Coast - Series 5 - Gower to Anglesey

Coast journeys along the south and west coast of Wales. Neil Oliver takes part in an aerial dogfight to discover why a Nazi flying ace landed his top secret new plane on Welsh tarmac at the height of the World War II. The captured fighter, a Focke-Wulf 190, dubbed the Butcherbird by allied pilots, was the scourge of the Spitfires in 1942. Neil investigates what made it so deadly and how it finally fell into British hands. Miranda Krestovnikoff visits a seabird paradise, the magical island of Skomer. Miranda swims with the puffins and witnesses a unique wildlife spectacle as Manx shearwaters return to their Welsh home after an epic 18,000-mile migration to South America. At Porth Oer, Alice Roberts attempts to solve the riddle of the Singing Sands; what makes some very special British beaches whistle when you walk on them? Alice records the sounds of Porth Oer's beautiful beach to reveal its surprisingly musical secrets. The imposing castle at Harlech is one of the best preserved in Britain but Mark Horton discovers how it would have looked radically different, and even more terrifying, when it was built to subdue the Welsh in the 13th century. Nick Crane explores the violent history of smuggling around the gorgeous Gower Peninsula, and abseils into an extraordinary stone structure concealed in the side of a sea cliff. Now only accessible by sea or by ropes, 200 years ago this was the perfect smugglers' stronghold. Nick learns that it had an even more mysterious previous life, as a massive medieval bird house.