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The birds of our countryside
are amongst the most familiar.

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and iconic of all Britain's birds.

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CUCKOO CALLS

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For centuries, we've
celebrated them in music and poetry,

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used them to forecast changes
in the weather and the seasons,

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and hunted them

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for food and sport.

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And throughout our long history,
these birds have not just shaped

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the appearance of
the British countryside,

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but also defined its very nature.

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The countryside birds,
in my view, are a constitutive

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part of the countryside.

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You cannot describe the countryside
without describing the birds.

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If birds went out of the
countryside, it would be

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an emblem of a kind of nuclear
post-nuclear deadness.

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This is the story of the deep,
age-old connection between the

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birds of the British countryside
and the people of these islands.

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It tells of how we have
used and abused them,

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celebrated them and cherished them,

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and watched their fortunes rise
and fall.

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And how, at the eleventh hour,
we have finally come to understand

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what they, and the countryside,
really mean to us.

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Wherever you look in the

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British countryside, whatever the
time of year, you will find birds.

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Farmland birds such as the Skylark,
the Grey Partridge,

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the Lapwing, and the Yellowhammer,

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have lived alongside us for
more than 10,000 years - ever

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since we first cleared the forests
to prepare the land for agriculture.

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So it's hardly surprising that
when our ancestors needed to mark

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the changing of the seasons, they
turned to these familiar creatures.

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Birds are very important seasonal
markers in Britain and not just for

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birdwatchers but for
ordinary people too.

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Everybody still thinks of

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the first swallow, the first Cuckoo,
as a way of marking the season.

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You would have to be very dull of

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soul indeed not to be moved by the
life of the swallow, for instance.

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The swallow has a very important
part in our sort of national

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idea of what it is like
to be English, I think.

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We time our seasons
by its coming and going

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in an absolutely primitive and
ancient in-our-bones kind of way.

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The way swallows come and whistle
and sing,

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a joyous arrival, a swallow.

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And the fact it makes its home
in your outshed

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in the garage
if you leave the door open.

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It is very much a family animal
and something that you really

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seriously look forward to each year.

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The coming of spring has also been
marked by the annual appearance of

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a letter in the Times newspaper,

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commenting on the arrival of
another visitor to our shores.

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"Sir, while gardening this afternoon
I heard a faint note which led me to

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"say to my under gardener
who was working with me,

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"'Was that the Cuckoo?'"

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CUCKOO CALLS

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We always used to talk

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about hearing the first Cuckoo
and should we write to the Times.

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My parents always said,
"Should we write to the Times?

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"Oh no, someone got
there a week before."

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And it was this lovely tradition.

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But this very British ritual
may be coming to an end.

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The Cuckoo is suffering a
catastrophic decline because of food

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shortages in Britain, and drought in
Africa, where it spends the winter.

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This decline threatens
not just the bird itself,

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but its cultural status too.

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There is a whole folk culture across

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the northern hemisphere
about the Cuckoo.

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If you have to explain what it was,
you have kind have rather lost the

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point of the whole of that
cultural aspect to birds.

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It's the way in which
a bird like the Cuckoo

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moves from being the birth right
of every rural inhabitant of the

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British Isles, even though
Cuckoos were never hugely numerous.

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It is such a distinctive sound,
so ubiquitous, they are so adapted

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to all sorts of environments,
there are now large swathes

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where Cuckoos are never heard
and may never be heard again.

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The fate of the Cuckoo
has been mirrored

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in the fortunes of many other
birds of the British countryside.

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In recent years they have
suffered major declines,

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falling victim to the seemingly
unstoppable industrialisation

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of our farmed landscape.

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All too often, our interests have
taken precedence over theirs.

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BIRDSONG

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But not so very long ago,

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towards the end of the 18th century,
the British countryside and its

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birds were still living in
a state of rural harmony.

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We know this through the life and
writings of one remarkable man,

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the Reverend Gilbert White, author
of The Natural History of Selborne.

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Since it first appeared, in 1789,

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this modest little book
has never been out of print.

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Gilbert White is an
extraordinary phenomenon.

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He's said to be the
fourth most published author

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in the English language.
This is quite extraordinary

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for a country vicar writing what was
in effect a series of nature notes.

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"The swift is almost continually on
the wing, and, as it never settles

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"on the ground, on trees, or roofs,
would seldom find opportunity for

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"amorous rites was it not enabled
to indulge them in the air."

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He was remarkable.

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After all, without binoculars,
that he saw the mating of the swift

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up in the sky,

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beggars belief really. I'm sure I
couldn't possibly have noticed that.

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White wasn't just a good observer,
he was also an excellent naturalist,

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at a time when many things we now
take for granted about Britain's

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birds had yet to be discovered.

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For example, he was the first person
to realise that three different

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kinds of small, green warbler
visit Britain each spring.

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Previously it had been
assumed there was only one.

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"I have now, past dispute,
made out three distinct species of

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"the Willow Wrens, which constantly
and invariably used distinct notes."

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White's enduring appeal may be
because he concentrates almost

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entirely on his own little corner
of the English countryside.

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He was born and died in the
village in which he describes, and

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you get the sense that he knows
it so intimately that he would know

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if a bird arrived or if
a leaf fell overnight.

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I think another thing that
is really quite remarkable about

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Gilbert White's work is the sense
in which it is a kind of microcosm

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of English country life.

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It's as if, in a way, you can find
the whole of nature within the sort

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of manageable confines of just one
English village.

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He redeemed the word "parochial"

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from its sense of
narrowness and limitation.

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He exalts the parish

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as a place where all life exists
and we can follow in his footsteps.

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It may seem surprising that
this diary of natural events

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should have become so popular.

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Maybe it's because it portrays
a very comforting image of the

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countryside - a tranquil, unchanging
landscape, filled with birdsong.

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Just like another writer from our
rural past, much of this appeal

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is pure nostalgia.

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Jane Austen and Gilbert White are
more or less contemporary, and why do

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we look at all these charming ladies
in bonnets on the television set?

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It's a picture of rural England,
18th century England,

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which we find charming.

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Yet for all the undoubted charm of
The Natural History of Selborne, its

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author may have been hiding
his fears about changes afoot

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in the wider world.

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Gilbert White's in his Parsonage

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looking at what's going on in his
back garden and in the fields beyond.

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Then you say to yourself it was
published in 1789, what happened?

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The French revolution is happening
on the Continent, the Industrial

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Revolution is happening in England,
massive social change.

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No reference to the real world
that's going on beside him and

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that kind of obsessiveness sometimes
worries me that it's wonderful but

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there's a slight feeling of stop
the world, I'd want to get off.

