Episode 20: The Importance Of Chalk

Matthew Gudgin (00:32):

This is High Ash Farm. We're in the farm yard and we're here for another Sunday morning podcast. Chris Skinner's Countryside Podcast, and Chris's truck is here, the engine is running, but I can't see Chris, so let's go round here into his workshop. See, he's probably hard at work already. It's early in the morning and Oh, here's Chris. Hello, Chris. 

Chris Skinner (00:56):

Morning Matthew. Yeah, you're on time. Well done. It's freezing cold this morning and the noise that you can hear...

Matthew Gudgin (01:04):

 What's going on?

Chris Skinner (01:06):

 ...it's not the workshop grinder. There's a pair of rubber boots here and I'll put a workshop heater in each one of them so that you don't have cold feet. 

Matthew Gudgin (01:20):

Oh, well that's very considerate of you.

Chris Skinner (01:22):

Put your hand in there and it's just lovely and hot and warm.

Matthew Gudgin (01:26):

 All toasty. 

Chris Skinner (01:27):

Yeah. So there we are because...

Matthew Gudgin (01:29):

This is service with a smile, isn't it? Because it is a very cold morning.

Chris Skinner (01:32):

We are likely to go somewhere really cold and chilly. I'll just turn this off. Hang on. That's better. We can hear each other speak now. So anyway, you've got one very hot foot and one sort of medium hot foot now. So welcome to High Ash Farm, Matthew. It's about time we had some proper winter weather and it's just what the farm needs and will help the soil as well. It helps break down the soil and make it nice and fryable. We call it a frost mould. Gardeners will know all about it. You can dig your clay in and November and December, then you have a frost and the water in the clay freezes and expands and it breaks it up into a lovely tiny little fragments without doing all that hard work. So really interesting old way of farming. And today we do the same thing.
(02:25)
We enjoy this cold weather at this time of the year and it kills some of the bugs and diseases out on the crops as well. So it's always welcome to enjoy what each season brings. Anyway, you've got to put your boots on this morning, although it's frozen, that sounds like a strange thing to do, but we're going somewhere just on the edge of High Ash Farm that you've not been to before and it's a treat, so right. Get your old shoes off there and get your wellies on and then we'll be ready to go. 

Matthew Gudgin (02:59):

Well it was minus five down to minus six overnight. It's not quite that cold now, but the farm yard pond is still frozen over. The ducks and your farmyard geese are still doing their ice skating Torvill and Dean impersonations and the water trough just outside the workshop here, it's really frozen solid.

Chris Skinner (03:15):

It's two inches thick. Daniel, my son, has bought a selection of new ice breaking hammers this morning. If you just walk over here, they're just outside the workshop door over there. Three small sledgehammers for the ladies that own the liveries out on the farm there.

Matthew Gudgin (03:37):

For the feed and the trough?

Chris Skinner (03:38):

Their water troughs freeze over and the only way really is to use a hammer to break it. It is thick this morning, but trying to look after you and keep at least your feet warm.

Matthew Gudgin (03:50):

These Wellington boots are cooling down rapidly. So let's get on farm.

Chris Skinner (03:54):

Right, let's go.

Matthew Gudgin (04:02):

Well, we've just pulled up not very far away from Chris's farm actually, we're sort of halfway between the farm and Norwich and we're at the entrance to, well, a gravel pit here. 

Chris Skinner (04:13):

Yes, Matthew. Lots of times in the past when you've been to High Ash Farm, I've explained about the lime, the chalk underneath the farm and the fact that the farm's very hilly and all the hills where sort of glacial deposits, a mixture of clay sands, gravels, lots of stone as well, all mixed in. And that's formed the hills over the top. And on our left hand side is the river Tas. Were just going into the quarry in a moment. 

Matthew Gudgin (04:47):

Those fields were underwater a couple of weeks ago, weren't they? 

