We were at the heart of a Welsh storm and watched, first hand, how wildlife is affected by an extreme weather event, while our own production site was flooded and abandoned.

We've seen predator attacks from a weasel, a mink, a woodpecker and a cat.

This year we made a concerted effort to make the TV show feel fresh and re-energized. We've tried, wherever possible, to put more of the wildlife we know you love on screen and to offer you a greater breadth of different species. We tried to go deeper into the lives of some species, such as peregrine falcons, kingfishers and otters.

We've also tried to bring you more mammals and revel in the unsung heroes of our native wildlife both on our live cameras and on the show, such as earthworms, moles, mammal stump and butterflies emerging.

In the past, Springwatch has had a second live location but this year, in some programmes, we chose not to do this. This meant we were able to allocate more time and effort into live cameras around our base at Ynys-hir. It would be interesting to hear if you missed this element at all?

Sometimes things don't go so well for the animals we're following. This year has been particular bleak at times, with the extreme weather and a number of predations that have taken place, all part of nature taking it's course. We feel it always right to show you exactly what happens even when, at times, it makes for emotional and hard viewing.

On the web this year, we teamed up with the BBC Nature team to bring the webcams with a news-style commentary system. We were also able to bring the webcams onto the Red Button for 20 hours a day for our first week (before jubilee and football events pushed us off the schedules).

Like so many other BBC sites we said goodbye to our messageboard this year, but Facebook and Twitter went from strength to strength.

We try to post a range of blogs, which are helpful, interesting or examine a subject in more depth.

We're back with a Summerwatch special in August and with Autumnwatch. As ever it's always great to hear from you about what you enjoyed and what you'd like to see more of?

Although we're focussing on Fingal and Iona, a new pair of Mull's awesome white-tailed eagles this year, 20 years ago a young chick in another nest had recently hatched and was well on her way to a successful fledging - and a life that would ultimately touch the lives of millions.

Her name was Frisa and she came from an amazing pedigree being the offspring of the eagle legend that was Blondie - the Norwegian white-tailed eagle who raised the first Scottish chick in 1985. About 5 years after she'd fledged, in 1997 Frisa paired up on Mull with a handsome young wanderer from the Isle of Skye and they've been together ever since. They are the eagle celebrity A-listers Skye and Frisa who were beamed live into the living rooms of millions on the first night of the first ever Springwatch in 2005. Many have visited Mull since to capture a glimpse of them soaring over the summer hills.

White-tailed sea eagle by Iain Erskine

There are many aspects of my RSPB job that I love but probably the most satisfying element is being able to follow the fortunes of generations of white-tailed eagles as they slowly but surely recolonise old haunts and rightfully establish themselves again within the British landscape. There are some pairs on Mull and the Scottish mainland where one of the adults is a great-great-great granddaughter or son of Blondie. They might all look alike to some people but sometimes I see the sunlit glint of the Matriarch in their eagle eyes.

Pair of white-tailed sea eagles by Iain Erskine

Just last week we ringed another generation of young white-tailed eagles. This spring has been kind to them on the west coast and they're already big and strong, exercising developing wings. In another six weeks they too will take that mighty first leap from their tree or cliff-top eyries and begin their lives soaring and drifting across Scotland - and maybe further afield. We wish them well, the Class of 2012, on their journey as they face the many dangers both here in the UK and beyond.

White-tailed sea eagle chicks by Justin Grant

And as I watch them soar away, I'll think of Blondie and of friends and the treasured times we spent watching her; I'll wonder how Skye and Frisa are faring this year and what of their pioneering Autumnwatch 2008 chick Mara whose life has been mapped by satellite? This year's young generation belong here. In another five years time, it will be their turn.

Dave Sexton

RSPB Mull Officer
Twitter@skyeandfrisa

Thanks to SPRINGWATCH researcher, Dr Emma Brennand and our camera team, we now have 20 pupae ready to emerge into beautiful butterflies.

