4/18. Lionel Kelleway accompanies naturalist, artist and author John Walters in a quest through the oak woodland of the Dart Valley to find early migrant birds. They've just flown in from Africa and waste no time before getting down to the business of Spring. The males arrive first and advertise their chosen nest sites to the females, each with a different song and display. To the accompaniment of its calls, John evokes the images of the Wood Warbler males flitting, butterfly-like over a likely nest area to entice a female. Then they tune in to Redstart males calling, fanning their red tails in display. Used only once a year, they dance in and out of their nest holes, flipping around and singing from within, just the white flash on their foreheads showing. Finally the male Pied Flycatcher puts in an appearance, flitting around its hollow tree trunk nest hole, showing off the white bars on its wings. It sings from its hole with the white spots above its bill conspicuous in the dark hole.
On this warm Spring morning, Lionel and John are clearly delighted by all three birds performances. A rarely heard wildlife audio spectacle, not to be missed.
17/40. What is the future for our farmland birds? We have been following the re-introduction of Cirl Buntings into Cornwall: an RSPB led conservation project where Cirl Bunting chicks have been taken from nests in Devon and released on specially selected farms in Cornwall. We sent a reporter down to the West Country to see how it works. But do planned government cuts on departments like DEFRA impact on this and other conservation work to protect our farmland birds? And will the "Big Society" and "localism", the policy centre piece of the coalition - and not Government, protect our farmland birds? We asked the RSPB and DEFRA.
Also in the programme, memories of Butterflies.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t1xt1
Spoiler
If anybody is interested there is a downloader for iPlayer where you can save programmes on you computer permantley so you can watch them at any time http://po-ru.com/projects/iplayer-downloader/ its' under the heading Windows GUI
-- Edited by IanPlant on Monday 26th of July 2010 03:54:17 PM
