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A peaceful valley with a river covered by woods
hadn't changed for thousands of years.
But in an instant, it was swallowed up by a town.
And it keeps changing.
People built it here
as from a bygone age - they wish to fix the world in their own way.
Although nature too has a place in their adapted world.
But beware - it must be a nature well-behaved,
obedient and tamed.
People love animals.
Above all, those who don't take them by surprise.
Best of all those who don't move much.
And those who embellish.
For example, the oldest working clock in the world,
Prague's Astronomical Clock.
It enables them to seize the entire universe and even to harness time.
And that reassures them.
But other animals also live in Prague. And nobody invited them here.
People don't tend to notice these neighbours,
but they would also wish to call the city their home.
So they learn how to survive in a diverse urban environment.
Many a time cozy, but sometimes also dangerous.
What is Prague, actually?
Can the animals and plants survive here?
How does the city look through their eyes?
How do they see people?
THE HOME OF YOUR LIFE
Let's go and see together how they live in a place
that people proudly call the Mother of Cities.
WILD PRAGUE
Sixty years ago, people introduced mouflons to the outskirts of Prague.
They probably wanted to turn
Kunratice Forest into an area of wild nature
where they could visit and observe them.
But they kept taking dogs along and mouflons get startled by them.
Wouldn't it be more safe beyond the forest?
So being guided by an experienced female, they tried the other side of the fence.
But to add some nutrients, you have to keep looking for new sources.
Mouflon used to be a domesticated sheep.
Will his ancient past help him to survive in the vicinity of humans?
Winter is the time when Prague shows its amiable face.
The temperature is milder than in the surrounding countryside.
Food is more accessible.
And most importantly, thanks to the dams the river doesn't freeze anymore.
And that is what has attracted quite new inhabitants into the city.
Isn't it a waste of time to fly south for the winter to a warm climate?
And so the common moorhen tried living in the city.
Would it be worth it?
She has found a nice small pond with bulrush vegetation
and hid her nest over there.
Her young birds are safe here.
What a paradise.
But what kind of paradise would it be
if a snake didn't pop up?
Or at least a coypu.
Another new conqueror of the city.
The moorhen doesn't like them.
As if she sensed that they come to spoil her family's happiness.
Coypus originate from South America.
They are here purely because of people as they escaped the fur farms.
Although coypus are herbivores, they do find eggs tasty.
And, above all, they take what the moorhen needs most:
vegetation alongside the banks.
But what will the moorhen do now?
The courtship of the common blackbird starts early in the spring.
The blackbird couple is often connected for life.
All blackbirds were originally shy inhabitants of forests.
Then some of them decided for a life in towns.
We don't know what made them do it.
But we have been observing them here for almost two centuries.
But the city's environment changes much quicker than the forest.
In recent years magpies have also started to penetrate into Prague.
After many calm years, this is an unexpected danger to the blackbird.
And so the blackbirds keep changing their behaviour.
Now they carefully hide their nests.
For example, in a thick thorny bush.
Other blackbirds seek refuge in close proximity to humans.
They hope the magpie won't dare go there.
An island in the middle of the city's historical zone.
Half park and half forest.
That is the Petrin Hill in Prague.
Its most mysterious inhabitant is a shy edible dormouse.
Most people don't even know about their presence.
And the dormouse doesn't pay attention to them either.
Although at times they use some human amenities.
The female has awaken from a long winter sleep.
She crawls through tree tops as if she was diligently inspecting them.
If there'll be an abundance of beechnuts she can allow herself to produce young.
But if there is a shortage of beechnuts dormouse will prefer not to mate.
And she must decide right now in the spring.
But on what basis?
Yeah...
She probably sees into the future.
It seems that the beechnut yield will be good this year
because just now the dormouse is choosing a safe birth centre.
That's it. An empty birdhouse.
It could be a good year.
One of the biggest colonies grey herons have established
is within the capital city's boundaries.
Why here?
There are about 80 nests here.
And gradually the young hatch.
The entire colony daily needs two hundreds of kilograms of fish to feed them.
But where to find them?
To feed pelicans in the city?
That is clearly a human's idea.
The herons don't seem to mind.
Unlike people they've no idea that stealing is a crime.
It's probably no coincidence
that grey herons have built their nests here,
in the ZOO.
A park was created in the city by people.
And gradually they are adapting so, above all, it pleases them.
And their dogs.
If the moorhen was consulted on plans for modifications of the city greenery
there'd be more vegetation on banks and, to the contrary, fewer annoying dogs.
And coypus.
But people don't take into account the moorhen's needs when adapting parks.
Spring has come.
The moorhen has to nest.
But where?
This is an unexpected decision.
If she doesn't find safety low down she looks for it up above.
But nature didn't fit her out for such activities.
Amongst the tangled water plants her long claws come in handy.
But in the branches of a tree they are more of a hindrance.
But eventually it works. Eventually she manages it.
What happens when the young hatch?
There are not only houses and parks in the city.
There are many spaces that people didn't even name.
Bank martins dig their burrows for their nests in vertical walls.
They used to nest in steep river banks.
But try to find a natural river bank today.
It's mostly concrete.
They will more like find a pile of rubble.
Bank martins do not care.
They have found what they needed.
And unlike the moorhen, they haven't had to change their habits.
They see the world in their own way.
And the city as well.
Let's hope the excavator won't be back
before the bank martins take their young out of the nests.
About ten million people live in our country.
But also ten million blackbirds.
Everybody knows blackbirds. But not all are the same.
What about this one?
Here we see a little genetic aberration.
With blackbirds it sometimes happens that part of the body ends up white.
This striking bird would have no chance of survival in a forest.
Most likely it would be hunted down quickly by a predator.
But this blackbird has lived in the city for at least four years.
Fewer predators here by far, which improve its chances.
In its long life it has gained sufficient experience.
For its nest it has chosen a perfect hideaway which magpies won't disturb.
Thanks to city advantages, the mottled blackbird can keep hiding.
Uniquely in the world, the Astronomical Clock
shows the ancient Babylonian time.
According to it, when the sun is above the horizon only lasts a day
and this time changes during the year.
People in the city do not care much.
But plants and animals still navigate mostly by the sun.
Today is the summer solstice,
the shortest night of the year.
So whoever comes alive only after the sun sets
will have to get a move on.
A human lives through some 30,000 days.
But a grown stag beetle only has only dozens of nights at his disposal.
The biggest European beetle isn't exactly a top-class flier,
and also it gets confused by lantern lights.
Meanwhile, females wait quietly on trees.
They are full of eggs
so they find flying even more difficult than the males.
They usually manage to take off only once in their lives.
And even then don't get far.
This female went in search of the light. She ended up in the garden restaurant.
There's no other option but to wait and see whether a male will seek her out.
Darkness falls and by the river as well as here insects gather round the lights.
By the water tens of thousands of night spiders crawl from their hideaways,
bridge spiders.
They are exceptional eaters
and so they must create webs double-quick
so they can make full use of the short night.
For millions of years bridge spiders have avoided light
so they could shelter from their enemies.
Then people invented artificial lighting,
not only for themselves but for bridge spiders too.
Because they soon found out that this light attracts their prey.
So they make webs in a city as close to street lamps as possible.
The webs are finished
and the bridge spiders wait for their first catch.
In the meantime, male stag beetles on Petrin hill have settled down
and with the use of antennae try to pick up a female's scent.
At last!
Such an opportunity might not come up again.
The male sets off immediately in search of his good fortune.
But he's not alone.
And the other one is capable of doing anything for his victory.
Make your bets,
bout is about to begin.
Pity that their strip is so similar.
Either way, there are one too many here.
Petrin belongs to lovers.
The North Pole is beginning to deviate from the sun.
From this moment, days will be shorter and winter will come ever nearer.
A million people are asleep.
Whereas five million sewer rats are waking up.
At last they've peace for their work.
Like the dustmen have to clear away the remains of the day gone by.
In a city it's never completely dark.
That confuses all animals,
even birds who otherwise go by the sun.
Blackbirds in a city start singing long before it gets light.
The spiders' hunt was successful and before they hide
the gobble up the most valuable bits of their torn webs.
Amino acids from the sticky fibres will serve them again the following evening.
The day arrives.
New stories begin.
Swallows entangled their lives with humans.
They wait for the first Metro train.
The longest day of the year is about to begin.
Just because of such days the swallows weighed up their trek from the Equator.
There length of a day is the same all year round.
But in Prague they can hunt for food for their young for the entire 16 hours.
Magpie feels right at home in the city. We know it,
there is nothing it misses, notices everything at once
and wonders how it could prosper from it.
Magpie has rifled through the waste bins but keeps looking for a bite to eat.
What an idea!
In their fur mouflons could after all have some titbits.
Let's have a look.
See, a tick!
Yummy! Mouflon's tick tastes super.
Although other magpies have learnt it from it
the patent is clearly held by the bird you are looking at.
Such rarities are to be seen only in the city.
Within a few days it seems that here in Prague's Krc everyone is happy.
Apart from the mouflon's tick.
The dormouse gave birth to young ones in the birdhouse.
But how many?
Usually there are about six.
Another unique world occurrence perhaps?
No way!
Here arrives another dormouse.
It's her daughter from last year and this year shares the nest with her mother.
Mother and daughter can share the care needs of the offspring.
Dormouse grandmother's prophecy has been fulfilled.
Beechnuts are ripening.
These very fruits have the highest content of fats of all our plants.
Beechnuts are the main food source for the young
who gather them by leaving their birdhouse even in daylight.
They must hurry.
If they don't at least triple their weight by October
they've no chance of surviving winter.
Without beechnuts they won't manage it.
For the barely weaned young'uns a race against time has begun.
Don't you think the landscape outside of the city is dull?
Monotonous?
This is how most of our so-called nature looks like.
Isn't the city in the end the most interesting part of nature
with it's diversity, variety and unpredictability?
It keeps changing constantly.
Suddenly we have a different view of Prague.
Shouldn't we call it a National Park?
It's strange but true.
If you want to know about nature, you can start in the city.
Although we might have thought there was no real nature at all.
What is the real nature after all?
In a pile of rubble, bank martins see a wall suitable for nesting.
But what brought here the green toad male?
This is what they have been waiting for.
All year they made do without water, but now it's essential for them.
The rainfall is stronger in the city than elsewhere.
But the rainwater has no way of being retained.
In the landfill, there is a chance of pools forming.
The green toad must be on standby all the time
so it can make use of the rare opportunity.
A concert for the females can,
in the evening's quiet, be heard from afar.
They're coming!
The males settle on the females' backs.
Sometimes also on other males' backs.
In the chaos... they have very little time.
The toads' eggs are laid.
One string can be as long as five metres.
And each contains up to 10,000 eggs.
But the apparent wastage has a good reason.
It's the only possibility for how to pass on one's genes.
Folk don't have a clue of all the ways they influence nature in the city.
Railways linked up the entire world into a network
which is used even by those who otherwise don't walk or fly.
Plants love to travel by train.
At railway stations, some plants transfer and some decide to stay.
But it's not a place for everyone.
Station plants don't have a year measured only by alternating seasons,
but also by the alternation of poisonous sprays.
For a short time a barren land is created and everything starts from scratch.
But these conditions suit many.
The most varied types of plants are growing in Prague.
Many of them got here from the other side of the world.
Looks like an alien.
And it is an alien.
Octopus stinkhorn - fungi from faraway Tasmania.
It got to Europe a hundred years ago by boat.
But now it does not need people anymore.
The stinking fungus attracts flies
who spread their spores.
Traveling this way is slow but steady.
And so octopus stinkhorn has step-by-step
eventually reached Prague.
The shallow water warms up quickly
and so in only three days tadpoles hatch from the eggs.
Temporary puddles benefit from no fish or other predators living there.
But the tadpoles face another mortal danger here.
In hot days, puddles disappear before our eyes
and with it more and more tadpoles.
In the deeper hollows a little water has remained.
It's necessary to last for at least a couple of weeks.
Water, that's a rare commodity in the city.
The centre tends to be as parched as a rocky desert.
Even birds have every source perfectly mapped.
And even the smallest one is extremely valuable.
For some heat presents mortal danger, for others a blessing.
Hot summer holiday afternoon on a housing estate.
Warmed surfaces attract insects.
A perfect idyll.
But the truth is that a robbery is being planned,
a kidnapping and possibly a murder.
'Steppe' ants are busy working.
The real rulers of the anthill are down there, in the dark and warmth.
Rusty Amazonians.
This ant species has earned the name "slavers."
Warmth-loving Amazonians do well in the hot city.
Now they're resting.
Only occasionally they accept food from their slaves, 'steppe' ants.
Without them they'd starve.
These slavers are totally dependant.
They can't do anything.
Apart from one thing...
Just now two Amazonians are coming back.
They are scouts and bring exciting news.
The Amazonians come alive.
The army of slavers are ready to march.
Along the way they leave scent markings to find their way back.
The colony of the 'steppe' ants has no inkling
of the approaching calamity.
As always workers take care of the pupae.
This is an assault!
There below is hidden treasure for which the Amazonians have come for.
In the nest they disperse an agent which paralyses the 'steppe' ants for a while.
The ants under attack do not resist
and the slavers come to steal the pupae
out of which later more slaves will hatch.
The 'steppe' ants desperately defend the nest entrance and their pupae.
This one manages save one pupa.
Others join forces and keep one Amazonian in check.
But thousands of other Amazonians keep plundering.
They carry off more and more pupae.
This is the only thing they are good at.
And they can do it perfectly.
They go back with them to their nest.
A new generation of slaves will hatch soon.
They'll never know that their real home
is far, far away, beyond the car park.
All their lives they'll attentively care for their masters.
Amazonian ants.
Of the many thousands of eggs, tadpoles rarely finish their development.
These small frogs were lucky.
And now they set off towards an uncertain future.
Each year they will wait for the scent of rain and seek out new puddles.
The common moorhen has no idea which ancestor
decided to settle in the city.
She has learnt to nest in trees.
And she is trying it here by the Vltava river.
Its young are safe high up.
They must leave their nest soon but there is only one way out.
A decisive moment in their lives.
Parents are encouraging them from beneath.
This is no pond or a small lake in a park.
There is a strong current and the young must immediately fight for their lives.
One has managed to reach the embankment wall.
But another young'un is carried by the river
in the other direction, to a weir,
and it has hardly any strength left.
The mother is calling out desperately, but that's all she can do for it.
In the end, she must leave it to its destiny.
And tries at least to steer the remaining two young ones to safety.
It came off. But here out in the open, it's not safe either
and the little moorhens can't return to their nest.
The mother attempts to construct a temporary shelter for the young birds.
But there are no water plants here
and she has to make use of everything the river brings.
But who is this?
It's the third youngster!
It actually managed to overcome the current and reached the river bank.
A day full of mortal danger comes to a close.
This time the risky operation came off.
Tenacious moorhen doesn't give up.
This is also Prague.
Every evening since the end of summer hundred of thousands of birds fly here.
Reed beds by the banks of a reservoir basin
is a safe place to spend the night for starlings from all around Prague.
In a couple of weeks they will fly to warmer climes.
In the autumn male mouflons return to the herd
as for the next two months their interest in the females has grown again.
Rams who from the spring had lived
in a matey atmosphere of a gentleman's club
are now fighting for their favours.
Such blows can even cause concussion.
Fortunately, right now they don't make much use of the brain.
An eight-year-old ram, the strongest male in the herd, is the favourite.
He is trying to bring together as many females as he can
and create his own harem.
A little inattentiveness and one of the greenhorns tries to take advantage.
Usually his impudence ends up being punished.
The old ram picks females from his harem who are in a state of rut.
He walks around his herd and draws in the air.
The strongest and most experienced male
passes on his genes to many offspring.
Long ago, a calm green sea flowed through Prague's basin.
A forest.
Following a long evolution, it reached perfection.
Here, everyone had his place
and nothing ever changed.
A forest was similar to a museum.
But a city is a laboratory.
A stormy sea where many creatures look for islands of green patches.
In such a place one can easily spend one's entire life.
Even so someone now and then sails through a sea of houses
and tries to discover a new green island.
At the New Jewish Cemetery lives a male wood mouse.
Surroundings appeal to him, but lately it's been somewhat "overmiced."
Too many neighbours, too little food.
But the wood mouse senses that not far away
could be another perhaps bigger island.
And so at night he sets off on an adventurous journey.
His gamble pays off.
This island is much bigger.
Will he find here all he needs?
The young dormice in Petrin left their native birdhouse
and must take care of themselves.
Facing them now is their most difficult task in life.
Gain sufficient weight to survive their first winter.
Is there something to eat in the surrounding sea of houses?
Quite a lot of interesting things here
but unluckily for the dormouse all are hidden.
He will try his luck in the pantry.
Dormice do not dare to venture further than the neigbours' house.
The city poses to dormice insurmountable difficulties.
How did dormice get to Petrin hill?
Similarly to this inconspicuous
little beetle barely half-a-centimetre big.
He can't fly and so cannot move to new places like the dormouse.
Weevil only lives in thousands years old woods.
Together with the dormouse he provides proof
that at least part of Petrin hill has always been covered by a wood.
Ages before people built a town around it.
Olsany Cemeteries,
the home for two million deceased but also many still living.
Within a couple of days the wood mouse realised he made a sound choice.
Here many more tenants will make a living.
Particularly now, it's All Souls' Day.
At his former home only small stones lay on top of the gravestones.
But the Christian hospitality pleased the mouse no end.
He is glad he converted.
Young dormouse has prepared himself well for the winter.
He now weighs 150 times more than when he was born.
Just remains for him to find a safe place where he won't freeze.
But where has he found himself?
The dormouse knows what he wants.
A peaceful spot with a constant temperature where he could spend
the coming freezing months.
Which way now?
The dormouse managed his task.
In the tricky labyrinth he didn't lose his way and reached his goal.
Here is his time machine in which he'll travel into the spring.
The shortest days of the year are coming.
But even now in Prague it is warmer than in the open countryside.
And the river doesn't freeze up.
Every evening thousands of gulls fly in.
Here in the middle of the current they can fall asleep safe from enemies.
The temperature drops down to -20°C.
Such frost comes to Prague only once every few years
but then lives are at stake.
Worst off are the birds.
Every flight saps their strength which they then miss when fighting the cold.
At the last moment some of them are saved by people.
Today each morsel can be the difference between life and death.
In Stromovka park birds have been left with just one area of ice-free water.
The moorhen curses her ancestors
who once decided they wouldn't fly south.
She was born in Prague.
She has no idea that there is something on the outside.
She is a bit trapped in Prague.
Gulls aren't kept captive by Prague.
Today they'll fly out to a tip beyond the city.
Only yesterday some of them were in Vienna
and tomorrow they could be looking for food in Berlin.
City blackbirds will never again meet their relatives from the forests.
Each leads a different life
and they're becoming more and more distinct.
Blackbirds in their new habitat lost the instinct to migrate in the autumn.
Hormones which manage the onset of breeding
come to the fore some weeks earlier.
While their forest brethren are still somewhere in the Mediterranean
in Prague they are already feeding their young.
Their body changes too.
Wings become shorter, perhaps so they can manoeuvre better in the city's traffic.
And all these changes are hereditary.
Before our eyes one of the greatest of miracles occurs - evolution.
If the city blackbirds have enough time
perhaps one day they'll develop into a new bird species.
And who knows? Maybe they'll be pied.
Even in the unpredictable city environment a few certainties exist.
For example, that winter will come to an end.
Even though here the differences in seasonal cycles aren't so marked
spring will affect everyone.
Krc hospital's old ram watches with the serenity of an even-toed ungulate.
He has seen it happening.
The gentleman's club has renewed its activities.
Concussed brains have been cured,
old passions have dozed off for some months.
But at the maternity unit it's the peak season.
After five months of pregnancy one birth follows another.
Somewhere in the mouflon is still hidden a ten thousand year old sheep.
But in that sheep is still hidden the original undomesticated animal.
What exactly is the mouflon?
Well, what suits at a given moment.
Makes use of humans now and then, but also makes do quite well without him.
The city keeps surprising its inhabitants.
Sometimes unpleasantly.
Sometimes delightfully.
The city is an opportunity.
People would like to control not just their surroundings but the whole world,
but nature keeps doing its own thing.
And its effort, unlike the human one, never lets up.
All our endeavours, our cities, our struggle which we cannot win.
What if it all is just an episode of a much bigger and longer story?
Well, what will this year be like?