Birding at RSPB Arne with Poet Laureate Simon Armitage

Sean Bean (0:02)

Is it an eagle?

Simon Armitage (0:03)

I think that is an eagle, yeah.

Sean Bean (0:07)

What, a golden eagle?

Simon Armitage (0:08)

I think it's a white-tailed eagle. I mean, it's so far away, but that's the eagle that they get around here, isn't it?

Sean Bean (0:17)

You know what I say, I think it's a white-tailed eagle.

Peter (0:21)

They don't call you sharp for nothing, do they?

Sean Bean (0:27)

He looks like his other bird's going for it.

Simon Armitage (0:31)

Is it getting more?

Sean Bean (0:34)

You see it?

Simon Armitage (0:34)

Yeah.

Sean Bean (0:36)

It's all going off. I'm Sean Bean and this is Get Birding.

Simon Armitage (0:41)

Look at that, it just spread its wings. Two wardrobe doors, them wings. I know.

Sean Bean (0:48)

In this episode, I'll be joined by poet laureate Simon Armitage at RSPB Arne.

Simon Armitage (0:55)

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Yeah.

I tell Garvey, I bet you only saw a couple of sparrows, didn't you?

Sean Bean (1:04)

We'll also be getting ready for the October Big Day with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Stephen Menzie (1:09)

So last year's October Big Day, collectively everybody saw 7,834 species across 196 countries. Then imagine you're out birding and there are 900,000 other people out there birding with you doing the same thing.

Sean Bean (1:27)

I'm giving you some tips on using binoculars.

Mya-Rose Craig (1:30)

So the numbers.

Paul (1:31)

The numbers. Shall we talk about the numbers?

Mya-Rose Craig (1:33)

Absolutely, because what do they mean?

Sean Bean (1:35)

What do they mean?

Paul (1:36)

So the first number there, so this says eight.

Peter (1:39)

Yeah.

Paul (1:39)

That is eight times more powerful than what you're looking at with your eyes.

Sean Bean (1:49)

I'm just looking at them over there.

Peter (1:50)

We've got a flock of curlew coming in. You can hear them calling.

Sean Bean (1:55)

Yeah.

Peter (1:59)

Yeah, they're all just coming down to land on the salt marsh here, aren't they?

What are they? There's a couple of pintail there as well.

Sean Bean (2:07)

Pintail?

Peter (2:08)

Yeah, so the two lead ducks are pintail. And a really long-necked, elegant ducks.

Sean Bean (2:17)

You've got probably more experience in spotting them now.

Peter (2:22)

Well, I do have the advantage of being here every day.

Sean Bean (2:27)

Here's Peter from the RSPB Arne.

Peter (2:31)

We're at Middlebyer Lookout at RSPB Arne, one of the largest nature reserves in the country. Certainly the largest lowland nature reserve.

Important for whole loads of things. So Pool Harbour, the water we can see in front of us, really important for wintering and migrating birds. The amazing thing I always think about this landscape is it's one of the few places you can stand in the UK and say, hand on heart, this place is now richer for wildlife than it was when I was born 60 years ago. Throughout the summer, the Heathland in particular is really important for Dartford warblers. It's the iconic species of RSPB Arne. When the RSPB first arrived here in 1965, coincidentally the year I was born, there were only 10 pairs of Dartford warblers left in the whole of the UK, and there were 2 pairs at Arne. So that's why the RSPB first got involved here to try and save the Dartford warbler from extinction in the UK.

We're now up to, last year we had 97 pairs of Dartford warbler just at Arne. There were species that have recovered as a result of our conservation efforts, the conservation efforts of partners and other landowners. So it's kind of, yeah, to see that kind of recovery of species is really, really superb.

Sean Bean (3:38)

There were only 10, there were only 10

Peter (3:40)

Yeah, 10 to 10 It was kind of the hard winter of 65, 66

Stephen Menzie (3:44)

You nearly wiped them out.

Peter (3:46)

Because they were a tiny little bird, stays here over winter. Most warblers migrate because they don't like the cold winters. They live on insects and there's not many insects in the winter in the UK. And they have to eke out a living in gorse bushes and things on the heathland over winter when there's very little about. But the gorse bushes create this kind of little micro habitat.

It's warmer inside a gorse bush. So even when there's snow sitting on the top of a gorse bush, there'll still be flies and spiders and insects still active inside the gorse bush in the middle of the winter. And that's what keeps these tiny little birds that big going over winter.

So they've been affected by the loss of habitats. But yeah, we're now in a place where that species is off the red list. It's kind of recovered, really. Well, a hundred just here. And across the UK, they've spread. They're a much more common bird now. They're still not super common, but they are. The reason why there's so many birds come down to these estuaries, and estuaries are one of the reasons, one of the most important things about the UK in terms of bird life and conservation importance, is they're so rich in food that they're like kind of motorway service stations for wintering birds. Somebody's done some research that worked out what the calorific value equivalent of a square metre of mud out there is in terms of Mars bars. So there's about two Mars bars per square metre of food out there, which is why there's so many birds out there eating it. So that's just kind of a huge amount of calories for them to feed up and survive the winter. So we keep a sort of daily record of all the sightings that are reported on the reserve. So there's kind of things in the woodland, things like Tree Creeper, then we've got Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Little Ugrid, Spotted Flycatcher, we've got a resident population of Spotted Flycatcher that have done really well this year. So they've got loads of young around. So Spotted Flycatcher is super.