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During Gilbert White's lifetime,
some things didn't change.

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The birds of Britain's countryside
continued to thrive alongside us,

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as we farmed the land
in the age-old ways.

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But in the decades after White's
death in 1793, this little world

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was turned upside down.

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The countryside would be transformed
forever, and the birds that lived

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there would begin a long decline,
from which many have yet to recover.

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One bird, more than any other,

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symbolises the loss of
this traditional landscape.

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It's a bizarre, shy and elusive
relative of the coot,
the Corn Crake.

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It looks like some silly little
chicken really, let's face it.

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I remember the first one I had.

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I didn't realise what I
was listening to for a while.

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HE MAKES GUTTURAL SOUNDS...

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going.

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It's a Corn Crake!

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Then your problems begin
because they can throw their voice.

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It's just over there
and you go just over there

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but it isn't and it's still calling.

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You go round and round
and round this little field.

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At the start of the 19th century,
the strange, repetitive call of

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the Corn Crake could still be heard
throughout the British countryside,

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from Scilly to Shetland.

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For one of Gilbert White's
disciples, the poet and naturalist

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John Clare, the Corn Crake,

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or as he called it, the landrail,
was the classic sound of summer.

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"How sweet and pleasant grows the
way through summer time again,

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"when landrails call from day to day
amid the grass and grain."

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John Clare,
the Northamptonshire farm labourer

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who found fame as a poet, was also
a brilliant self-taught naturalist.

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More than any other writer,

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before or since, he celebrated the
birds of the British countryside.

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In the minuteness of his attention

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and his faithfulness to
things as they actually are,

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he's the best writer about birds that
there has ever been in the language.

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Rather than kind of speaking in
grand rhetorical terms as many of

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the great romantic poets did,
he's really closely attentive

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to the details of nature.

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What he has to a greater degree than
anybody else is an eye for detail

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and a relish for the ordinary,
which means the ordinary has always

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been turned into the miraculous.

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When we read the poems,

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we really do feel it's like standing
in a wood listening to a Nightingale

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or walking through a field and seeing
a Corn Crake or whatever it might be.

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But by the start of the 19th
century, this young writer's

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whole world, the countryside and its
birds, was about to change forever.

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The reason for this change?
Enclosure.

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Enclosure was I think in crude

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terms the privatisation of what had
been an open and public landscape.

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Enclosure transformed the old,
traditional landscape of wide,

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open fields by adding hedges,
creating the familiar pattern of

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small fields we know and love today.

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The irony is it's a much
more recent landscape

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than we perhaps tend to realise.

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It only dates back about 200, 250

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years because before enclosure,
we didn't have this checkerboard

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pattern, we had a much more open
landscape with far fewer hedges.

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Enclosure had a devastating effect

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on ordinary country people, forcing
them off the land and into poverty.

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And by concentrating ownership in
the hands of a few rich landowners,

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enclosure would eventually pave
the way towards modern,
industrial-scale farming.

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During the following 150 years or
so, this would prove disastrous for

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the British countryside
and its birds.

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Today, we read Clare's poetry
partly as a lament for a lost world,

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but also because it's a very modern,
environmentally conscious message.

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Now, he begins to look more like
a prophet of

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the kind of environmental movements
that call themselves deep ecology.

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He seems to anticipate ideas of
the kind that are caught up in

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the Gaia hypothesis, which thinks
of the whole world as one organism

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with its own interests and its own
self-regulating procedures.

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For a warning of our
disconnection from the environment,

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we need look no further than
the plight of the Corn Crake.

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Today, this mysterious bird has
disappeared from virtually

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the whole of our rural landscape.

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It can now only be found in remote
parts of Scotland, where traditional

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farming is still being practised.

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Not all countryside birds
suffered the fate of the Corn Crake.

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By the middle of the 19th century,
the fortunes of two other species

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were on the rise.

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This would change the face of
the British landscape forever.

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With a collective weight of

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more than three million tonnes,
the pheasant is, pound for pound,

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the commonest bird in
the British countryside.

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Yet ironically it's not
really a British bird at all,

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but was brought here from
south-west Asia by the Romans.

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The native Red Grouse, by contrast,
is a shy, retiring bird,

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found only in the remotest
parts of upland Britain.

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But the Grouse and the pheasant

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do have one thing in common.

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They're both very good to eat.

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From the early 19th century,
thanks to the invention of

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the breech-loading shotgun,
Grouse, pheasants, and their

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00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:28,560
smaller relative the partridge,
became top targets for Britain's

235
00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:30,920
gun-toting sportsmen.

236
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:35,800
Increasingly we see a development of
country estates, landed properties

237
00:16:35,800 --> 00:16:42,120
being used for sports shooting
based on three quarries, three birds,

238
00:16:42,120 --> 00:16:45,280
Red Grouse, the Grey Partridge
and the pheasant.

239
00:16:45,280 --> 00:16:50,920
They would provide a six-month cycle
of recreational activity and travel,

240
00:16:50,920 --> 00:16:55,840
where people would move from one
country house to another pursuing

241
00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:59,080
the shooting of game birds.

242
00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:02,440
Pheasant shooting became
immensely popular in the
19th century.

243
00:17:02,440 --> 00:17:05,920
It became one of those key
markers of aristocratic identity.

244
00:17:05,920 --> 00:17:09,880
It was one of the must-have
things if you were a landowner.

245
00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:12,640
You had to have a decent
pheasant shoot really.

246
00:17:12,640 --> 00:17:18,880
But ordinary rural folk took a very
dim view of this
aristocratic pursuit.

247
00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:22,640
Actually if you want to pick
one bird which brought England

248
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:25,240
closer to revolution than
anything else, it would be

249
00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:29,080
the pheasant because it also caused
bitter social controversy,

250
00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:34,280
partly because it had become
a symbol of
aristocratic identity.

251
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:39,920
Shooting pheasants is difficult in
many ways and demands quite a level

252
00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:43,680
of skill but that isn't obvious,
so it seemed a clear instance of

253
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:48,160
decadence and also fundamental
idleness of the aristocracy.

254
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:53,000
They didn't have anything better
to do with their time other than
go out and shoot these birds

255
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,520
which are only there because
the aristocracy have bred them.

256
00:17:56,520 --> 00:18:00,040
The boom in pheasant shooting was
a direct result of the landscape

257
00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:03,520
changes brought about by enclosure.

258
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:05,360
This allowed pheasants to be reared

259
00:18:05,360 --> 00:18:07,720
on an industrial scale,
and then released in

260
00:18:07,720 --> 00:18:12,560
their thousands to replenish
birds shot by the sportsmen.

