32x08 - Love in the Animal Kingdom

[bunniefuu]

¶¶

MAN: There aren't many really
wild places left in Ireland.

But on the Shannon River,
you still get that feeling

no one's ever
been there before.

I want to see this river
in all its moods

in every season --

not just how it looks,
but how it sounds,

how it feels --
I want to find the hidden places

and the hidden creatures
living there.

I'm going to have
no fixed agenda,

just want to wander.

Wander and explore.

This river is a lifeline for
countless creatures

who shelter in and around
its waters.

I'm going to follow them,
see where they take me.

[Birds singing]

[Soundtrack playing over]

[Paddle stirring water]

MAN: Early mornings for me are
some of the best times.

The dawn chorus comes

and the reeds are
full of birdsong,

and it's a wonderful,
happy time.

It's a great time
to be on the Shannon.

It's a time to find food,

'cause you've been building up
an appetite all night.

Time to find a mate...

A time to declare
your intentions.

This is still my patch,

this is my part of
this riverbank.

It's a wonderful,
peaceful time of day.

And the light!

If you're out there
at sunrise,

sometimes the light
is so, so special.

Spring on the Shannon --
the great awakening.

And there's such a sense
of purpose in the air.

The orange tip butterfly is
one of the first of the season,

and it's a real sign

that spring is here.

Just a couple of months ago,
all this was under water.

And then the water recedes

and they sort of appear
out of nowhere

and colonize these
watery meadows.

They're the most perfect
little creature --

their wings are
so delicate

and the colors are so rich.

These must be some of
the most beautiful

natural wildflower meadows
left in the country.

Never seen herbicides
or pesticides --

it's just the way this rough

grassland/farmland
used to look in Ireland.

The landscape really
hasn't changed,

but there is something missing.

This place should be resounding
to the cries

of the wading birds --
the lapwing and the curlew

and the ringed plover,
the red shank...

But they've all gone.

They've all disappeared

within about the last
20 or 30, 40 years.

Some people blame the mink
for this emptiness.

Ground-nesting birds,
their little chicks and the eggs

have no protection against
a predator like that.

But you know,

nature tends to be
more complex than that.

The real reason sometimes for
the rise and fall

of different creatures can be
very hard to identify.

Our countryside
has changed dramatically

in the last few decades,

and I guess the river is just
reflecting that change.

Now, you can travel for
mile upon mile on this river

and never hear the sound
of the curlew,

t t call of the lapwing,

or the whistle
of the redshank.

t t call of the lapwing,

It's all gone.

It's very, very few
and far between.

There are one or two places
left in the river

where they still
nest successfully.

These low-lying fields
are known as the Callows.

This is exactly what birds like
curlew and redshank and lapwing

need to breed,

and that...is the warning call
of a redshank.

He says I'm too close.

[Calling]

And it's a call

that just says,
"Potential danger,

await further instructions."

Now, if I was to get close,
if I was to get out of the boat,

you'd hear a very different
call, and that other call

is the real warning -- it says,
"Not only have we

spotted danger,
but we actually have to

react to it right now,"

and it's a particular call
they make,

it's sort of a lovely,
flutey whistle.

And that tells the chick
to go straight for cover.

They're relying completely on
the parent's vigilance.

People sometimes call them
the guard dogs of the Callows.

I have a friend who lives s st

of the west of Ireland that,
the only way to get to his house

is on foot,

and he can always tell if there
are visitors on the way

because he'll hear
that redshank calling,

and he'll know
there'll be a knock on his door

ten minutes later.

So...

I don't see this as

a journey from source to sea,

I see it very much as a wander
around the entire system.

I want to be on different
parts of the river

at different times
of the year.

I've lived in Ireland
most of my life,

and I guess the Shannon
is something

I feel I've
taken for granted.

I mean, this is the longest
river in Britain and Ireland,

and it divides
our country in two,

from sort of the wilder west
to the gentler east.

You have this feeling of
crossing the Shannon,

you know you're going to another
part of the country.

You learn in
your geography books

it's something over
200 miles long,

but it's much more
than that.

