KATE MARTIN: Hello and welcome to the National Trust Podcast.
I’m Kate Martin, Lead Ranger in the Northwest.
Today we’re replaying one of our favourite episodes as we head
out after dark, to see how the world comes alive at night at
Cragside in Northumberland.
We’ll be getting up close to some freaky and familiar
creatures, to bust some myths about the animals on the night
shift.
I'm sitting here reclining in a deck chair on a balmy summer
evening, overlooking the formal gardens at Cragside to the
Moorlands and the hills beyond. About 1000 acres and with
locations as varied as the carriage driveway, with
panoramic views, fern covered gorges, coniferous forest,
seeing all Cragside has to offer could take you days.
So to see as much as I can, I've actually decided to stay within
the grounds at one of their on site holiday homes. So tonight,
I'm taking full advantage of my VIP access to a lock in here at
Cragside and heading out to discover what it has to offer
after dark.
I'm leaving the neat manicured lawns, glass houses and the wide
open skies of the formal gardens where the holiday cottages are
and I'm heading towards the woods to meet a Ranger who's
going to accompany me on my night time adventure.
So as I make my way through the trees, I can hear that sunset
frenzy of birds settling down for the evening and crepuscular
wildlife animals that are most active at dusk and dawn will be
emerging now in the twilight. I'm heading up to the Clock
Tower now, which is at the edge of the woods.
Standing next to it is ranger Helen Burn. Hi, Helen. You
alright?
HELEN BURN: Heya Kate. Yeah, nice to meet you.
KATE MARTIN: So, Helen, I'm really excited about exploring
Cragside tonight.
HELEN BURN: Actually, I've got a confession to make. I've never
been around Cragside in the dark myself so we can explore it
together for the first time. I've got a few activities lined
up for you to help you get really up close and personal
with some of the characters that we might see and it's all about
putting your senses to the test. Gonna meet some wildlife experts
in the pinetum.
KATE MARTIN: Fab. Let's go.
It's finally starting to get a little bit darker now and
actually walking round at this time of night can actually feel
a bit unsettling even in a place that you really know, like the
back of your hand. Sometimes feels that there's those little
eyes watching you.
HELEN BURN: There's definitely going to be things watching us.
I think things like deer and rabbit. I know that on the
estate we have got badgers and foxes.
KATE MARTIN: It makes you realize actually just how poor
our eyesight is. What are the other animals with sort of stand
out senses that can help them navigate at night here, Helen?
HELEN BURN: One that stands out for me would be owls.
MARC HOLDERIED: In the UK, the nocturnal creatures that have
the most stunningly big eyes are probably some of the owls. My
name is Marc Holderied. I'm a professor here at the University
Of Bristol's Biology Department. A lot of the stuff owls do, they
do by vision. At daylight, they have a tiny pupil because they
don't want a lot of light to come in.
But at night, this pupil widens exposing all this massive lens
and that just brings up their sensitivity. But not all of what
they do is by vision. Owls are, when they hunt relying a lot on
their sense of hearing. The Barn Owl has this beautiful white
face.
The whole, mirror like, round face is nothing more than a
sound collecting device. In its face to the left and to the
right of its beak are the two ears. The two ears are not the
same shape. One of these ears points slightly downwards, the
other points slightly upwards.
It means that it's not just the left right information but also
the looking up and looking down information. For example, that's
how they can hunt voles or shrews under a layer of snow. So
there's no visual information whatsoever, but they hear them
squealing down there and they strike through the loose snow.
HELEN BURN: I've got a bag of contraptions with me tonight
that's going to help us as we're going around. I have got
something we can use to give you an idea what it might be like to
hear a little bit better. A little bit like an owl. So I've
got a parabolic microphone.
KATE MARTIN: That essentially is a satellite dish that you can
hold by the look of it.
HELEN BURN: Yeah, kind of. So it's sort of a similar shape to
an owl's face and it directs the sound in towards the microphone
and helps pick up the noises.
