All language subtitles for Miniature Britain BBC 1080p HDTV x265 AAC MVGroup org_Subtitles01.ENG

We're used to seeing Britain
in a certain way.

The big stuff.

But there's a much smaller Britain
right under our noses.

From a simple grain of sand

to some of the most complex designs
evolved by nature.

It's a fascinating, beautiful place

and is essential to all life
on our planet.

I'm George McGavin, a biologist,

and I want to take you on a journey
round Britain,

to show you this secret world.

To travel to the heart
of this tiny kingdom full of wonder

and to take a close look
at its inhabitants.

They're even living in our homes.

It's time to get sucking.

I want to show you
the animals and plants

responsible for the air
we breathe...

for the land beneath our feet,
even for the food we eat.

Oh, my hat's gone!

That's what happens
when you're having fun
and you don't look what you're dong.

You'll never look at your world
in the same way again.

Welcome to Miniature Britain.

The British Isles.

It has such a rich variety
of wildlife and landscapes.

At just over 700 miles long
it's not a large country.

But those 700 miles are packed

with a surprising variety
of animals...

great diversity of habitats...

and rich communities of plants...

as well as some of the most stunning
coastline in the world.

And yet all of this
simply wouldn't exist

if it wasn't for the miniature world
I'm going to show you.

It holds the key to life and I'm
going to reveal some of its secrets.

To do this I've got my hands on a
revolutionary new microscope camera

that's seven thousand times
more powerful than the human eye.

This is its first time
out on the road

and I can't wait to see
the miniature wonders
it should open up.

And this is Emilien,
who's going to operate it.

We're going to start our journey
in Britain's countryside,

and what wonderful countryside
it is.

You don't have to spend long
in a wild flower meadow

to see why they provide
such inspiration

to so many poets,
composers and artists.

Well, I'm in a flower-rich field

and this is one of
the most quintessentially English
habitats you'll find.

What makes this habitat
so special

is it's actually rarer
than a tropical rainforest.

Since the Second World War
construction and modern farming

have changed the face
of our countryside.

We've lost over 90%
of our classic hay meadows

and the diverse life they support.

I mean, in the area I can reach
with my hands here

there are probably dozens
if not a hundred species of flowers,

of grasses.

Buttercup.

Bluebell. Plantain. Clovers.

And one of the things
that I've always thought
that people don't do enough

is to get down
in a habitat like this

and just simply look
at what's happening.

Just look at this world
that our camera lets us see.

It's what this programme
is all about,

this fascinating miniature kingdom
that's so beautiful

and there's so much more out there
I want to show you.

The flowering part of a plant
is all to do with reproduction.

The flowers need the bees'
and insects' help with this,

so the bright colours
of the petals attract them in.

Incredible - I've never seen a petal
close up like this before

and look, you can see
that the surface of the petals

are far from smooth.

They're covered
in tiny raised bumps.

It's these bumps that are thought
to reflect ultraviolet light
in a certain way,

directing the bees and other insects
down to the precious nectar.

And if you keep absolutely still,

you suddenly realise
that it's absolutely crawling,

it's alive with stuff.

And the more you look
the more interesting it becomes.

Thanks to this camera we can see
a whole world we usually miss

and it's full of surprises.

When I was a boy I was told
that this was called cuckoo spit

and I thought, well,
it obviously hasn't got
anything to do with cuckoos

and it's not spit either,
so what is it?

What it is,
is actually quite remarkable.

I've got a nice spittle bug
for you, Emilien. Thank you.

Let's see how that looks.

Well, this is absolutely amazing.

This is the frog hopper,
the tiny bug nymph

that was in that pile of foam.

All of this foam is made by the bug.

It keeps it from drying out and
disguises it in a cloak of bubbles.

The foam itself
tastes pretty unpleasant

so predators leave well alone.

But what's really interesting is
what's happening at the rear end,

because how it makes
this foam nest is

it basically blows air
through its backside as it feeds -

all the excess sap, all the waste
sap is being fired through the gut

and every time it moves its bottom
it makes a little bit of foam

and it builds up
until you get a big mass.

It's just one of
the cleverest tricks.

So it's not cuckoos
and it's not spittle, it's bug poo.

Which I think is
a lot more interesting, actually.

HE LAUGHS

Much of this rich countryside
simply wouldn't exist

without the animal I want to have
a really close look at next.

They're responsible
for a third of the food we eat

and yet they're no bigger
than your thumbnail.

