Episode 21: Ash Dieback And The Cost Of Carbon Offsetting

Matthew Gudgin:

Well, it's a dank grey January morning on High Ash Farm, but Chris Skinner no shortage of bird life.

Chris Skinner (00:30):

No, Matthew. It's a brilliant time of the year to watch some of our native birds and some of the ones that migrate here because the foliage is all off the deciduous trees and that gives us a real advantage. Many of the crops here, they’re overwinter wild bird seed mix, which is right beside us, has died down. And also that exposes lots of birds and what we're doing this morning, is a little bit of a treat. A couple of weeks ago we visited a woodland bird hide and sort of got acquainted with birds like nut hatchers and all the tit species. And this is a farmland bird hide right in the middle of a huge section of agricultural land and with a panoramic view over the farm and a lady just walking past with on one of the permissive walks.

(01:31)
 But we're now going to dart around the corner and hop in the hide and then we'll sit there quietly for a few minutes and fingers crossed, we'll get some treats, but you never know what you're going to see. So there we are, right, 

Matthew Gudgin:

Talking of treats, you've actually brought some bird, bird food here?

Chris Skinner:

Yes, I have. There's mixed peanuts and grains and seeds, some black sunflowers and half a bucket full. And that's the bait for the hide. And I can see some rooks flying right over where that hide is. It is carefully secreted beside a hedge, very close to a public walk here at the farm, and hopefully it's all camouflaged and invisible. And I'm just going to put a bit of extra food on. I can see some hungry looking rooks in the distance on the top of that oak tree, and they're watching us very carefully, but fortunately somebody just walked past and that kind of draws their attention away from two very suspicious characters, which is you and I.

(02:32)
 You're actually going to walk into the hide now. Now look at this. You wouldn't realise there's a hide here, isn't it? 

Matthew Gudgin:

The hide is hidden. 

Chris Skinner:

It's hidden. It's a hiding hide. Look in front of us. Oh my. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh, that's a deer. 

Chris Skinner:

Yeah. Wow. Only about 50 yards from the outline. They're clear. Yeah, Chinese water deer. That's their typical trick to stand stock still. And then you would not just walking away very slowly now not at all worried by us. That's a lovely start to our visit. So one mammal and a few birds already. Come on, let's get in this hide out of the drizzle.

Matthew Gudgin (03:12):

A good start to our latest countryside podcast at High Ash Farm.

Chris Skinner (03:20):

Just put some food on the feed table here. Open the door and in we go.

Matthew Gudgin (03:58):

Well, we've been sitting in the hide now for about 10 minutes or so. We've had a fine display of robins and blue tits and various other birds as well.

And you've just spotted a terrestrial creature.

Chris Skinner (04:07):

I have Matthew. Just on the fallow plot, right in front of the hide is a fox and he's just skulking across. They do move about in daylight at this time of the year. A lot of the young foxes have left their natal territory, the area where they were born, and they get pushed out by either mum vixen or dad, the dog fox, and they have to find their own territory because the vixen will be giving birth in a month or so, or most of the vixens. They're mated already. And I wondered why the birds in front of us were all the bit skittish. There's a lovely flock of linnets coming down and feeding on the ground. There's some teasels about 20 yards away, a lot of the seed that's been thrashed out by two storms that we've recently had in the previous week and the seeds on the ground. And so it's ideal and easy feeding for those linnets to stock up on some nutritious teasel seed. And in front of us is a large hesston bale. It's about eight feet long and four feet wide, and I've put some grains on that and we've just got a beautiful male reed bunting with a very distinctive white moustache and a black head. And eventually the little black area will extend down the back of the head and onto the breast as well.

Matthew Gudgin (05:40):

They're all too rare these days, aren't they?

