Catch up TV

Guide to Sea Birds

The Springwatch team - Martin Hughes-Games, Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan - with special guest Iolo Williams, celebrate the wonderful natural history of our seabirds. \n\nSeabirds are a remarkable group of animals. Each species has its own incredible biology and fascinating story. Did you know that in its lifetime, the migratory Arctic Tern will have travelled as far as the Moon and back three times? And that the Northern Gannet can dive into the water at speeds of over 60 miles per hour?\n\nFor nine months of the year these wonderful birds live out at sea, inaccessible to us in the vast wilderness of the world's oceans but for three special months in the summer, they come to the British Isles to breed in huge numbers - a staggering 8 million seabirds of 25 different species. It is one of the greatest wildlife gatherings on Earth and it happens right here on our doorstep. \n\nThis is our chance to really get to know these fabulous birds of the sea. The Springwatch team has travelled to the far corners of the UK to bring you the very best of our British seabirds and tell their amazing tales. Martin Hughes-Games is in Orkney, the seabird capital of the UK; Iolo Williams is on Skomer Island - the largest and most important seabird breeding colony in southern Britain and home to 6,000 pairs of Atlantic Puffins; Chris Packham is in Bristol Museum where he investigates the amazing way our seabirds are built for a life of extremes; and Michaela Strachan is in the city of Bath, where some of our seabirds have moved away from their traditional breeding grounds by the sea.

Source: BBC 2