Chris Skinner (04:49):

Yes, they were. And the Tas is wonderful. I spent nearly all my childhood there and fishing in the river and along the bottom of the river it's pure white.
(05:03)
And being a young boy back then, I didn't really know what it was, but you can actually see the fish swimming really clearly. There was beautiful roach pike, some perch and occasionally a trout as well, particularly under the big old willow trees that lent right over the river. And so that chalk seam comes under this road, which is the Norwich to Stoke Holy Cross road. Cars are zipping past us this morning. Everybody's going off to work and I've been to the quarry here and asked permission if we can just go in and see what happens in a quarry.

Matthew Gudgin (05:43):

I'm assuming it's a big hole in the ground?

Chris Skinner (05:44):

 Well, you might be surprised at what goes on. Right, let's stop the car and just drive in and here we go. It's only a short drive and technically it's not public access, but because I'm a regular customer using the products from the quarry and you're a neighbour and a neighbour, so we're right on the northern boundary of High Ash Farm. If we hopped over the banks, which are all around us, then we'd actually be on High Ash. So here we are. We're just back into this little...

Matthew Gudgin (06:23):

Was this the farm originally here, do you think?

Chris Skinner (06:25):

It was. Yes, it was all part of the Caistor Hall Estate owned by the same lady, which was the vicars daughter of the parish. Her name was Edith Orkins and she sold the quarry a few years back and we're just go into parking bay here and it's a really interesting sort of geological feature. So we're nearly there. Get out of the way of all the lorries, big weigh bridges in front of us. And I think it's coffee break time. I can see the diggers all standing waiting because it's a freezing cold morning, right out we go. Let's just take this little bag with me.

Matthew Gudgin (07:22):

We've walked five minutes into the quarry through what I can only describe as a moonscape. I feel really dwarfed here. Chris, we're talking huge excavations, aren't we?

Chris Skinner (07:33):

Yes, Matthew. That's why I brought you here. And what we are looking at is the seam of chalk, which is absolutely amazing. It comes in just off the east coast where the Yorkshire wolds are and then goes out to sea a little bit and it's only 10 or 12 miles wide, the chalk belt. And then it comes in just on the north Norfolk coast, and that forms the Brecklands and it kind of snake stone comes under Norwich out High Ash Farm here. And so the farm's just over that side of the quarry. And then sort of snakes again down just past London, North Downs South Downs and Salisbury plain, of course it's got chalk underneath it, quite shallow down there, and then finishes with the white cliffs of Dover. So you get an idea of that sort of chalk line. And chalk is really kind of soft.
(08:38)
It's calcium carbonate, so don't confuse it with limestone out in the peak district, for instance, which is much, much harder, still calcium carbonate, but chalk is absolutely pristine, pure. It's so easy to forget the importance of chalk in our history as well. The Romans used it here at Caistor St Edmond to cement together the flints with mortar, which is a mixture of chalk or lime and sand, and that's left to ferment. And then later on we copied it right from the Middle Ages before we started using cement from Portland and we mixed together sand and lime as well to make the mortar. And that's what most of our old houses are constructed from. And there's a huge quarry just on the outskirts of Norwich at the top of King Street in Norwich, Matthew. And it's at the junction of Brackondale and it covers about four acres. And we think the chalk was dug out from that quite close to Norwich Cathedral. And that's what cements all the blocks of Norwich cathedral together. So you can see how important it is. And all over Norwich, there's tiny chalk quarries that still cause a problem from time to time when foundations just sink down into the underground workings. An amazing history.

Matthew Gudgin (10:07):

When danger of being snow blinded this morning with the sunshine and the blue sky. See these very odds, this sort of feeling here, isn't it? There's a huge shed behind us. I guess that's where they put the excavated stuff before sending it off.