It's the hard-working honey bee.

One of the great secrets
of bees' success

is their ability
to defend themselves - their sting.

And I want to take a closer look.

Bee time!

Bees are great.

To bee... Or not to bee.

That's...
That is the question.

What?

A bee sting has an ingenious way
of delivering its toxic venom...

and I'm hoping our camera
will reveal all.

It's time to suit up so we don't
get stung in the process.

Now, there's a very good reason
why you should be careful
with honey bees.

They're going to protect their
supplies of food and their brood.

So when you enter a hive like this,

you really have got to have
protection on,

otherwise you run the risk
of being stung.

It's amazing to think
that without honey bees,

in fact without bees in general,

we wouldn't have any flowers,
we'd have no vegetables, no fruit.

It would be a
very bad state of affairs.

Now, that's honeycomb,
so there's lots of honey in there,
in the cells.

Let's get a couple
of bees over to the microscope

and see what they look like.

Ah, Emilien, I got stung! Oh!

Quick, quick, quick.
Get the camera in there.

That's what happens
if you get a gap in your clothes.

Ah! I should have had that
pulled down.

Now she's trying to take
the sting out

but because she's got a barb
in the end of the sting,

she can't pull it out very easily.

Ah! There! There's the sting.

Now, you watch this. It continues
to pulse there on its own accord,

so even after the bee has gone,

the sting's sac has its...
almost has its own existence.

It pulses away and that's forcing
the venom out of the venom sac

into my skin.

There, look at that.
That is incredible.

The sting is right in my skin
and the sac is pulsing,

it's forcing the venom
down this tube into the sting.

That will continue to pulse for
probably eight minutes or something.

Does it hurt now, George?
It's hurting now, yeah. Yeah.

I'm gonna pull out the sting, OK?
Wait a sec.

Trying to get the sting out.

Ooh! There. Nice!

Yeah, look at that hole. And
it's red. Look at that - it's red.

Wow.

There's the sting.

OK, let's have a look
at the sting

because the barbs are very small
but they're there

and we should be able to see them.

Look at this.
So there's the sting sac.

Go in right on the tip.
Went in your skin really easily.

Yeah. It's very sharp.

Go right in, right in.
Wow, look at this.

It's like a harpoon. Right.

160 times, fill that screen.
Yeah.

There you go.

One, two, three, four, five barbs
on that

and that's why it's so hard for the
bee to actually pull her sting out

because it's anchored

and that actually helps,
when she walks away or flies off,
it rips the sting out of the bee,

so it continues to pulse
and pump the venom in.

It's beautifully evolved.

HE GASPS

Shall we call 911? Huh?
Shall we call the police.

911?

In this country, it's 999 actually.

999. Yes, yes.

"Hello, er, ambulance, please."

No pain, no gain.

That sting is a brilliant weapon
for defending their stores of honey.

Now I want to show you what makes
these guys such perfect pollinators.

Well, there is the head of a worker
bee and that is just beautiful.

What a fantastic animal.

And the whole of her is covered
in these long, branched hairs,

which are unique to honey bees.

These help trap
the grains of pollen.

She will then use her front legs
and her middle legs to groom herself

and she'll transfer the pollen
backwards to her hind legs

where she will store it all

and eventually she'll fly back
to the hive

and that is a very rich supply
of food for the young bee larvae.

The bees get their food

and at the same time carry pollen
from flower to flower

to ensure that the plants
get fertilised.

Our countryside is full
of these intricate relationships

between living things

and our camera helps to see them
in glorious detail.

So now I want to use it
on a true English icon.

It's a plant that's more important
to the wildlife of Britain
than any other.

It's the majestic oak.

The oak is so important
for the simple reason

that there are so many things
living on it and within it.

It's home to around 350 different
species of insects.

Its bark can have as many
as 30 different sorts of mosses
and lichens growing on it.

And huge numbers of creatures seek
food and shelter

in the crevices of the bark, amongst
the canopy of fresh green leaves,

even in the rotting trunks
of old trees.

One of the things I've always loved
doing ever since I was a little boy

is climbing trees and this one's
just crying out to be climbed.

And this one,
it has got a fantastic big hole.

It goes right down
into the interior of the tree.

HE GRUNTS

Whoa!

Now we're talking.

It is just the most amazing habitat.

This wood's been completely
hollowed out by insects

that have eaten their way
along here.

This is a very useful device
for sucking up small insects

because you can't really
handle them all that easily,

so you can suck them up
with this tube device,

which is called a pooter.

