will work for nuts (3/6)

This entertaining wildlife series gives Britain’s animals the chance to flaunt their natural abilities as three experts set them a series of inventive challenges. In tonight’s show, the boys explore the unexplained behaviour of earthworms; smell a badger’s breath and imitate a songbird.

Intrigued by the mystery surrounding the habit of earthworms to come to the surface when it rains, Lloyd, Matt and James try to tune into the worms’ instincts and ‘charm’ them up – without the use of water. With an acre of fertile soil thought to support up to a million worms, the lads set to work on the local bowling green. They try three very different techniques to attract the worms and are soon surrounded by the creatures. Whose method will prove the most effective and what can it tell us about the animal’s behaviour?

Matt, meanwhile, finds himself in the unenviable position of having to get up close and personal with a badger to discover if the animal deserves its reputation for bad breath. Armed with a device for measuring smell known as the Nasal Ranger, he spends a night in wait and is rewarded when he gets within a few feet of a specimen’s snout. “I got a good whiff,” says Matt. “I may be the first person to try to measure scientifically the breath of a badger,” he adds, proudly.

Also tonight, the experts set up an elaborate hoax when they come across a high-tech way to create an accurate human impersonation of a songbird. “Songbirds are almost impossible to do,” says bird expert Lloyd. “Their song is so highpitched and complicated.” But James discovers that by slowing down a recording of birdsong, imitating the sound and then speeding up the fake version, he can achieve some great results. Lloyd is so impressed that he challenges Matt and James to convince some seasoned birdwatchers that the human songbird is a wren. Will the twitchers be fooled by James’s technological twittering?

The red squirrel is native to Britain, but it has been pushed out of most parts of England and Wales by the arrival of the bigger, more adaptable grey. Tonight, James sets out to help Britain’s remaining reds regain some of the attention from the flashy newcomers. He goes to the Isle of Wight –a part of Britain free of grey squirrels –and sets up a training camp with a difference.