Wildlife UK Forum - Discuss the UK countryside and wildlife

Did anyone watch Mr Oddies new show last night? The bit on swifts was very interesting.

I watched it - I never knew that swifts collect their nest materials in the air!

The foxes were great too, so healthy looking, they must make a great living at the rubbish dump as the usual urban fox looks scraggy.

And the sound in the rockpool, I could have listened to that all day!

The rockpool bit was filmed on Tresco on the Scillies. Beautiful island.

I love this show,just wish it was an hour long.
I think last nights was one of the best,i agree with Paul and Sky the swifts were fascinating ,Bill at his best

What was it called? If it was on the BBC, I could watch it on the BBC-i player

It's called Bill Oddie's Wild Side and it was on BBC2 at 8pm yesterday.

I will have to give it a watch too, sounds very interesting. I never knew that about swifts either, how exactly do they do it?

Well Swifts live 99% on the wing, they sleep & eat on the wing - but when they come to nest of course they must land somewhere - so on the wing they collect items in the air - feathers, leaves, even parts of balloons, things you wouldn't expect that float in the air like cotton from clothing plus ribbons. Pretty ingenius!

I've just watched it on iplayer and thought it was very good, the bit on the swifts was very interesting, I never realised just how much time they do spend on the wing. I enjoyed the bit on chinese water deer too. Not so sure about the rats in Bills garden though!!

Very interesting, thanks for that. I'm very impressed that they can catch these things in the air!

How does a bird sleep while flying?

I presume that sleeping while flying is called sleeping on the wing

Did you watch the programme jamie? Swifts 'cat nap' on the wing, its not like us humans who sleep for hours, just long enough for them to wake up before falling out of the sky!