And there's lots of beetles here

but this one,
I've just found a ground beetle.

There's a nice spider there.

Centipede.

There's a little nest of a mouse
in here or some small furry animal.

And there's also one up here,
which is composed of sticks.

This tree is crawling
with small things

but actually quite large animals
as well.

Right. It's exit time.

I've seen all I can
with the naked eye

but I think with the camera's help

I can reveal
even more intimate relationships
in the oak's web of life.

Look at those little legs.

Oh, quick in on that! Ah,
it's minute - absolutely minute.

This for me is just one
of the most amazing eye-openers

of the machine here.

Here is a millipede
just crawling through frame here,

it's quite big and yet on its leg
here is a tiny mite just there

and it's sucking its blood
through the skin.

Millipedes under dead wood
I've seen before

but I've never seen a mite sucking
their blood at this magnification.

It's every other leg.

Here's one leg
and it's got two on it.

Even a creature like this, you know,
under the bark of an oak tree

is being absolutely hammered
by blood sucking bugs

and yet it itself is tiny.

Here's one here.

Now, here's a pin.

I want to see
just how small that is.

That is amazing.

Wow.

It is, quite frankly, unbelievable.

Next I want to turn my attention
to this oak's precious canopy...

packed with juicy nutritious leaves

and there is one resident
who is perfectly adapted

to taking advantage
of this abundance.

Caterpillars are masters
of the high life

but that can make it hard work
to get one down.

I want to show you them
in a new light.

There's a whopper over here.
Look at the size of that one.

In you go. Look at that.

It's really only when you see
a caterpillar up close

that you realise just what an
amazing piece of engineering it is.

This caterpillar is just
investigating an oak leaf here.

You can see the little tiny
eye spots here in the head

and here down the side of the body
are the spiracles,

the air holes
through which it breathes.

Now, caterpillars have got
these amazing feet

and if we go further down,
they have adhesive pads,

plus a row of tiny sharp hooks
that anchor it on the leaf.

There, look at that adhesive foot,

armed with sharp spines,
a row of sharp hooks on either side,

and that makes it able
to hang on to this plant.

They cling on to the underneath
of leaves high up in the tree,

where they spend their time
as eating machines.

Eventually,
after all that leaf munching,

they turn into one of Britain's
most beautiful creatures.

To see them is going to require
some specialist equipment

and a bit of luck.

Well, I'm going to leave
this ultraviolet bulb on all night

and we'll come back in the morning
and see what we get.

I can't wait to see
what I've caught.

Moths, attracted by my UV light.

They often seem to lose out
to butterflies in the beauty stakes

but I think that's only because
you rarely see moths up close.

Brindle beauty.

Brimstone.

They're incredibly evocative names.

It's only when you really look
at a moth's wings close up

that you realise
how intricate they are.

The entire surface of the moth
and its wings are covered

in a series of tiny scales
which overlap a bit like roof tiles.

Just look at the incredible pattern
on its wing.

It's like a work of art.

These scales are as practical
as they're water resistant.

They've evolved to fall off
if the moth scrapes its wings,

so helps in protecting the delicate
wing membrane underneath.

And even their patterns are designed
to protect the moths.

Birds like nothing better
than a juicy moth for their supper,

so the moths have become
masters of disguise to stay alive.

This is the adult of the buff tip

and it is one of the most perfectly
camouflaged moths you'll ever find.

At rest it sits with its wings
folded together

and the head end is
a sort of ochrey pale colour.

It looks just like a broken twig.

From moths to millipedes to mites,

this oak tree provides a safe home

to thousands
of individual creatures.

And they in turn provide food
for such a variety of wildlife,

including bats, frogs and birds.

It's estimated that chicks alone eat

a staggering 35 billion caterpillars
a year.

Without them,
the food chain starts to collapse.

The little stuff really matters.

And it matters closer to home, too.

Time to hit the city streets.

Now, you might think
of our urban jungle as
an unlikely place to find wildlife

but even here amongst the concrete
there is a hidden world.

Now, I know this may sound
a little crazy

but I'm actually on the hunt
for a bear.

There are thousands of them
around me now

but I just have to find one.

This bear is like no other

and has earned the reputation as
the toughest creature on the planet.

They can survive in any environment,

from the highest mountains
to the bottom of the deepest oceans.

In order to see
just how tough they really are,

they have been blasted into space...

exposed to fatal levels
of radiation...

and frozen solid.