Watch closely and you'll see them emerge live on our webcams.

Nick Pitt setting up

Emma ordered a selection of British butterflies, comma, painted ladies and small tortoiseshell butterflies, and a package containing 20 butterfly chrysalises arrived last Thursday 7th June.

The chrysalis stage varies between species but is usually around two weeks, whilst the caterpillar inside is undergoes metamorphosis into a butterfly. In order to emerge, they need to be out of direct sunlight, at around 25 degrees and in relatively high humidity.

Our camera team created an ideal environment in a small studio here on site. There are two lights in the room, to provide both light and heat during the day, and then we switch them off at night. There is also a lot of well-watered vegetation behind them to both re-create a natural looking environment but also to keep humidity levels up.

Chrysalis set up in our studio

Each chrysalis was then carefully attached to a stick with a very small blob of glue.
We lined up 5 comma butterflies and 5 small tortoiseshells to the top stick, and 10 painted ladies to the bottom.

Chrysalis lined up, ready to hatch

All we can do now is sit and wait for them to begin emerging. We expect to see at least some of them to begin this metamorphosis before the last show on Thursday this week - so keep your eyes peeled to the webcams.

Attaching the chrysalis

How can you tell when they are emerging?
The chrysalis itself will begin to split, from the bottom, the young butterfly will climb out of the case up to the stick. As it first emerges the butterfly's wings will be very soft, and folded in against the body. This is due to having to fit inside the pupae.
So, it will then spend the next hour or so pumping blood into the wings to get them working in order to be able to fly.

Once they have emerged, just open an window and off they fly into your garden and help to maintain a healthy population of British butterflies.

These are the beauties we hope to see any time now, thanks to your photos on the Flickr group.

Comma butterfly by GVG Imaging

Small tortoiseshell by Brianb60

Painted Lady by Paul (Gumboots) Ritchie

Meanwhile at the Dyfi Osprey project, we watched a drama unfold on Saturday. Having seen one chick perish in the terrible wind and rain, they chose to help the last remaining chick, which did not have the strength to beg for food. It was returned to the nest 15 minutes later and is now taking food from his parents again.

The common sandpiper we've been following, who'd nested beside the railway line perhaps made a better decision than we though. The train line may seem like a dangerous location but it is high and well drained - the common sandpipers sat out the storm in safety.

Barn owls benefited from their location. When we got our cameras live again, they'd grown, we can really see their adult plumage coming through and they are moving around the nest area.

There is no doubt that this spring has been volatile - from drought, to cold to heavy rain and storms. And volatility in the weather is an aspect of climate change, but what has been the wider effect on our wildlife around the UK?

If you have pictures, video or first hand accounts of how our wildlife has been affected this year by these weather conditions, we'd love to hear from you.

Many of you will have seen the news reports of floods and our site was right in the middle of it.

The rain had been falling steadily since the early hours, not heavy but relentless.

Some of the team had noticed that the waterfall at Dyfi Furnace, on old iron ore smelting mill - next to the bat roost and near our OB site - was huge. The river was exceptionally high compared to previous days.

Dyfi furnace

11:00 - 12:30
When we got a call to say that the river broke its banks at the far end of our field - we knew we had a big problem.

Nearby river bursts its banks

So we had to prepare for the worst - get everything off the floor and as high as possible....and quickly.

But even as we were doing this, water started to come into the site from behind us. With water now flowing freely through the site, and right through our production tent, we had to evacuate and cut the power.

Evacuating the production office / tent

That meant the nest watcher's truck and our live webcams ended.

We were cold and soaked to the skin, but at least we could retreat to safety...the animals had no choice but to sit out the storm. With continuous rain and high winds, we wondered if anything could survive.

Saturday 09th June
During the early hours of Saturday morning, the nearby village of Talybont had floodwaters rising to 5ft deep in places.

In the surrounding area, 1,000 people were evacuated and 150 rescued during the early hours of Saturday morning.

