behaviour has just increased.

So you've got these phenomenal flocks of geese here

and now we have apex predators hunting them, which...

It feels complete somehow.

But it wasn't always like this.

White-tailed eagles once lived across Britain and Ireland,

but were so heavily persecuted that they became extinct

at the start of the 20th century.

These giants needed a helping hand to return.

The first attempt at releases was back in 1968.

I was, crikey,

27, on the island of Fiaraidh.

And my boss said,

"Look, I'm going to get four young white-tailed eagles from Norway

"and I want you to reintroduce them to the island."

Back then, re-introductions were new and not always welcome.

But these early efforts eventually paid off

and today, there are more than 100 breeding pairs across Scotland.

On Islay, the team focus their work around the eagles' favourite prey -

brown hares and barnacle geese.

What we're trying to attempt is so difficult here

because we are filming birds

that can be over two mountains in five or ten minutes.

And to get ahead of them

and try and work out where their pray are going to be,

there's no choice,

you just have to put hours and hours and hours into it.

The team spread out to watch as many geese and hares as possible.

We have to have static camera teams, hide camera teams,

roving camera teams.

And we also have to have a huge team of spotters.

But the famous Hebridean weather had other ideas.

Ouch! These hailstones are about 2mm or 3mm across.

They are like being hit with BB pellets!

How are we supposed to film in this?

No wonder there are no eagles this morning!

And one team member couldn't even make it across from the mainland.

We've been grounded.

Because the bad weather and the storm,

the ferries are not going any more.

But all I can do is wait until the storm finishes

and then I can head over and see them.

Once the storm blows through and the whole team are safely on the island,

filming can finally begin.

The tower hides enable views right across the grassland

where the eagles' prey congregate.

But first, the team need to learn the habits of the individual birds

and each day, the challenge is to find them.

OK, I think I've got them very distant, way to the east.

The white-tails went off with an escort of jackdaws, over.

OK. One's taken off and is flying south-east now

towards the fields. Hamza, be much closer to you now.

No, we don't have eyes on it just yet.

If you guys can direct me to it, that would be ace.

Still just going over the field.

It doesn't look like it's got any hunting on the brain

at the moment though.

Eagles don't always hunt for their food.

Young birds often scavenge for an easy meal.

So learning when they are in hunt mode is key for the team.

Getting the hang of who's who,

because we can recognise four different young eagles now

and they do have a pattern and they do have favourite places.

There is a hierarchy where they boss each other around.

We've had four different golden eagles today.

We've had six different white-tailed eagles.

And we're still expecting more to come in.

As the team get to know these birds intimately,

it becomes clear how special this place is.

You can only really describe it as an eagle school.

You know, these young birds are coming here to learn to hunt.

It's basically Top Gun for eagles.

We are surrounded by eagles. That is amazing.

We've just had birds fighting.

Really, really lovely footage of all of them, kind of, like, tumbling.

After six weeks, Jesse captures their first hunt.

A young golden eagle flushes a hare out on the flats.

He bolted straight out across the short grass.

He jinked from side to side.

The power that the eagle would have had in a straight line,

he could have just mown down the hare.

Who needs lions? Who needs polar bears?

This is just as impressive.

After weeks of watching and learning the eagles' routines,

the white-tails finally begin hunting in range of the cameras.

Eagle!

Eagle on the flats just going down.

Whoa!

Jesse's patience in the hide gives him a front row seat

at the start of the chase.

And in the tower, John and Rachael can pick up where he left off.

Oh, he caught it by its tail and then claws at the goose

and is now carrying it by its neck and its head.

Whoa, that's incredible!

That was something else.

She just took off and went straight into the flock.

One went up, singled one out,

plucked it out of mid air and landed with it.

That was a very special thing to witness.

The team's dogged persistence has paid off

and they film these wild eagles hunting for the first time.

I feel so happy that we managed to get it. Like...

...words can't explain how excited I am.

The return of these majestic hunters has taken decades of effort

and Roy is now broadening his horizons to the south of England.

This is a young female white-tailed eagle

and it's come from the island of Skye.

Two more will arrive from the Hebrides tomorrow.

And then they will go by plane to the Isle of Wight.

In the early part of my life, nature was losing.

And suddenly in this last 20 years...

...people have realised that we can't live a future without nature.

Top predators like eagles play a key role

in maintaining healthy, robust, natural habitats.

This crucial work will ensure eagles might once again

be seen across all of Britain and Ireland.

Next time - freshwater.

From source...

...to sea...

...it connects everything.

The Open University has produced a free poster,

exploring our wild isles and their diverse habitats and species.

Order your copy by calling...

or go to...

...and follow the links to the Open University.

If you'd like to play your part in restoring our wild isles

and learn more about what you can do to help,

just search Wild Isles on the BBC website.