Original subtitles

BIRDS CHIRP

BEE BUZZES

Across the British Isles, there are magical places.

Our pride and joy -

our gardens.

LAUGHTER

Yet, many of us are completely unaware of the wild world...

..right under our noses.

Amazingly, some British gardens are almost as diverse

as a tropical rainforest.

And when our backs are turned...

DUCKLINGS CHIRP

..they come alive.

DUCK QUACKS

From the wilds of Scotland...

STAG GRUNTS

..to a metropolitan oasis.

In each episode, we'll reveal the extraordinary dramas

playing out within a single garden.

EAGLE WHISTLES

Welcome to a hidden world right on our doorsteps.

In a city of almost 500,000 people,

hidden amongst rooftops and roads...

..lies a garden oasis...

..which artist and sculptor Lou

has tended for 24 years.

I would never call myself a gardener, really,

because I don't know much about plants.

And I think because I am an artist,

I like things to develop in their own way.

I have a kind of constant battle with slugs and snails...

SHE LAUGHS ..but we get there,

and I just like it because it looks...

It looks natural.

And that's what I like about my garden.

You know, it makes me happy.

OK, I can take these outside.

It's a really small garden.

And I've got a very tiny lawn,

partly because I'm not really interested in lawns.

Most of my interest is in the beds.

BEE BUZZES

One of the first things I did was build the pond.

And that's one of my sculptures, because, I don't know why,

I just probably wasn't very happy with her.

And now she keeps an eye on the frogs for me.

Lou has created a haven for wildlife.

But even she doesn't know the half of what goes on here.

There's lots of mysterious places,

where I'll occasionally see something.

I know there's a fox that quite often sleeps in the garden there.

But, obviously, when it leaves my garden, who knows where it goes?

Lou's garden has become the home

of a young male fox -

an urban opportunist.

A century ago, virtually no foxes lived in our cities.

Today, there are 2,000 of them in Bristol alone.

This male is one of a whole host of animals in Lou's garden...

..making a life for themselves in this strange new world.

POLICE SIREN WAILS

Life in the city can be tough.

But it does come with its advantages.

DOG BARKS

This wily fox knows exactly

where to find a steady source of food.

Lou's garden is at the centre of the 100 or so

that constitute his territory.

But who owns what... CAT HISSES

..is a matter of opinion.

If he is to survive here,

he must claim food

whenever it becomes available.

And he's quick to notice

the bird seed spilt on the patio.

Like all urban foxes,

he is bolder than his country cousins.

TELEVISION BLARES

TELEVISION: ..to get back to normal levels. The Met Office...

DOG BARKS

And he even seems to know...

..when it's bin night.

But by the end of winter,

he has a lot more than just dinner on his mind.

VIXEN SCREAMS

The alluring sound of a vixen on heat.

VIXEN SCREAMS

But where is she?

DOG BARKS

VIXEN SCREAMS

The trouble is that a cry as loud as this...

VIXEN SCREAMS

..will attract males from all across the neighbourhood.

In cities, so much free food

is available every night

that 50 foxes can live in one square mile.

So, during the breeding season,

competition for a mate is fierce.

FOX GROWLS

Many of us have heard this...

GROWLING AND HIGH-PITCHED SQUEALS

..but never seen what produces it.

HIGH-PITCHED SQUEALS

FOX GROWLS

The unsettling racket of fox courtship.

SQUEALING

This is his territory...

..and maintaining his ownership

gives him the best chance of fathering cubs.

To one outsider...

..Lou's garden offers a fresh start.

A blue tit,

less than a year old and very hungry.

Winter has stripped his woodland home of food...

..so he's searching for a better life in the city.

DOOR CREAKS OPENS

And Lou's garden

could provide just that.

In the winter, over 100 species of bird visit feeders...

..but few of us ever notice the power-struggle that this creates.

BIRDS CHIRP

A charm of goldfinches, as they say.

GOLDFINCHES FRANTICALLY CHIRP

Though charming they are not.

They are larger and heavier...

..and they don't like sharing.

Barely the weight of a pound coin...

FRENZIED CHIRPING

..the blue tit doesn't stand a chance.

And there are even bigger birds in this queue.

PIGEONS COO

Feral pigeons are a lot smarter than they may look.

They know that goldfinches on a feeder

means there will be leftovers on the patio.

He is truly bottom of the pecking order.

But other birds are the least of his worries.

FRENZIED CHIRPING

TELEVISION BLARES

This is the neighbourhood's top predator...

..Mr Fluffy.

But this blue tit is close to starvation.

CAT PURRS

There are over ten million pet cats nationwide.