Chris Skinner (05:41):

Yes.  All the bunting species and a little bit further down the hedge. There's a dozen or so yellow hammers. It's a little bit early in the season for us to see yellow hammers close up at the hide here right in front of the window because they don't really gather in numbers until mid-February, even later than that. And they stay here for about eight weeks before they all go off in pairs and set up their territories. But the birds I'd hoped to see haven't yet arrived. The rooks and the jackdaws, and they're already courtship feeding, so the males are feeding the females and there's lots of food here and it's a good time of year for rooks crows and jack doors because winters, they're plenty of food time if you like it. They're not affected in the same way by other birds. That period we call the hungry gap.

(06:39)
 This is a time of plenty for them because they can easy access to soil invertebrates, to worms, to all the creatures that live in or on the soil. And of course farmers grains because farmers are still planting their cereals at this time of the year. It does make me smile because there's lots of old farming adages, cursing rooks and crows and jackdaws, and one of them is the kind of farmer went to sew one for the rook, one for the crow one to die and want to grow. And crows have got mentioned in that although they don't really eat much grain, they will do occasionally. But rooks with that really long beak, about three and a half inches long, dagger sharp, they probe down where farmers have drilled their grain and they can actually sense where the seed is on the ground just covered up.

(07:35)

Matthew Gudgin:
 We've seen rooks, haven't we? But they've not come close. 

Chris Skinner:

No. Normally they'll come in on the hide. That's because we've come to the height a bit late on in the morning, but they're in breeding plumage now. And you can always tell the difference between a rook and a crow and jackdaws by far the smallest. It's got that grey cap on its neck and that little black patch right on the top of the head, and they're one of the smaller members of the three lowland crows. Then the next one up the scale is the rook. It's about 18 inches from tip of the beak to tip of tail and glossy plumage and baggy trousers. These feathers come down on the legs and they're really gregarious birds like the jackdaws. They love living together. And you get those wonderful rookery. And on the west side of High Ash Farm, there are two rookery there, one very traditional and one much newer.

(08:31)
 And there's about 50 nests in one and 150 nests in the other. And just on the west side of High Ash Farm right by the A140 at Dunston, there's a really large rookery there of three or 400 nests, and they just love being together. It's one of those birds that have declined hugely from the mid 1900s, 1950 up until the 1980s. They declined by about half really in numbers, particularly so in the southern half of the UK and the northern half of the UK, you get really large rookeries up to a thousand nests on one site. So they love being together. And the third one is the carrion crow. It's a little bit larger but only marginally. It doesn't have that white patch around the base of the beak, much shorter stouter beak. And the plumage is kind of duller as well. The rook is very glossy, particularly if you see it in sunlight and lovely, lovely birds though.

(09:34)
 And they're quite solitary. So the other old adage is one rook is a crow and lots of crows are rooks, but that doesn't really help much. But usually you can decipher them once you see them all regularly, you can easily tell them apart. But sitting here a year ago, I did have a shock because somebody walking on High Ash Farm and said, Chris, in amongst your rooks crows and jackdaws feeding on the over winter wild bird seed mix, there was a raven. And I thought, well, he's had one too many gin and tonics and he was very rude. 

Matthew Gudgin:

He was raven mad. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, and I was very dismissive. I thought, I've been there all these years and I've never seen a raven. I don't think I'm ever going to see a raven. 

Matthew Gudgin:

They're more at home in Scotland, aren't they in Wales? 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, they are.

(10:28)
 Yes, they're birds of desolate places. It's by far the largest member of the corvid family. And I had to eat my words and I had to say sorry because I was sitting in this very hide and I heard this strange croaking noise. I haven't heard anything even remotely like it before. And very slowly over the top of me being accompanied by two carrion crows and a jackdaw, a little flotilla around it, all four of them flying together was unmistakably a raven. And I bit my lip and I made sure I found the walk and apologised and he sort of smiled at me. And now they're, well, they're certainly not common, but they are getting more and more into lowland Britain than we'd seen before. They basically got shot out of almost extinction in southern half of the country. And it's a bird of wild, wild places, particularly up in Scotland,

(11:29)
 Coastal Wales, sometimes if you have a dolphin come up on the beach, a dead dolphin or even a whale in the northern part of the country, you'll have large numbers of them come and feast on the dead carcass. And of course, it's one of the few birds that's managed to get its own name into the dictionary that if you're very, very hungry, it's a bit like my tummy rumbling this morning. You're ravenous to eat like a raven and so love it. Yes. So look at that Matthew, beautiful male chaffinch right on the hedge beside the hide here in breeding plumage is thinking about coming in. The hide is very quiet on the feeding table. I think everybody's had breakfast and waiting for lunch now. So it's the afternoon feed, but cracking bird, very underated. It's one of our commoner birds suffering a lot with a fungus at the moment, particularly on the legs.