So surviving Edinburgh
will be no problem.

They're fondly known as water bears

but their scientific name is
a tardigrade.

And my first challenge
is finding one.

This is Mark Blaxster

and he has seen
thousands of them

and me, well...

I'm almost ashamed to own up
that I've never seen a tardigrade.

You've been walking on them
all your life

because they're in the mosses,
in the grasses, in the soil.

So everywhere here? Everywhere.

There are tardigrades all
around here? All around here.

So here, where are they?
Where would you find a tardigrade?

You'll find the tardigrades
anywhere where there is moss.

So if I collect this,
that piece of plant...?

Many, many hundreds.
I mean, it's crawling with them.

Remember, they're very small
and very prolific.

Right, I want to see one.
Yeah, let's go.

Emilien, meet Mark, our tardigrade
expert. Nice to meet you. And you.

Right. I can't wait to see this.

OK, so let's get going.

Oh, my goodness!
A tardigrade.

Looking at you...
Oh, that's fantastic!
..with its two little eyes.

Look at its little feet.
It's got claws.

Yeah, they've got little claws
at the end of their feet.
Little claws on their feet.

And that's why they're known
as water bears -

they look like miniature bears,
claws and all.

I have to admit
they look pretty cute.

It has two little eyes
at the front end. I can see them.

And the brown stuff you can see...
Is the gut.

Is the food in the gut,
so it's been eating algae

and that's the food in the gut.

Right, here's a pin.

I want to see how big
that tardigrade is

in comparison
to the sharp end of a pin.

Right, that,
that is the sharp end of a pin.

So it's a very small animal.

That's incredible.

These animals have actually
been used in space, haven't they?

Yes, because they can do
this cryptobiosis,

this life without water.

The European Space Agency exposed
them to the vacuum of outer space

and to solar radiation
which would kill us in seconds

and then took the tardigrades
back down to earth.

And lo and behold...
Added some water

and lo and behold
they came back to life.

So they're being used to look at
how we might protect humans

on long space journeys

but also it's interesting,
just how resilient they are.

There we have probably one
of the earth's extreme survivors,

animals that will certainly be here
long after we've gone.

Oh, yeah.

Tardigrades might be small but that
doesn't mean they're insignificant.

There are billions of them
all around us,

an army of miniature grazers
playing a vital role

in maintaining
the balance of nature.

Tiny urban ecosystems don't stop
at our front doors.

Believe it or not
there's a miniature kingdom
inside your carpet.

Now, in order to show you
what's lurking about your home...

it's time to get sucking.

The micro critter
I'm going to show you

has infested our homes
by the million.

They breed in our beds. They forage
on our carpets and in our sofas.

Yet whilst we might
be horrified

by the thought of them
sharing our homes

they're actually doing us a favour.

The creature I'm looking for
is a dust mite

and I'm hoping
my bit of spring cleaning

should have hoovered up
one or two of them.

Got a fibre here.
There's a hair here.

Look at this. This there.
That's amazing.

The majority of these tiny flakes
are actually skin.

It's absolutely incredible.

Every human sheds about three and
a half kg of skin flakes every year,

that's about eight pounds.

And just to give you an idea,

that works out
at around seven boxes of cornflakes.

Anyone for breakfast?

Which is great news
for our dust mites

as they like nothing more
than munching on all that old skin.

Now all we need to do is find one.

That's skin, bits of grit.

Bits of plant debris.

Look, here's one. Where?

Ha! A mite. Look right there.

And it's actually eating
a tiny skin flake there.

You can see the black jaws are
chomping away there.

And that little tiny flake of skin
is its meal.

That is quite amazing.

I mean, that is something
you don't see very often.
HE LAUGHS

But it's happening all around you.

I mean, this is a minute animal.

A dust mite like this is about
the thickness of a human hair.

What is this?

Oh, that's a woodlouse,
that is a dead woodlouse,

which has obviously been
hoovered up off the stairs.

And what's that? Look there.

A little, tiny mite,

which is surviving by eating
the remains of a dead woodlouse.

Fascinating, it's eating inside.

It's like a hyena
on an elephant remains.

It's exactly the same only smaller.
It's just much, much smaller.

So even inside a dead woodlouse

you'll find something alive
eating it,

which is probably just as well

because if we didn't have things
eating dead insects and skin flakes,

we'd probably end up
up to our armpits in the stuff.

So the micro world is working hard
to keep things in order,

even in our sofas and carpets.