261
00:18:12,560 --> 00:18:18,280
Once enclosure had privatised the
landscape, then landowners were able

262
00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:22,640
to a much greater extent, to develop
the landscape as they wanted to.

263
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:26,240
With things like small little
copses which would be very suitable

264
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:28,440
for pheasants to roost in
or be bred in.

265
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:33,720
You have a kind of landscape which
was suitable for and then became

266
00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:38,040
developed for pheasant breeding,
pheasant rearing.

267
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:40,320
And then of course
pheasant shooting.

268
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:43,680
This new, more wooded landscape
didn't just benefit pheasants,

269
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:50,120
it also provided a haven for other
woodland wildlife, including birds,

270
00:18:50,120 --> 00:18:52,280
butterflies and deer.

271
00:18:58,600 --> 00:19:01,160
Meanwhile, far to the north,
on the windswept moors of

272
00:19:01,160 --> 00:19:05,800
northern England and Scotland,
another game bird was also playing

273
00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:08,000
its part in changing history.

274
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:14,440
It may look like a domestic chicken,
but the Red Grouse has had a greater

275
00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:17,640
influence on the landscape
and economy of upland Britain

276
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:20,400
than any other bird.

277
00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:23,200
Although most of us will
never set eyes on one,

278
00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:26,640
its image and reputation have
spread far and wide.

279
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:35,360
# The sun shines on the mountaintop
The Grouse go from the moor

280
00:19:35,360 --> 00:19:40,600
# The guineas are waiting
at the door... #

281
00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:43,040
For two groups of people in Britain,

282
00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,560
aristocrats and the idle rich,
the Glorious 12th of August has

283
00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:50,720
long been the most eagerly
awaited date in the calendar.

284
00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:52,080
GUNSHOTS

285
00:19:52,080 --> 00:19:56,040
It marks the opening day of
the Grouse shooting season,

286
00:19:56,040 --> 00:19:59,280
an industry worth at
least £30 million a year

287
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:02,160
to the Scottish economy alone.

288
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:05,520
But without the invention of
one man, George Stephenson,

289
00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:08,760
and the passion of one woman,
Queen Victoria,

290
00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:13,320
the Red Grouse might have
remained nothing more than
an unremarkable moorland bird.

291
00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:17,960
Previously, the Scottish estates were

292
00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:23,720
hundreds of miles and a week's
journey from London, but by the 1870s

293
00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:27,840
landowners who had
posh houses in Chelsea could

294
00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:31,760
also own a Scottish landed estate
and be there overnight, and that's

295
00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:35,880
exactly what happened in the run-up
to the Glorious 12th of August.

296
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:39,400
There were special trains laid on to
channel people to the most remote

297
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:42,880
parts of our landscape

298
00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:46,560
so that this kind of sport shooting
could take place on Scottish moorland

299
00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:48,120
and northern English moorlands.

300
00:20:48,120 --> 00:20:52,280
Grouse shooting received the royal
seal of approval, through Queen

301
00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:57,600
Victoria's regular visits to her
Scottish country estate at Balmoral.

302
00:20:57,600 --> 00:21:00,600
So by the end of the queen's long
reign, Grouse shooting was as much

303
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:05,680
a part of the social calendar
as society balls and Royal Ascot,

304
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,160
although rather more brutal.

305
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:14,240
In some glorious autumns in the 19th
and early 20th centuries, as many as

306
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:18,720
a million-and-a-half Grouse
would be shot through the season.

307
00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:22,160
Today there might be fewer
than 250,000 pairs of

308
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:23,880
Red Grouse in total in Britain.

309
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:28,360
This influx of people and money
enabled huge tracts of northern

310
00:21:28,360 --> 00:21:32,480
Britain to be opened up
for Grouse shooting.

311
00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:34,760
And because the moors had
to be carefully managed

312
00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:38,000
to stop them becoming
overgrown with scrub and trees,

313
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,960
the face of our uplands
was changed forever.

314
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:46,040
One of our most cherished landscape
types remains heather moorland,

315
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:48,160
and these moors
really have been, to a very

316
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:50,840
large extent, maintained for Grouse.

317
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:57,640
The fact that these moors have been
cyclically burnt in order to

318
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:02,240
maintain the young growing shoots
for Grouse to feed on

319
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:08,280
has been really very important
in preserving one of Britain's
crucial landscape types.

320
00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:11,680
But while Grouse and pheasant
shooting may have helped create

321
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:14,040
new habitats for birds
and other wildlife,

322
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:18,760
it sounded the death-knell
for Britain's birds of prey.

323
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:22,720
Anything that naturally
included Red Grouse

324
00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:26,320
or pheasants or partridge
in their diet

325
00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:28,560
became enemy in chief,

326
00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:31,280
and so the other side
of this sophisticated

327
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:37,160
gun technology used to kill Grouse
was it was also used to knock off

328
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,160
every single bird
red in tooth and claw.

329
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:41,880
And even species that posed

330
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:46,880
absolutely no threat to the hunters'
quarry were ruthlessly persecuted.

331
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,760
WH Hudson, a wonderful writer at the

332
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:56,360
beginning of the 20th century,
described estates in southern

333
00:22:56,360 --> 00:23:01,760
England where the gamekeeper
would shoot the Nightingales

334
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:06,640
because he didn't want the sound of
the birds disturbing his pheasants.

335
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:09,520
There are stories of

336
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:14,760
gamekeepers shooting any small bird
that was in the woodland because they

337
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:20,400
would be competitors for the grain
laid out for the game birds.

338
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:25,120
Just as the fate of our countryside
birds was looking bleak,

339
00:23:25,120 --> 00:23:28,720
history intervened
with the coming of the Great War.

340
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,760
# Keep the home fires burning... #

341
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:35,120
Ironically,
the shooting skills of both

342
00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:39,400
the gamekeepers and their masters
would prove to be their downfall,

343
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:42,120
for they were among
the first to join up

344
00:23:42,120 --> 00:23:45,000
and to be sent to the front line.

345
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:49,680
Most of these young men
had never been abroad.

346
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,320
Indeed, some had hardly
travelled beyond the borders

347
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:54,440
of their own parish.

348
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:56,480
So any reminders of home,

349
00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:00,760
such as the familiar sights and
sounds of the British countryside,

350
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,760
became powerful totems of
the land they had left behind.

351
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:08,400
One of the most potent of these
was the song of the Skylark.