(12:26)
 It's got a long scientific name, but beautiful birds and some tits still coming in. And we're right on the edge of a newly planted area of woodland, which runs right behind the hide here. And I don't often admit to making big mistakes, but I love new woodland. It's about two hectares and the children of Notre Dame School, they have their own wood here at the farm called Notre Dame Wood, but 12 of them flew to China. They approached me, they go, I'm a sort of wildlife friendly farmer and said, we'd love to carbon offset our flight to China just for the 12 children, and we will supply and plant the trees beside your new area of woodland and make it about six acres instead of five. So they planted an acre extra up on good agricultural wheatland. And yeah, I was very pleased to do it at the time, but subsequently, I've had to think it was carbon offsetting for those 12 children only to fly to China and back.

(13:34)
 And they worked out they needed an acre. But the galling bit is, and I agreed to it to leave the woodland untouched for 105 years. And that just makes you think our modern way of living how much carbon we produce. There were 308 people on that flight, but we just carbon offset 12 children's flight there and back to China. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And that's an acre of woodland for a century. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, yes. To offset that. And our local airport is just starting out new routes all over Europe and new destinations because holidays and transport and leisure is a hugely important part of humans life. And I think it's something we have to look at. But I've learned the hard way. This was my own land and I've donated it for a century, but I love woodland, don't get me wrong. And that's the ability to sit in this hide. The woodland is just behind us and oh, look at that, it's, don't say lunch, Matthew a hen pheasants just arrived on the bird feeder in front of us. Matthew is four feet away from a hen pheasant.

Matthew Gudgin (14:51):

And she's oblivious our presence.

Chris Skinner (14:51):

Absolutely, yes. Almost looks like a different species to the male Matthew, because cock pheasants are very gordy. They sort of strut about the place with their flamboyant plumage. And of course the female pheasant has to incubate her eggs on the ground. So she's got to be as inconspicuous as is possible and that's exactly what she is. But she's sitting four feet from us. She's having sunflowers, wheat, barley and tricale for a late breakfast

Matthew Gudgin (15:47):

A thick carpet of leaves. It's a very damp morning. We're outside again now, Chris, into the fresh air. And we're in some of the woodland here with a bit of rain falling.

Chris Skinner (15:58):

Yes, yes. It's always welcome. At this time of the year, getting towards the end of January. Now February coming up, there's an old, another one of those farming adages. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh, here we go. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, I know I'm full of them. I, but it is quite true with the month that's now coming, February, one of the old farming sayings is February fill dyke black or white. And that means it's usually quite a wet month, whether it's rain or snow, which then melts. And the dyke is are ditches on farms that join into rivers, usually the drainage ditches. And just as we got out of the cars watching a couple of squirrels and they seemed to think these are grey squirrels, they seemed to think springs around the corner and they were chasing each other around the base of a tree over there at great speed.

Matthew Gudgin (16:45):

They should be asleep though, shouldn't they?

Chris Skinner (16:47):

Well, not really. They're pretty active. Red squirrels tend to be much quieter in the winter months, although they do stay active. And this is a brilliant area of woodland for seeing deer. We've just driven through part of it. There's four roe deer resident in this area of woodland and I was hoping was going to catch a glimpse of them, but because it's drizzly and they're really well camouflaged, we weren't lucky. But we've had a couple of storms, as I mentioned earlier on the farm in the week. And the second one, Jocelyn, named by the Irish meteorological service, has brought down some more trees and in front of us is an ash tree. I've already cut it up the tops way away, up there, all chopped up, ready to make a bug bank 

Matthew Gudgin:

Lots of sawdust. 