All of this essential work
carries on unnoticed

and the same can be said
of creatures
lurking in our own back gardens.

Now, these days we all like to think
we're doing our bit for recycling

but there's an animal that lives
most of its life underground

that could teach us a thing or two
about being green

and it lives in a place

where there's more muck
and free love than a pop festival.

But danger lurks round every corner.

And the place I'm talking about?
Your compost heap!

Weevils that spend a lot
of their adult life having sex.

Beetle larvae on the kill
with crushing jaws.

Alien forms
about to break out of pupae.

Slugs with more teeth than a shark.

And there's blood-sucking mites
crawling over everything.

They're all here

but the creature I've come
to take a microscopic look at

plays a vital role
in the life of the whole planet.

Earthworms are undoubtedly
one of the most important organisms
on earth.

They are essential at recycling

and they make soil - I mean,
essentially, soil is worm poo.

In rich farmland where there are
perhaps animals grazing,

you might have up to
two million earthworms per acre

and the total weight
of those earthworms will be greater

than all of the animals
on top of the land.

Without earthworms
we simply wouldn't have soil.

There's a secret
to the way worms move

that I'm hoping
our camera can show us.

Oh, look at that!

Earthworms move by being able
to send a wave of contractions
along themselves

but in order to pass
through the soil

they need to anchor themselves
with little tiny hairs,

There! There it is there.

There's a little tiny set
of tough spiny hairs called setae.

And as they contract, these come out
and anchor against the soil.

They can then drag
the rest of the earthworm up.

These are the key to how earthworms
actually move through the soil.

And I have never seen this happening
actually live.

Amazing!

As they move,
they eat decaying food waste.

It passes through their guts
and out as rich, fertile soil.

This is the rear end, yeah?
Yeah, that's the rear end.

There is the earthworm heading off
into the soil where it wants to be.

Oh! And a farewell poop there,
as it went.

One of the most important substances
on the whole planet, worm poo.

HE LAUGHS
And I'm seeing it
as I have never seen it before.

So all those worms are busy
in Britain's compost heaps,

recycling
all of that rotting fruit and veg.

But the story doesn't end there.

All that decaying organic material
also plays host

to one of the most important
organisms in the natural world.

This organism is neither
plant nor animal.

It has over 100,000 species.

It can both cure disease
and cause it.

Some taste great,
while others can kill you.

This may look like the surface
of some strange alien planet

but it's actually much more at home
in a bowl

with cream and sugar on it.

What you're looking at is actually
a magnified old strawberry

with fungus growing on it.

But it's this fungus
that's so special

and I'm going to show you why.

Look at that! That is,
that is absolutely gorgeous.

Each of these threads bears at the
end, at the tip, a tiny little ball

and they will be full of spores,
so when they become mature,

they'll burst open and then billions
of spores will drift off elsewhere.

And fungi are
the world's decomposers.

They really...

Without fungi we'd be in a right
old state, wouldn't we, basically?

They're probably the most important
group of organisms on earth.

Wow. That is just phenomenal.
Amazing.

On a fruit bowl that's gone off,

you might have 20 or 30
separate sorts of fungi.

Look at that.

We use fungi in many ways.

We eat them, we make pesticides
from them.

Without one of them - yeast -
we would have no beer
or wine or even bread.

They're also used to make life
saving drugs, such as penicillin.

Shall we have a look at the raisins?
The grapes.

Grapes. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Raisins! Sounds cool, raisins.

They will be raisins eventually.

Smells a bit like, like wine.

Hm. Doesn't smell too bad, actually.

No, no.

Ooh. Now that's not something
you'd particularly want to eat.

But our camera reveals
a beautiful miniature world.

Looks like flowers, these.
They're like little flowers.

It's very romantic.

Really, you think?

I think if I brought my wife
a bunch of those,

I don't think I'd get
a very good reception.

THEY LAUGH

Whether it's dust mites
in the carpet, worms in the garden

or these surprisingly beautiful
fungi,

these miniature recyclers play
a vital role

in our urban world and beyond.

Well, it's time to hit the trail

and I want to take you to a place

which I think is one of the most
beautiful locations in Britain

and it simply wouldn't exist
without fungi.

Are you OK to clear all this up?
Oh! Again?

Thanks. Bye.

He's such a "fun guy".
GEORGE CHUCKLES

I'm heading north to the Blackwood
of Rannoch in Scotland.