352
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:15,720
To pour this amazingly loud, clear,
beautiful noise down on us, sometimes

353
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:19,920
from a height and from a body so
small that you can't actually see

354
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:24,680
what the source is, that's what makes
it like the voice of God, isn't it?

355
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:29,720
It is this... valiant quality
that the Skylark has,

356
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,720
suddenly zooming up in the air,

357
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:34,840
and then when it's right up there,
I mean

358
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:39,760
singing with such vigour and such...

359
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:42,760
You'd think it's got enough
problems remaining up there,

360
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:46,480
flapping the wings, but he's
got the energy as well to sing!

361
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,440
This unique habit of
singing high in the sky

362
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:53,600
for such long periods of time
meant that the Skylark was often the

363
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:57,520
only bird soldiers in the trenches
could actually see.

364
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,360
Imagine you are
in a trench in Flanders.

365
00:25:03,360 --> 00:25:05,600
You've been stuck in
the ground for three months.

366
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,760
you're bogged down,
and then this creature

367
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:12,240
appears in the sky with its song.

368
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,400
I mean, it must have had
a huge impact on people.

369
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:19,800
This little creature
is everything you want to be.

370
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,920
"Every morning when I was
in the frontline trenches,

371
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,320
"I used to hear the lark singing
soon after we stood to, about dawn.

372
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:31,440
"But those wretched larks
made me more sad

373
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,080
"than anything else out here.

374
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,600
"Their songs are so closely
associated in my mind with

375
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:41,520
"peaceful summer days and gardens
or pleasant landscapes in Blighty."

376
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:50,720
Skylarks also appeared in many poems
written amidst the horror of war.

377
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:54,600
Well, I suppose the Skylark
is the sort of default bird

378
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:56,720
in First World War poetry

379
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:58,720
because it rises above,

380
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:00,400
because it sees things from the air.

381
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:08,120
There is that sense of escape,
but also of going on singing

382
00:26:08,120 --> 00:26:12,440
when all reasons around you
are saying weep,

383
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:14,720
is presumably something
that would cheer you

384
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:18,920
if you thought you were going to
get your head blown off any moment.

385
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:25,680
One serving soldier who was also
a poet, John William Streets,

386
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:27,560
wrote of the ironic contrast

387
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:32,960
between his own situation
and that of the soaring bird.

388
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,840
Hushed is the shriek
of hurtling shells:

389
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:40,080
And hark! Somewhere within
that bit of soft blue sky -

390
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,120
Grand in his loneliness, his ecstasy,

391
00:26:42,120 --> 00:26:47,520
His lyric wild and free-carols
a lark.

392
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:51,760
I in the trench,
He lost in heaven afar.

393
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:58,440
Along with 20,000 of his fellow
soldiers, John William Streets

394
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:04,600
died on July 1st 1916, the first
day of the Battle of the Somme.

395
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:08,560
His body lies in a war cemetery
close to where he fell,

396
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,120
where Skylarks still sing today.

397
00:27:11,120 --> 00:27:14,440
SKYLARK SINGS

398
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,560
During the four long years of
the First World War, Britain's

399
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,840
Foreign Secretary was Edward Grey.

400
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,680
Grey had a lifelong
interest in birds,

401
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:30,800
a passion he shared with
another great world statesman,

402
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:36,120
the US President,
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt.

403
00:27:36,120 --> 00:27:41,200
Back in June 1910, when Roosevelt
was on a state visit to Britain,

404
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,240
these two great men had gone for a
quiet country walk in the New Forest

405
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:47,600
in Grey's home county of Hampshire.

406
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:53,720
Putting aside global diplomacy

407
00:27:53,720 --> 00:28:01,000
and talk of military and industrial
might, they simply talked birds,

408
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:05,440
and President Roosevelt later said
that it was the highlight
of his entire

409
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,800
European tour in the summer of 1910.

410
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:15,000
They saw and heard no fewer than
40 different species,

411
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,680
many of which they identified
by listening to their song.

412
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,040
And one element of the story that I

413
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,800
particularly like is the fact
that they did this walk alone.

414
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:33,040
These two great men walking through
the New Forest, quietly discussing

415
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:36,080
nature and wildlife
and the countryside.

416
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:42,840
Looking back, it is hard to imagine
modern political leaders engaging in

417
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,080
such an innocent pastime.

418
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:49,120
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Reagan had a very strong
relationship,

419
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,240
but that was based around
shared political ideals.

420
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,520
The friendship between Roosevelt

421
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:57,440
and Edward Grey

422
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:01,480
was based a passion,
a love for birds

423
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:04,080
and an appreciation
of the British countryside.

424
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,880
After the war, when he had left
high office, Grey returned to his

425
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:11,960
first love - birds.

426
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,160
During this period, birdwatching was
fast becoming a popular recreational

427
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:20,280
activity, with a flood of bird

428
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,920
books aimed not at experts,
but at the general public.

429
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:27,480
One of the best-known of these
was written by Grey himself,

430
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,040
"The Charm of Birds".

431
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:35,040
Like The Natural History of
Selborne, The Charm of Birds

432
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:37,920
was aimed squarely
at a mass audience.

433
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,800
"This book will have no
scientific value.

434
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:47,680
"My observations have been made for
recreation, in search of pleasure,

435
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:49,440
"not knowledge."

436
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,400
By the time he wrote
this best-selling book,

437
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:54,920
Grey's eyesight was failing fast.

438
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:59,160
So it's not surprising that
his writing focuses strongly
on birdsong.

439
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:03,360
One of his particular favourites
was the Nightingale.

440
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:11,120
"The Nightingale's song has compass,
variety and astonishing power.

441
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,680
"It arrests attention
and compels admiration.

442
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:19,560
"It has onset and impact, but it is
fitful, broken and restless.

443
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:24,600
"It is a song to listen to,
but not to live with."

444
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:28,080
The Nightingale had of course been
celebrated by writers and poets

445
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:31,760
from the Greeks and Romans to
Keats and Clare, despite its rather

446
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,360
unprepossessing appearance.

447
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:41,000
You don't want to see a Nightingale,
because if you do,
you'll be disappointed.

448
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,200
It is just a little brown bird.

449
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:47,480
And maybe that helps with
the mystique of them as well.

450
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,400
That you don't see it,
it's just a song.

451
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:53,440
And it is the Nightingale's

452
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:57,320
extraordinary song
which has been the key to its fame.

453
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,160
It's not the only bird
to sing by night, but

454
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,400
it's certainly the most persistent.

455
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,720
It's fame is all the more remarkable

456
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:08,560
given that it has always been a
relatively scarce bird in Britain.