The tentacles of
the river fan out,

and it's all the little streams
and rivers that make it up.

They come from
all over the country,

feeding into
this central basin.

This river has such a great
sense of history.

There are signs of our past
all over

this water system.

It reminds you of
how time passes

and the lives
that were once here,

and you have to sort of wonder,
what will we leave behind?

Will the monoliths
of the Celtic Tiger

look as romantic as
the castle ruins?

I don't think so.

[Animal calling]

[Squeaking]

Bats are one of the most
unappreciated of creatures.

There are so many nasty stories
associated with bats.

When you hear these stories
and you see the movies,

it's always about vampires,

and giving them
a bad reputation.

And that somehow seems to get
ingrained in our consciousness.

They are utterly harmless to
human beings --

absolutely harm--
and they're not just

harm less to us,

they really benefit.

I mean, any --
any creature that goes round

scooping up midges in their
thousands is a friend of mine,

because some nights
on the river,

you wish you'd had an entire
swarm of bats

accompanying you
every place you went.

We have about 30 mammals
in Ireland,

and ten of them
are bats.

If only we could totally reverse
the way that many of us see them

and look at them as
the incredibly well-adapted,

sort of, ancient creatatates
that they are.

These are
Daubenton's bats --

they're known commonly as
water bats,

and that's because

they are perfectly adapted for
life on the river.

If you look really closely,

you can see the odd one just
flitting by really fast.

And what they are doing is

they are hunting over
the water's surface --

they are looking for
little insects

which are caught
on the top of the water.

As they struggle to
free themselves

from that surface tension,
they make little ripples.

And what the bats are doing now,
they are echolocating,

finding where those little
ripples are coming from,

and they can sort of
scoop up the insects --

either with
their tail

or with their feet.

They have extra-big feet,
and they use those to just

lift the struggling insect from
the surface of the river.

Flitting back and forth there.

The bats themselves

live, I guess,
in a different world.

They perceive the world
in a different way to me.

Although their eyesight
is as good as mine,

it's not much good to you when
you're flying about in the dark.

So, as they fly
up and down the river,

they have their mouths
wide open,

and they're effectively,
sort of,

screaming at the water

and waiting for
that echo to come back.

And that's how they discern
their environment,

that's how they see
where they're going.

Incredible creatures.

Beautiful creatures.

This weather is really tough
on the creatures

that live off the river.

This wind has been really
continuously blowing now

for over a month.

Not quite what I had
in my mind's eye

when I set out on --
on this journey --

I imagined those
lovely, fine,

April evenings as the days
start to lengthen,

just listening to
the birds singing,

maybe sitting by
a little campfire.

But for the last
four or five weeks,

I've just been huddled down like
all the other creatures,

waiting for
this spell of weather

to pass on.

This year, this weather came at
just the wrong time.

There should be

great hatches of insects --

and not just
for the birds,

but for the fish
and everything, too.

They -- you know, everything is
feeding voraciously

at this time of year.

For nesting birds, it's not just
that the parents

might not be able to supply
their chicks with enough food,

but the chicks get
actively hammered

by the wind and the rain.

[Calling]

But then it'll be amazing
if the conditions do pass,

and the first sunny morning,

the whole place will just
come alive again.

There's nothing like
traveling on the river,

there's just that feeling of,
sort of,

peace and tranquility.

You can kind of drift in and out
of animals' lives,

and they don't even know
you've been there.

You don't disturb them.

When I'm paddling my canoe,
I'm just wondering

what's happening beneath me.

That whole cycle of life,

things meeting and mating
and breeding,

and thing k*lling
each other --

that's all happening
in the water,

but it's something
that's hidden to us.

There's one fish that's found

throughout this river system,
seldom seen,

but at this time of year their
presence becomes obvious,

and that's because
it's mating time.

People call them
the barracuda of the Shannon.

It's very much the creature

that, if you were a fish,
you'd want to avoid.

They're superbly adapted
for their environment.

They can move very, very fast
if they have to.

Any fish that comes within
striking range

has no chance whatsoever.

