Bill Oddie's Wild Side - Episode 4

Bill Oddie, cameraman John Aitchison and sound recorder Chris Watson reveal the hidden lives of Britain's animals. Bill takes cameraman John to a landfill site and sets him the challenge of finding and filming wildlife there. But if Bill thinks this is a barren waste land devoid of life, then he's truly mistaken. John has some remarkable encounters with specialised opportunists that don't seem at all perturbed by the 50 tonne trucks cruising past or the thousands of tonnes of rubbish being dumped. Next Bill's off to the Norfolk Broads where he finds an animal that seems to have all the attributes of a cross between a bear, a sheep and an elephant. This creature is so rare in its native country that scientists now have to travel to the UK to study it. Sound recordist, Chris Watson, joins Bill on the beach as Chris demonstrates that a few hydrophones are as handy as a bucket and spade for a trip to the sea side. Rock pools that teem with life are wired for sound and the duo get to listen in to snapping shrimp, scuttling crabs and squelching anemones. Are those UFOs swarming over Oxford? Previously mistaken as unidentified flying objects, they're actually swifts. Astonishingly swifts do almost everything on the wing, including sleep. The one thing that brings them down to earth is the urge to nest. Bill goes up a tower in Oxford for his first close encounter with swifts. And finally Bill has some dubious guests visiting his back garden - rats. He's happy with their comings and goings, but the missus is not so keen. After pressure from his family and a spate of petty rat vandalism, he endeavours to get rid of them humanely. In the process he makes some headway into rat research.