Nature's Boldest Thieves
Presenter Lucy Cooke sets out to explore the phenomenon of seagulls, foxes, squirrels and badgers stealing our food and discover what makes them such good thieves.
Presenter Lucy Cooke sets out to explore the phenomenon of seagulls, foxes, squirrels and badgers which are now living in our towns and stealing our food.
Starting in the seaside resort of St Ives in Cornwall, Lucy witnesses for herself the seagulls that will swoop from 50 metres and steal a sandwich out of your hand. At the height of the summer season there are as many as 15 snatches a day from tourists. With the help of bird experts, Professor Graham Martin and Steven Portugal, Lucy sets up a range of tests and GPS tagging to discover exactly what makes the seagulls such good thieves.
Lucy also goes to Rustington in Sussex, where she discovers that the fox population is increasing dramatically. She sets up a test to discover whether - given the choice - foxes would choose jam sandwiches and sausage rolls or the more natural diet of worms and fruit.
Lucy goes to Hertfordshire to encounter the black squirrel - a variety of the grey squirrel - which is now spreading through Hertfordshire and southern England. She observes it tackling a challenging homemade assault course built in a suburban garden in order to steal nuts from a bird feeder, and she explores how the unusual 180-degree ankle joint of a squirrel makes it such a good thief.
Back in St Ives, Lucy discovers that badgers outnumber foxes in the town and that they are regularly eating food from gardens. One family of badgers has developed a liking for peanut butter sandwiches!
With numbers of urban gulls up to around 250,000 in the UK and urban foxes and badgers on the increase, Lucy concludes that the phenomenon of seagulls, badgers, foxes and squirrels living in our towns and stealing our food is here to stay and we humans must learn to live alongside them.
Last on
Clips
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Sandwich thievery from the seagulls at St Ives
Duration: 01:33
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A feast fit for a fussy fox
Duration: 00:57
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Take a bird's-eye view of life
Duration: 02:02
Music Played
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Bastille
Things We Lost In The Fire
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Calexico
Crumble
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Bombay Bicycle Club
Home By Now
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Muse
Feeling Good
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John Williams
Theme from Jaws
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Doves
The Storm
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Bonobo
Days To Come
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Foals
Blue Blood
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James Blake
Overgrown
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Tindersticks
Running Wild
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Gotye
Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra)
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Bat for Lashes
Moon And Moon
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Bat for Lashes
Moon And Moon
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Jessie Ware
Tough Love
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Maverick Sabre
These Days
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The Herbaliser
骋别苍别谤补濒蝉听
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Morcheeba
The Sea
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Morcheeba
The Sea
Credits
Role | Contributor |
---|---|
Presenter | Lucy Cooke |
Director | Matthew Ainsworth |
Executive Producer | Debbie Christie |
Production Company | Finestripe Productions |
Broadcasts
- Sun 25 Jan 2015 16:05麻豆官网首页入口 One Scotland & Scotland HD only
- Sun 25 Jan 2015 17:10麻豆官网首页入口 One except Scotland, Scotland HD, Wales & Wales HD
- Sun 1 Feb 2015 16:25麻豆官网首页入口 Two Wales
- Tue 11 Aug 2015 22:35麻豆官网首页入口 One except Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland HD, Scotland & Scotland HD
- Tue 11 Aug 2015 23:35麻豆官网首页入口 One Northern Ireland HD, Scotland HD, Northern Ireland & Scotland only
- Wed 9 Nov 2016 12:10麻豆官网首页入口 Two Scotland
- Wed 9 Nov 2016 16:20麻豆官网首页入口 Two except Scotland
- Sun 7 Apr 2019 12:00
- Sat 14 Sep 2019 15:45麻豆官网首页入口 Two except Scotland
How foxes, squirrels and seagulls use their super-sneaky skills to steal our snacks
A look at the tactics of some of nature's finest thieves