The rivers of Leri and Ceulan burst their banks flooding homes and caravan parks in Ceredigion, Powys and southern Gwynedd.

This was the worst flooding in this area since 1973 - nearly 40 years.

Back on our site key members of the team met at 10am to assess the situation, although it was a struggle to even get there through flooded and blocked roads. When we arrived, we couldn't even get into the field. Water was flowing fast through the site, 2ft deep in places, out of the gate and down the road towards the estuary.

Sunday 10th June - the clean up starts
We finally got onto site properly on Sunday and started the cleanup. Very luckily the water levels had stopped just below desk height, and just below the height of the main broadcasting truck, leaving most things a bit damp, but still useable.

Flood height

Our web servers' cabin weighing over 4 tonnes, was shifted by the sheer force of the water and would have floated off, had it not been tethered to the trucks by its cables.

So with a lot of re-cabling, testing, cleaning, heavy lifting and Glastonbury-scale mud, we managed to get our first nest cam live on the web by 5pm.

Meanwhile we were kindly offered a temporary production office by a local Carillion construction site, working on improvements to the main road to Aberystwyth.

The first nestcam was back in action at around 5pm and everyone was delighted to see the 4 barn owl chicks alive and well. Barns are clearly a good place to be in a storm.

And by today (Monday) we've now managed to get almost all our cameras back live on the web, despite the wild weather. And thanks to the team working round the clock and all the help we've had from the local community. Springwatch is back tonight to tell the story of how the wildlife coped with such extreme weather.

Can you tell what they are and what's the link?

Object A

Object B

Object C

Well done to everyone who got it right. They are all instruments which mimic bird calls.

A. Starling
B. House sparrow
C. Audubon (cal be used to make several different bird calls)

Organisations like Froglife are surveying public areas, but some of the key habitats for these little guys is actually in your back garden. Garden ponds are important for many amphibian species.

Click for large version

The idea behind the count is to find out more about the type of different habitats that newts use. So you'll need to record details such as the location of your pond, how much vegetation is in it and any other wildlife that use it.

You can download a recording form and report your findings on the FrogLife website.

Please note - you do need a license to survey in ponds that are known to have great crested newts, but it's fine to look in and around other ponds. If you find great crested newts in your garden pond, you will need a licence to do further surveying or if disturbing the animals. You should not attempt to capture them. The best way to find great crested newts is to simply look for them in the pond just around sunset using a torch. You can also find newts in your garden hidden under slabs of concrete or piles of bricks. Please get in touch with Froglife , if you need any more information on licensing and the legal issues around newts.

Other links:
If you're keen to attract more wildlife to your garden, we've made this guide.

So here's a quick guide to distinguishing a vole, a shrew and a mouse as it races past.

Voles, mice and shrews - a quick guide

Now that you can spot these three, you can get onto identifying the species within each group.

The Mammal Society () gives you the essential facts of various mammal species, including their ecology, biology, and conservation.

North Pennines AONB have produced this useful guide to identifying small mammal species is this the pennine area.

Here's some of the his incredible creations, spotted earlier around the Ynys-hir reserve.

Redstart

Blue tit

Pied flycatcher

Robin

Great spotted woodpecker

Magpie

Puffin

What's more intriguing, is that genetic tests strongly suggest *(99.9% probability) that the mating pair are not just closely related - they are in fact mother and son. This son took charge after the disappearance of his father back in 2008, helping his Mum raise that year's chicks and since then they have mated each year. Is this normal behaviour? Is it viable? And is it a one-off or are there other cases of this in the avian world?

It's usually assumed that inbreeding increases the likelihood of recessive, deleterious genes being expressed. But can it ever have desirable effects?

Peregrine falcons have suffered a number of population crashes, for example as caused by use of DDT in the 1960s. These dramatically reduced the variety within the peregrine gene pool, making some inbreeding inevitable.