457
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:15,000
Everybody thinks they know what a
Nightingale is and is like, but very

458
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,920
few people have actually heard one,
and even fewer have seen one,

459
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:21,560
because the Nightingale
is a very mysterious bird.

460
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:23,960
The most extraordinary
thing is its volume.

461
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:27,000
It's extraordinarily loud.

462
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:31,200
It's also very rich
in its range of notes.

463
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:36,480
The idea of something singing at
night, a lone voice in the darkness

464
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:41,600
is going to set your
poetic juices running, I imagine.

465
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:43,360
Is it lonely?

466
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,680
Is it singing to its love
that will not reply?

467
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,040
And the sound fills the night.

468
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,720
During the years between
the two world wars,

469
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:02,560
one particular Nightingale
achieved unexpected fame.

470
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:04,080
This totally wild bird performed

471
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:08,680
a spontaneous duet with the
cellist Beatrice Harrison, in one of

472
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:13,120
the very first live radio outside
broadcasts anywhere in the world.

473
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:21,240
The day was 19th May, 1924.

474
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,320
It was a perfect
evening for Nightingales.

475
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,120
There was a full moon,
it was a warm, summer evening,

476
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:32,080
and Beatrice Harrison put on her
best frock and played the cello.

477
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:39,480
And played to an estimated
audience of over a million people.

478
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:47,480
Beatrice Harrison and the bird had
created a broadcasting sensation.

479
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:51,840
Thousands of listeners wrote to the
BBC to praise the programme,

480
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:55,440
and the event was restaged
every year.

481
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:57,360
The story of the final broadcast,

482
00:32:57,360 --> 00:33:02,840
during the Second World War, is just
as enigmatic as the very first one.

483
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,160
When the time came,
the BBC engineer who

484
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,960
was in charge of the sound equipment,
as the Nightingale started up, heard

485
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:15,000
the sound of approaching aircraft,
and very wisely he stopped the

486
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:19,640
broadcast because he thought this
might be some kind of security risk,

487
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:24,120
but he kept recording it, so we do
have the recording, and what you hear

488
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:27,720
is this fleet of bombers,
English bombers heading for Germany

489
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,520
gradually getting closer,
and as the crescendo of noise builds

490
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,040
up from the bombers,
so the crescendo of noise builds up
from the Nightingales.

491
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:40,240
It's the most dramatic
combination of sounds.

492
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:45,360
DRONE OF AIRCRAFT/NIGHTINGALE SONG

493
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:53,320
WIRELESS: I have to tell you now
that this country is at war
with Germany.

494
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:57,440
# They'll be bluebirds over

495
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:01,400
# The White Cliffs of Dover... #

496
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,560
Once war with Germany had been
declared,

497
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,720
life for millions of Britons
changed overnight.

498
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,880
Families were separated as men
went off to fight,

499
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:12,640
and children were evacuated
to the countryside.

500
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:16,360
And just as during the First World
War, Britain's birds would provide

501
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:22,840
comfort, support, and hope
at this time of national crisis.

502
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:27,720
# And a Nightingale sang

503
00:34:27,720 --> 00:34:32,360
# In Berkeley Square. #

504
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:39,040
One young man, James Fisher,
did more than anyone else to promote

505
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:44,200
the importance of watching birds as
part of what it meant to be British.

506
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:48,520
Fisher was the David Attenborough
of his day - a scientist, writer

507
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:52,560
and broadcaster who frequently
appeared on radio and television.

508
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:59,200
Educated at Eton and Oxford, he
was an unlikely man of the people.

509
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,400
Yet his life's mission
was to convert as many

510
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:05,600
of his fellow Britons as possible
to the pleasures of birdwatching.

511
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,240
James was a superior person
in every real sense.

512
00:35:10,240 --> 00:35:12,240
He was highly educated,

513
00:35:12,240 --> 00:35:15,280
very sociable,

514
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:19,120
good looking and he ticked
all the right boxes, James.

515
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:23,600
James himself was erudite.

516
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:26,880
He was encyclopaedic in
his knowledge of birds,

517
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,320
in fact he wrote bird
encyclopaedias.

518
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:33,640
He could tell you every postage
stamp that had a bird on it in

519
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:39,880
the world, and as such,
he left a legacy of books.

520
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:42,560
The most successful of
Fisher's many bird books,

521
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,560
was also one of his simplest.

522
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:48,360
Published in 1941, during
the darkest days of the war,

523
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:54,480
Watching Birds was a Pelican
paperback, priced at just
six old pence.

524
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,720
The book would go on to sell
more than three million copies.

525
00:35:58,720 --> 00:36:02,560
It was the first serious bird book
I'd read, and I found it a wonderful

526
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:07,120
book, I think mainly because
it was such an inclusive book.

527
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:08,960
Here was this eminent scientist

528
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,120
writing for people like me,
telling me that this was a

529
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:16,920
legitimate interest, that the sort of
records and observations I might make

530
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:19,760
were worth making
and were part of some larger picture.

531
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:25,280
But for Fisher, Watching Birds
had an even more important purpose,

532
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,600
as he made clear
in the book's preface.

533
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:31,120
"Some people might consider
an apology necessary for the

534
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:34,920
"appearance of a book about birds
at a time when Britain is fighting

535
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,880
"for its own and many other lives.

536
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,080
"I make no such apology.

537
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:43,920
"Birds are part of the heritage
we are fighting for."

538
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,000
Fisher was not alone in his views.

539
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,720
A survey carried out
in the very same year

540
00:36:52,720 --> 00:36:57,320
confirmed the British people's
passion for their rural heritage.

541
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:01,040
The vast majority said,
England is a village green,

542
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:06,600
is an old inn sign, is the birds
and the creatures of the countryside,

543
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:09,800
the water mill, the winding lane.

544
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:11,520
That is the image of England

545
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:14,040
at a time when urban
England is being flattened.

546
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,720
Observing birds and watching them
became this really strong way of

547
00:37:17,720 --> 00:37:22,400
tying the observer and the nation
together very strongly. By watching

548
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,520
birds you become a trustworthy
member of your own culture.

549
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:29,360
Birds stood for a kind of rural
British identity that was really

550
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:33,560
under threat in this wartime arena.

551
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,720
This new enthusiasm
for watching birds

552
00:37:36,720 --> 00:37:39,320
took hold in some unlikely places.

553
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:41,000
It even became a popular

554
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:46,080
activity amongst prisoners of war,
despite the obvious limitations.

555
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,680
COLONEL BOGEY MARCH

556
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,200
The main problem with being in a
prisoner-of-war camp was boredom.