Some people look at predators
as being

cruel and this sort of thing,
but that's really not the case.

If you were an animal

that's been injured
in nature,

be you a deer in the forest --

if you've got a tiger round,

the tiger will
k*ll and injure deer --

if it breaks a leg,
instead of dying slowly,

a tiger will spot it
and k*ll it.

And the pike are sitting there
at the bottom of the lake,

they're just not randomly
chasing any fish --

they're looking for the ones
which are moving a bit slowly

or aren't doing so well,
so, they're, um,

maybe sort of like
an anesthetic --

they put people
out of their misery --

they put fish
out of their misery.

People are always talking about
climates and changing,

and these are changing,
and that sort of thing --

the natural world
doesn't lie.

You can see an increase
in temperature.

Things are moving

north and west
all the time,

because they're able to tolerate

living in those sort of
warmer conditions

that are
now on offer there.

So, you'll get this gradual
influx in species,

and the Shannon is going to,
you know --

things are going to start
being able to live here

that couldn't
live here before.

I remember the first time
I saw egrets,

it was in the south of Spain,
and I thought they were

the most exotic thing
I'd ever seen.

I was walking up in the hills

and I came over by
this little lake,

and there were these beautiful,
pure white birds

wading around
in the shallows.

And I couldn't quite believe
what I was seeing,

and little did I know that,
within, I suppose, 20 years,

that those birds would have
made it to Ireland,

and they're breeding alongside
our herons.

That's something
I never thought I'd see.

[Birds calling]

There's something
about herons, too,

when you see them
sort of hunched-up,

they can look sort of
a little bit angry,

a little bit, sort of,
fed up with life.

The egrets are like,

the new, beautiful cousins
have just come along,

and they're kind of taking their
limelight or something.

And they seem to
put up with them.

And the egrets, I guess,
are just so much more elegant.

Everything seems

very calm --
it's as if they've been

living together
all their lives.

The two species seem to,
sort of,

accept each other's presence...
even though they must be

in competition for feeding sites
and nesting sites.

My guess is there's so many fish
in the river

that there's no big competition.

[Birds calling]

Great sounds.

One of the parents
has just come in

and they're all just
going for it.

It's a real
survival of the fittest.

All the chicks have to be
on their feet, as it were,

and scrambling for food,
and that's what it's --

it's known as
"scramble competition" --

you've got to make
your presence

known to your parents
so that you'll be fed,

because if the parent
doesn't spot you

and you start missing out
on your meals,

you'll end up getting weak
and not making it.

My fear is that little guy
has no chance,

no future.

It's sad.

Nature can be tough.

[Bird calling]

That's a sound now that's really
rare in these parts.

That's a corncrake.

[Calling]

I remember the days when they
were so common,

they were found in pretty much
every field in Ireland.

And I used to listen to them

just a few miles from
Dublin city center

when I was growing up,
but now they've really

disappeared from
so much of the country.

When you cut silage, you cut it
early in the season.

So, when you have

a bird like the corncrake
that nests in long grass,

it's just gotten to the stage of
finding a mate

and the female's sitting on
their nests,

sitting on her eggs,

and that's when
the grass cutters arrive.

So, they don't have time
to raise their young,

so year on year,
corncrakes have just

disappeared
all over the country --

and it happened
very quickly.

And here on the Shannon
they've been making

a bit of a stand down on
the Shannon Callows,

probably because that land was
used a little less intensively

than other parts
of the country.

And unfortunately, they've done
really badly the last few years,

and I've heard this year

that there's actually just one
male left calling.

[Calling]

He's calling to establish
a territory,

but to let a female
know that he's about.

Because if you're a corncrake

wandering round
in the deep grass,

you can't find each other.

So, it's up to him to call in
the female.

And if there's a receptive
female in the area,

she should come and have
a look at him.

But it seems very likely,
very possible,

that there's no one
out there for him.

[Corncrake calling in distance]

When I go to sleep tonight,

there's a good chance

when I wake up
in the morning

that little guy is still
going to be calling,

because the only thing
on his mind right now

is finding a mate --
that's why

he's flown here
all the way from Africa.