CAT PURRS

It's estimated that they kill over 50 million birds every year.

But Lou has placed her feeder just out of reach.

So the only casualty today

is Mr Fluffy's pride.

City life may come with risk...

..but an all-you-can-eat buffet...

..is a great place to meet a mate.

TELEVISION BLARES

As dusk falls,

most residents of the garden hide away.

But this is the time

when one of them begins to stir.

It lives in the darkest corners.

Once, there were over 30 million in Britain.

But today, fewer than a million remain.

With the intensification of agriculture,

their countryside homes are disappearing.

SNIFFING

Hedgehogs.

After five months in hibernation,

this female is raring to go.

And so, it seems, are her fleas.

Nothing that a quick scratch can't fix.

Almost got it.

Ah! That's the spot!

She needs to be at her best tonight...

..and stay out of trouble...

HEDGEHOG SQUEALS

..because she's looking for a mate.

The problem is,

as the only hedgehog in a walled garden...

TELEVISION BLARES

..she's hardly spoiled for choice.

But Lou and her neighbours

have made a small change

that goes a long way to help...

..a hedgehog highway.

A system of tunnels

connecting every garden on the street...

..opening up her dating pool to 16 gardens.

In the neighbour's garden...

LOUD MUSIC ..there's no-one here.

Next door down?

No luck either.

DOG BARKS

DISTANT CHATTER

It's not just birds in the firing line.

Every year, pet cats kill millions of mammals.

CAT MEOWS

Mittens, come here!

But there's not a lot a cat can do

against this prickly customer.

Garden 16.

It's the last chance saloon.

And, what do you know...

..something smells very promising indeed.

HEDGEHOG SNIFFS

An intoxicating aroma.

A male...

..heading her way.

HEDGEHOG SNIFFS

He, too, has been attracted by her musky odour.

He's quite the charmer.

And, of course, he takes care.

If you're a hedgehog, love can really hurt.

POLICE SIREN WAILS

It's been a rather productive romp through the neighbourhood.

But rather than head back to bed,

she is making the most of her big night out...

..and she mates with not just a second partner...

..but a third.

Hedgehogs are highly promiscuous,

so a single litter may have multiple fathers.

It's a way of ensuring genetic diversity among her young.

Lou and her neighbours

may have built a path to parenthood...

..but successfully raising a litter of hoglets is far from guaranteed.

Bricks, tarmac and concrete retain heat...

..so spring in the city arrives earlier

than in the surrounding countryside.

And after a few nights above five degrees Celsius...

..a cold-blooded young male is warming up.

A common frog.

He's something of a recluse for most of the year.

But for the next few weeks...

..he'll be seeking company.

And he heads for the garden pond...

..to look for a mate.

The trouble is that even a garden as small as Lou's...

..could host 50 other males.

They're all competitors in a race to breed.

So he, too, had better hop to it!

FROG CROAKS

Lo and behold, a female...

..positively bursting with hundreds of eggs.

It's just as well he got here quickly.

Males can outnumber females four to one.

If he wants to win the mating game...

..he must grab a female...

..before someone else does.

He's got her.

Now, hold on tight...

..and fend off those rivals.

WHISTLING

Having proved himself worthy,

she rewards him

with a clump of eggs,

which he fertilises.

Within each pinhead-sized embryo...

..a new story is beginning.

Even the smallest garden pond...

..can become a cradle for life.

BLUE TIT CHIRPS

In the front garden,

the male blue tit's prospects are looking up.

He's spotted a female in his new patch.

And he's getting just what he needs to impress her.

DRILLING

Tree hollows are in short supply in city gardens,

so a nest box is a welcome alternative.

A quick viewing.

So far, so good.

It's north-facing,

so it's not too hot in summer.

Minimalist, but he could work with that.

Solid walls, too.

This could be it.

Now, he just needs a partner...

..to make this house a home.

BLUE TIT CHIRPS

Down below...

..the garden is changing fast.

Densely planted urban gardens like Lou's...

..can have a higher diversity of flowering plants

than any wild habitat.

And that attracts pollinators

from across the neighbourhood.

BEE BUZZES

Thanks to Lou's green fingers...

BUZZING CONTINUES

..around 50 species of bee visit her garden...

..with some living closer to home than others...

..such as this hairy-footed flower bee.

BEE BUZZES

Its long tongue sucks up nectar...

..and its hairy feet give it its name.

But some properties come with strings attached.

Warm walls...

..make excellent hiding spots

for a growing number of spider species...

..such as this green-fanged tube web spider.

Originally from the Mediterranean,

they are now thriving in many of Britain's southern port cities.

