All language subtitles for BBC.Wild.Ireland.The.Edge.of.the.World.2of2.720p.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've always wanted to travel the
length of Ireland's Atlantic coast,

seeking out its secret places
and wild creatures.

And if my journey has any direction,
I guess it's roughly north.

I began on the Skellig rocks off
southwest Ireland before heading

north to reach Clew Bay,
halfway up the west coast.

From here, I'll be exploring Galway
and my homeland of Mayo,

before heading north
for the wild country of Donegal

and my journey's end
on the north coast.

And I think it's going to change
my view

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

It's been a really tough winter
this year.

On the west coast of Ireland,

you can get constant storms and,
particularly the last two years,

they have become more prolonged
and more frequent.

The west coast of Ireland is
incredibly exposed to the Atlantic.

Here you have this enormous ocean,
and in winter,

when it's really gathered power,

it unleashes its power
against the coastline.

The first thing that it hits in
Europe is the west coast of Ireland.

It's a wild coast,

because the Atlantic always almost
seems permanently upset.

Sometimes, in the middle of winter,

you feel as if the spring
is never going to come.

BIRD CALLS

BIRD CALLS

Those calls are really
the soundscape

of the west of Ireland in winter.

At this time of year in County Mayo
and these valleys,

there is almost total silence.

The whoopers are the only birds
breaking that silence.

No wonder whoopers featured so much
in Irish legends and mythology,

because they must have been
really important

to the people who lived here.

They must have given them a great
sense of season and time of year.

And they must have wondered
where on earth they went to.

All Ireland's whooper swans
actually nest in Iceland.

They just come here to escape
the freezing temperatures up there.

Once they decide to leave Iceland,
there is no going back.

All they're going to see
is open ocean.

They've got to be very careful

that they've got
their weather forecast right.

Anything kicks up along that
journey, they won't make it.

There are over 1,000km of ocean.

For those chicks that have sort
of been blindly following

their parents, they must have been
thinking, "What is going on?

"Are we ever going to get there?"

The west coast of Ireland is
the first thing that they will see.

Sometimes, you just hear them way,
way, way in the distance.

WHOOPERS HONK

The sound of whoopers
flying overhead

just makes you feel good.

They always strike me
as happy birds.

And when they land in a sort of
cacophony of honking and squawking,

they really bring life to a valley
such as this.

WHOOPER SQUAWKS

Ireland is really
their home away from home.

It's hard to sort of see Ireland
as being a sort of

winter sunshine break

for anybody, but for whoopers,
this has everything they need.

Lots of fuel to keep them going
through the winter,

and they're constantly foraging.

It won't be long before the whoopers
leave, but then,

just at that time, is when
all the birds here start

proclaiming their territories.

And these valleys will be noisy
with birdsong once again.

This is the bay I call home now.

Moving around
the west coast of Ireland,

and I came to Clew Bay on
an evening such as this...

..and I just felt that this would be
a good place to settle,

and because I could explore both up
and down the coast from here.

And now that's just what I'm doing.

If you have a look at a map of
Ireland and you sort of look midway

down the west coast, you see a bay
that looks like someone's

taken a bite out of it.

People say there's an island
for every of the year.

Whoever said that wasn't very good
at counting islands, but there's

quite a few of them!

Croagh Patrick dominating the bay.

That mountain looks different
on every day of the year.

I'm very glad I made this my home,

and it's very much halfway
on my journey.

If I was to pick one habitat
I couldn't live without,

I think it would be woodlands.

And woodlands in spring,
what could get better than this?

BIRDSONG

I spent a lot of time travelling
around the world

and one thing I really missed

from Ireland was sort of
the dawn chorus of birdsong

in an Irish woodland.

BIRDSONG

There is aggression in the air,
but it doesn't sound like it at all.

It sounds wonderful.

A woodland doesn't have to be big
to feel like a woodland.

When you walk into one,

it's not long
before you sort of disappear

and really enter another world,

and all the little birds that
you'd expect to find in a bigger

woodland are right there.

Just the smell and the sights, and
every time you come into the woods

at this time of year, they change.

You know, you come one week
and things are about to burst

into flower, and then the next week,
you come,

and there's a carpet of bluebells
or something stretching off

into the distance.

Just lovely.

But this is a great little wood.

You wouldn't really know
that you were by the sea.

So few woodlands along the coast
of Ireland these days.

We've almost lost our connection
with woodlands.

It's a pity.

RAIN PATTERS

There is one animal
I always wanted to see,

and people said it was in Ireland.

I've spent lots of time looking
for it.