557
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:56,960
You had hours, days, weeks, months
to fill, nothing to do and

558
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:00,280
it was described as being an endless
Sunday afternoon with no prospect of

559
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,080
Monday, by one prisoner of war.

560
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:06,640
To combat this, they devised
all sorts of diversions from

561
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:12,360
football tournaments to music hall
shows, and, of course, nature study.

562
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:19,200
There's some wonderful letters where
they talk about how they chose
the organism to study.

563
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:23,120
At one point they tried studying
snails, but apparently this was too

564
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,320
boring, even for prisoners of war.

565
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:32,120
But birds were the obvious choice,
being both ubiquitous and abundant.

566
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:36,600
One prisoner decided to study one of
the most beautiful creatures of all,

567
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:38,920
the Redstart.

568
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,400
Of course, the thing about these
birds that they watched is that

569
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,320
they could leave the camp
at any time.

570
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,640
And John Buxton, who wrote an
extraordinary monograph on

571
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:51,560
the Redstart using his prison camp
notes made a lot of this.

572
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:55,160
He said that the birds
could leave at any time.

573
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:58,000
"My Redstarts,

574
00:38:58,000 --> 00:38:59,600
"but one of the chief joys

575
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:04,240
"of watching them in prison was that
they inhabited another world than I.

576
00:39:04,240 --> 00:39:07,520
"They lived wholly and
enviably to themselves,

577
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:11,520
"unconcerned
in our fatuous politics."

578
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:13,840
He also talked about how

579
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:19,640
they didn't just represent freedom,
but also these invisible barriers.
They had their territory.

580
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,720
So he identified with them
in that way as well.

581
00:39:22,720 --> 00:39:27,760
Buxton and his fellow POWs
didn't simply watch birds -

582
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:31,840
they studied them more closely
than anyone had, ever before.

583
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,720
If you look at the notebooks, and
some of these notebooks do survive,

584
00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:40,520
they're page after page after
page of observations that detail

585
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:43,800
what each bird is doing
each second of each day.

586
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:47,600
They're extraordinary documents,
and what they show is a kind of

587
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,080
massive translation of the kinds of
things that go on in a prison camp

588
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:56,480
put onto birds, so here you have
men who are obsessively watched,

589
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,680
all day, all night by guards.

590
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:02,640
And they are watching birds,
all day and all night.

591
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:07,200
I think bird-watching in prison
camps is partly, obviously, freedom.

592
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:09,280
Here is a creature that
can hop over the wire.

593
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:12,160
But also the slightly
obsessional quality, it passes

594
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:16,200
the time, it enables you to focus
on something and do it well.

595
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,200
It's the classic

596
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,880
retreat into collecting mania,
retreat into classification.

597
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:26,880
You're in this situation which
you absolutely can't control,

598
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:28,680
here is something you can control.

599
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:37,600
Back on the Home Front, the cinema
was one way of escaping the horrors

600
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:40,960
of war, if only for an hour or two.

601
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:45,480
And in one long-forgotten wartime
film, the arrival of a pair of rare

602
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:47,680
birds in a sleepy English village

603
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:51,520
symbolised the defence of the
British countryside and its values.

604
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:55,120
Let's have another look.

605
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:58,920
That's what it is, you know?
The Tawny Pipit.

606
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:00,960
It does look awfully
like the picture.

607
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:05,680
Are you sure it's the only one
without spots? Let's have a look.

608
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:09,080
It can't be. It says it's
only nested here once before.

609
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:10,680
I'm absolutely certain.

610
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:12,160
Let's go and ring Uncle Arthur.

611
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:16,040
We've justified his
choice in books, anyway. 
Yes, haven't we?!

612
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,920
The Tawny Pipit is a wonderfully
eccentric piece of
British film-making.

613
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:23,280
It tells the story of a little
village in England that discovers

614
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:26,600
that a pair of Tawny Pipits
are nesting next to the village.

615
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:29,080
There are many characters
that are very familiar from

616
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:33,480
this kind of film, the eccentric
bumbling Colonel, the recovering

617
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:37,480
soldier, the airman who is
charged with protecting them.

618
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,400
And it's really an allegory about

619
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,880
looking after refugees,
protecting them, involving

620
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:47,560
them in village life and basically
preserving the kind of status quo.

621
00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:51,160
You see, we've got two very rare
birds nesting just over here.

622
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:53,240
Birds? But what's that to do with me?

623
00:41:53,240 --> 00:41:57,720
Well, they're right in the middle
of a field, and all this, I mean...

624
00:41:57,720 --> 00:41:59,000
Who are you?

625
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:00,560
My name's Hazel Broom.

626
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:03,200
Well Miss Broom,
we shan't disturb your birds.

627
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:04,960
But it's a ground-nesting bird.

628
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,640
It's one of the most wonderful
things that's ever happened
in England.

629
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:10,960
It's rather touching, actually.

630
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:17,560
And not just because of the birds,
but because of the rural socialism

631
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:22,440
of the idea, that all... the
elderly colonel, the young corporal,

632
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:27,800
who's an ornithologist, the army,
the nurse, the recuperating RAF man,

633
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,920
they're all in this together
to support these two creatures

634
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:32,480
being able to breed.

635
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,040
This young lady says they
have a rare bird breeding

636
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,160
in a field here called
the Tawny Pipit.

637
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,400
Anthus campestris?
My hat, is this true?

638
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:40,480
Yes!

639
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:44,960
Is there such a bird?
Oh, my hat, yes, sir. If this
is true, it's absolutely terrific.

640
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:47,960
Thank you, corporal. Very well, Miss,
I shall proceed by road.

641
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,760
Oh, you darling!

642
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:55,080
Tawny Pipit may not seem like a very
revolutionary film - yet its deeper

643
00:42:55,080 --> 00:43:00,400
message closely reflects the social
and political climate of the time.

644
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,200
Very briefly - '41,
'42, '43 - Britain

645
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,080
almost became a socialist republic.

646
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:09,280
That's what happened in the war,
everyone helping each other.

647
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:11,840
And you get a strong sense of that.

648
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,760
It's a bit Ealing comedy,
there is a corner of the English

649
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,040
mind that is forever Ambridge.

650
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:23,920
The film's plot relies on
the fact that the Tawny Pipit

651
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,000
is a very rare visitor to Britain.

652
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:30,880
For the man commissioned to film
the birds this was a major problem.

653
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,400
It was filmed by the wonderful bird

654
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:36,520
photographer Eric Hosking who
had serious problems, of course,

655
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:40,640
because there aren't any
Tawny Pipits in Britain.

656
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:43,880
So what he had to try and
do was to film similar birds

657
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:45,440
and pretend they were Tawny Pipits.