At this time of year,

a more familiar resident

becomes increasingly daring.

He forages in broad daylight.

FOX PANTS

These days, Lou's fox has new responsibilities,

because over the fence...

..and just across the street...

..a new chapter of his life is beginning.

One cub.

Two cubs.

Four cubs.

Just a few weeks old.

They've been growing up safely with their mother

in a den beneath Lou's neighbour's shed.

His family feels so secure here

that they wander out in daylight,

exploring their new world.

Rarely in the animal kingdom does a father stick around.

But paternal care is more common in the dog family

than in most other groups of mammals.

So he does his bit...

..protecting and cleaning his youngsters.

In the first few weeks of their lives,

their mother stops foraging completely

to nurse her cubs.

CUBS SQUEAL

So Dad brings back food for her

from across the many gardens in their territory.

CUBS SQUEAL

For foxes in the city...

..raising a family...

..takes a whole postcode.

City life has many distractions.

It's easy to miss the little things...

..right on our doorsteps.

In the blue tit's nest box...

..ten tiny chicks are hatching.

FRENZIED HIGH-PITCHED CHIRPING

He is a father

and life will never be the same again.

FRENZIED HIGH-PITCHED CHIRPING

Now, the hard work begins...

..for both parents.

To successfully fledge,

each chick will require

20,000 caterpillars.

It's a tall order that must be completed within three weeks.

When caterpillars are in short supply,

spiders will have to do.

FRENZIED HIGH-PITCHED CHIRPING

As the days turn to weeks...

..the chicks' appetites increase

and their parents struggle to keep up.

In winter, blue tits come to our cities,

attracted to our garden bird feeders.

But, as summer arrives...

..one of the drawbacks of city life becomes clear.

Despite the blue tits' best efforts...

..their chicks, one by one...

..die of starvation.

There simply aren't enough native plants here

to support the caterpillars that blue tits need to raise their young.

The odds of any of his chicks surviving

are fading by the day.

FRENZIED HIGH-PITCHED CHIRPING

The number of insects in Britain

have fallen by 60% in the last 20 years.

So, for many animals here, finding enough to eat can be a struggle.

And, right now,

this little hedgehog needs more food than ever...

..because she's eating for five.

She will need to eat all she can...

..to produce enough milk for her hungry youngsters.

The hedgehog highway helps...

..but it only goes so far...

..especially during a particularly dry British summer.

TELEVISION: From this point on, his natural habitat becomes drier.

There's hardly anything to eat on her regular garden tour.

The insects and earthworms she usually relies on

have retreated deep underground.

Bird-feeder leftovers

aren't nearly enough.

But mothers will take extraordinary risks.

Out on the streets...

..there is a threat far greater than any natural predator.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of hedgehogs

die on our roads.

ENGINE STARTS

Remarkably, it seems that city hedgehogs

are learning to avoid the busiest streets

and are choosing to cross quieter, slower roads.

DOG BARKS

In a well-kept garden,

just metres from the street...

..even the most vulnerable stand a chance.

Out of sight, in Lou's pond...

..the frog's eggs are developing fast.

For a single tadpole,

the chances of reaching adulthood...

..are slim.

Dragonfly larvae hunt any small thing that moves.

Over the next three months, they must stay out of trouble...

..grow a pair of limbs...

..and another...

..until, finally, they emerge

as froglets the size of peas.

Sometimes little legs...

..need a helping hand.

A makeshift staircase...

..leads the way to the garden beyond.

Soon, the froglet will repay the favour...

..and join the army of frogs

that keep plant-eating slugs in check.

As summer approaches,

youngsters all across the garden

are taking their first steps into the unknown.

Despite the lack of caterpillars...

CHICK CHIRPS

..one hardy young blue tit has grown enough to fledge...

..thanks to its determined parents.

CHICK CHIRPS

Nevertheless, the chick still needs encouragement

to leave the nest for good.

THEY CHIRP

The ground is not a place for a young blue tit...

CHICK CHIRPS

..and Mr Fluffy is back.

BELL RINGS

His new bell lets everyone know that he's arrived.

But the young chick

has yet to find its wings.

BLUE TIT CHIRPS

Dad sounds the alarm.

CHICK CHIRPS

For many blue tit fledglings,

their first flight...

..is also their last.

CAT MEOWS

Made it!

A bell round the neck reduces pet cats' hunting success

by over a third.

Good news for the birds...

..bad news for Mr Fluffy.

Slowly, the chick finds its feet...

..and will soon be ready to fend for itself.

City life presents plenty of challenges for wildlife.

But with gardens making up a third of our urban space,

they have an important role to play.

Hi, Gaby. Hi!