KATE MARTIN: So I'm just moving the microphone now to see if I
can pinpoint anything in particular. Well, that's really
noticeable, but you can actually hear the babbling brook. Let's
move it away again and then back.
How different that sounds. So you could absolutely see how an
owl is able to sort of pinpoint that noise.
Just walking over the wooden bridge into the pinetum. Pretty
imposing these trees even earlier on in the day but in
this time of night, because they're so big and they're
blocking out so much of the light, it feels quite
claustrophobic in here really. I can see some people ahead of us.
Hiya, so I hear you're my expert in night time adventures?
HEATHER DEVEY: Hi, I'm Heather Devey. I'm co-director of wild
intrigue. We like to introduce people to nature in northern
England.
KATE MARTIN: Why are you lurking in the pinetum at this time of
the night?
HEATHER DEVEY: It's a good question. So I'm gonna get you
up close and personal with bats.
KATE MARTIN: I love bats. Where are they?
HEATHER DEVEY: Bats are usually all around us actually. And it's
just that we can't hear them.
THOMAS NEIL: My name is Thomas Neil. I'm a research scientist
at the University Of Bristol. Bats are nocturnal hunters. So
they've evolved a system called echolocation. And what we mean
by that is that bats use sound to navigate at night.
So what bats do is they produce ultrasonic clicks out of their
mouth or sometimes their nose and they essentially bounce back
off objects around the bat and the bat listens for the echoes
from these clicks. Other animals that use echolocation are the
dolphins and whales. So these use it in a similar way to bats,
but they're using it to navigate in the sea.
The clicks are ultrasonic, which means they are outside of our
hearing range. A young child may be out at night and be able to
pick up some of the lower frequencies that bats are using.
Unfortunately, as you get older, you tend to lose the higher
frequency hearing in your hearing range. So a grown adult
would not be able to hear them as well.
HEATHER DEVEY: So this is a heterodyne detector. And it
basically means that we can eavesdrop on bat echolocation
and it just transforms it basically so that we can
understand bat chat.
KATE MARTIN: I love the idea of bat chat. That sounds great.
HEATHER DEVEY: So we turn it on at the side. Are you ready for
the static? Oh we had a whisper of a pipistrelle there.
So that is a soprano pipistrelle and just there he is, just right
there.
KATE MARTIN: You get the odd little glimpse and as soon as
you turn your head it's gone.
Oh, there it is again, it's just kind of circling round above us,
just around the edges of the trees.
HEATHER DEVEY: They're very busy up there. Every click that you
hear is a sound that, that pipistrelle is making out of its
mouth. That's how fast it is. And then on top of that, it
needs to eat the midges, it needs to eat the, the micro
moths and it needs to chat and tell other bats what's going on.
So we've heard the pipistrelle clicking there. They got a nice
rapid beat, but there are a lot of different sounds that bats
can make. So I've got a few on my phone here. This is a Brown
Long Eared Bat.
It essentially whispers at 15 to 20 kilohertz and it's got a
lovely rustle to it.
That was a Greater Horseshoe. It's quite different, isn't it?
It's got much more of a whistle to it. They effectively scream
through their noses instead of their mouths.
KATE MARTIN: So that's why we've got the horseshoe shaped nose?
HEATHER DEVEY: Exactly.
That last one was a Leisler's Bat, it's got that kind of
sloppy drip. They're so different, so diverse, not just
how they look but how they sound as well. And that's what makes
them just so intriguing.
KATE MARTIN: I love bats. You obviously love bats as well. But
I know an awful lot of people find them a bit so freaky and
weird. So why do think that is?
HEATHER DEVEY: You know, they come out at night and you don't
really see them? So you don't know quite what they are.
There's a lot of mystery around them and a lot of myth and
folklore, I suppose. Bats are nothing to be afraid of. That
is, of course, unless you're a moth, which is just the perfect
take out snack for a bat. Should we go check out some moths?
