All language subtitles for BBC.Wild.Ireland.The.Edge.of.the.World.1of2.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org.eng

The west coast of Ireland for
millennia was really, I guess,

the edge of the known world.

Our ancestors had no idea
what lay beyond the horizon.

The vast Atlantic was a place
of complete mystery.

My name is Colin Stafford-Johnson.

I've spent 30 years working as a
wildlife cameraman around the world

and I've seen some of the most
beautiful places on Earth,

but somehow I'm always drawn back
to the west coast of Ireland.

This is where I now call home.

Once you've lived by the sea
for part of your life,

it's very hard to leave it behind.

I love its isolation
and its wildness.

I've always wanted to travel the
length of Ireland's Atlantic coast,

seeking out its secret places
and wild creatures.

SEALS SNARL

So much of life is, sort of,
timetabled

and when you don't have a timetable,
you can't be late.

When you don't have a destination,
you can't get lost.

I suppose, in ways, I'll be
wandering up the west coast...

..and if my journey
has any direction,

I guess it's roughly north.

And I think it's going to
change my view

of the island that I've lived on
for much of my life.

PUFFINS SQUAWK

Up till now I've spent most of my
life very much really a land-lover,

but travel 100 metres from the shore

and the soundscape
changes completely.

You leave the world behind.

When you think about
going on a journey,

you've got to think of a place
to begin

and when I thought of what it would
be like to paddle up the west coast,

where will I begin,
there was really only one place.

For me, the Skelligs, it's such
an icon for the west of Ireland,

I guess.

Isolated, wild, desolate place.

Two jagged pyramids of sandstone,

one of them home to the second
largest colony of gannets

in the world.

Come spring, some 70,000 individuals
arrive on Little Skellig.

GANNETS SQUAWK

They're constantly scouring
the ocean looking for food

and any fish that's within their
range has very little chance.

They're doing really well here.

Year on year, this colony
is getting bigger.

There's no place for another nest,
it seems to be now.

This rock is now full.

There's really nowhere in the world
quite like Skellig Michael.

No wonder it's a World Heritage
Site, because it's truly unique.

It was a monastic settlement
1,500 years ago.

How they survived,
it's just hard to imagine.

With an extraordinary decision
to make,

to sail off in a boat from the west
coast of Ireland to come here.

We may only be 12 miles offshore

but they can be 12 very dangerous
miles.

It's just hard to imagine the effort
to construct these beehive homes

and churches.

They must have been
a special kind of people though,

because this wouldn't have been
everyone's cup of tea.

And the monks who chose to build
this monastery here

thought this place
was the very edge of the world.

It was the edge of the known world
for European man at that time.

The ocean, to them,
was just vast and endless.

This endless void.

And the people who came here

came here to contemplate life...

..and I can't think of
a better place to do it.

Tough place to do it -
physically hard and challenging.

All they had to keep them company
were the elements.

And the sea birds in summer.

Every year, puffins just
arrive out of the blue.

They've spent the winter out in
the middle of the Atlantic Ocean

being tossed around in storms
and it always amazes me

how they actually arrive unscathed.

They look perfect, extraordinary
little birds, constantly busy,

constantly moaning and groaning
and chatting to each other.

Every place you go on this island
in summer,

little puffins waddling
all over the place.

When they start bill tapping,
a way of reaffirming the bond

is to do this little bill tapping
ceremony,

and it's just something
that you never tire of.

Some of the younger
non-breeding birds,

they literally loaf around over
these rocks, called loafing rocks,

where the young, non-breeding birds
gather.

And they will just arrive and,
sort of, strut around the place,

maybe with fish in their mouths

as if showing to potential
future partners,

"Look, I can fish.
I know this place."

One thing puffins can do,
which is remarkable,

the bill is designed to catch
and hold multiple fish.

While on the bill, it's got these
little grooves, so as soon as

they catch the first one between
the bill and their tongue

they can just, kind of, store it
there and then open their bill

and catch a second one,
so it's all pretty clever.

There's just one single puffling
born every season

and for three months
their parents' only goal

is to keep them safe and well fed.

It's only when you look at them
closely you realise

that they're not just comical
little guys

but they're actually constantly
looking out for predators.

Here, the biggest predators
are the black-backed gulls

and the herring gulls.

There are thousands of burrows
on this island.

The puffins, they find sanctuary
underground.

It doesn't seem it on the surface,

but it really is a jungle out here,
you know?

The gulls are responsible for
the puffins being pretty much

on tenterhooks all day long,

even though a puffin never really
looks like it's on tenterhooks.

At night, then everything changes
completely.