658
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:49,200
So he filmed Meadow Pipits,
but from behind, because from in

659
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:53,000
front they would show their very
characteristic streaked breast.

660
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,440
So he really tore his hair out
over this movie, and it's quite

661
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,640
fun watching it as a bird watcher,
because you raise one eyebrow and

662
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:04,280
think to yourself, that's not a
Tawny Pipit, it's a Meadow Pipit.

663
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:06,000
But like all great British

664
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,560
propaganda films,
it all turns out fine in the end.

665
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,920
Tawny Pipit portrays an idealised
vision of the English countryside,

666
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:20,840
unchanging,
and steeped in old-fashioned values.

667
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:24,120
In reality,
things were rather different.

668
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:30,600
A short while ago this was the
6,000-acre wilderness of Feltwell

669
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:34,440
fen in south-west Norfolk, where
nothing grew, save reeds and weeds.

670
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,560
Scrubland of peat and bog, where
floods, more frequently than not,

671
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:40,880
turned it into a vast morass.

672
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:42,640
But it has taken a war to turn that

673
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:45,800
same wasteland into
an agricultural gold mine.

674
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:51,320
The Ministry of Agriculture
has sent to work an army of men
reclaiming the idle acres.

675
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,920
As the war dragged on, with
national food shortages and the

676
00:44:54,920 --> 00:45:00,400
prospect of widespread starvation,
desperate measures had to be taken.

677
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:05,720
So huge swathes of our countryside
were ploughed up for agriculture.

678
00:45:05,720 --> 00:45:10,920
The entire emphasis was
on maximising production.

679
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:16,680
And you can only do that by taking
out what you call, the waste land,

680
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:22,320
and the waste land included
half of all our ancient woodlands,

681
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:24,480
70% of our heath lands.

682
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:29,040
I think we've now lost 99%
of our flower-rich meadows.

683
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:35,480
Any habitat that wasn't yielding
agricultural produce was converted to

684
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,120
arable or to farming in some way.

685
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:41,320
The irony was
that the more we planned

686
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:47,480
and organised and structured the
future of the British countryside,

687
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:51,520
the more
we lost sight of some of these

688
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,120
ascetic and romantic impulses that

689
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:58,200
people had for the landscape and
for the birds that live within it.

690
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:04,520
During the post-war years,
the juggernaut of the agricultural

691
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:10,040
revolution was unstoppable, fuelled
by subsidies and new technology.

692
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:13,960
It was goodbye to the old-fashioned
values of Tawny Pipit,

693
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,920
and welcome to the brave new
world of men in white coats.

694
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:21,680
And the boffins came up with what
appeared to be the perfect solution

695
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:23,600
to improving productivity.

696
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,880
There was a bright new future for
Britain, not only for industry,

697
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:31,680
but also for the countryside,

698
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:37,320
and so in the late 1950s and into
the 1960s, we sought to get rid of

699
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:41,760
inefficient farming methods
and systems and replace them

700
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:44,800
with cutting-edge
new technologies of the time.

701
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,760
And one of those technologies
was the application of pesticides,

702
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,760
and the birth of what we
now know as chemical farming.

703
00:46:56,240 --> 00:47:01,040
So you suddenly have this interesting
combination of a bunch of chemicals

704
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:03,120
that could kill pests

705
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:06,280
and a need to increase
food production.

706
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:12,200
And, at face value, it must
have seemed very straightforward.

707
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:13,840
You know, you get more of a crop

708
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:18,040
if you remove the weeds, because the
crop gets all the food from the soil.

709
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:22,840
But these revolutionary new farming
methods were having terrible effects

710
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:26,720
on our countryside birds.
The two main problems

711
00:47:26,720 --> 00:47:31,880
were the destruction of habitat and
the widespread use of pesticides.

712
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:35,360
One, it was
degrading the whole landscape.

713
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:39,400
A lot of the wild life
depended on the wild plants,

714
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:43,160
the rough bits of the countryside,
the wet bits and so on and so forth.

715
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:47,200
And if you've spent
lots of time and effort wiping out

716
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:50,760
the so-called pests,
when you kill the moths,

717
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,160
you kill the butterflies,
and caterpillars,

718
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:55,960
then you remove that element
of the food chain.

719
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:09,240
As a result, the populations of many
farmland birds went into freefall.

720
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:15,240
Eventually, environmentalists
woke up to what was happening,

721
00:48:15,240 --> 00:48:19,840
and began to warn against the
catastrophe of a silent spring.

722
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:25,360
But when it came to a choice
between farming and birds,

723
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,600
there could only be one winner.

724
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:30,320
There was a kind of

725
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:35,520
illusion, I think, in government
and actually in society more widely,

726
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:39,280
that what was good for agriculture
was good for the countryside.

727
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:41,800
People believed that the countryside

728
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:47,160
was safe in the hands of farmers,
but I think no one really had grasped

729
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:52,040
the fact that actually there was
a difficult choice to be made between

730
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:57,920
maximising agricultural
production and attempting to maintain

731
00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:01,560
a kind of rich, diverse
wildlife in the countryside.

732
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:10,280
One man who witnessed the calamity
in the countryside at first hand was

733
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:14,880
the author Henry Williamson, whose
books, including Tarka the Otter,

734
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:16,560
had made him a household name.

735
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:28,920
"After the Hitlerian war
when I had sold my farm

736
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:31,280
"and returned to North Devon
and my writing,

737
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:36,240
the general use of other sprays
on arable and grasslands caused
the deaths of great numbers of

738
00:49:36,240 --> 00:49:41,800
birds including such predators as
sparrowhawks, owls and buzzards.

739
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,720
Williamson, a farmer himself,
recalled finding

740
00:49:45,720 --> 00:49:50,840
a family of Grey Partridges,
all poisoned by chemicals.

741
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:55,520
I came across the two birds
crouched side-by-side in death

742
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:58,840
with their chicks slightly
larger than humble bees

743
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:02,080
cold between the protecting feathers.

744
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:08,800
Even the largest and most powerful
birds weren't immune to the effects

745
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:12,480
of what turned out to be
a chemical time-bomb.

746
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:20,720
Birds of prey that struggled through
the 19th century surviving

747
00:50:20,720 --> 00:50:26,640
the persecution from gamekeepers to
protect landowning interests,

748
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:31,640
had bounced back a little during
both the World Wars when many of

749
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:36,040
the gamekeepers were posted
overseas, were hit

750
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:42,520
tremendously hard by the chemical
farming revolution of the 1960s.