I haven't seen you for ages.

One of the wonderful things about being in this neighbourhood

is that even though we've each got very small gardens,

if you add it up,

it makes a big space.

In a sense, you're creating a huge garden

for foxes, hedgehogs, all sorts of things.

Together, our gardens cover a greater area

than all of our National Nature Reserves combined.

Each can provide a vital link

in the lives of the animals that live in them.

Not only did this hedgehog survive the dry summer...

..she also successfully raised all four of her hoglets.

As their rural relatives continue to decline...

..there are signs that city hedgehogs are on the increase...

..repaying gardeners in their own particular way.

And, as summer comes to a close...

..a newcomer arrives in Lou's garden...

..watched over by a familiar face.

He is his father's son...

..and is now old enough to explore the neighbourhood.

These resourceful animals

bring a little magic into our lives.

If we choose to share our space...

..something wild might just move in.

The team set out to film one city animal

to which there are very different reactions -

the urban fox.

Lou shows wildlife cinematographer John Waters

the lie of the land.

I know that this path is used quite a lot.

I've seen foxes... Yeah. ..coming up, you know,

jumping off that fence sometimes, or from over there.

To film the fox without disturbing it,

John sets up remote cameras.

The smaller the space, it is more difficult,

because often, the camera is going to be in the way of the animal,

and that can spook it slightly.

Animals are unpredictable.

These cameras are pretty unpredictable.

They don't always work.

There's a massive element of luck.

HE LAUGHS

A few weeks later, time to check the footage.

Cat.

Cat. Cat.

Ooh! Ooh, fox.

Oh, this is the one I was waiting for.

Oh, wow. That's lovely.

The cameras reveal Lou's fox

gets up to far more than she ever sees.

But he's neither the hedgehog hunter

nor the cat killer that some believe urban foxes to be.

He's obviously in my garden, doing his little circuit,

and then, goes who knows where?

I don't know how far he travels, or where he goes.

So far, the team is only getting glimpses

of the fox's secret life.

To discover what he does when he leaves the garden,

producer Euan Macdonald Smith heads onto the streets.

The dream is, if he is successful in mating,

and he and his vixen have cubs,

that we can find the den that they're being raised in

and film them.

I mean, that would be an incredible thing to show Lou.

Euan isn't the first to try his luck filming Bristol foxes.

Back in the 1970s,

a rather fresh-faced presenter

set out to do so

for the very first time.

How much do we really know about the urban fox?

How many are there? Where do they go during the daytime?

A BBC team here in Bristol and the Natural History Unit

set out to try and make a film about the life of a town fox.

In the half-century since,

their numbers have quadrupled in our cities.

I do get a lot of funny reactions from, you know,

people in the neighbourhood.

Anyone out in the streets will tell me,

"Oh, yeah, I see foxes all the time.

"You don't need a fancy camera to see them."

It's easy to get a glimpse of a fox.

But to actually spend any time with one,

it takes a lot of perseverance.

It turns out that the local foxes

are pretty brazen.

HE SCOFFS IN DISBELIEF

But, while city life comes with higher rewards,

it also comes with high risks.

I've just come across a dead fox.

It's been hit by a car.

I was really worried it was going to be Lou's fox.

It looks like it's a different individual.

Still, er, not a very nice thing to see.

One aspect of the fox's life remains a mystery...

..the location of his den.

The team comes up with all sorts of ways to track it down.

Then, right at the end of this road. OK.

But it's Lou's local WhatsApp group

that gives the most promising lead.

Hi, Joe. How's it going? All right.

It seems Mr Fox has been raising a family

right under Euan's nose.

Smells of fox. THEY LAUGH

Over the next few days,

their patience is rewarded.

WHISPERS: He's just so relaxed. I don't think he can see us.

No, he has no idea.

I've been following Lou's fox

for the past six months.

Such a relief to find this den,

and to find these four cubs.

At last, time to reveal the footage to Lou.

Oh, wow, the little fox cubs! Yeah.

Yeah, so there's four of them living under this shed

with their mother. That's amazing!

And that's just across the road. Yeah.

Oh, God, they're so adorable.

A year of filming has changed the way Lou sees her garden.

It's amazing to think of these wild animals

in the centre of a city, isn't it? And thriving!

We've created a safe environment for a wild creature,

and I think that's lovely.

And the footage proves that even the smallest urban space

can provide a vital home to a host of enchanting wildlife.

Next time, the country garden in the Lake District...

..where determined animals must race...

..to raise a family.

Discover the wildlife on your doorstep

with the Open University's Secret Garden

interactive experience.

Scan the QR code on a screen now,

or head to...

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