I remember the very first time
I saw one.

I was walking through
a little woodland...

..and I heard alarm calls.

You know that there is a predator
on the move.

It's normally a fox.

Lo and behold, it was a pine marten.

Beautiful looking creature.

Shiny, with its lovely creamy chest.

I couldn't quite believe
what I was seeing.

That was the sort of mythical
creature from my childhood.

It was in all the books, you know,

that told you that pine martens
are present in Ireland,

but they were incredibly rare.

But now they're making a really
good comeback.

They're spreading out across
Ireland.

They're very agile hunters.

They're almost as fast moving up
the trees as they are on the ground.

Pretty adaptable,
resourceful creatures.

It's great to have them back.

Days like these really stick out
like rare jewels.

It's easy to forget how unstable
the Atlantic is so much of the time.

Most of our interactions with the
sea are very much on the surface.

So we rarely notice
what's going on underneath.

But at this time of year, all sorts
of creatures can turn up.

You never know where they're going
to crop up next.

I think there are lots of them here
today.

But if they're just ten feet below
the surface,

you'd never know that they were
here.

The warming waters bring in one of
the most beautiful fish in the sea.

The blue shark.

They are found in every ocean
in the world.

Sometimes you'll get them following
each other...

..sort of nose to tail.

It seems that our blues
follow the Gulf Stream

on a great tour
of the Atlantic Ocean.

Millions of years of evolution

have honed
this perfect travelling machine.

They appear almost like ghosts
out of the very depths.

It's a very natural sort of boat
and they don't seem to mind at all.

There's no engine noises.

Creatures don't seem to be scared
of curraghs.

But they'll come and they'll go,
for the most part unseen.

Sometimes, we just get to glimpse
them, briefly.

Just for a few weeks every summer.

Halfway up the west coast,

there's a string of enchanting
islands that lie off County Galway.

They give great shelter around here.

It's a wonderful quiet,
isolated part of Ireland.

Places like this
are just good for the soul.

Just the distant sort of roar
of the sea.

And the birds.

You tend to instantly sort of relax.

BIRDS CALL

Winged plover alarm call.

Lots of them on the island
at this time of year.

Keeping an eye on me.

They don't want me being here
at all.

They'd prefer if I keep moving.

They love sort of open, rocky,
stony patches like this.

This is where they build
their little nest,

lay their eggs on the ground.

Good place to hide your eggs.

There's always something magical
for me about finding a bird's nest.

I remember, as a kid, finding them

and it was just like finding
treasure.

There's something
about their construction

and the fact that they're
so sort of delicate and vulnerable.

Sort of really got to appreciate
the fact that you were...

..finding something that you weren't
supposed to see.

There seems to be almost a truce
at this time of year.

The gulls are sitting
all around here.

They're nesting here, too.

I think they're so involved
with their own nests,

they're not too bothered about
the plovers at the moment, but once

the little chicks start moving
around, they are very vulnerable.

They have the most adorable little
chicks, lovely little things.

BIRD CRIES

They know they're going to lose
several of them.

They have all sorts
of little behaviours.

When they get upset,
first of all, they whistle.

As soon as the sentry whistles,

its mate will sort of creep away
from the nest.

It keeps its head down and sort of
moves in a zigzag pattern,

away from the nest.

A predator moving along,
they think it's an injured bird,

they follow it.

And little do they know that they're
being led away from the nest.

Very clever.

Little did we realise, I guess,

that when these islands
were being abandoned,

how important that they would become
for wildlife.

One big empty coastline,

no creatures being disturbed
as far as the eye can see.

Wouldn't it be nice
if the world was ever thus?

So many of the creatures I encounter
are really of no fixed abode.

But it's around about this time of
year when there is an animal that

returns to our shores.

These are

Irish creatures that have spent
the last year or more of their lives

travelling the ocean.

But now, they're picking up
the scent of home once again.

And they've been
on a pretty extraordinary journey.

For me, there's something
very reassuring

about the return of the salmon.

The fact that a salmon can still
leave a little stream in the west of

Ireland, go out to sea,

travel across the ocean
and come all the way back

to complete its own life cycle,

the fact that that still takes place

fills me with a great deal of hope.

This is Connemara,
the heart of Ireland's wild west.

And it's a place of bogs
and mountains

and the salmon have been seeking
out these streams

for maybe 10,000 years.

There are a lot of obstacles
in the river

that they can only overcome
after rain.

Once there's enough water
in the river,

the salmon are able
to find their way.

That's when all the sort of energy
and power is needed.

Brief spurts of energy
to get from one pool to another.