He doesn't know that

there aren't any other
corncrakes here.

He doesn't know that
there aren't any females.

Poor little guy
out there alone.

[Corncrake calling]

He'll be calling
all night.

All day, too, probably,
if he doesn't have any luck.

Shannon's going to flow through
this area, now,

and not hear that call again.

[Calling]

It's like being in
another world.

Very peaceful,

just the sounds of
the reeds themselves,

blowing gently
in the wind, and...

But all this activity that's
going on that's unseen,

all the birds building their
little platform floating nests,

sitting on eggs,
chicks hatching,

that's all going on now
all around here.

Just by listening
to the sounds,

you can tell that's
what's going on.

None of the residents in here
can see each other, either.

[Birds calling,
water splashing ]

So, that's why they're
constantly calling.

Letting each other know
where they are.

Contact calling --
it's lovely to hear.

There's always
one animal every year

that sort of somehow
gets into your mind

and just starts to
fascinate you,

and for me it's been
the great crested grebe.

The eggs hatch on different
days, because as soon as

the first egg is laid,
the female starts incubating it.

Both parents are very diligent.

They have these amazing
parental instincts.

The little grebe chicks

must be some of the cutest
chicks on the river.

Their beautiful little
striped pattern,

so different looking
than their parents.

Grebe parents will actually
pluck their own feathers

and feed them
to the chicks.

It's a remarkable
thing to see.

Beautiful birds.

Amazing how the whole world
seems to have gone silent now.

It's -- every year I notice
around the 15th of July or so,

it's as if someone had just
flicked a switch.

The Shannon is no different --

all the birds
just stop making noise.

And that's 'cause the breeding
season is over

and they don't
have to sing anymore,

they don't any longer have to
defend breeding territories,

they don't have to
attract females.

There's no reason to sing,
and that's why they've stopped.

But it really seems to happen
over a matter of a week or so,

it just, suddenly,
just goes quiet.

Absolutely quiet.

The greatest angler

on the river has got to be
the kingfisher.

They're just master fishermen --
and they've got to be,

because they can pretty much eat

their own body weight
in food every day.

Most of the time,
you just see

a flash of blue.

But to really see
how beautiful they are,

you've got to slow them down.

I'm starting to see
subtle changes in color

on the riverbanks.

Autumn isn't far away.

Great to see
the red squirrels around.

The Shannon, which formed
a barrier to people long ago,

has been really important for
the red squirrel in Ireland,

because when someone decided,
in their wisdom

to bring the grays here,

the grays never actually managed
to cross the Shannon.

And so that's why the reds
are still here.

The poor little blighters,
they just can't compete.

It's not that the grays

are physically fighting
with them,

it's just that they
find the food quicker.

They'll take food that's still

sort of raw -- raw nuts
and that sort of thing.

And these little guys
just can't compete.

And so, they -- the females
don't put on enough weight,

and so they don't breed.

Earlier I found
some pine marten scat.

There's some sort of evidence
that maybe they are able to

catch gray squirrels,
easier than reds.

Reds are a little more agile,

they can get to the outer
branches of the trees,

maybe where the pine martens
can't catch them.

It may be that with the rise of
the pine marten again,

that grays are going to
be disadvantaged

and the reds might
make a comeback.

That would be great
if that happened --

and it just might.

For anyone who spends time
on the water,

they know that sound.

That's just the sound of
the Shannon in winter.

Wonderful, haunting
sort of call,

the sounds of
the whoopers arriving.

The end of the autumn
and beginning of winter

is when they tend to arrive,
and they've been chased

from their northern
breeding grounds

by the cold weather
up there --

they fly south
to avoid it.

They come to the Shannon because
there's a great big larder here

to keep them going
for the winter months.

You really have to watch
swans taking off

to see that flight
doesn't really come

all that naturally
to them.

They really have to push those
bodies up into the air.

You'd think that
they'd be a bird

that maybe couldn't fly
all that far,

but they can fly all the way
from Iceland to here, nonstop.