The day birds have now
pretty much stopped calling

and the island goes strangely quiet
just after sunset.

But out at sea
there are birds gathering

and they're waiting to come ashore.

It's only safe for them
to come ashore

under cover of darkness -
complete darkness.

LOUD SQUAWKING

This is really a very Irish sound

because Manx shearwaters breed
on the west coast of Ireland

in really big numbers.

There are thousands of burrows
on this island

and there's great competition
for those burrows,

so much so that some of the
shearwaters have actually started

nesting above ground
in these old beehive huts.

SHEARWATERS SQUAWK

They're calling to let their mates
know that they're on their way.

You will also then hear the response
coming from underground.

It's as if their mate underground
has said, "Look, I'm here,

"you're in the right area,

"and I'm going to lure you
into this very spot."

SHEARWATER CALLS

It's incubation time.

The partners of these birds have
been sitting patiently underground,

waiting for their mates
to return from the sea.

They love the darkness.

This is what protects them
from predators like gulls.

They are so poor on land.

Their feet are set very far back
on their bodies

and they really are very ungainly.

If you're a shearwater,
you really want to land

as close to your nest as possible.

Sometimes, if there are
bright nights,

the poor old bird sitting on the egg
will be there for days on end,

waiting for their mate
to relieve them of duty.

And they'll spend some time in
each other's company, you know?

Other birds, I've often found,

they will just literally swap over
without making any contact.

As soon as one arrives,
the other one leaves.

Not the case with shearwaters.

SHEARWATER SQUAWKS

They start preening each other
and bill tapping

and it seems like they're delighted
to see each other.

Perhaps romance is not just
confined to the human world.

LOUD SQUAWKING

The shearwaters spend all winter
travelling around the Atlantic,

flying over as far as Brazil
in search of food

and then they make their way
back and find the very same burrow

that they nested in last year.

And they'll do that for
possibly decades

because they're a very
long-lived bird.

And this is where they find
sanctuary,

like the monks did long ago.

Ireland looks really like
an island from out here.

I think that's the thing
about the coastal journey.

It makes you see a country
in a whole new light.

The land has changed.

Human influence tends to mould
the land

but that doesn't change
the surface of the ocean.

That just, sort of, defines itself
in some way.

It can't be tamed, as such.

Even when you set out for a day
at sea by yourself,

you're never alone for long,
not on the west coast of Ireland.

Even when you stop, it's not long
before the common dolphins find you.

They seem to just love company.

And I love theirs.

There's something very reassuring
about seeing

such a concentration of mammals
along this coast

because it means there must be
plenty of life left in the sea.

My favourite places in Ireland have
got to be these offshore islands.

And when you come to these places,
that's where you get a real sense

of wildness and a real sense of what
the whole coast must have been like

once upon a time.

You really feel like you're on
the very edge of Europe.

Nothing to stop the waves
between here and America.

The Blasket Islands may be only
20 miles north of the Skelligs

but they feel like a totally
different world.

These west coast islands would once
have been intensively farmed.

The old ruins of the houses
are still here

but they won't last forever.

I'm sure in another hundred years
or so

there will hardly be a sign
that man was ever here.

So many of the islands off the west
coast have been deserted by people

in the last, you know,
60, 70, 80 years

and wildlife has moved in.

FIRE CRACKLES

If you come to the Great Blasket
at the right time of year,

you'll see a sight that few people
have ever witnessed.

Certainly, the islanders
who lived here once

would have been very familiar
with these creatures

but they never would have seen them
in numbers like this.

These animals are only here now
because man has left this place.

This was the main beach in front of
what would have been

a bustling village once upon a time.

It's lovely to see them all
lying side-by-side.

It's more like a sight you'd see
on a...

A Subantarctic island
or something like that.

SEALS GRUNT AND GROWL

This must be the greatest gathering
of mammals in Ireland.

Some days you can see over
a thousand grey seals

all hauled out on the beach.

It's their island now.

For centuries they were hunted
and harassed

and the numbers have plummeted.

But grey seals, in fact, were the
first protected animal in the world.

The numbers have come back
but we still have a duty

and responsibility
to look after them here.

They're not built for land,
that's for sure.

You've got to feel sorry for them
because there's nothing worse

than having an itch
you can't scratch,

and if your arms are only a foot
long, it's not easy getting to

all the bits of the body
that you've got to get to.

Sometimes you need a neighbour
to lend a hand.

They're supreme swimmers.
They can dive to depths of 600 feet.

And snoozing underwater?

Not a problem.

At breeding time
there's loads of aggression.

