The trailer may have featured orcas and puffins, but viewers across the country got a thrill when they heard their counties name mentioned. Some of these special species and wild places are even closer than you might think!

The opening episode took us from flower-filled meadows to dynamic coastlines, but it also settled in the farmlands and woodlands of Gloucestershire.

Lying between the steep Cotswold escarpment and the mighty River Severn, this area is dominated by ancient woodland – particularly that of Lower Woods nature reserve, the largest nature reserve in our care. The term ancient is used to describe woodlands that have existed since 1600CE, but Lower Woods far predates that with evidence of a Roman villa behind the lodge and human occupation for millennia.

Here, adders bask in sunshine filled glades and the woodland floor is carpeted with bluebells and wild garlic in springtime. The Wild Isles team visited Lower Woods to film one plant in particular with a more ominous story – lords-and-ladies, Arum masculatum.

This shade-loving plant produces an upright stalk of toxic bright red berries in autumn, but unlike other flowers that tempt in pollinators with sweet, sugary smells, lords-and-ladies emit a pungent smell that draws in tiny flies. They expect to find something rotting down and easily accessible, but instead slide down the slippery edges into the base of the flower. Here they’re trapped overnight but are released the next day showered in pollen to move onto the next flower.

Keep an eye out for these distinctive flowers in April and May!

In the upcoming episode, this Sunday, the Wild Isles team heads north-east to Daneway Banks.

Nestled in the heart of the Golden Valley in The Cotswolds, lies a rare survivor - a limestone grassland untouched by modern farming methods. Daneway Banks is one of our most treasured and diverse limestone grassland sites, its bumpy anthill-marked surface plays host to a wealth of unusual wildflowers and insects – some of which were once extinct.

Large blue butterflies are one of the most enigmatic of the UK’s butterflies, with a life cycle that can be described as wonderfully intricate by some and utterly gruesome by others. Their complex and unusual life cycle relies on red ants, Myrmica sabuleti, and it is this connection that drew the Wild Isles team to film the insect.

The sequence will follow the caterpillars as they trick the ants into taking them into the nest all the way to them emerging as fully formed butterflies. Wild Isles will show the large blues life cycle like it’s never been seen before, reinforcing how important it is the protect and restore our natural world so relationships like this one, and other we may not even know about yet, can continue.

Daneway Banks was recorded as having the greatest numbers of large blues in the world in 2019, and the wildlife corridors Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust is creating with farmers and landowners in the Golden Valley has contributed to them flying in their greatest numbers and in more places since records began.

This conservation success story was made possible with our partnership with the Royal Entomological Society, who care for the site in partnership with the Wildlife Trust.

You can learn more about large blues and their extraordinary life cycle in our series of large blue blogs, short film, and in episode three of Wild Isles.

Discover more about the work of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.

New Wild Isles episodes air each Sunday at 7pm, with the finale on Sunday 9 April. Catch up on the BBC Wild Isles series on BBC iPlayer.