All language subtitles for Wild Ireland The Edge of the World 1080p BBC

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.

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.