So the adults have finally made it
back to where they were born.

Spawning cannot be far away.

Some of these animals have been in
fresh water for the last six months

or so and they haven't eaten
during that time.

It seems like each female
now has a male by her side.

It's the female
who will make the choice.

She will decide
when spawning is going to happen,

but the male encourages her by
shimmering, by shaking his body.

He's trying to stimulate her

by saying,
"Look, I think everything's OK.

"Everything seems right to me."

And it is right. This is
the shortest day of the year,

when there's the maximum amount
of darkness,

and that seems to be a real trigger
for salmon in the west of Ireland.

Fertilisation is instantaneous.

As soon as she starts
to lay those eggs,

the male is in there instantly.

The eggs are going to develop
in the gravels

for the next couple of months.

They should be relatively safe
up here from predators.

They very much deserve to live.

But unfortunately for many,

they've actually come to the end
of their lives.

A place that appears now so lifeless

is in fact full of life,
but it's new life.

Amongst the gravels,
life is just beginning.

And the cycle is going to start
once more.

For me, wildlife and wild places
very much go together.

The sort of whole experience
of being in the wild

and seeing a place that seems
so untamed in some way,

you can sort of hear it
and sense it and feel it.

That's what adds to the experience.

This is Sheskinmore, a wonderfully
quiet corner of Donegal.

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

coral island
or some tropical paradise.

Well, it may not be

the tropics, but it feels like
paradise.

These dunes are really exceptional.

I've never seen anything
quite like them in Ireland.

Sand dunes by their nature
are really unstable.

The wind is constantly carving them
into new shapes.

You can almost see them moving
with the naked eye.

But here, the vegetation has gotten
such a grip over time,

that these dunes do not appear to be
moving any more,

and because of that,

a whole sort of range of wild
flowers have established themselves.

I've never seen anything quite
as good.

And there's nobody here.

And that's the great thing about
the west coast of Ireland still.

In the middle of summer...

..you can have a place like this
all to yourself.

I've been wandering around now for

a full day and I haven't seen
a single person.

The sun doesn't shine
every single day of the year,

but when it does...

..you're rewarded with something
that's really very special.

BIRDS SING

I was literally up with the lark
this morning,

and they must have started
at five o'clock.

Absolutely alive with sound.

I think they say there's more poetry
written about skylarks

than any other bird,
and you can sort of see why.

SKYLARKS SING

I think when you hear that call,

it reminds you of all those summer's
days you've ever had,

all sort of mixed up together

with the soundtrack, I think,
of a lot of people's childhoods.

Busy, busy, busy, gathering
as much food as they can.

And the parents
take avoidance measures

to not draw attention to the nest.

They land and go running through
the grasses to deliver the food.

The skylark chicks
seem endlessly hungry.

They need to get in as much energy
as they can.

They're born as tiny,
naked little things.

If you're hidden in a little nest
on the ground,

you are extremely vulnerable
to predators,

so you want to eat
as quickly as you can,

grow up nice and fast and get
out of there and get to the air,

because that's where it's safe.

Skylark parents
are absolutely fastidious

about keeping
their little nests clean.

They're constantly removing
the little faecal sacs

that the chicks produce.

And they pick them up
with their mouths

and fly away and drop them
some place else, and that way,

keeping the nest clean
so there's no...

Predators won't be attracted
to its scent.

It's all about disguising scent.

SKYLARKS SING

How they manage to sing and fly
constantly -

it must be some feat, really.

There's a huge amount of growth
in the ocean at this time of year.

Growth on land is sort of easy
to see, you know -

the trees are bare
and they come into leaf

and you can see everything growing,

but the very same thing
happens in the ocean.

We're just not so aware of that.

It's when the temperatures start
to rise, and the sun comes.

It's all down to the sun.

The sun powers the system.

As the temperature rises and there's
lots of ultraviolet light around,

all the little plant plankton
starts to grow.

And as soon as that grows, all the
little grazer plankton come along.

And then, when you've
all these little grazers,

the predators of those grazers
turn up.

Real creatures of mystery.

Until recently, we knew almost
nothing about basking sharks.

People used to say that they spent
the winter sleeping on the bottom of

the ocean.

But now, we know they're just
real ocean wanderers.

Oh, look at this!

Big white mouth.

You can see he's moving slowly.

What an extraordinary,
beautiful creature that is.

There are some unseen changes
in the sea.

Sometimes, the plankton seems
to rise up to the very surface

and then they just appear.

They can smell it.

But that's how they know
how to be here.