Females are barking at females

and the bulls have come to mate

so they're very aggressive
towards each other.

Everyone's, sort of, trying to
protect their patch.

SEAL GROWLS

The entire year is spent
building up to this time.

They're doing all this
on an empty stomach too.

They're being driven by hormones.

And this fighting can be difficult
to watch.

It can be extremely aggressive

and they can inflict serious damage
on each other.

If you become the dominant male
of a patch of beach,

that means you will have access to
all the females that lie therein.

Mating, for grey seals,
is not a very elegant process.

The male's got to keep away
other males at this time

and he's also thinking that as soon
as he's finished with one female

he's got to get on to the next one.

When they leave here they will
spend the next six months or so

just wandering, on their own,

because they can travel from here
all the way up as far as Scotland

or down to the Bay of Biscay,
wandering around foraging.

So much of Europe's coastline
has been developed

and undisturbed places like this
are becoming rarer and rarer

in the world now.

For great stretches
of the west coast,

mountains drop straight
into the ocean

and travelling
just a few miles inland

can transport you to a completely
different world.

These are the MacGillycuddy's Reeks,
Ireland's greatest mountain range.

There's somehow always like a
dull roar coming from the sea,

but that's absent here.

The lake doesn't have that
same kind of energy.

Still waters like this,
such a different experience.

Last night was a perfectly
clear night

and as a result this seems like the
coldest morning of the year so far.

There's a real chill the air.

DEERS CALL

These mountains and these valleys
have borne witness to this sound

for thousands of years.

These are the calls
of male red deer...

..proclaiming their territories.

The rut has begun.

And that voice...

..it's telling the other males
to stay away.

Don't mess with me.

Some of them have been rolling
in the mud.

Sometimes you'll get them with
grass attached to their antlers

and that's all about making
themselves look bigger.

The only thing that these guys
have on their mind right now

is fatherhood.

It's fatherhood or failure.

It's all they live for

and if you're not strong enough
and powerful enough,

then you will never become...

a father.

Biggest land animal in Ireland.

And there are several big stags
displaying this morning,

but there's one of them
who is just...

..bigger and more powerful
than all the rest

and he's the one
that's got all the females.

Once a stag has gathered a harem,

he's got to keep a very close eye
on them.

Sometimes one of them will
slip away,

perhaps attracted by other calls,

and as soon as he spots her

he goes back and retrieves her
in no uncertain manner.

He's gone to all that trouble
gathering them.

LOUD CALL

He's not for sharing.

Now, stags will do whatever they can
to avoid conflict

because it's dangerous
for both parties.

Those calls and that posturing
is normally enough

to keep rivals apart.

But when you have two males
of similar size,

sometimes neither of them
will back down.

LOUD CALL

The loser looks utterly exhausted.

Everyone has seen
that he's been beaten.

The females have seen it,
the males have seen it,

and so he will not be feared again.

It's the sole purpose of their
lives, I guess, is to...

..become fathers, and they will put
all their energies into doing that.

And there are some winners
but more losers.

And it seems like Stone Age man

brought this herd here
5,000 years ago,

and they've been here ever since.

They've been hunted and harassed
for millennia.

But it's something very reassuring
that they're still here.

They are such powerful animals
and somehow

a real symbol of ancient Ireland.

Just 20 miles north as the crow
flies is the Dingle Peninsula.

When you wander the dunes here
by day

you have this wonderful soundscape

of skylarks and stonechats
and linnets

and those sounds slowly disappear
with the setting sun.

TOADS CROAK

This is a sound that you only hear
in this part of the country.

Wonderful sound.

Almost seems otherworldly to me,
or certainly...

..it's hard to believe sometimes
that you're in Ireland.

Here in Ireland we've only got three
different kinds of amphibians.

We've got a newt, we've got a frog
and one toad.

For some reason the natterjack toads
ended up here

and no-one quite knows how.

Some funny anomaly
from the Ice Age, maybe,

and a little population
got left here.

Right now there are lots
of male natterjack toads

in the ponds, hidden.

And they're calling for one purpose
and one purpose only

and that is to lure the females
in from the surrounding dunes.

They've been waking up from their
winter slumber and they're...

..listening to these calls now
and I wonder what they're thinking.

But the females could be
well spread out.

They could be several hundred
metres away,

which doesn't sound that far but if
you're only a couple of inches long

it's quite a long journey.

TOADS CROAK

LOUD CROAKS

These little males have been waiting
for this event all winter long.

It's probably the loudest
natural sound in Ireland

when they all get going.

You can hear them, I reckon,
a mile away on a calm night.