[Honking]

Once you make a decision
to undertake that flight,

there's sort of
no turning back,

because you've nothing
to turn back to,

so, no matter
what obstacle they hit,

or what weather they hit,
they just have to keep going.

[Honking]

They must be very, very pleased
when they see

the ribbon of the Shannon River
from the air.

Maybe they're calling because
they're just happy to be here.

They must use up a huge amount
of energy on that flight.

But when they get here,
they're as graceful

as when they took off --

you'd swear that they'd just
come from down the road.

They're just looking absolutely
perfect and pristine.

Some journey to undertake.

But one thing's for sure,

when they arrive here
there's loads of food.

They're vegetarians, they come
here to feed on the grass,

is what they like to eat,

and there's no shortage of grass
in Ireland.

We tend to spend so much of our
lives indoors now, and in cars,

we may be losing touch with
those sort of seasonal markers

which give you a sense of a time
of year and where you are.

Our houses are probably
as warm in winter now

as they are in summer,

and we eat
any kind of food we want

at any time of year,

so those sort of traditional
markers of the seasons

are sort of disappearing.

And in the natural world,
of course,

they're very much still there,

they're still driven by
the climate,

angle of the sun,

day length --
all those things,

that wonderful sense of

a year --
something cyclical.

[Thunder rolling]

This is a rare cold snap
and it won't last long.

As soon as
the temperatures rise,

things will start
moving again.

That's a great sound...

Guess, to lots of people,

birdsong is the first sign
of spring,

but for me it's the croaking of
the frog --

breeding season
has begun.

Male frogs,
lots of them,

calling to lure in
the females.

[Frogs croaking]

Males await the arrival
of the next female.

This is an annual opportunity,

and they want to
make the most of it.

Some of these little males have
spent the winter

at the bottom of the pond,
hibernating there.

It means that
they're in position,

they're in
the breeding pond,

when the females arrive
at springtime.

Females can be scattered out
over this entire area.

Something wakes them up --

the same sort of cues,
I guess,

that wake up the males,
wake up the females.

They've been wintering
under stone walls

or under bits of boulders
or under logs.

And some of these females

have to make this arduous
journey across the land,

laden with eggs.

Some sort of instinct

drives them back towards
these breeding ponds.

And then it's the calls of
the male that lure them in.

[Croaking]

The poor females, you got to
feel sorry for them,

because all these males

have only one thing
on their mind right now.

She's on the edge of the pond,
thinking, "Oh, will I, won't I?"

And when she makes
that final jump in,

all hell breaks loose.

Now, these little males,
what they're trying to do is,

they're trying to grab
the female.

They have special pads
on their little hands,

and what
they're trying to do is

get into
the right position.

They will wrestle
each other,

and she is stuck
in the middle.

Once they're really
tight on there

and in the right position,

they will hang on
for dear life.

And for the next few days
they will not leave her.

Life for a female frog
is not very easy.

The other males sort of know
and they give up.

Right, she's taken.

And then they wait for
the next one to arrive.

[Croaking]

Love frogs.

Every evening...

every evening this happens.

Small flocks of little starlings

come together to form
bigger flocks.

Just remarkable
how so many birds

come from the entire
surrounding countryside.

They all make their way

back to this one
little spot.

And those flocks start to wheel

just a few minutes before they
actually hit the reed beds.

There's just those extraordinary
abstract patterns,

from a distance
they could be Ireland,

or a swarm of locusts,

or a swarm of bees --

it's very hard to get
a sense of scale.

Many ways, this is the greatest
natural spectacle in Ireland.

It's just some sight.

And the sounds -- the sounds of
myriads of beating wings.

[Thrumming of wings]

Amazing sight --
just amazing.

My journey is coming
to an end now,

and I've learned so much
along the way.

I've experienced this river
in every season,

I've gotten to know
its moods,

gotten to know its creatures.

Somehow, it's sort of
gotten into me

and feels like
it's a part of me know.

It's no longer a river...

Kind of my river.

But it's our river.

Its future health and wellbeing
is up to us.

To learn more about what you've
seen on this "Nature" program,

visit pbs.org.