Episode 25: Chris Skinner Loves Yew

Matthew Gudgin (00:30):

Well, this must be one of the wettest winters on record. It really is quite something. Here we are coming towards the end of February and it's still pouring with rain. And we are back with Chris Skinner for the Countryside Podcast here on High Ash Farm in Norfolk. And Chris, you've just unveiled part of a tree with a bit of plastic you had covered over it. 

Chris Skinner (00:51):

Yes, Matthew. Good morning everybody, and a warm welcome Matthew to High Ash Farm. We're getting towards the last week of winter in the week ahead of us, we’ve got the first week of spring. But I thought before we leave winter behind us, last podcast, we were looking at some of the winter flowers and it's always quite surprising what's about, and some of them are not really very conspicuous unless you know where to look. So this morning there was rain forecast and we're standing beside one of our British native trees, one of my absolute favourites, and it's the yew and it comes into flower, believe it or not, at this time of the year. But yew is rather unusual because you have male trees and you have female trees. So it's a little bit difficult. Some of our other evergreen shrubs and plants, things like mistletoe, you'll have male and female mistletoe plants, and holly is the same. 

(02:00)
 You'll have a male holly tree that produces pollen and the female holly tree, which produces those lovely bright red berries. But the yew is quite amazing. It's one of our British natives, as I said, here since before the last ice age, really, and I'm just going to demonstrate something to show how it comes into flower. I’ve just got a branch here and I tap it. We can just see the pollen coming off and the whole branch branches are covered with white pollen and so are some of the leaves. It's a really venerable old tree. Probably some of our oldest trees in the United Kingdom are yew, and they're often associated with churchyards. But sometimes if you go back in history, the yew trees in the churchyards a thousand or more years old are older than the churches themselves. So we think yews were often worshipped by pre-Christian, the Druids, in other words. 

(03:01)
 And then because it became a religious site associated with the druids, often churches were built. And even today, although the trees are much younger than you see in churchyards today, you'll see many churchyards have yew in there because it's meant to soak up the evil from anybody in their graves. So it's a little bit of a sinister tree because when you look at them, they're really quite dark and forbidding really lots and lots of branches. This one we're standing in, it's about 20 feet high, and I planted that in 1973. So plant a tree in 73, and I did lots of that. But the little needles in between them, the male pollen bearing parts are absolutely laden with pollen. And on warm days, if you get to breeze coming through, even as right at the end of winter in early to mid-February, the pollen is shed and it goes off in any which direction. Matthew Gudgin (04:02):

Do these become arrals? 

Chris Skinner (04:04):

No. Right. Turn around Matthew. That is what you call a yew tree 

Matthew Gudgin (04:10):

Now. Oh, right, yes. That's a little bit more established that one. 

Chris Skinner (04:14):

It's 60 feet tall and it was planted at the same time. High Ash farmhouse, where I was born in, was built, so it's 1857, so it's over a hundred years old, that tree. And it can get to a thousand years. It depends on our climate that's gone rather tall. And we are having more and more sort of intense wind events. 

Matthew Gudgin (04:40):

And when I talk about arrals, those little red coloured things that appear later in the year, don't they

Chris Skinner (04:45):

 Yes. Right. 

Matthew Gudgin (04:46):

So they're not flowers. 

Chris Skinner (04:48):

No, absolutely not. That's the flowering part of the tree. And this yew tree is a female, and so this is the tree that bears the fruit that you're talking about. And the female parts are almost inconspicuous. Right? I can just reach up and get the first branch little jump. Now if we look carefully underneath, you'll see there they are, these tiny little greenish yellow buds on the underside of the leaves, protected. And they are accepting the pollen at the moment from that male tree so they get pollinated.  

Matthew Gudgin (05:32):

So that dust you were talking about..

Chris Skinner (05:32):

What you call dust is pollen. Yes. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Yes it’s dust-like.