And those little females that are
stirring on the dunes right now,

they're going to become crawling
laden with eggs.

As soon as a female arrives on the
edge of this pond and is spotted...

..there's going to be a little bit
of a frenzy

to see who can get to her first.

Once he actually gets into
what's known as amplexus,

when he tucks his arms under her,

he will not let go
for love or money.

He'll stay with her
right through the spawning process.

They lay these long strings of eggs
and the male fertilises them

as they emerge.

And that's it done.

CROAKING

This is what this little corner
of Ireland has sounded like

for thousands of years.

You could almost be by a water hole
in Africa or something like that.

That's what it sort of
reminds me of.

Just to be in a place
with natural sounds.

You somehow feel that this is
what the world should be like.

You feel very small out here
sometimes.

My boat is a currach.

It's a traditional boat
that would have been used

right along this coast
for hundreds of years.

They were often made just from
scrap wood and canvas.

It's the perfect way
for exploring this coast

because it was designed here.

It was designed
for these conditions.

There's a wonderful story
from these parts.

It's said that there were
a group of men

rowing their currach back to their
home on the Blasket Islands.

And as they rowed, they heard
this very strange sound -

sounds that they had never heard
before in their lives,

that seemed to come from
the very ocean itself,

through the skin of their boat.

Now, one of the fellows on the boat
was a musician

and when he got home that night, he
started composing a piece of music

based on the strange sounds
that he had heard.

Now, that piece of music
became a very famous Irish tune.

MUSIC: Port Na Bpucai

In the Irish language
it was known as Port na bPucai.

The Song of the Fairies.

And years later,
someone was listening to it

and when they thought about it,
they realised

that it reminded them of the song
of the humpback whale.

People said there was no way they
could have heard a humpback singing.

You just didn't find humpback
whales in these waters.

Amongst the dolphins,
we have a visitor

and it's wonderful to see them back.

I love the sounds
of their breathing.

When I was growing up, I remember
I had that sort of iconic photograph

of a humpback fluke on my bedroom
wall and I remember thinking,

I'd love to see one of those
one day.

Well, never in a million years
did I think

I'd be watching sights like this
here.

This is now a relatively common
sight off the west coast of Ireland.

These are almost resident
humpback whales.

And the locals recognise
one male humpback

that's been coming here for years.

He comes back so often,
they call him Boomerang.

It seems that once one creature
finds a bowl of food, a big bowl,

all the other creatures
are, sort of, called in.

They could be anywhere in the whole
ocean but they choose to be here.

It makes you feel a bit special.

Humpbacks have developed their own
unique hunting method.

They blow circles of bubbles
to frighten and corral

a shoal of the fish.

And then swallow the lot.

They're the only whale that has
developed this particular

hunting technique and it seems
to work incredibly effectively.

When they've had a good day's
foraging,

what better way to end the day

than to lie on your back and
just flail your limbs around?

Sure, why not?

Hello.

There's something youthful
about them.

It's almost as if they're
just enjoying themselves.

I'd like to think that other
animals can be happy.

So many whale species just briefly
visit the surface when they have to

to literally pick up air
and disappear into the depths again

but humpbacks seem to, sort of,
enjoy that transition

between sea and air,
between those two dimensions.

It seems like cessation of whaling

has been a massive
conservation success story

and it's taken a few decades
for the numbers to come back

but the whole coast of Ireland
is a whale sanctuary now,

so they're safe here.

So isn't it a wonderful thought
that maybe...

..just maybe, all those years ago,

as this group of men were paddling
themselves out to their island home,

there was a humpback
hanging in the water

and that there was actually,
somehow their craft,

the skin of their currach,

had somehow managed to pick up
these calls of the humpback.

50 miles north of Kerry,

County Clare is home to one of the
most unique landscapes in Ireland.

BIRDS SING

A dawn chorus.

At this time of year, it seems to
hardly stop all day sometimes.

It's at its strongest
early in the morning but...

..it seems to keep going for hours.

The weather is nice.

The birds just seem to sing
all day long.

What a beautiful place
to raise a family.

There are five chicks here
this year.

That's a lot of chicks for ravens.

It just shows how productive
the whole area must be.

Over here in the Burren,

there's such a variety of, sort of,
habitats for them to...

to find food.

There's the seashore
and there's little woodlands

and then the open limestone
landscape as well.

There's no end of food

and I guess that's why
they're so successful here.

Ravens will stay together for life

and then every individual raven
is different.

They're amazing birds.
They're so smart.

They probably know me.

They come here a few times,
then they go up, back to your mam.

"Yeah, that's the short little
fellow in the blue shirt again.