A study in 1999 on peregrine falcons in the midwestern United States investigated several cases of close inbreeding. They identified 4% of the population in which the adults were closely related (half siblings, full siblings or mother and son). The researchers also observed a very similar family situation as we're seeing in Bath. Interestingly, they did not record any indication of genetic problems in the offspring. All offspring were normal and breeding success seemed unaffected.

So is something happening here that doesn't result in the usual negative effects of inbreeding, not at least at the same rates as we see in other complex animals?

So returning to the juvenile helping his parents on St John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Bath, perhaps the reason that he hasn't left the parental nest is due to the lack of suitable nesting sites in the city - has the population recovered so much that it is hard for territorial peregrines to battle over prime property?

Moreover, could it actually be beneficial for our juvenile to invest his time in these 'half-siblings' as they actually share 75% of his genes. If he were to risk leaving this home-nest and starting a life on his, his offspring would only share 50% of his genes. Maybe he's worked out what is best for him!

All theories, particularly from geneticists, are welcomed!

Four members of the Springwatch team were hand-picked to travel to the island; by coincidence these four people probably averaged 5ft 4in meaning that the tiny plane, which flies from mainland Shetland to Fair Isle itself, was able to accommodate the hobbit-sized humans as well as heavy camera kit!

Robin Cox filming seabird colonies at Sumburgh Head, Shetland.

On a grey and rainy Sunday we headed to Bristol Airport. Our first flight took us to Inverness, where we were welcomed with glorious sunshine and a scenic landing, descending parallel to the waters of Beauly Firth. We left the British mainland the following morning, on a significantly smaller plane, and arrived at Sumburgh airport on Shetland where four became five as we were joined by our presenter, renowned ornithologist Roy Dennis.

With four hours until our flight to Fair Isle we headed to the RSPB's Sumburgh Head reserve and filmed puffins at very close proximity. Despite the odd great skua circling overhead, several confident puffins sat exposed on the grassy cliff-tops warming themselves in the sunshine.

After a couple of hours with the puffins, and a quick interview with a BBC Radio Shetland journalist who spontaneously appeared from the wilderness, we grabbed some lunch ready to drive north to Tingwall airport. I started setting up my sat nav, much to Roy's amusement - he kindly whispered that it wouldn't be necessary. Inevitably I quickly realised the road options were minimal and that good old common sense would get us to our third and final flight of the 48 hours.

The aeroplane that greeted us at Tingwall was compact to say the least, and will only fly when conditions are good. With seating for eight passengers (nine if the pilot doesn't mind a neighbour) and a very minimal luggage 'area', there was no way our mountain of equipment was going to fit in the standard hold. Four seats had to be removed for us to fit it all in, meaning that there was only space for the five of us and a pilot.

Fair Isle is only 3.5 miles long by 1.5 miles wide, and virtually halfway between Orkney and Mainland Shetland (and on clear days visible from both) so from Tingwall we were to fly south to reach the island. Luckily the weather was fine and our propellers roared to life bang on time. Inside the narrow cabin it was incredibly noisy, and I envied the pilot's headphones. However, as we rose into the sky and the North Sea appeared to both the east and west of Shetland, the scenery took all of my attention. Our sound recordist had spotted a basking shark and a sunfish on the flight to Shetland, so I was keeping my eyes peeled.

Roy Dennis sat next to the pilot at the very front of the plane and took this picture just as we were coming in to land on Fair Isle.

Arriving at Fair Isle

The flight to Fair Isle from Shetland took just 20 minutes, and at times we were as low as 400 metres above sea level. The basking sharks didn't show but as the land appeared beneath us I studied the small buildings and imagined such a remote life. Seventy or so islanders live on the south of the island (the north being more rugged moorland), where the crofts and houses are situated sparsely off the single road, winding from the harbour in the north down to the southern tip.