Chris Skinner (10:20):

That's right, because years ago there was an old burner here, a diesel burner, and they used to dry the chalk to make it into lime, and then the lime was spread out on agricultural land all around us in this part of Norfolk. So lime would come out from here every day. Lorries would go out and the lime would be spread on the ground and particularly in the post-war years. And the government wanted to increase home food production Matthew, and to do that, they wanted the soil improved. And a lot of Norfolk soils, particularly up in Breckland area, is quite acidic. And so if you add chalk to it or lime after it's been through the treatment process, it neutralises the acidity and improves the fertility of the soil. Absolutely, hugely. The difference between acidic soil growing crops on and neutral or alkaline soils is colossal, particularly for cereals which remove a lot of calcium.
(11:21)
Obviously in the grain there's calcium as well. So very, very important. And the government decided to subsidise lime production. And so farmers instead of liming the field just one year to correct soil acidity, the subsidies were so generous, they had limed the fields two or three years running and then caused a huge problem because there are other tiny elements in the soil, things like magnesium and manganese. So there's an old saying in Norfolk with subsidies, they lined with these and buggered up the manganese. And so it then caused trace element deficiencies because the lime displaced a lot of the trace elements. And anyway, this huge aircraft hanger, that's what it is in front of us, is just there to dry the chalk that's been excavated. If we walk on a little bit further, you almost need a parachute on because if we go too far, we drop down into the quarry, which is a good hundred feet beneath us. 

Matthew Gudgin (12:28):

Oh yes, we're really high up here. This is a deep hole isn't it?

Chris Skinner (12:31):

Absolutely colossal. And it's been dug over well, getting on for a hundred odd years now. When the quarry was first opened, my father who was born just on the other side of the river Tas, where we just started our look at this quarry, it was just big enough to turn a horse and cart round in and all the lime was loaded by hand. And now the quarry is as big as you can see, but you can see the chalk layer on the other side of this huge chasm in front of us. It looks like the Grand Canyon. It's amazing structure. And you can see the horizontal layers of flint. And flint is a kind of impure form of quartz. So although quartz is very white and crystalline, well flint's a different product of it. And you have these horizontal line of flints all the way around the edge of the quarry, all the way round, dead level.
(13:30)
And what is surprising is chalk is almost pure calcium carbonate, as I mentioned, and it's formed in one of the prehistoric eras. The 65 million years ago, it stopped to about 135 million years ago it started. And so during that period, a lot of the limestone in the peak district was formed. And the chalk seems to have been really recent. It's very young product if you like, and it kind of got swept in this big arc across the British Isles in a very short time indeed. So whether there was a cataclysmic event or the geologists don't actually know because it happened very quickly. So there we are. 

Matthew Gudgin (14:20):

So quite a violent one and all the flint, there's some huge blocks of flint here, and it's the building material that many parts of Norfolk provide buildings.

Chris Skinner (14:27):

Yes, of course Flint is widely used. And when the quarry was really going, the flint was a kind of byproduct in the 1950s and sixties, and they had a mountain of flint, which was on the other side of the quarry here, many, many thousands of tonnes. They didn't know what to do with it because some of the flints are well as big as a horse's head. Incredible.

Matthew Gudgin (14:52):

We're going back to medieval times when it was a primary building stone.

Chris Skinner (14:55):

Yes, of course. And then it just fell out of fashion.

Matthew Gudgin (15:00):

I love napped buildings.

Chris Skinner (15:00):

Yes, I know. And so, so beautiful. Many of the churches in Norwich are made of flint and you're just trying to pick one off the ground and it's frozen solid. 

Matthew Gudgin (15:10):

Stuck. 

Chris Skinner (15:11):

It's stuck. If I give it a kick, it might. There we go.

Matthew Gudgin (15:14):

It's been shattered though. And it's black on the inside, isn't it?

Chris Skinner (15:17):

That's typical of Flint. It always is black and it's got this white coating on the outside of it, but it's very beautiful. It's almost translucent. Look, the early morning sun is shining on it and it's really beautiful.

Matthew Gudgin (15:32):

And to explain flint knapperss - to nap the flints, they will cut very skillfully, cut these into faceted flat sided building blocks, won't they?

Chris Skinner (15:43):

Yes. And beautifully made with hardly a mortar joint between them. Some of the really fancy churches. It is just amazing to see it.

Matthew Gudgin (15:52):

Norwich Guild Hall

Chris Skinner (15:52):

Of course. And right, that's a prime example. And of course then it was used in early weaponry, flintlock guns as well, where you actually struck the flint against a piece of steel and hopefully you got a spark that would ignite the gun powder and let the gun go. So it's had lots and lots of uses over the millennia. But that huge mountain of these massive flints...

Matthew Gudgin (16:19):

Oh there's some down here, look.

Chris Skinner (16:20):

Yes. The company didn't know quite what to do with them. And so they more or less gave them away when Norwich's southern bypass was built. And almost exactly at that time, they found a new use for it, which was partly ornamental and partly for flint knapped buildings - not with the old hitting it with a hammer, without your goggles on - but just on the other side of where we're standing, there's a flint napping machine and you put the flint in all done mechanically and a little sort of knife comes down a hydraulic knife and splits it, and you get an absolutely perfect working surface. So instead of being the byproduct, I love it. Look at the size of those. I mean if I gave you one, you just couldn't lift it. They're probably 200 kilos each.

Matthew Gudgin (17:10):

Well if you think a big beach ball, and a lot of those are bigger than that, aren't they? They're enormous. And they've been put in a pile just for that use

Chris Skinner (17:16):

Yes, for that use. And so it'll go to the other side, which is the gravel side of this quarry and be used for that. But it's got a lot of history and I'm always fascinated by, but what I want you to look at is just on the horizon on the other side of the quarry, that's High Ash Farm over there. And this chalk layer is what's under the farm. And it's hugely important because it's full of water, glacial water, some of it's been there since the last ice age and water from under us is being pumped out into Norwich. And if you turn your tap on and you notice the water's a little bit hard and your kettle gets furred up, then that's the reason it's filtered through this chalk bed. So absolutely amazing what nature did all those millennia ago, probably 65 to 135 million years ago. 

Matthew Gudgin (18:11):

Now we have to say, Chris, that flint, although it's very common here, isn't the only thing that you find amongst the chalk layer, is it?

Chris Skinner (18:18):

No, I've bought you a special treat. It's thanks to Peter's squirrel who helps to run the quarry here. And he knows I'm interested in geology, so he gave me something. He didn't sort of say anything, but he handed it over to me and I've got it in my little bag here. And I'm just going to hand that over to you. And I want you to be very careful with it because it is extremely heavy. 

Matthew Gudgin (18:43):

It's a block of stone, oh my word. It is heavy, gracious.

Chris Skinner (18:47):

And that's the top of it here you can see the chalk. And Peter was walking along one of the walls, the chalk walls, and he noticed all the way down the chalk wall was a brown line, and at the bottom of the line laying on the ground in front of him was that, and it's a meteorite.

Matthew Gudgin (19:08):

A meteorite. It's fallen from our of space at some time.

Chris Skinner (19:12):

Yes, exactly, and it is absolutely stunningly beautiful. It's got copper in it. Yeah, there's green there, yes. Lots and lots of different minerals. And you can see the line where it came through the atmosphere and semi-melted it. And this is one of the size that came through the atmosphere chunk has been taken off there to go to the university to be analysed, and it has been confirmed as a genuine meteorite. And that brown line down the chalk face is a hole that the meteor made. It went over a hundred feet through the earth's surface. So it was going at a fair rate of knots. 

Matthew Gudgin (19:48):

It feels like a block of iron, doesn't it? So it's so dense. 

Chris Skinner (19:50):

It actually fits in the palm of your hand. It is 2.3 kilogrammes. So you've got two and a half bags of sugar in your hand if you like. It's incredibly heavy. And the geologists think they've worked out how old it is, and they think that meteorite has done more miles than all the cars that have ever been and all the aeroplanes put together. And that doesn't even touch the size. And how many miles was on that meteorites clock. Absolutely amazing.

Matthew Gudgin (20:22):

And this fell somewhere near where we're standing?

Chris Skinner (20:25):

Yes, it's just very close to where we were. That brown line down the chalk was the hole that the meteor made, and then it filled in with organic material, which left this kind of lightning scar on the side of the chalk face. And that was laying at the bottom. Peter tried to pick it up, had to have two or three goes. It was so heavy in its original form. There you are not many days you get to handle that. And it's beautiful in this early morning sunshine. It's just iridescent and beauty. What about that? What a discovery. Oh yes. I think we better take it back very quickly. It's very kind. And thanks to Needham Chalks and Ersham gravels for permission to come here. And not only that, the quarries run with wildlife in mind. The old working has been filled in and new sand discardments has been put around the edge.
(21:20)
And I can see on the far side here that there's lots of holes for the sandmartins to come and take over on the quarry. They love it in here and they always fly over the top of the quarry and visit high ash farm looking for the insects on the pollen and nectar field, tiny little brownish birds with a white chest and a brown band across just beneath the beak. So they're working with wildlife here as well. And just outside the little office, there's an old broken post box, but there's a big note on it, do not disturb pied wagtail nesting. What about that?

Matthew Gudgin (22:09):

Oh, Chris what do you see?

Chris Skinner (22:10):

Oh, Matthew, just on the way back to the farm after our quarry visit and just going past one of the fields here at the farm, this one's called the Gunfield, and just out in the middle of the... there's one, lap wing Matthew. 

Matthew Gudgin (22:27):

Oh, is that the bird with the white shank? 

Chris Skinner (22:29):

Yes. Beautiful little waiting birds...

Matthew Gudgin (22:33):

Standing stock still amongst magpies and various other corvids. 

Chris Skinner (22:37):

Yes. I just pull forwards a little bit more taken off and no other bird other than the magpie you just mentioned looks remotely like that. So I would just drive a bit further. I think they are, they're landing again, there's a flock of them just on the other side. This is a giant field.
(22:58)
What's happened is we've heard this is a wax wing year and that's called an eruption. And the same thing can happen to our back wing. I could feel that northerly breeze cutting through your side of the castle. Shut the window, your side. 

Matthew Gudgin (23:16):

I wasn't going to say anything. 

Chris Skinner (23:17):

No, I could see your shoulders coming up around your ears. 

Matthew Gudgin (23:22):

We're high up here and there's nothing to stop the wind

Chris Skinner (23:26):

It's a lovely morning. So what we'll do, we'll just there they are. They're right out in the middle of the field. Might get the binoculars in a minute, but there's in amongst some crows you can see they're much smaller. They look black and white. And that's a complete illusion because in the sunshine, the black turns to greens and blues and even pinks and really distinctive birds. They love pastures like this. This is a pollen and nectar field.
(24:00)
And what they're after are soil invertebrates, Matthew, things like worms, anything that they can eat because they're really, really hungry over in central Europe where the big high pressure is that it's over us at the moment. It's really cold over there. You've not got the influence of the Atlantic ocean out there. So it's minus 10, 15, minus 20. So all their food reserves are kind of frozen out. And it's lovely. Yesterday the flock came in perhaps 250 lapwing and they're spread out all over the fields here at High Ash Farm just because of the high invertebrate population here. And it's really lovely. So I'm just going to open this off hatch here and just focus the binoculars for you. Let's have a look. Yes, because we're perfect.

Matthew Gudgin (24:53):

We're a good 50 odd yards more a hundred yards away. And then presumably they would take off if we got any nearer...

Chris Skinner (25:00):

I'm not sure, can you actually focus in on them? It's really worth that view. And then when you do see them... 

Matthew Gudgin (25:08):

Oh, I can see the crest. 

Chris Skinner (25:09):

Oh, brilliant. I was then going to say, if you're really lucky, you can see the crest on the top,

Matthew Gudgin (25:15):

Which, oh, I've got one in silhouette. The outline is unmistakable once you've seen them through the glasses

Chris Skinner (25:21):

Yes. And just delightful to have them. And of course I took you to what's now solar farm, right on the outskirts of Norwich at Trowse. And we visited that site about a few years back, probably seven or eight years ago. And they were lapwing nesting and they...
 
Matthew Gudgin (25:41):

Do you want to have a look?
 
Chris Skinner (25:42):

I'll have a look as well. And they absolutely intrigue me. If you go near the nest, the male lapwing will firstly dive bomb you making these sort of pewitt sounds, which is the Norfolk name for lap wing, Norfolk Plover. And they go and he'll dive down and almost part your hair in the middle. And then oh, more coming in. Matthew. Very distinct rounded wings flying in over the top and there they go. They're going down on the other side of the field.

Matthew Gudgin (26:17):

Do you think you'll have more lap wing here then? Because one of their traditional grounds is now just a giant solar farm?

Chris Skinner (26:23):

Yes. Yep. So they love this. The reason they're here is because it was pollen and it's just been moan and removed and they land organic matter. There they go flying up. Look at that. Suddenly the field is black and white. You are so small and they're flying towards us. Whoa, look, 20, 30 yards away. That is a lovely site. And why I love them so much is they've learn this trick, the male lap wing, if the female's incubating the eggs, which are round pointed and really well camouflaged, sort of beige with black spots on, the male pretends he's got a broken wing and he drags the wing along the ground and oh one swang right in front of the window. Absolutely beautiful. And they've come across the North sea, another one there. Look at that black and white. You are so spoiled. That's what happens in cold weather. You get these eruptions happening and it just makes the countryside more spectacular than it normally is. Particularly on a morning like this. It warms your heart, the pewitt, the lap winging, Norfolk Plover. It's got lots of names

Matthew Gudgin (27:39):

Now. We've got lots of correspondence this week to Chris Skinner's countryside podcast. In fact, that's nothing unusual. We always enjoy your emails. Tim, who lives in Surrey, Tim Buckley wants to say hello. I visited Norfolk for the first time in spring last year. Took a lovely walk around the farm, so could finally see the places I'd heard so much about. And I mean for people who don't know, you've got quite an extensive array of walks here, haven't you?

Chris Skinner (28:07):

Yes. There's about seven and a half, eight miles of walking that you can do. You could park at the Roman town carpark, that's free parking at the moment. And the walking on the farm is for free as well. There are lots of permissive access and public footpaths all joined together to make some hearty walking on a cold day like this.

Matthew Gudgin (28:27):

Kathleen. Hello Kathleen. Who wants to ask a question about the rather changeable and extreme weather that we've been having? And she is perplexed and puzzled about how farmers, livestock farmers, but particularly arable farmers can plan ahead when we never know what the next year's weather's going to bring.

Chris Skinner (28:48):

Yes, it's proving more and more of a challenge, particularly where we're sitting this morning, we're on top of a hill, which is unusual for Norfolk, and there's sand and gravel immediately beneath us, which is quite deep. And basically the cereal crops will die in really, really hot weather, particularly in early June. We get these droughts and the climate does seem to be changing, but farmers are incredibly resilient. We plan ahead a long, long way. It's rather like steering a ship and you're sitting at the back of the ship and the front of the ship isn't like three miles away. It's three years away and you have to go with your gut feeling. That's why tradition is really important part of farming. But farmers, as I said, they're resilient. They can tighten their belt if they need to, if times get really bad. And years ago we used to diversify, so we'd have milk, beef, sheep, poultry, and cereals and root crops as well.

Matthew Gudgin (29:53):

So you were hedging your bets.

Chris Skinner (29:54):

Exactly. So if milk was down, the cereals would probably be up. It's as simple as that. And now, because you need to farm on such a large scale, farmers can't do that in the same way. You have to produce commodities on scale is the best way to describe it. And there is a lovely old farming motto, which I still have in my head, and it's just the words are just springing out and it's live as though you're going to die tomorrow, but farm as though you're going to live forever.

Matthew Gudgin (30:29):

And email from Vermont in the USA Vermont, that's New England, I think, isn't it? It's Noel. Noel Bishop who says in America, sir is used as a show of respect and does not require a knighthood. I apologise if any offence was taken. So Noel was mentioned, wasn't he recently here? And I don't think you took any offence, did you?

Chris Skinner (30:51):

No, not at all.

Matthew Gudgin (30:52):

He reckons you should be knighted anyway if your profound knowledge of natural beauty.

Chris Skinner (30:57):

Oh, that's really kind.

Matthew Gudgin (30:58):

That's why you work with me.

Chris Skinner (30:59):

Obviously. I'll go and see the king shortly.

Matthew Gudgin (31:03):

And John Branston very much enjoy the podcast. I curate a small apple orchard as a hobby for many years have been barely had a nibble at the trees during each winter. I assume the culprits of the nibbling were rabbits. I always leave some sacrificial prunings around on the ground to give the bunnies an easy nibble. This year, after not being able to get to the orchard for about six weeks due to very wet weather, I arrived to find the sacrificial pruning stripped about 30 of the trees, attacked several of them completely girdled and now likely to be lost. All the measures I've taken to try to maintain wildlife habitat in the orchard sections of messy undergrowth and scrubby grass log piles seemed to have created a perfect space for rats. This got me into wondering whether you have to deal with rats on the farm and whether you enjoy their benevolence to the same extent as other wildlife. Well, you've got rats of course, but he's your dog.

Chris Skinner (31:59):

He's my terrier. Yes. Now quick answer to that is because it immediately says it's not rats that bark the trees. Rats don't like going right out in the open. So in an orchard situation, it's almost a hundred percent certain that it's rabbits and that's what they do at this time of the year. So if you've planted a new orchard, you really need to use the spiral tree guards certainly for the first 5, 6, 7 years of the apple tree's life. And once the sap starts to rise, remember before we've had this cold snap, we had some mild weather and the sap in the trees started to rise. If the grass isn't really palatable for the rabbits to eat, the sort of sap in the apple bark is ideal food for them. And I've seen this many times on the farm, they will strip the bark off branches that have fallen on the ground because the sap started to rise there and it's really nutritious and high in sugars and the rabbits know that. So I think you would be quite surprised if it was a rat. I would be surprised, should I say, and almost certainly rabbits. But the way to find out is to invest in one of those little trail cams and that will reveal the true culprits.

Matthew Gudgin (33:18):

Our final message today comes from Rose Shepherd who's emailed to say, dear Chris, I pass these sparrows every day on a dog walk. And here's a photograph. If you zoom in on the photo, you can see they've made a little circular bath in the mud, several of them under the hedge. It's so lovely to catch them chatting and having a lovely communal bath. I wondered if your sparrows have the same set up?

Chris Skinner (33:42):

Yes, they certainly do, but it is not bathing in the mud. Sparrows don't like that. They love dust bathing and they fluff all the dust up on dry days, even in the winter. And it's kind of like a dry shampoo and they get the dust, all in their feathers and fluff themselves up. And then when they shake to get all the dust out, it takes some of the feather mites out with it. So there's sort of method in their madness if you like. They'll lay on their side one side and then the other and the two bantam hens on the farm will do exactly the same thing. And it seems they're delight. You can actually see they're enjoying having a dust bath. So there we are. They will use the water bath as well in the summer months. So there we are.

Matthew Gudgin (34:26):

Thanks for the images sent through Rose and to everyone else who's contacted us. The email address is chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk. Chris has opened the windows in the truck here to make sure that I'm royally....

Chris Skinner (34:43):

I like you to be chilled when you come

Matthew Gudgin (34:45):

Yeah frozen, I like to be chilled. Cool, man.

Chris Skinner (34:48):

But look, Matthew, at your side on the far side of this hundred acre field that we're sitting in, can you see all those little black dots?

Matthew Gudgin (34:56):

I can? Yes. Over in the distance they...

Chris Skinner (35:00):

There's the binoculars. Once more...

Matthew Gudgin (35:01):

more pewitts?

Chris Skinner (35:02):

 If you want to see a couple of hundred lapwing in one go, then that's what you're looking at.

Matthew Gudgin (35:09):

I can see the white bibs. Yes. And the crests. They've moved over there.

Chris Skinner (35:14):

Yes, they've moved over there. And we now... I need to do some work and you need to go and warm up. So I'll probably put you in the freezer. I think it's warmer in there than it is out here.

Matthew Gudgin (35:25):

See you next week, Chris. 

Chris Skinner (35:26):

Bye.
(35:44)