Transcript

WOMAN

A good way to take a look at bugs and insects is to set a few simple pitfall traps. A coffee cup sunk into the ground and left overnight will soon have passersby dropping in. My guide is entomologist Dave Boyce.

OK, Dave, let's see what we've got.

DAVE BOYCE

OK. All right, now. Let's just pick a few things out. This is my real passion.

WOMAN

Your thing.

DAVE BOYCE

Yeah. And this is a green tiger beetle.

WOMAN

That's a beauty, isn't it?

DAVE BOYCE

He's a day-hunting predator with these very long legs. It means he can run very fast. He's got very big eyes you can see on the front there. So he's finding things. He sees insects from a distance, and he'll either run them down or even fly. Beetles, you don't think of as being good fliers, but tiger beetles are terrific fliers.

WOMAN

The Billy boy of the heathland.

DAVE BOYCE

Very much so, yeah. Right, well, the green tiger beetle is a beautiful animal and lovely to see. But here is the thing that really gets my pulse racing as a beetle twitcher. This is [INAUDIBLE] ground beetle-- beautiful, green-metallic wing cases and this pinky metallic full body. And this is a very, very rare species.

WOMAN

Why is it that some creatures do have such a hard time of it surviving?

DAVE BOYCE

This is a very, very specialised beast in the habitat it requires. It not only needs lowland heath. It needs particular conditions. It likes very open heath and with lots of patches of bare ground. It's very warmth-loving, and the bare ground creates that very, very dry, very hot environment it requires.

And the work the RSPB's been doing here, in terms of opening up areas of heath for this and for a number of other rare invertebrates and other species, is critical to its survival.

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