Immediately after landing safely on Fair Isle, Roy's long and genuine relationship with the island and its inhabitants became evident. There was a line of people stood behind the pickett fence separating the airstrip from the carpark (I use that word loosely - somewhere a car could be parked anyway) and once the plane doors opened they came forward smiling and waving at Roy, who greeted every person by name.

Roy worked as warden on the island for 7 years during the 60s and has maintained a close relationship with both the fauna and people of Fair Isle by returning frequently ever since. A sheep farming couple, who we had arranged to hire a car from, gave Roy a familiar embrace before handing over the keys.

During our few days on the island we came to accept that the hire car could only take us so far, partly because of the physical limitations of the one road on the island, and partly because our L-reg Volvo had evidently suffered from the constant battering of salt water.

Thankfully Roy not only knows the residents by heart but also the landscape. We spent day after day rambling across moorland and cliff edges (usually weighed down by a 10 stone tripod or a huge and mysterious black case, which when finally opened only contained one lonely lens) but our expeditions were never fruitless and Roy led us to spectacle after spectacle.

As well as the vast seabird colonies we had primarily come to investigate (over 250,000 seabirds of 18 different species nest on the island), we would also spot birds rare to most of the UK on a daily basis, and one afternoon we even watched a pod of pilot whales herding fish into a bay. As a backdrop for this wildlife, the weather was unpredictable and exciting; we experienced it all: sunshine, wind, rain, and on our final day, snow (when we were suddenly called to the airstrip with, "Now. Or you're not getting off the island today."). The soundscape was also incredible, the densely populated cliffs omitting thousands of voices at once, particularly fulmars chattering which would ring in my ears at the end of every day. Getting to Fair Isle was logistically difficult, but I can understand why people do go, and the impression it left on Roy when he first visited in his late teens.

The camera wasn't live on the web at the time, but the footage was recorded.

Mink crossing towards the nest

It climbed into the kingfisher burrow - we've enhanced this image so you can see it.

Mink climbing into kingfisher burrow

The mink came out of the hole and swam across the river, where it stashed the chick and returned towards the nest.

This time, dramatically, one of the kingfisher adults dive-bombed the mink several times.

The mink reached the hole and was seen leaving with a chick in its mouth. Again the parent kingfisher dive-bombed the mink.

We filmed it entering the nest four times and leaving with a chick on three occasions.

Later on, the mink was seen to be moving the previously stashed kingfisher chicks, possibly for its own young; it appears that it took six from the nest in total.

Mink moving its stash of kingfisher chicks

This morning, the kingfisher parents were seen bringing fish to the nest, only to emerge still holding the fish.

We'll have the video footage of this remarkable event on the show tonight.

The subject of cat predation is a highly emotive one. Research into the full effect of cat predation of our garden birds is not conclusive, but it's an issue which we feel deserves more investigation.

We'll have some of the footage from last night on the show tonight and Liz Bonnin on the show on Thursday to introduce a new piece of research being carried out by the University of Reading on the issue, which we hope, in time, will shed new light.

In last night's programme we ran a Jubilee-themed quiz where we asked you to identify three species that were partly distorted under a Union Jack flag. The theme was 'Red, White and Blue' and we had thought we'd picked a redstart, a white-tailed fish eagle, and a common blue damselfly.

The picture that we posted was actually an azure damselfly, not a common blue damselfly.

So we've put together a quick ID guide so that next time you're out damselfly spotting, you hopefully won't make the same mistake as us!

Common and azure damselfly ID guide

Picture credits:
Azure damselfly by Martin Webber

Common blue damselfly by snapp3r

Thanks again to those keen eyes out there who spotted this.

Thanks to everyone who sent their pictures in.

Blue Tit in Tank Barrel by Charlie-Wright

Blackbird nesting on a strimmer by WildlifeArtistRobertEFuller

Blackbird nesting on top of a strimmer by Robert Fuller

Railway nest by Gwheele3

Herring gull nest on railway line by Geoff Wheeler

Water pump by buzzrider150

Great tit nest in water pump by BuzzRider150