If I was to say to someone, like,
if there's one thing you've got to

experience in Ireland,

it's being out with basking sharks
on a fine day.

Look at this. Two of them swimming,
one behind the other.

Three, three together!

Look! You can hear their tails,

swishing from side to side
as they turn those bodies.

They're constantly turning
and twisting their bodies

into the plankton.

I've never heard them before.

They look like they're socialising,
but as far as I know, they're not.

Sometimes it's confusing when you
see a couple on the surface,

because they have two fins on their
backs so people often think there's

more sharks than there actually are,

but when they're right on
the surface,

you can sometimes get the nose.

Right here!

(Look at that.)

The wonderful thing about Ireland is
that when you get these conditions,

along the west coast, you can have
a site like this all to yourself.

These are just gentle giants.

The second largest fish in the sea.

They spend all day

drifting along
as casual as could be.

They move so slowly and steadily.

And in conditions like these,

there's no place better in the world
to view basking sharks.

Tucked in the far northwest corner
of the island,

Donegal often feels like
a place apart.

I guess when I think of wildness,

I think about clinging on to visions
of what the world was once like when

we weren't here, or when we were
here in low numbers.

When creatures
didn't have to worry about us.

When I make an appearance
on to that scene,

the behaviour of nearly
every creature changes.

And they're scared of us because
they've learnt that they have to be.

It doesn't have to be that way.

For thousands of years,
the greatest predator in Donegal

was an avian one,

a golden eagle.

They were here in an unbroken chain

until people decided that the only
good eagle was a dead eagle...

..and killed every last one.

We were really missing something
without these birds.

Perhaps 15 years ago or so,

an ambitious project was launched to
bring them back once again and eagle

chicks were taken over from Scotland
and they were released

in this place.

There's something special
about seeing golden eagles

back in these skies.

EAGLE CALLS

And for me, the call of the eagle
is somehow the bird equivalent to

the howling wolves.

There's something visceral,

and almost that sort of
primeval connection with the wild,

when you hear that call.

It seems very much like
they should be here.

They've brought a real sense of
wildness back to Ireland again.

But they haven't thrived.

They have struggled to breed.

Perhaps things aren't as good
as they once were here.

So these little guys
are really important.

They're among the first golden eagle
chicks born in Ireland

in over a century.

Very precious bundles of DNA.

If the project is to be successful,

these chicks must reach maturity and
somehow start families of their own.

We need to be mindful of them.

It's hard to contemplate losing them
once more.

There is a gathering here
at this time,

and it's a gathering that's unseen
by most people,

but if you look closely,

you can see these strange,
eel-like shapes,

but they're not eels.

They're a creature that
very few people ever encounter,

and that's because they have
quite an extraordinary lifestyle.

Someone found this fossil
not too long ago,

and in that fossil,

there were the remains of a lamprey
which looked just like one that is

living today.

That fossil was
300 million years old.

That doesn't just mean that they
were living here WITH the dinosaurs,

it means that they were here
before most of them.

But when you go underwater,

that's when you see
how extraordinary

these creatures really are.

They don't have proper gills,

they don't have jaws,

they don't have scales.

They're a totally different
life form, really, altogether.

And in early summer,
in May and June,

they come to places just like this.

These are sea lampreys.

Although they spend most of
their lives living in the river,

they do go out to sea
for a year or so.

And when they get out to the ocean,

they attach themselves
to other fish.

They have these fierce-looking,
prehistoric, round mouths

full of these rasping teeth.

And they use this process to latch
themselves onto other fish.

So they go from these sort of
harmless,

filter feeding,
blind little creatures

into flesh-eating,
vampire-type fish.

They grow very quickly, because when
you're eating flesh like that,

you can put on weight very quickly.

And probably after about a year,

they make their way
back into rivers again.

And as soon as they do,
they get down to business.

But they have this extraordinary
sucker-like mouth.

And they use that
for shifting rocks.

What they're trying to do is clear
an area of the river bed so that

the gravels are exposed.

Any rock or stone, no matter
how big, they'll seem to tackle.

There's an otter about.

They must have a field day.

Can you imagine?

As soon as they enter the river
system, they've stopped feeding.

They're going to have to clear
the riverbed, mate,

and, unfortunately,
death will soon follow,

so every lamprey that's here
will be dead within days.

Every creature has its place.

That's what I think about lampreys.

I mean, their lifestyle isn't maybe
very attractive to a lot of people,

but it's an important one. And I
like them very much, I have to say.

Any creature that's been around
for that long

has got life sorted!

Will humans be around
for 300 million years, unchanged?