KATE MARTIN: Oh, yeah, definitely.
What is it we're looking out for?
HEATHER DEVEY: We're looking for a bit of a eerie glow and we're
going to introduce you to the other half of wild intrigue,
Cain Scrimgeour.
KATE MARTIN: It's absolutely pitch black. It's the real night
time specialists out and about.
Just walking down the road and then just out of the corner of
my eye just spotted something crawling across the road and it
was a toad.
HELEN BURN: There's another one.
KATE MARTIN: Oh, yeah! There's another one! Oh there we go. The
proper toad crawl. They'll be coming out for the slugs and the
worms. They'll make sure they get somewhere nice and dark and
damp before the sun comes up.
I can see the light. Hello, Cain. You alright?
CAIN SCRIMGEOUR: Hello there. You all right?
KATE MARTIN: Helen, my fellow Ranger, you aren't looking
particularly pleased.
HELEN BURN: I have to say, I'm not really the biggest fan of
moths.
KATE MARTIN: What now?
HELEN BURN: Yeah, it's just something about the way that
they flap and then they're in your bedroom at night dive
bombing you!
KATE MARTIN: What kind of moths do you have? So Cain, come on,
describe this intriguing contraption in front of us.
CAIN SCRIMGEOUR: So this is a moth trap. The moths are
attracted to this bulb in here because we've got to have a peek
inside to see if anything's actually went inside the trap.
So we'll just open this up here and it's absolutely full of
Midges in there.
Oh, there's a good one. So this one's called the Map Winged
Swift.
KATE MARTIN: Oh what a name!
CAIN SCRIMGEOUR: You can see all of the intricate patterns there.
KATE MARTIN: There is bronze and silver, almost like a sort of
coppery colour. That is an absolutely beautiful moth.
CAIN SCRIMGEOUR: Through the year the species change as well.
So in the winter and spring you get sort of brown, quite drab
looking moths. But as the flowers and the flora develops,
you get a lot more colour. So you get pinks and oranges and
golds and metallics. With class names like Peach Blossom and
Burnish Brass, Elephant Hawk Moth, Garden Tiger Moth.
There's other ones that haven't got great names because they're
called'Uncertain' because they're really difficult to ID
as well. If you look really closely, you can see it's
antenna, this one's a female. So it's just got simple structures.
If it was a male, they would be really, really sort of fluffy
looking like-.
KATE MARTIN: Like Feathers!
MARC HOLDERIED: I don't know whether you know where the nose
of a moth might be placed, but it's within these feathery
antennae that they have on their foreheads. And males have much
bigger and more feathery antennae because they need a
better sense of smell. The way the female attracts the males is
by chemical signals, they send out pheromones that spread
easily and are carried with the wind.
And the male would sit somewhere and it's sniffing for these
chemical compounds. For these pheromones. Air would stream
through these feathery antennae and they are studded with
receptors. And as soon as a single molecule of this female
pheromones interacts with these receptors, the moth takes off.
So these moth would fly downstream from the wind.
Eventually they'll find the female moth by its pheromones.
CAIN SCRIMGEOUR: People love butterflies in general, but
moths, people don't like moths. And it's largely down to just a
few handfuls of species so you'll get three species that'll
eat your clothes and your carpets and two of them are
quite rare. But there's 2500 species of moths in the UK and
only 59 species of butterflies.
Really the moth do a lot of the work at night so they're the
hard grafters. So they're incredibly important for
pollination. But also because there's so many species that
they're really important as a food source. A caterpillar food
source for our small birds.
KATE MARTIN: But what can people do to help moths?
CAIN SCRIMGEOUR: Plant- plants that will be good for
pollinators but also leave some bits wild for the caterpillars.
KATE MARTIN: Have we converted you?
HELEN BURN: I do feel like I'm swaying towards being a moth
fan.
KATE MARTIN: I think it's probably time we release them
back into their natural environment.