You couldn't imagine a greater
contrast with our cities and towns.

Yet these trees depend on fungi
even more than we do.

This forest is only here
because of a giant fungus

many miles across
and thousands of years old

and that's what I want to show you.

STAG ROARS

There's a unique community
of wildlife here

that all, ultimately, relies
on that fungus.

It's a fungus which lives
underground, hidden beneath my feet.

So I'm going to take a handful
of the soil that it lives in

to show you this incredible
ancient organism up close.

Fungi are among the oldest
and largest organisms on earth.

All people usually ever see of fungi
are the toadstools etc,

the things above ground
that are obvious.

But the real bulk of the fungus
is underground

in the form of these threads
or hyphae

and they have amazing interactions
with trees.

The fungal threads that we see here
spread throughout this whole forest

and they join this tree
with that tree, with that tree,

with the trees over there.

They're all connected. It's like
a giant hidden underground web.

And it's an interaction
that goes both ways.

The fungi get carbon and energy
from the tree

and in return for that, the trees
extract lots of elements and food

through the agency
of the fungi themselves.

So, without the fungi
the trees just wouldn't survive.

And without trees
there would be no insects, no birds,

no clean air to breathe.

CROAKING

I can't stress enough
how important fungi are

to the life on this planet.

Before I leave
this beautiful Scottish forest,

there's one more surprising critter
I'd like to show you,

a carnivore that keeps the whole
forest ecosystem in balance.

Oh!

Oh!

Oh...

Ow! Ooh, that was a bad one.

Oh!

HE GASPS
Ooh!

This is a wood ant nest

and it contains probably
several thousand, up to 100,000,
individual ants.

Now, they don't have a sting
but they have got very sharp jaws

and they're able to spray
formic acid.

They're amazing creatures.

I mean, one of the things that,
I think everyone's surprised about,

if you say carnivore
to the majority of people

they would think lions, tigers,
that sort of thing.

But actually ants are
the major carnivore in the world.

In fact, in any habitat,

whether it's your back garden
or the African plains,

ants are taking away
far more animal flesh than
all the big carnivores added up.

And it's this carnivorous activity
that has a crucial part to play

Trees provide the ants
with somewhere to live

and a constant supply of food.

The ants in turn take away all the
plant-eating caterpillars and bugs

that would damage the tree.

It's the perfect arrangement.

But you can see how ferocious
they are.

If I put my arm down
in the colony there...

Look at that! Whoa!

HE PANTS

And they are biting and stinging.

Wood ants are particularly fearsome
because they have such huge nests.

Any animal or any object
which is alien will be attacked,

so, I mean, they're superb
at clearing anything off
their home range.

I now have several under my shirt

and one is just going up
into my armpit.

Oh! And got me!

Ooh!

Emilien, have you enough
of this film? I think...

Well, we have a few nice images,
definitely.

Ow.

Annoy them a bit. Yeah that would...
Why don't you do that, Emilien?

That's a good idea.

EMILIEN LAUGHS

The way ants protect these trees
from pests is just another example

of the enormous importance
of some of the smallest animals.

The more I delve
into Britain's miniature world,

the more I realise
how it shapes this wonderful island

and keeps it ticking along.

As an island nation this delicate
balance is never more significant

than in the seas that lap
the length of its shoreline.

This is where lots of things hide
when it's low tide.

Oh, look at that!

No one living in Britain is more
than 70 miles from the coast.

We rely on the natural resources
it provides for food, our weather,

the climate,
even the air we breathe,

so this is the final world
I want to explore in miniature

with our camera.

Hi. Hello there.

I wondered
what you were hunting for.

Well, I got my nets down.
I just took the fish out of my nets.

I'm George.
Oh, how do you do, George.

Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.

What have you got? Well, I've
got just dogfish in that one.

Oh, wow. We got...
You've got loads in here.

In here we've got dogfish,
bass, mullet.

And so you collect these for...?
That's just for eating.

For eating. Just for eating
for us and our friends, yeah.

Wow.

One of the things that's great
about sharks and dogfish

is that if you stroke the skin
that way it's nice and smooth,

go that way it's incredibly rough.
RASPING NOISE

You can hear it.
Of course, in the old days

the carpenters used to use it for
sand paper. That's what they had.

Now I've got a special instrument
on the beach.

What I'd really like to do is
to examine the skin really up close.

Would you be happy if I...?
Yeah, let's go and have a gander.

That's fantastic.
I'll carry this one.