Doubt it!

This place has been the graveyard
of many a ship,

even ones bigger than mine.

And if I was to try and row
my curragh around here today,

I'd probably end up in Scotland.

It's not far away.

This is Malin Head,
Ireland's northernmost point.

The little light shining out to sea,

and that's our northernmost island,
Inishtrahull,

and that's where I was hoping
to get today.

But in these conditions,
it won't be possible.

Malin Head marks the northernmost
point of my journey,

and it's also where I turn east.

This is where the Atlantic Ocean
meets the Irish Sea.

It somehow feels a little gentler
up here.

Autumn really is one of my favourite
times of year, I think.

It's like the last burst of activity
before winter kicks in -

everything is preparing.

Nature, it's great
the way it works out.

Just when food is going to go short
over winter,

there's this great explosion
of high-energy foods

that's just waiting to be gathered.

Great to see the red squirrels
around.

They know that
there are lean times ahead.

And they're trying to gather as many
nuts as they can,

and they find little places
to hide them, to cache them.

But what they don't realise
is that they're being watched.

There's a whole host of thieves
hanging round the trees,

watching their every move.

As soon as they arrive
with another nut,

it's not long before it disappears.

Earlier, I found
some pine marten scat.

There's an extraordinary thing
that's happening

that no-one
could really have imagined.

Now, grey squirrels were introduced
here a couple of hundred years ago,

and they've done incredibly well.

But as pine martens
are moving across the country,

grey squirrels are disappearing.

And red squirrels are coming back.

Now, no-one can figure out
exactly why.

When I stop and think about it,
though, you know,

pine martens and red squirrels
evolved together, so it would make

sense that red squirrels
would have something

in their sort of
behavioural repertoire

that allows them
to escape pine martens,

otherwise there wouldn't be
any left.

Whereas grey squirrels
are a new arrival here,

and maybe they are lacking
those escape mechanisms.

There must be something
that they're not doing right.

As a result,
the pine marten is really

the saviour of the red squirrel.

It's an extraordinary thing that
the return of one native animal is

actually saving another one.

When you walk here during the day,

and it's full of the creatures
that we are very familiar with.

But at night, when you come in,

you can hear all sorts of little
creatures moving about.

It's not easy to see them,
but you know they're here.

These are long-eared bats.

This is just the kind of place
they like.

In times past,

you'd only ever have seen them
just sort of flitting by,

and you must have wondered
about them.

They are unique amongst bats
in Ireland.

They have these enormous ears.

Their ears are as long as
their bodies.

It is said that they can hear
the sound of a caterpillar walking

across a leaf.

Pretty impressive!

People often refer to them as being
flying mice, but actually,

they're much more closely related
to us than they are to mice.

Busy time of year to be a bat.

They have to get
all their feeding done.

Put on little bits of fat between
their shoulder blades,

and they'll live off that
for the winter.

They hunt by listening.

And they themselves
are absolutely silent flyers.

They just go around at night,
hoovering up insects.

Nice big moths, and they're perfect
long-eared bat food.

I love bats.

The character of the sea has changed
now at this time of year.

It's not the place to be
in a small little boat any more.

It's a good time to end my journey.

I started a year ago
on a remote Atlantic rock

off the southwest corner of Ireland

and I'm finishing
on this wild headland,

overlooking Rathlin Island.

This is known as the Sea of Moyle,

and it featured in that ancient
Irish story,

The Children Of Lir.

Now, Lir was the god of the sea and
he had four children that he adored.

But his wife died,
and when he remarried,

their stepmum cursed them

and turned them into swans.

Under the weight of this curse, they
had to wander Ireland for 900 years.

They spent 300 years of their
banishment here on the Sea of Moyle,

and that story has resonated
on this coast.

To this day, you'll still see the
whooper swans journeying here every

autumn, escaping from the grip of
the Arctic cold.

The fact that those journeys
are still happening

gives me a great sense of hope,

for our natural history
and our natural world

gives us something to cling onto,
a link with the past.

I think that's something
I've learnt on my journey.

This place has been my back yard,
but I now look at it in a new light.

Sometimes there's this wonderful mix
between sort of human history and

natural history.

That is something that is almost
the theme of any west coast journey.

You can't travel this coast
without being aware

that humans have been here
for a long time.

They were able to tread a little bit
more lightly on the planet

than we do.

And that's the great thing
about a journey.

You can sort of plan steps along the
way, but often the greatest times

and the greatest places are ones
that you happen upon by chance.

The west coast of Ireland
is still pretty wild.

It's a special kind of place.