"He's harmless."

The people who built this place

obviously needed security.

And they built it here because they
could obviously feed their community

and the raven family has chosen this
site for that very same reason.

They are the kings of the castle
now.

When you sit in a place like this
on the Burren,

you can't help but think about
change and how...

..the very landscape and nature just
changes and adapts all the time.

All that exposed limestone
was once at the bottom of an ocean.

This seabed moved up here
from the equator,

got pushed up into mountains

and now...

you've got this extraordinary
landscape.

A place that, from a distance,
may look sort of barren

and lifeless
and almost like a moonscape

but it's far from it.

This place is full of life

but it's life that's not always
immediately obvious.

Reptiles really don't want to live
in Ireland.

We only have one native species
here.

That's the common lizard.

But the females, in summer,
have young developing inside them

and they can be really big
at this time of year.

Most lizards in the world lay eggs

but for these ones
it's not an option.

It's too cold here so the females
give birth to live young.

I guess it's an adaptation
to northern climes.

Her job as a mother is at an end.

She looks literally deflated.

But as soon as she's given birth,
that's it.

She pays no attention to the
youngsters she's left behind at all.

They are completely on their own.

Some transition.

They're born within a membrane
and their first job in life

is to fight their way
out of that membrane.

They've got to learn to hunt and
to feed themselves from day one.

They've got to find places to get
warm. That's really important.

They're going to have to learn
the geography

of the territory that they take up.

But they do well here.

There's no competition from
other lizards, I guess,

and the land
is still in good condition.

There's a lack of pesticides so
there's lots of little insect food.

It's amazing what instinct can do.

Looking down on the...

beautiful old abbey,

it must have been such a hive of
human activity once upon a time.

The people who built it could never
foresee the day

when it would be abandoned
and just overtaken by birds.

Great foraging to be had
in this landscape.

Good place to be a kestrel.

They'll deliver all sorts of things
back to the nest.

Little mice, birds.

Even reptiles.

They're a regular on the dinner
table for kestrels.

You'd wonder how the kestrels
managed to gain a foothold here

this year at all.

But my guess is there must have been
a pretty determined female involved.

Not easy to nest amongst these
jackdaws. Not easy to find a space.

She must have just been lucky to
be in before the jackdaws arrived

and got too territorial.

Somehow, she managed to...

hold her ground, because there's
big competition for space here.

JACKDAWS SQUAWK

Noisy neighbours.

But still a good place
to be a kestrel.

They fix the ground
with such a gaze.

Kestrels perceive the world in
a very different way than we do.

When they're scanning
a patch of ground

they can actually sometimes see
little urine trails

that have been left by rodents.

A lot of the rodents leave trails
and that can be their undoing.

Because then kestrels are not just
looking at a patch of grass,

they're actually looking at a system
of little, sort of, rodent highways.

They follow them
and look for movement.

It looks like this family are going
to do pretty well now this year.

So what more would anyone want
but a family, security...

and food.

That's what we have in common
with all creatures, I guess.

There's something about rowing.

It's just so gentle on the water,
gentle on the planet.

And you're much more connected
with the ocean

when you're in a rowing boat.

You really, sort of, appreciate
and you can imagine

what's going on underneath.

All the creatures
drifting in the tide.

The west of Ireland has always,
sort of, attracted

these lone individual dolphins.

Some of them have lived for 30 years
or more on their own.

This is Dusty and she lives her life
off the coast of Clare.

She's a bottlenose dolphin and
it's always bottlenose dolphins

that become these, sort of,
lone individuals.

No-one quite knows why.

They're probably misfits
in some way.

Don't know if they get lost or maybe
they were thrown out of the pod.

For some reason they didn't fit in
in some way, but they don't like

being on their own and they soon
seek out human company.

Dolphins make such great
travelling companions...

..and they've such an aura of real
intelligence and almost compassion.

But soon she leaves me behind.

She's got her home
and I've got mine.

This is where I now call home.

I first discovered Clew Bay,
I guess, about 12 years ago or so.

I was moving up and down
the west coast of Ireland

and, sort of, looking for
a place to settle

after years of travelling.

I remember just thinking there was
something very restful

and peaceful about this place.

This is really my halfway point.

I see Clew Bay as the halfway point
along the west coast of Ireland.

Everything changes
north of here now.

North of here is somehow, sort of,
wilder, less tame, less visited.

Lots of little islands.
I don't know it well.

I'm looking forward to
getting to know it better.

Look at this.

What an extraordinary
beautiful creature that is.

It feels like I've, sort of,
landed on some tropical paradise.