You all right with that one? Yep.
Right. Oh! That's the light one.

You must have a healthy appetite.
That's why I'm probably so fat!

This is a great opportunity

to see how well adapted animals
have to be to survive here.

Dogfish are a part
of the shark family,

fast aquatic predators
who really need speed.

Derek, Emilien. I brought something.
Pleased to meet you. Hello.

It's not small
but I brought you this. Looks nice.

But there's a reason for it.

If you look at the skin on that,

I think you'll find
it's quite an amazing structure.

This, I want to see.

The skin of a dogfish or a shark is
very smooth

if you stroke your hand
from the head to the tail.

Now, do you know why it's that way?

No, not really. Only because
of the roughness, I presume.

It's smoother flow if you have
these minute little bits
that face backwards.

If you had an entirely smooth fish

it wouldn't be quite as streamlined,
in fact, as it would with this,

so these little tiny bits
of the skin,

which are sharp and point backwards,

actually allow the fish
to swim more freely,

more, more agilely
through the water.

Perhaps I better reshape having my
hair cut so I can swim faster.

Do you swim?
Not very well.

No, well, but you see
if you had that on, Derek,

you could really move.
Move, yeah.

As Derek heads out to catch his tea,
Emilien and I learn a vital lesson.

Time and tide wait for no one,

especially biologists
peering down the barrel
of their microscope cameras.

Er, Emilien, this is getting very
wet here.

Oh, the tide's coming in,
this is getting a bit dangerous.

We need to switch that off quick.

Emilien, we need...
Oh, my hat's gone!
THEY LAUGH

Can we...? Ready? Yep.

Hup! Ooh.

That's what happens
when you're having fun

and you don't look
what you're doing,

at what's happening around you.

Big one. Yeah.

Whilst we wait
for the tide to recede,

it's time for a spot of lunch.

I'm really enjoying eating
here on the beach

and this cheese is
absolutely delicious.

I'm just wondering if I might be
eating more than I bargained for.

A closer look at this cheese

may reveal something
a little surprising.

Well, one of these cheeses is
a rather nice French cheese

called Beaufort de Montagne

and the rind is very interesting.

If I put the camera on it,
look at that -

It's crawling with cheese mites,
little tiny mites

that are just infesting
the whole of the rind

and it's that infestation
that some people say

gives the cheese
it's very special flavour.

HE LAUGHS
They must love cheese, these guys.

They live in the rind,
they eat their way through it

and they give the rind
that sort of holey texture

and when you eat it,
you're eating the cheese, the rind

and you're also eating the mites
and their poo

and it's just great.

Tastes fantastic
and it's completely harmless.

Who wants a piece? Surely?
Just a little tiny bit, come on.

I think if you're
going to experience the cheese

you really need to eat
the whole thing.

Just imagine - I'm now eating cheese
plus several thousand cheese mites.

Now, as nice as a bit of cheese is,

you can't beat having a bag
of chips when you're at the seaside,

though it does attract the attention
of some unwanted guests.

But watching these seagulls
flying around

does give you food for thought.

Britain is famous for its seabirds,

long-distance travellers that fly
far out to sea in search of food

and brave the most extreme
weather conditions.

If you're flying over rough seas
there's no room for error.

Those vital wings must stay
in tip-top condition.

Birds' wings are actually one of
the most incredible adaptations

of almost any animal group.

Something as simple
as a feather is

an evolutionary feat
of micro-engineering.

Now, Emilien has set up our camera
in a beach hut

and it's here that I'm hoping
we can reveal

some of the secrets of flight.

That seagull there,
that's your feather right here.

That's your feather, mate,
right here.

Yeah, so thanks for that.

Now, that is one of
the most incredible things.

It's evolved to be a flat surface

but it's made up of hundreds
of tiny barbs with hooks on them.

Let's have a look at that
and see what it looks like.

Look at it - that's amazing,
look at it.

So many small hairs.

It's highly branched

and each of the individual elements
of the feather on either side

have hairs that come out
and interlock.

So does this make it waterproof
as well? Wind proof. Wind proof.

Yeah, I mean, if you're going to fly

you have to have a flat surface
which is airtight,

and that is the easiest way
of doing it.

You know when you see a bird
having a preen? Yep.

They're oiling the feathers

but they're also trying
to get any breaks joined up again.

Because you can break them
very easily.

You see if you pull that apart,
it just goes pop

but if you do that again
it re-engages

and they hitch back
together again.