HELEN BURN: I've got another game for you Kate. Moth's most
powerful sense is their sense of smell. As I'm sure you'll have
guessed you're going to smell your way to the next location.
I've got two things for you.
KATE MARTIN: A blindfold with some really creepy eyes on it
and a can of deodorant.
HELEN BURN: Got that blindfold on now, I'm gonna spray some of
the Lynx Africa and you have to use your sense of smell to
follow the trail.
KATE MARTIN: Ok.
Oh, yeah.! Oh, wow! That is quite strong! I'm going sort of
straight ahead at the moment. Gosh, that is so strong! That
smells like- right? Oh, my word going left. I have to say Helen,
this is the weirdest sat nav in the world!
HELEN BURN: Kate, you have reached your destination.
KATE MARTIN: So I finally going to get to take my blindfold off
and have a look where I am and I am by a lake. There's Heather
from wild intrigue. Hiya Heather.
HEATHER DEVEY: Hello again.
KATE MARTIN: Why am I standing by a lake in the dark?
HEATHER DEVEY: You mean you can't hear that?
KATE MARTIN: Hear what?
HEATHER DEVEY: You can't hear that midnight Rave?
KATE MARTIN: A midnight rave?
HEATHER DEVEY: I'll forgive you because actually it's beneath
the surface of the lake.
KATE MARTIN: Oh really?
HEATHER DEVEY: Yeah, it's a pond rave.
KATE MARTIN: So, what's this strange contraption heather?
HEATHER DEVEY: So, this is a hydrophone. So, it basically
means that we can gate crash and eavesdrop below the surface.
KATE MARTIN: Amazing!
HEATHER DEVEY: All of these freshwater invertebrates.
They'll make the noises throughout the day, but they
really come to life at night. So we'll plonk it in. We'll use our
headphones and see what we can hear.
So, what we're listening out for is clicks and rustles and pops
and slaps and it's mainly the beetles that make these noises.
And you've got your damsel fly nymphs, your dragonfly nymphs,
they're all hunting different creatures, winning their
territories together. So there's drama unfolding just below the
surface.
Can you hear that kind of rhythmic beat? Well, that's one
of my favourite sounds. This is a water boatman and it's really
amazing because he's got the loudest mating call if you like,
compared to his size than any other animal. And he's not
singing. Can you guess what he might be doing?
KATE MARTIN: Is he like rubbing his legs together?
HEATHER DEVEY: He's rubbing appendages together, but it's
not his legs. It's his genitals.
KATE MARTIN: Wow! Ok!
HEATHER DEVEY: Yeah. Welcome to the pond rave!
KATE MARTIN: Well, Helen, all good parties must come to an end
and it is the early hours of the morning now and the bed of the
holiday cottage is starting to feel very appealing. Do you
think after the experiences tonight you'll look at your
place of work, this lovely Cragside with a different set of
eyes?
HELEN BURN: Yeah, I think I will actually, it's been really cool.
KATE MARTIN: There are a few important things that people
need to be aware of, aren't there if they are going to have
a walk around a place like this after dark?
HELEN BURN: But I think it would be really important to plan a
safe route, not getting too close to water, not getting too
close to maybe cliff edges. Always have a torch handy and
the phone with you. And really, I would advise asking the
location for guidelines as well.
KATE MARTIN: Go and enjoy a well earned rest!
HELEN BURN: Yeah, definitely.!
KATE MARTIN: It's so different. Cragside at night to Cragside in
the daytime. This experience isn't something exclusive to
Cragside. This is an experience you can have in your own back
garden outside the front of your house, in your local park.
Get outside experience the night time, all the sounds, the
smells, even the sight if you can see anything! It's just a
completely different world and one that everybody should feel
that they can get out and enjoy.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the National Trust
Podcast. To be the first to hear new episodes make sure to follow
or subscribe in your favourite podcast player. We’ll be back
soon but until then from me Kate Martin, goodbye.