Chris Skinner:

You remember last week we looked at the hazel, which produces its pollen before the hazel comes into leaf with these. And this is a conifer, remember even the early sort of botanist classified yew trees as a completely different species. But they've realised subsequently that the arrals that you talk about are actually hugely modified pine cones. And when you look at them in about July when these little fertilised female portions are developing, they look rather like an acorn and the little bit surrounding the acorn. In other words, the cup of what we would call the acorn gradually turns pink and then deep, deep red. And it's a huge favourite amongst birds. So during the winter months, during November, the early part of the winter, November and December, this tree is covered in redwing fieldfares, mistlethrush, song thrush and blackbirds. 

(06:40)
 They all absolutely love it. Now the other surprising thing about yew. Is not you personally…. 

Matthew Gudgin:

There's nothing surprising about me

Chris Skinner:

 …is that every part of the yew tree is poisonous. The roots are poisonous. They've all got a toxic chemical in them. The bark, the trunk itself, certainly the leaves, the twigs are all poisonous. And the chemical, it's called taxine. And it is really, really dangerous to livestock. So that is one of the reasons, and it's a smile on my face that during the enclosures act that a lot of vicarages planted yew trees in the church house to stop farmers grazing around the gravestones is quite clever because if you put your sheep in there or a horse, horses are particularly vulnerable to yew and it's fatal for them. So that's a good way without having to do the trouble of fencing in your church out of keeping farmers out. 

(07:39)
 So the farmers would do the fencing. So there we are in, it's getting pollinated at the moment. And if we came back in November, these bright red arrals, which surround the seed now the arrals, the only part of the yew tree that isn't poisonous, those juicy bright red surrounding and inside that's a seed. The birds eat the arrals and the seed in the middle of it. And it's a really hard seed. It goes through the alimentary canal of the bird and comes out as a dropping, but that's how yew kind of gets its self out and about in the countryside. So you drop on and it's a huge shade loving tree as well. But you can see underneath this tree, the ground's completely bare and nothing really grows under them because a shade is so intense. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And it's year round …

Chris Skinner:

and it's year round shade. 

(08:35)
 And there're some of the seeds that are on the ground because the birds pecked the berries off. And sometimes if the berries, the arrals dropped on the ground, they'd get eaten, but they left the seed behind. And if you came back here in a week or two, you would see thousands of baby yew trees. They're not really very good at establishing in the wild, but nevertheless they do. And I'm just looking down to see if I could see any, there's one. There you are. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh yes, a shoot coming up. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, two. And you can see the little leaves there only about an inch tall, 

Matthew Gudgin:

But they won't survive. 

Chris Skinner:

Probably not another one there look. But you could dig them out and put them into dense woodland and that's their favourite habitat. And I've got some beautiful avenues underneath the beach trees on the farm, on the other side of the farm, they kind of chalky soil as well with high lime content. 

(09:29)
 And it's one of the biggest embarrassments of my life because I was walking through the avenues of beech with my first girlfriend and we're coming up to the yew trees and I just looked up really very casually and I said, oh, I love yew. And she flung her arms around me and gave me the biggest hug that I've ever had. And I was totally amazed. And then she said, I never thought you'd say that. She said, and of course I meant, I love yew, not I love you. And as a result, she gave me a fridge magnet, never to let me forget. And it's made out yew wood. And on it it says, I love you spelled YEW. How embarrassing is that? 

Matthew Gudgin:

I've got to say. That does sound typically you. 

Chris Skinner:

That does. Oh, thank you. Come on. We've got some more woodland plants to look at that are in flower at this time of the year. 

Matthew Gudgin (10:36):

Chris, what have you seen?

Chris Skinner (10:36):

Matthew. I think through the trees, just looking if he's just walked this way a little bit, very quietly, laying in front of the shrub. We were just going to see is a roe deer. 

Matthew Skinner:

I can see him. 

Chris Skinner:

I've been wanting to show you High Ash’s roe deer for ages. He's looking straight at us in daylight for ages. And that is typical of them. It's laying down on the ground and it's frozen. I don't mean it's cold. I mean it's that staying still in a countryside is a really good form of defence. It's quite a large animal, 

Matthew Gudgin (11:18):

70 or 80 yards away with white tail and those ears are..

Chris Skinner (11:21):

And the tail, his on the tail are raised at the back and that's one of the alarm signals. So if there's other roae deer close to it, it can just give the alarm without actually giving a shout, giving a call. They do have an alarm call, which is a very loud like that, but if we walk into the wood a little bit more, if we're quite casual, it might actually stay there. They're certainly not tame, but it's watching us carefully and it's using the outline of the trees to kind of camouflage itself. And at this time of the year, the coat colour kind of matches the leaf litter as well. Oh, beautiful. Just coming out this side of a large tree, hopefully. There it is. Staring us in the face. Yes. Beautiful. Only 50 yards away. 

Matthew Gudgin (12:12):

I'm glad you were here, Chris, because I'd have never spotted him. Yeah. 

Chris Skinner (12:16):

Or her, I dunno. Which it is. If it goes off with a tremendous bellow and it's a roe buck. But from this distance, if I had my binoculars with me, we'd see if it got antlers or not, but beautiful, beautiful mammal. Wow. I've been wanting to show you roe deer. And the other bird on my list is gold crest, one of our joints, smallest birds, and it's sitting there very, so that's brilliant, brilliant camouflage. And it's a lesson for us. If you want to get close to wildlife, just you go into the woodland and then you sit stay still for a little while there. You'll never get a better view than that. Now. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Straight through the trees. 

Chris Skinner:

40 yards. Less than 40 yards.

Matthew Gudgin (13:01):

The roe deer is looking directly at us, completely aware of what's going on. 

Chris Skinner (13:05):

Absolutely. 

Matthew Gudgin (13:06):

But we are 40, 50 yards away. 

Chris Skinner (13:09):

And if you like to sprint and see if you can catch it. So they rely on speed and they know the woodland like the back of their hands, so to speak. So they know all the escape routes and they have the habits. That's why they're called woodland fairies a blink of an eye and they disappear. 

Matthew Gudgin (13:29):

Are you surprised to see solitary? 

Chris Skinner (13:31):

I think there's two three there at this time of the year. The roe buck and the doe separate themselves from last year's young. But looking at the size of that, it looks fully grown. It looks like it's been stuffed. It's not moved at all.

Matthew Gudgin (13:48):

It's not moved to muscle. 

Chris Skinner (13:50):

It's really lovely to see 

Matthew Gudgin (13:54):

Lovely. It fits in exactly with the colour, as you say, of these fallen leaves. 

Chris Skinner (13:58):

Yes, there's lots of sweet chestnut leaves on the woodland floor, oak leaves and that colour. And they become more reddish colour during the summer, so they'll change coat quite shortly and be giving birth in a couple of months time as well. So that's why they've sort of ousted this year's fawns, or sorry, last year's fawns 2023 spend up until the last week or two with mum, and now they've been sent out into the world by themselves, rather like I've done with my children. Works well!

Now you've got to start using your nose now, Matthew. And you should start to pick a perfume up because we're looking at woodland flowers as well as I'm watching that deer because oh, I can is your sense of smell up to scratch. 

Matthew Gudgin (14:54):

Suppose I better blow my nose first. I'm getting some sweet smell. 

Chris Skinner (15:00):

Yes, excellent, good. Right. All through the areas of woodland at High Ash Farm, apart from my lovely yew trees, it's another British native. And you'd think it'd been introduced from Mediterranean clients and it's box, buxus sempivirens, 

Matthew Gudgin (15:17):

Box hedge, people having their gardens. 

Chris Skinner (15:19):

Yes! Very formal and introduced into gardens. And then you can clip it and get it really what we call tight clipping. And you can make topiary from it. Now the surprising thing is rather like that yew we saw box comes into flower now, and so all these avenues that go right through the woodland were planted for game cover. And this was a game, a shooting estate way back and it's brilliant cover. You can see underneath it's very sheltered. And that's exactly what that deer was doing. And I think it's just slipped away and disappeared and that we didn't see it even move. 

Matthew Gudgin (16:00):

And Mary was gone

Chris Skinner (16:01):

Gone taking, oh no, 

Matthew Gudgin (16:02):

There we are..