Chris Skinner:

And the tree is a hollow tree, but the ash tree was still completely alive. The base of it is hollow. The rest of it was sound. And I've suddenly noticed that several ash trees are just falling over when they shouldn't be. This area of woodland is full of ash. And of course ash is quite important to me as its High Ash Farm. And so I've got a long relationship and planted lots of them on the farm. 

Matthew Gudgin (18:06):

But in the last decade, we've all heard about the disease haven’t we?

Chris Skinner (18:09):

Yes, Ash dieback, chalara or chalara, it's got several pronunciations and it's devastating that the canopy of the ash trees, they grow up and then you can always tell the ash trees that are affected because they try and compensate for their growth tips being killed with a fungus. It's a fungal disease and they send out lots of shoots all the way up the trunk and up into the canopy. And I'm just looking around to see if we can see that one there. There's an ash just through there, so about 70 feet tall and that's affected. You can see all the way up the trunk. Little sticks are coming out the trunk, whereas they should be up in the canopy. So it's very uncharacteristic of them to do that. So this one's just come over by the roots and I think this is number five ash tree chopped up in recent weeks windblown.

(19:06)
 And I wondered why they kept coming over because ash dieback usually affects the living the part above the ground. The New Year's growth in particular seems very susceptible to the ash dieback. And I've started to look at the other end of the ash tree and here it is, Matthew. It was a perfectly live green ash tree and all the sap has stood up in the top of the tree. Sap started to rise and all the roots have completely rotted and the fungus has come down, not from just in the canopy, it's come right down into the root system and this is the roots look. And I can poke my finger down the root, it's just mush. Look at that. It's completely, totally gone, completely rotten. And so the tree has lost all its support with the root system and you can see if we can actually look underneath the whole stump. There's nothing living down there to support the tree. It's just died on its feet, so to speak.

Matthew Gudgin (20:11):

So the first decent strength of wind has taken it away.

Chris Skinner (20:16):

The characteristic sign of this, we know all what the lesions look like up in the canopy, but there's no root ball. Just the trunk has come over. And this was a pretty large ash tree. It was about what, 24-30 inch diameter I suppose. As I said, the trunk was all solid and we can go up to the top, this is about 50, 60 feet away from us and you can actually see the areas that are affected. And that's the most common sort of exhibition points if you like, of where you look for ash die back and we'll just go over here. And usually you'll see some of the growth near the top and it's discoloured. And so you get lots of dead twigs. Here we are, there's one here. It's just snapped off and I can do that and it's completely dead. So it's affected right at the canopy up in the tree.

(21:15)
 This one here is dead as well. You can actually see the different colour. It changes just there. And I can just do that and it snaps and no sap in it and that's characteristic of it. But to see what it's done down at the root end, the butt of the tree as we like to call it, it's quite astonishing. So that's new for me, not seeing that happen before. And because 10 years ago it was a new kid on the block, Ash dieback, I think first discovered almost in Norfolk, in Ashwellthorpe. And subsequently I planted a lot of ash trees in new woodland here at the farm only to lose nearly all the young ash saplings. So it was a really sad time.

Matthew Gudgin (22:00):

They're dying youngest first, aren’t they?

Chris Skinner (22:01):

 Yes, they do. Yes. Oh, so look down there. Matthew. Muntjac deer only like 60 yards from us. There we are talking. Can you see it?

Matthew Gudgin (22:12):

I've lost it.

Chris Skinner (22:13):

Where are you? You're lost.

Matthew Gudgin (22:15):

I'm lost. I'm man lost.

We saw Chinese water deer earlier.

Chris Skinner (22:20):

Yes, we did. There it goes. You can see what I mean.

Matthew Gudgin (22:23):

As soon as he moves,

Chris Skinner (22:24):

Yes, as soon as they move, they attract attention. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And that's not your roe deer

Chris Skinner (22:27):

No, that's what I was trying to say. We've only got two proper native species of deer in the United Kingdom. One's a red deer, which is the largest British land mammal, and the other one is the roe deer and Chinese water deer. And this one in front of us, a muntjac, both introduced species. So there we are, so beautiful deer, the roe deer, I love them to bits. And some people think fallow deer is a native species, but it was present before the last ice age then became extinct. And we think the Romans reintroduced fallow into Great Britain. They started in Ireland and then moved across into the UK here. So there we are. Nice little treat, right? We'll head back to the farm now and get you dry out of this persistent drizzle this morning. It's a real drizzly old day.

Matthew Gudgin (23:22):

Before I divest myself with the Wellington boots. I think we've got some emails.

Chris Skinner (23:27):

We have some emails and some questions. So let's hop in the truck here in the dry and see what's been sent.

Matthew Gudgin (23:41):

Yes, it is raining now. So we've made a good decision here coming into Chris’ farm truck. And Marian, hello to you. Thank you for your email. Marian Lindsay, I'm feeding the birds like there's no tomorrow at the moment she says. We give them various different things, but they love the peanuts the most and they've been getting through a feeder's worth of these every day. My question is, at what point in the year should we stop feeding the birds peanuts and when should you begin again?

Chris Skinner (24:11):

Alright, well, I don't actually stop feeding until I get well into the nest season. It is true that inexperienced adult, or sorry, inexperienced young birds could feed whole peanuts if times were hard in finding a sufficient food for the youngsters, the fledglings in their nest and they could choke on whole peanuts. I use peanut little kernels all chopped up usually at that time of the year. But generally birds are quite sensible. They're not bird brained as we sometimes call them. And they will feed the proper food to their youngsters, which is really caterpillars. So dry food is pretty much a problem for them because birds can't carry water in their beaks. So their fledglings are completely reliant on the right sort of food, which in that time of the year, April and early May will be caterpillars usually of the winter moth and other moth caterpillar species as well. So that's how they get round it. But generally there's enough natural food after the hungry gap has finished once you get into April and May. And that's why most birds time their nesting attempts at that time of the year when there's sufficient food for them.

Matthew Gudgin (25:28):

Hello to Nick Warner and to Ray Dumpleton who are both enjoying the podcast and it's good to know that you both are. And what have we got here? We've got, oh, John and Veronica, our Somerset correspondence. They've been keeping us up to date with the nest boxes that they've been putting up. And these are particularly for sparrows aren’t they?

Chris Skinner (25:50):

Yes. Yeah. Yes. I'll just open up the,

Matthew Gudgin (25:53):

Oh, there's a photograph with the

Chris Skinner (25:55):

Look at this. They've erected a real des res there

Matthew Gudgin (26:00):

That's like the Savoy Hotel of sparrow boxes

Chris Skinner (26:02):

 I've done a design for them and the measurements and posted it off and they've done a superior model with six nest holes in and they've already seeded the nest holes, which sounds really odd thing to do, but they've found some loose hay and they've hung it out of the nest. They might need to do it a couple more times if the nest material disappears into the hole. But sparrows are really messy nesters parts of the birds of the world, other birds, the weaver bird family, and they are all untidy nesters. So to have stuff coming out the nest holes there helps to kind attract birds into those nest holes. Well done. That's a brilliant des res.

Matthew Gudgin (26:49):

Hello. And greetings to Elizabeth. Elizabeth Peckett, who I'm reliably informed turned 90 recently, and they are avid listeners to the podcast, the family and Elizabeth especially. And we've had a note, Elizabeth from your granddaughter, Holly and daughters, Jane and Helen. They say that Elizabeth looks forward to the podcast so much and we wondered if you could say a happy birthday to her, please.

Chris Skinner (27:17):

Of course. Happy birthday. Happy birthday Elizabeth. 90 years young, what about that? Congratulations and warm regards from High Ash Farm

Matthew Gudgin (27:29):

Vaughen Roberts says, dear Chris, thank you for continuing to inspire us and all others to celebrate the wonderful countryside. And he goes on to say, I've got a query about sparrow boxes. Oh, we're back to that. Two years ago I made a swift box, which although not used by swifts, is now occupied by house sparrows. I'd like to provide more sparrow residences and was wondering if you could send me the design for your sparrow nest box. I could make another swift box, but I suspect that your design will be superior. I've not played any calls to attract the swifts as I do not want to pinch anybody else's swifts. And I've now had the tricky situation that I would not want the swifts to evict the sparrows. We hope to come over to High Ash soon, but please can you guarantee that we will hear the lesser spotted woodpeckers and Vaughn who lives in our neighbouring county in Lincolnshire.

Chris Skinner (28:18):

Wow, it's a bit of a tall order because we do hear them drumming here. Two species of woodpeckers are regular drumming birds. If you like the great spot woodpecker and the lesser spot, both of which are in this area of woodland we are sitting in this morning and all around are giant sweet chestnut trees with lots of holes in and many of those are made by the largest of the three species, a British and native woodpecker and that's the green woodpecker. But to hear lesser spot drumming, you have to kind of be a regular visitor to areas of woodland at the farm where there's permissive access through the area of woodland and they drum right up at the top of the trees, you might hear them and to see them, they're red list species. To see them is a red letter day because they're tiny. Not much bigger than a nuthatch in size. So there we are. So fingers crossed on your visit you can hear them. Good time is towards the end of February.

Matthew Gudgin (29:22):

Anna James lives in the middle of Suffolk, but she loves her visits to Norwich and used to live at ditching them, which is on the border and she enjoyed the recent episode recorded there, which wasn't long ago. And Anna says, I have visited the farm as well to walk with friends. I've now told all my friends and family about the podcast and what a delight it is. Please keep doing them, says Anna.

Chris Skinner (29:48):

Oh, thank you very much. Well, we'll do our very best to keep going. So there we are.

Matthew Gudgin (29:53):

And we've got Chris Murray who's wishing you a Happy New Year. Just thought Chris, I'd let you know what happened with regards to the bees that were in the dovecot and the nesting box. The buff tails didn't stay too long, but the honeybees stayed until it became too cold for them, having thought they were a nuisance in the beginning, they were a bit scary flying over my head. We became good friends and hopefully they may return. Do I need to clean the dovecot though? It will need dismantling.

Chris Skinner (30:22):

No, you can leave the dovecot as it was. The buff tails won't have actually left. All of them will have died apart from the mated queens and they will have flown off somewhere to hibernate over the winter months and then it would be very unlikely that they come back to the same spot where they were reared. And as for the other, the bees, the honeybees in there, they may still be there. Remember they become distinctly inactive during the winter months until things start to flower again. And so you don't need to actually clean the dovecot out in case honeybees are still there.

Matthew Gudgin (31:01):

And Chris goes on to say that there's a marvellous spot for mistletoe, which was a topic of a recent podcast near Waxham next to the seaside in Norfolk. I've noticed quite a lot on the way to Waxham and poplar trees. I think spherical mistletoe, they are a delight. And just before we sort of head off into the sunset, toad watch are very important groups all around the country, particularly where toads breed and they migrate. And I know this is a big thing for you as well, Chris, that toads need protecting and Toad watch. We need to say that what a good job they're doing. We because there are organised toad patrols to protect them when they cross roads.

Chris Skinner (31:45):

Yes, because they're so vulnerable and that's coming up to Toad patrol time, believe it or not. They come out of hibernation end of January, up around Valentine's Day. That's a good period to see them. They've come out the hibernation, they're very sort of sluggish to start with and they walk across roads rather than hop. And when you've got a large curb, the other side of the road road crosses their territory, they have a job to get back up. And so toads are really important to me. There was a lady here who's a livery here for many, many years, Daphne House, unfortunately Daphne's no longer with us. She lived at Trowse and every morning and the evening she walked up Whitehorse Lane with a bucket and would collect toads and she'd even lift drain covers up and hoik them out of the storm and move them across the road to the safety of the marshes there down at Trowse where the playing fields are. Sterling service for all those years.

(32:49)
 And when I see them crossing the road, I help them across as well and they are so vulnerable and I've done the same down at Dunwich as well, their natajack toads crossing the road there on the little road down to Dunwich where The Ship Pub is and help them there as well. Then it's so sad to see them all squashed on the road when people are travelling quickly to work, but it's such an easy and very pleasurable thing to do early evening when they come out of hibernation on warm damp evenings to actually help them. And it's toad watch.org is all one word there. So toad watch.org is the organisation that has the volunteers there we are. Thank you very much for that. And I am doing a special podcast at the moment. It's a children's podcast. I think it'll take a month or two to finish it and toads feature very much in that indeed. So stay tuned and we hope to have Skinner on Toad watch before too long.

Matthew Gudgin (33:53):

And if you'd like to email this podcast then the email address couldn't be simpler. It's chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk.

Chris Skinner (34:15):

Wow. A military jet has just flown over the top of me. I'm doing a little bit of fencing repair quite close to Caistor St. Edmund Parish Church and pasture each side of me, it's quite a large field, it's about 30 acres and all of a sudden the whole field hadn't noticed. The whole field exploded with what looked like song thrushes, perhaps 250, 300 of them. And they've all flown up into one of the pine copses here on this particular field. It's called Caistor Park and it's an amazing site. Some are coming back down onto the ground and it is just possible to imagine 'em all as song thrushes. But I know different at this time of the year, we're almost at the end of January, a buzzard just flown past and another one sitting in a huge clump of hawthorne in an old disused quarry.

(35:23)
 That one is the one that's born here. There's two of them, two buzzards, there's rabbits in that quarry. This one I know was born at the farm. It's almost pure white. And wow, the red wing, which is what they are, they look like song thrushes have just taken to the air and scooched off down to the bottom of the field, the whole area of woodland and the hawthornes wow. There's hundreds of them and they're now perched up many of them in the hawthorne scrub and just peeling down onto the grassland to look for soil invertebrates. The ground is not frozen, presumably where they come from. They've come across the North Sea more likely than not to spend our winter here as it's much milder because we're quite close to the coast here, generally Red Wing, it's one of the smaller members of the Thrush family arrive here about October time and you can sometimes see them or hear them coming in at nighttime early hours of the morning.

(36:32)
 They fly over high ahead and they've got this sort of contact call they make. They'll arrive in flocks dozen 50 at a time, perhaps particularly on the east coast. And what's happened is they've flown down the western European coast quite close to the sea until they kind of get to Netherlands and then they'll flight across the North Sea. It's only three hours flight time if the wind's in the right direction. And then they make landfall just after midnight and some actually make the long crossing from Scandinavia right across the North Sea and land on the east coast of Scotland. But this is typical of them at this time of the year here at the farm we've got lots of pasture and they have landed in October and then spread westwards across the other side of the Pennines over towards Wales where there's far more grass over there and it's actually a bit milder on the west side of the UK.

(37:34)
 You've got the Atlantic Ocean over there, more grassland, higher rainfall over there means it's easy for them to find food and particularly worms as a favourite food and of course berries as well. And then at this time of the year, they're getting ready for breeding again and they're going to move back eastwards come across to East Anglia, which is where we are sitting, and then they'll flip back across the North Sea and make the long journey back up Northern Europe, Scandinavia, even up to the Arctic Tundra where they make nests rather like song thrush and except instead of lining the nest cup with just a little layer of mud, which our local song thrushes do, they do use mud on the inside of the nest, but then they have a further lining of very fine grasses. Occasionally they'll nest in the UK, but not very often.

(38:31)
 I think the most southerly nest is recorded in as well, but it's quite scarce to see them beautiful little thrush like birds with that russet flank where just the wing meets the breast there, there's some sort of orangey red feathers, whereas when the song thrush flies over the top of you, it's very pale, beige feathers on the underside of the wings. So that's a real treat. But that buzzard is sitting on the far side and it kind of spooked them buzzards are about 200 yards from me. Oh, there's some just almost behind. Well wow, I hadn't noticed. There's a pine copse right next to me. There must be 50 within 20 yards of them. The whole ground is seething with them. It's just such a wonderful site and they're all hopping little hop jerks forwards and they're moving and then they've just all peeled back into the mixture of sweet chestnut trees and Scot's pine.

(39:35)
 And there's some people standing on the permissive walk, which comes up from Caistor church from the Roman town car park there and they've got their binoculars up and they're enjoying what I'm enjoying. That's lovely. They've all gone back up in the trees, so obviously it's sort of feeding time for them. On the far side. I can see rooks and jackdaws all sort of doing the same thing and looking for soil invertebrates at this time of year. It's easy feeding because the ground's not frozen. And so really lovely to see them. I think we've got about total of six species of thrush. One of the smaller ones is obviously the song thrush and these birds in front of you. Oh, they're coming back out the tree now and going right down onto the ground. Some quite close to that buzzard that's just sitting on the far side of the field.

(40:27)
 So we've got song thrush, red wing, and then the other migratory one is the fieldfare, fieldfare and Red Wing kind of coming together. Fieldfare are much larger, very handsome birds with a sort of greyish cap on the head and heavily speckled. I'm just leaning out to the passenger window. It's a kind of makeshift bird hide all of a sudden and they're just peeling down by the hundreds now I was wrong with my estimate. I reckon there's over 300 just in front of me and the other members of the Thrush family, of course of our mistle thrush, which are largest resident thrush, similar size to the fieldfare. And then you've got the ring ouzle, which sometimes we call the northern Blackbird, has a kind of crescent moon just under the chin. It's sort of pale feathers, creamy yellow sometimes. Sometimes almost pure white, particularly on the male.

(41:26)
 And then we've got our resident blackbird as well of course. And now they're going down on the ground. They're feeding for about a minute, a minute and a half. There's lots of horse droppings here and some of the birds are standing on top of the horse droppings and just pecking away. The whole thing is just alive. It's just an amazing sight now. And wow, goodness, they're just peeling off across in front of me and going up into the trees and then coming back down on the ground to feed and they're kind of feeding on mass and that's really typical. So they're putting on weight A to make that crossing back over the North Sea and B to get into good breathing condition, particularly for the females who they're quite early nesters, so they'll follow up right up to the Arctic, Siberia as well. They'll go further eastern Europe.

(42:21)
 And so they really do travel about quite a bit and it's really lovely to see them. But it is confusing when you see a field at this time of the year, if you've got pasture near where you live and it's covered in small thrush like birds almost certainly they're red wing anyway, I'd better get back to work or I'll get the sack from myself. So just astonishing to see that. Lovely. And I can see fish in the little compartment here. Pair of binoculars here. Should have been using those to start with. Let's just see that if we can see that buzzard, where is he? Yeah, there he is. He's facing me almost pure white hatched here at the farm. Really light coloured. I did get a video of it, which went on High Ash Farm Facebook. That was during late summer and then it is disappeared until now.

(43:14)
 It's the first time I've seen it again, but I know it's been seen regularly about seven, eight miles east of where I'm sitting. A little village called Rockland St. Mary. And it's been there and it's caused a bit of a stir, but it's come right back to where it hatched. And there was another one with it which flew off. Oh, it's just the other one's just come back up out of the  quarry and it's sitting almost beside it, so it looks as though they're going to pair up, which would be interesting to see if we have any offspring from them. One bird is almost completely dark and very, very dark brown and speckled. And this one I'm looking at is almost pure white with a few speckles on the breast. So I'm not quite sure what the offspring will look like. It's always interesting to see what happens out in nature. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed our little surprise visit from the red wing. The whole ground is covered in them. Absolutely wonderful. Off we go.

SOUNDYARD (44:55):

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