751
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:47,600
The poison that we put onto the
crops was concentrated up the food

752
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:51,400
chain in the bodies of smaller birds
which were then taken as prey items

753
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:55,760
by birds of prey and they were
producing infertile eggs or indeed

754
00:50:55,760 --> 00:51:00,400
eggshells that were so thin they
cracked under the incubating bird.

755
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:05,840
One species, the kestrel,
did manage to escape the worst

756
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:08,000
effects of the chemical revolution.

757
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,400
But ironically,
it did so by taking advantage

758
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:14,840
of a new habitat created by us.

759
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:16,960
So we went through a period where

760
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:19,200
the only place you saw kestrels,
for instance,

761
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:21,000
was along the motorway verges.

762
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:23,040
Because they were long
corridors that were

763
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:26,760
excused agricultural improvement,
nobody was spraying the road verges.

764
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:30,240
So you hadn't got that kind of
damage and the birds of prey that

765
00:51:30,240 --> 00:51:34,680
survived were the ones that
learned to feed along the roads

766
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:36,560
and you didn't see them
over the fields.

767
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:40,600
But for some species,
it was almost the end.

768
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:50,320
DDT, the main culprit amongst these
agricultural chemicals, was finally

769
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:57,560
banned in 1984, more than 40 years
after the destruction of our
countryside and its birds had begun.

770
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:04,280
Since then, different groups
of birds have experienced
very different fortunes.

771
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:10,720
Birds of prey have been the fastest
to make a comeback, not only because

772
00:52:10,720 --> 00:52:14,600
of the banning of DDT, but also
because in many parts of the country

773
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:19,480
they are no longer persecuted as
ruthlessly as they were in the past.

774
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:23,760
Golden eagles,
buzzards and red kites are now

775
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:27,120
a far more regular sight
in our skies.

776
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:32,040
But the fate of many
of our rural birds

777
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:33,920
could hardly be more different.

778
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:37,880
The continuing drive to make
agriculture more productive

779
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:41,280
has been a disaster for birds
that depend on farmland.

780
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:46,400
Many species continue to decline,
and have vanished from their
former haunts.

781
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:52,200
These dramatic changes have
happened not over centuries,

782
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:55,840
but during our own brief lifetimes.

783
00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:01,920
I can remember as a kid,
as a teenager, you know, in the

784
00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:06,880
'50s certainly, walking across
what I wouldn't regard as anything

785
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:12,320
except just normal farmland and
Lapwings coming up,

786
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:14,120
Skylarks were nesting there.

787
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:19,240
In winter there would be a wintering
flock of maybe 100, 200 Yellowhammers

788
00:53:19,240 --> 00:53:25,480
and a few other finches with them
and Buntings and that sort of thing.

789
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:26,920
In other words, more birds.

790
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:32,040
There was absolutely no
question about that whatsoever.

791
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:36,440
And I remember riding around
the headlines of fields

792
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:41,040
and clouds of lapwings.
I mean,

793
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:45,880
pretty much blacking out the sky
rising up out of
the newly-ploughed ground.

794
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:51,120
Add masses and masses of Skylarks,
and masses and masses of Finches.

795
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:55,520
And that was only 45 years ago.

796
00:53:56,600 --> 00:54:03,560
And when I see a Lapwing now,
I take my hat off to it,
you know, it feels like a rarity.

797
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:05,400
Although they are waders,

798
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:09,680
Lapwings spend much of their lives
on farmland, wintering in large

799
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:13,680
flocks on open fields, and
nesting on rough grassland.

800
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:21,120
Since 1960 their numbers
have fallen by 80%.

801
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:25,120
For me, the fate of the Lapwing
is a kind of personal tragedy.

802
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:27,080
It's almost autobiographical.

803
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:28,960
They're beautiful,

804
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:34,200
they sound fantastic, they remind me
of my childhood, they remind me of

805
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:40,600
the landscape, they are somehow
synonymous with a diverse landscape.

806
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:46,360
The loss of these familiar birds
is a timely warning about the state

807
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:48,840
of the British countryside.

808
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:51,680
But its significance goes far
deeper than that.

809
00:54:51,680 --> 00:54:55,680
Their fate,
and the fate of all our wildlife,

810
00:54:55,680 --> 00:55:01,240
is inextricably linked with our own
emotional and spiritual well-being.

811
00:55:01,240 --> 00:55:07,640
Human beings have suddenly,
in my lifetime, begun to understand

812
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:12,400
that the presence of a healthy
community of animals and mammals

813
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:14,360
and birds and reptiles and insects

814
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:19,720
is absolutely of huge importance
to the health of the human spirit.

815
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:27,160
And the landscape with
diversity in it is central

816
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:29,760
to being a human being and I think

817
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:35,920
as we destroy other species, we
destroy something about ourselves.

818
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:40,760
The loss of these birds matters
because it is, in the end,

819
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:43,320
an impoverishment.

820
00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:44,880
It happens quite gradually

821
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:47,760
so you don't notice it,
like you don't notice your hair

822
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:52,160
going grey but it happens and when
it's happened, you then notice it.

823
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:56,960
And if these birds were to vanish

824
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:02,400
altogether, our very concept of
countryside would be under threat.

825
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:08,000
If birds went out
of the countryside,

826
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:11,200
the sedges withered from
the lake and no birds sing,

827
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:14,200
to bring John Keats back into this,

828
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:16,120
it would be

829
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:20,240
an emblem of a kind of nuclear,
post-nuclear deadness.

830
00:56:20,240 --> 00:56:24,520
If birds disappeared
from the countryside,

831
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:28,800
it wouldn't mean the same,
to call it the countryside.

832
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:31,280
It would be the non-urban spaces.

833
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:34,000
To live in a silent
world would be...

834
00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:37,160
a really dreadful thing,
dreadful thing.

835
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:56,640
The story of our nation's
relationship with birds

836
00:56:56,640 --> 00:56:58,480
has been a long and eventful one,

837
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:05,240
a journey from exploitation,
through appreciation, to delight.

838
00:57:05,240 --> 00:57:09,120
For centuries,
we regarded birds purely as objects

839
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:15,120
to be used for our benefit, for
food and fuel, sport and recreation.

840
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:21,720
But gradually, over time,
we came to value them, cherish them,

841
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:27,520
and finally to understand
what they truly mean to us.

842
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:33,040
MUSIC: Variation IX (Adagio) "Nimrod"
from Enigma Variations by Elgar

843
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:36,880
MUSIC INTERSPERSED WITH BIRDSONG

844
00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:23,280
Subtitles by Red Bee Media

845
00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:27,360
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk