For the final Autumnwatch programme, where Kate and Chris would be spending a few days in the Cairngorm Area, I was asked if there was anything I'd like to film to go along with the mountain theme. Perfect! As I'd been writing my article I was lamenting that it had been too long since I'd spent time filming hare and ptarmigan, so here was a great chance to catch up with them.

I thought I'd go one better than just trying to find them, I thought that I'd find out what it was really like to spend more than a few hours on the mountains. So I threw my tent into my rucksack and went off to spend the night on the top of the mountain with them.

I was hoping for a beautiful clear night, with an early morning frost... What we got was sleet, rain, high winds and constant mist. All I can say is that I haven't been so cold in a very long time. I was in Siberia last year in mid-winter and I didn't once get as cold as I got on top of Cairngorm.

There was no point in staying on top of the mountain - none whatsoever. Simply, my hands wouldn't work and my feet weren't far behind. We dropped below the clouds and quickly found some ptarmigan to film. I always love to get the creature I'm after, but I have to say that the highlight of the day was the bowl of soup, bacon roll, cappuccino and slice of cake we had when we got off the mountain all in one go. Ptarmigan thrive on the mountain, I froze.

Many thanks to our contributors who are all members of the Autumnwatch Flickr group. Their wonderful photography can be seen by clicking on the images below.

First 3 correct guessers in order were:
James Hume
Nicola Main
lalows

Well done everyone! We hope you enjoyed it!

(P.S : Are you on the right blog post? If you want to tell us about what you think of this year's Autumnwatch, please post your comments here. For your views on Unsprung please post here. If you have ideas for the Autumnwatch website, please post them here.)

Get posting below. We'd love to hear from you.

(PS Are you on the right blog post? If you want to tell us about what you think of this year's Autumnwatch, please post your comments here. For your views on Unsprung please post here. If you have thoughts and ideas about Springwatch 2010, please post them here.)

Tim Scoones is Executive Producer, Autumnwatch

Finally, Autumnwatch 2009 saw the advent of Unsprung on BBC TWO, not on Red Button, and running for a full 30 minutes. Was this a good move ?

So... what did you like? What did you dislike? What would you like to see more - or less - of? Please let us know by posting a comment below. After all, it's your show.

• If you want to comment about Autumnwatch (or have ideas for next year) please post a comment at the bottom of this page
• If you have specific thoughts or ideas about Unsprung, please click here
• If you have specific thoughts or ideas for Springwatch 2010, please click here
• .... and if you have specific thoughts ideas for our website, please click here

On behalf of the whole team, I want to thank you for joining us this autumn. We've really enjoyed making the series (though many of us could do with a little lie down for a while now ...!) We all hope you've enjoyed the journey with us through the whole season, from summery orchards in late September to wintery mountains in late November.

Don't forget that, although the webcams have finished and the messageboards shut down soon, the rest of the website will be staying live with migration news on the blog, ideas for stuff to do over the winter and of course your chance to upload your best nature videos. If you ever need to get a bit of wildlife into your winter and you are looking for inspiration, think of us and this website. And if you've seen something amazing, tell us on the blog. We love hearing from you, and the videos, photos and questions you've been sending in have been truly amazing. Thank you.

Keep an eye out in the TV schedules for our 90 minute Springwatch Christmas Special sometime in the festive season. And do please help look after our wonderful wildlife until we see you again for Springwatch.

Tim Scoones is Executive Producer, Autumnwatch

I put the feeders where I can see them when I'm washing up and what a joy: warm suds, a good honest scourer and constant stream of acrobatic, dazzling squabbling visitors whizzing about, and every now and then something really exciting, perhaps a great spotted woodpecker, a marsh tit, and... was that a nuthatch?

So bird feeders in the garden - a few general principles. What to feed them? Think energy and variety. In winter especially birds are living on a knife edge, some need to eat 40% or more of their body weight every day, that would be around 65lb of pizza pasta and pakoras for me.. imagine! So high energy food, fat, fatty nuts like peanuts are all good.

Variety - different species like different types of food so the more types of food on offer the greater variety of visitors your likely to attract. Some birds like the incredibly beautiful goldfinch are specialist seed eaters and will mainly go for tiny black niger seeds. Personally I've always put out niger seeds in the special niger seed feeder. The goldfinces always seem to find it and the sight of four or six goldfinches all feeding together is superb. I just can't understand people who say our birds are dull. A great spotted woodpecker, a goldfinch, a bullfinch... surely they rival any birds in the world?

Well, except for maybe a Cuban trogon, a flock of dazzling scarlet macaws, the rainbow lorikeet... er... well, you get the picture... and anyway we've got the kingfisher!

Back to feeders. Sacks of nuts and seeds can be expensive and the birds will also be happy with a bit of old cake, a half-rotten apple, some cheese and stale bread - soaked if you can, but in water NOT milk. Birds can't digest milk and it's now thought to be very bad for them... but hang on! How about the blue tits that used to peck the top off our milk bottles all those years ago? They didn't seem to have a problem with milk. Anyone know the answer to this conundrum?

So a good variety of energy rich foods is a perfect first step. Where to put the food? Positioning feeders is a bit of an art, one I think my mother may have slipped up on. Birds often like to have some good cover fairly nearby so they can escape if danger threatens. Also they can fly into the cover, fairly close to the feeder, and have a good look around to check the coast is clear before they jump on. Many tits and finches like to land in a nearby tree and work their way down the tree to the feeder. BUT don't put the feeder close to cover which could also hide a.. erm.. playful cat.

Put yourself inside the head of the blue tit - is it safe around here? Can I get away in an emergency? If you are feeding on or near the ground make sure the chances of an ambush are reduced to a minimum.

Be patient. Sometimes it takes the birds a while to find the feeders. If your garden, or the gardens around you, are used by cats you're going to have a problem. If all your birds disappear it's worth checking if a neighbour has got a new cat. Have a look at the Breathing Places website if you want to find out how to help cats to be wildlife-friendly.

Cats are one thing but I see some other predators in a very different light. If you have been really successful and your bird feeding is drawing in a host of lovely critters you may see this.... One moment a sweet chaffinch flitting toward the feeders, then bang! A puff of feathers and it's gone, you've been sparrowhawked! It's totally natural and surely the ultimate accolade for the really successful bird feeder. It's been shown that, over time, the sparrowhawk makes no actual impact on overall bird numbers so don't worry, you can just marvel at the flashing view of one of nature's most spectacular and beautifully designed predators at work.

For more information have a look at my previous blog on what to feed birds, or watch my guide on how to feed your garden birds.

Stocks of hedgerow berries were good this autumn, but many are now being demolished by flocks of immigrant blackbirds, fieldfares and redwings. Later in the year, as winter takes hold, many of these birds will move into gardens (particularly if we get a cold snap) and will look for ornamental trees and shrubs, such as Sorbus, Cotoneaster and Pyracantha. If you want to increase your chances of seeing these birds, why not plant some berry-producing shrubs of your own? A guide to what to plant can be found here.

One bird that is clearly less evident in gardens this year is the greenfinch, whose population has been hit by a disease that first appeared in the summer of 2005. The disease, known as trichomonosis, is caused by a single-celled parasite. Infected birds appear fluffed-up, lethargic and may show difficulty in swallowing food. Good hygiene measures at garden feeding stations are important to reduce the risk of transmission between visiting birds. Guidelines include cleaning your feeders, bird tables and bird baths on a weekly basis, and moving the feeding station around the garden to a fresh location every couple of weeks. More information on the disease is available from here.

Looking back over the autumn's marvellous migration stories it has been a particularly good season for firecrests, highlighted by Chris and Kate's encounter with one at Portland Bird Observatory in programme 2. Despite their close relative the goldcrest having a terrible time of things, the BirdTrack reporting rate for firecrest doubled compared to the first half of October 2008. One possible explanation for this is the firecrest's more southerly distribution; unlike its cousin, firecrests rarely breed in Scandinavia and only breed in small numbers in Britain, with most of the population spending the winter in France or further south. This may have saved continental birds from the worst of last winter's weather, so although the British breeding population appears to have suffered, there were still plenty of firecrests just across the Channel that reached us during the course of Autumnwatch.

Finally, looking forward to some treats that might be in store over the winter. Our most secretive breeding heron species, the bittern, enjoyed its best-ever breeding season in 2009 and at this time of year, continental birds will be joining our own burgeoning bittern population. Any very cold snaps provide the perfect opportunity to seek out this normally shy species, as birds are forced from the cover of dense reedbeds to hunt for eels and other fish in any remaining unfrozen water. There are lots of great places to look for bitterns in winer; Minsmere (Suffolk), Leighton Moss (Lancashire) and Blacktoft Sands (East Yorkshire) RSPB reserves come to mind but they are found in all sorts of suitable wetland habitats and there may well be a bittern lurking near you!

It was tremendous fun to make and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

But ultimately, it was your (the audience's) show. Each week we'd start on a Monday morning with a blank piece of paper and over the next five days we'd read through your all your insightful questions and comments, watch your videos and marvel at your stunning photos to select the very best for the show. So thank you very much for sending them all in because without your contributions we literally would not have had a programme.

Now we'd love to hear your opinions about your show. What did you think of Unsprung? Which bits did you like or dislike? What would you like to see in any future Unsprungs?

Over to you.

Tim Scoones is Executive Producer, Autumnwatch

What are they trying to keep a low profile against? The Highlands of Scotland are one of the best places in the UK to spot golden eagles. The Findhorn valley, near Inverness, is known locally as 'eagle alley'. It used to see their persecution but now can be a great site to watch juvenile birds (up to four years old) gliding in the wind and possibly hunting. With a 2m wingspan, these magnificent birds are a great spectacle for anyone. Twitcher, naturalist or someone with no interest in wildlife - you have to be impressed by these stunningly graceful birds.

All of these species are predominantly seen during ever decreasing daylight hours. But one distinctive Highland resident is a nocturnal specialist that comes out to feed at dusk. The pine marten is a mustalid (like the badger, stoat, weasel and polecat) whose appearance differs thanks to a yellowy bib.

They have semi-retractable claws (like cats) and are very much at home on the forest floor or running amongst the branches. They feed on a wide selection of foods - small mammals, birds, amphibians and berries. But in the Cairngorm area they are also partial to a bit of black pudding, jam, peanut butter and bread. Probably not to everybody's taste, but the Glenmore Café's resident pine marten couldn't get enough of it.

Tim Scoones is Executive Producer, Autumnwatch

And you can enjoy these any time you want by downloading these mps files (right click on the links and select 'save target as'):

1. Pheasants to roost
2. Birds arrive at roost
3. Roost starts to settle
4. Quiet roost

The rook and jackdaw roost Simon visited in Norfolk is by no means the only place you can witness this winter spectacle. From now until late February, when the birds' breeding season begins, possibly every rook and jackdaw in the land will be gathering at dusk and spending the night in an area of woodland, somewhere near you. It's a quintessential winter experience.

To find your local roost may require some patience, perseverance - and a bit of luck. As dusk draws near (from around 3pm onwards at this time of year) keep an eye out for rooks and jackdaws heading purposefully across the sky. Find a vantage point if you can, some high ground where you can observe the passage of a number of birds.

If possible, take a compass bearing, and then follow the birds towards their night-time roosting site. You may need to repeat this process a few times, from a number of different locations in your area. Be warned that rooks and jackdaws can travel up to 20 miles at speeds around 30 miles an hour to roosting sites, so your local roost may take some finding. But it does exist!

Though there may not be the numbers of birds that Simon saw, the aerobatic displays at both dawn and dusk are wonderful sights of the winter season, and well worth seeking out.

Our friends at the BTO have kindly given us this list of likely locations:

• Simon was at the largest roost in the UK at Buckenham Carrs in Norfolk. Possibly as many as 80,000 birds, although this is far from certain.
• Other large roosts can be found at Hatton Castle in Aberdeenshire, tens of thousands. Aberdeenshire as a whole is one of the best places in the UK for rook roosts with several being found around the county.
• Northward Hill, Kent, on the Hoo, is another large roost with 5-10,000 birds
• Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, has a roost of around 5,000 birds
• Beyond this, there are smaller roosts around the country that are still impressive to see. The roost of around 3,000 birds at Lakenheath Fen in Suffolk is a joy to see. There will be many more like this around the country.

And, of course, if you discover other good places please share them below.

So I chose covers which had distinctive artwork starting from the early punk days of '77 through to the early '90s. They were not necessarily my favourites, indeed some were not even mine (thanks to my sister, James and Mitch), as they needed to be bold and easy to see given that their use was necessarily subliminal.

Thus sadly the back catalogues of The Cure, The Cocteau Twins and the 'Mary Chain are much loved favourites but are not really distinct enough to be identifiable. Whereas things such as Heaven 17's Penthouse And Pavement (not my bag) and the Banshees (never a massive fan) worked well. And, besides, I wanted a spread of sound so more folks could 'play'. I had the sleeves copied, cut them up to the same size as the cue cards and shuffled four per show.

Here they are in order of appearance:

Programme 1:
The Clash: London Calling (the Punk Stones finest?)
The Beastie Boys: Licensed To Ill (still fighting for my right)
The Selecter: Too Much Pressure (from little sis)
The Clash: Give 'Em Enough Rope (the difficult second album defined)

Programme 2:
The Smiths: Hatful Of Hollow (so quintessentially English... perfect)
The Pixies: Doolittle (the monkey is still on its way to heaven)
Blondie: Parallel Lines (Debbie at 11.59, oh yes !)
The Cure: Boys Don't Cry (how many limits have I misjudged?)

Programme 3:
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Join Hands (umm, prefer The Scream)
The Jam - In The City (raw and sounding better with age)
Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (we adored them)
REM - Green (one of James')

Programme 4:
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - 101 Damnations (witty words)
Joe Jackson - Look Sharp! (How many times have we asked: Is she really going out with him?)
The Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicus (awesome!)
The Cure - Japanese Whispers (the prettiest pop songs of that age)

Programme 5:
X-Ray Spex - Germ Free Adolescents (Poly Styrene's hair was a bit like mine at times!)
Talk Talk - My Foolish Friend (Actually a single - which foxed people)
The Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk (one of my fave bands, ever)
New Order - Power, Corruption And Lies (was great driving music)

Programme 6:
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Architecture & Morality (does anyone know what the lyrics of Joan/Maid actually mean? Still love Sealand)
Tubeway Army - Replicas (not mine!)
The Jesus And Mary Chain - Psychocandy (the greatest debut of the '80s? The soundtrack of my life)
Adam & The Ants - Kings Of The Wild Frontier (very my sister's)

Programme 7:
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement (James')
Echo & The Bunnymen - Porcupine (back with some great songs)
The Jam - Sound Affects (umm, lost edge?)
Souixsie & The Banshees - A Kiss In The Dreamhouse (Mitch's)

I'll tweet and update this post with this week's four after the show on Friday, but they're pretty easy! If you spot them during the show, why not tell everyone what you think they are by posting a comment below.

Finally, I'd like to say a big thanks to Ellie Williams in the Autumnwatch office and David Knight in BBC Talent Rights for all their time and hard work in clearing the artwork so it could be used in a television broadcast.

Springwatch... might go literary... might go telepathy...

A quick quiz this week... Can you identify this mystery object? Chris brought it in. He thinks it's the bee's knees (not literally).

• Marine Conservation Zones
• Reforms to inshore fisheries management, including local bans
• A right of public access to the entire coastline

Read BBC News coverage of the Act's detail and views of supporters and opponents.

It will be months or years before some of the changes take effect. Campaigners for wildlife and clean seas are already working to conserve the coastal environment and there's plenty you can do to help. And if you do help, please tell us by posting a comment below.

Your seas, your voice
The Marine Conservation Society are asking people to vote for the specific areas they want to protect. Together with their recommended 75 sites, they will use your votes to "ensure that the important and special places along our coast are properly protected." Find out more and vote on their website.

Water quality, litter
Waste water from domestic sources seldom goes into rivers or seas untreated so don't worry about the type of detergents you use (in terms of them causing water pollution). But it is always sensible to check what's the best thing to do with any chemicals you're trying to dispose of.

Rainwater drains may well flow directly into water courses taking pollution and litter with them. Do your bit to keep plastics and other junk out of the sea, where it's not just a mess but a hazard to marine life.

There are some alarming statistics which show how much harm plastic does in our seas:

• There is six pounds of plastic for every pound of algae
• A recent study in the North Sea found that fulmars, a type of seabird, had an average of 30 pieces of plastic in their stomachs
• About 80% of the plastic in the oceans is blown or washed off the land, or intentionally dumped

To get more involved, you can keep an eye on our beaches and make sure they are kept clean. The MCS's Adopt-a-Beach and Beachwatch initiatives are brilliant for this.

You can either join as a Beachwatch organiser, adopt a beach and then organise a team of volunteers to clean and survey your beach from time to time, or just as a volunteer at a beach that's already been adopted.

You can find a list of all Beachwatch beaches and organisers and more about the initiatives on the Adopt-A-Beach website.

Train to rescue sea mammals
If you're keen to get even more involved then the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) are the people to talk to. They rescue seals and stranded cetaceans in the UK and will train people to become marine mammal medics.

They were the team that led the rescue operation of the famous northern bottle-nosed whale stranded in the Thames in 2006.

Tim Scoones is the Executive Producer of Autumnwatch

This Autumnwatch, one of Simon's goals was to link Britain to the places our birds migrate to and from. He began by heading up to the Arctic to find and film barnacle geese before they set off for our shores. Last week, he completed the other half of the migration story by heading south, following Scottish ospreys on their 3,000 mile migration to west Africa.

Whether in Scotland or Senegal, ospreys start the day by hunting for fish, and you've got to get up early to catch them at it... 4.30 am, to be precise. But the lack of sleep was more than compensated for by the spectacle of tens of mature ospreys expertly hunting against a moody African sky.

Here's a few photos from the trip...

Tim Scoones is Executive Producer of Autumnwatch