I mean, that's one of
the most highly evolved structures

and that's what makes birds
such successful animals.

If they weren't able to do that
with their wings

and if they didn't have
that structure, they wouldn't fly.

And now we are at 350 times.

That is millions of years
of evolution

to produce
the perfect flying surface.

To meet our final players
in this micro drama

I'm returning to where we started -
Old Harry Rocks in Dorset.

The life forms I'm looking for
are fundamental to life

not only in Britain
but to the whole planet.

They're crucial to the food we eat,
the air we breathe

and even the land beneath our feet.

In order to meet them,
I've got to take to the high seas.

There's no better example
anywhere in the world

of the power of minute organisms
than these chalk cliffs.

These cliffs were formed
between 30 and 130 million years ago

by the steady accumulation
of the remains of tiny marine algae.

These algae are known as
phytoplankton

and they're absolutely essential
to all life

and it's Sarah Jane,
a marine biologist,

who's going to help me find them.

Well, I'm feeling decidedly queasy.

Yeah, it's a little bit windy today,
isn't it? And choppy.

This shouldn't take too long.

What I've just thrown in here
was the plankton net. Right.

And we've got another one here.
It's got a micro filter at the end

and we're going to drag it up
through the water column

and hopefully collect
any little animals

that might be living in the water
in here to look at later. Right.

So if you want to...
Can I have a go?

Yeah, if you take...
Make sure you keep hold of the end.

Make sure I keep this end, yeah.
That's the important bit.
Just throw it over.

Whee! And then what we're trying to
do is we want it to sink down,

so if you try
and let the weight go out

and then just feed the rope out.

Yeah. Let's just pull them up so
we don't lose them under the boat.

I think mine's caught on something.
Might have caught a crab.

So essentially,
all the stuff gets washed down

into this little bit
at the end here.

Yeah, into the end here

and then what we can do is we can
just wash that out into a cup

and we can collect that to look at
under the microscope later.

And that's it. Wow.

To actually see them we're
going to have to push our microscope
camera to its very limits.

Oh, what on earth is that?
Something's just swum past.

Now, what I really want to see,
Emilien, is the phytoplankton.

Maybe we can zoom in
on this one right here.

Oh, that's nice.
Yeah, they look like some diatoms.

There he is.
Oh, that is beautiful. Fantastic.

GEORGE CHUCKLES
It's an absolute soup.

Phytoplankton are
microscopic algae

that live in the ocean
by the trillions,

making them some of the most
numerous organisms on earth.

Phytoplankton are essentially
the green plants of the ocean -

that's what everything eats.

They're the base of the food chain.

Yeah, they really are
right at the bottom,

so they are the bottom
of the food web

and everything else is
completely dependent

on the productivity
of these organisms.

So without phytoplankton
at the base of the food chain

we wouldn't have fish to eat

and there wouldn't be whales,
dolphins, sharks or seabirds.

The oceans would be barren.

They're even responsible
for the very air we breathe.

Now, I've heard that, of course,
it's the green plants on earth

that are really important for oxygen
and so on.

That isn't really quite true, is it?
No, not quite

because actually most of the oxygen
produced on this planet

is by these marine phytoplankton,

It's actually about every second
breath that anything takes on earth,

that oxygen is formed
by these phytoplankton.

So if we didn't have minute
marine algae, we wouldn't be here.

When they die, they sink
to the bottom of the ocean.

In time, billions and trillions of
their calcified skeletons build up

to form enormous rock formations,

including Britain's
iconic white cliffs.

So all because of trillions
and trillions of tiny algae,

we've got oxygen to breathe,
we've got food to eat

and we've got fantastic cliffs.

Yep, basically, they're the root
of most life today.

My journey into Britain's
micro kingdom has revealed

some of the secrets
of this hidden world.

I've spent my life examining
the miniature world around us

but I've never seen it
like this before.

Wow! That is amazing.

It really is the small things
that shape our world

and what a beautiful,
awe-inspiring place it is.

From the pollen collecting
hairs unique to the honey bee,

the essential life-giving qualities
of fungus,

the evolutionary splendour
of a feather

that holds the secret of flight,

to the very organisms
that make the air we breathe,

creating, nurturing,
constantly correcting the balance,

the inhabitants of this
micro kingdom are the true guardians

of the planet we call home.

I hope it's made you think that
it's worthwhile taking a closer look

at the magical world
that's right under your nose.

You might be surprised
at what you'll find.

Makes you think, huh?