Chris Skinner (16:03):

Oh wow. There. It's just come out, bright white bottom. And again it's standing there. Statue still 

Matthew Gudgin (16:12):

Size of a large alsation, but a bit more longer legs

Chris Skinner (16:16):

Longer legs and body, head and neck, all held up high and a bright white bottom. It's a heart shaped hairs on the posterior. And so that's the alarm signal. But it is only done two or three steps. It's ready to run off and oh, there it goes. We might get a belch or a bark. No, it must probably a roe. A roe doe. Oh wow. 

Matthew Gudgin (16:48):

A rodeo doe. 

Chris Skinner (16:50):

Rodeo Doe

Matthew Gudgin (16:50):

now disappeared off into the woods. Well, we're here at Fox's Grove. This is the location. Yes. And there's a run in your box there. I can just see. 

Chris Skinner (17:01):

Yeah, I can just see it skirting through in the pack there. 

Matthew Gudgin (17:03):

That's terrific cover at this time of year. It's fully leaved

Chris Skinner (17:06):

Yes it is. It's an evergreen. And you can see low down, some of the leaves have been nibbled by the said deer, either muntjac, roe deer will munch it, as well as the new growth on blackberry plants or brambles. So just let's have a close look at this bluebells coming up underneath already out of the ground. Lesser celandine as well, not in flower because it's just under the shade. And look at this, another tap and some pollen comes off little tiny leaves all about two centimetres long and very distinctive. There's a little notch in the end of each leaf, right at the tip. Tiny little notch as though somebody's just taken a tip out with a pair of scissors. There we are. And a really strong sort of pungent smell. Some people liken it to cats urine. 

Matthew Gudgin:

 I think it's a bit more acceptable than that. 

Chris Skinner:

(18:05)
 Yes. And the pollen now it's air, wind pollinated, but insects will come, midgies will come on here in the hours of darkness and pollinate it. And the rain's setting in now. And that's masked a bit of this really heady smell, but it's a plant which really likes chalk as well. So north downs. I'm thinking of Box Hill in Surrey on the edge of the downs there. And I visited that in 1998 after the hurricane that we had. And it was so sad. These venerable old box trees all sort of knocked over with big plates of soil underneath them and just showing the chalk underneath, which is their favourite habitat. So it is in flower. And of course we've got a village almost on the boundary of High Ash Farm, which is named after this shrub. And it's called Bixley, which literally means box wood. Bixley is box wood 

Matthew Gudgin:

…On the hill. 

(19:09)

Chris Skinner:
 Yes, yes, on the hill. It's just on the east side of High Ash Farm. Yes. So that's named after this shrub. And so lots and lots of places all over the southern part of the United Kingdom have got box in their name or Bix, BIX, the Saxons called it Bix. So that's where Bixley comes from, the Anglo-Saxons way back really. And the wood is very hard here. You can actually look, some of the stems get quite thick. They have been used for piano keys as well, believe it or not, as a cheaper form of ebony. And sometimes they'll grow to eight, nine inches diameter and then they're sort of coppiced and they will regrow again. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And these have been managed previously? 

Chris Skinner:

Previously, yes. So that's why there's lots of stems. It's a form of coppicing. And the firewood, it burns really, really, really well, but it's often overlooked. 

(20:09)
 But that smell and coming into flower now, all these tiny little flowers, and it'll produce sort of berries later on. The female parts near the tips here, you can just see that and they'll get self pollinated. But it's another one of these that's mainly wind pollinated. And the wind at this time of the year comes through. But it tolerates deep, deep shade underneath. Huge. That's an oak tree there. Sweet chestnut trees all around us. And Scott's pine. So it's a mixed woodland and it's doing really well. But these huge avenues where that roe deer was goes right through from one side of the farm to the other, the way through to Stoke Road. So it is a three quarters of a mile, avenue of box. So we've got one more plant to look at, which is in flower, and it's a little bit of walk, another couple of hundred yards and we'll be there. 

(21:19)

Matthew Gudgin:
 So many bluebells coming up, but obviously the flowers aren't here yet, but the promise of them in a few weeks time is something really delicious, isn't it? 

Chris Skinner:

And that's really lovely. I think that's why I love the natural history of Norfolk and beyond so much because it's nearly always at any time the year full of a promise of some sort, whether it's autumn colours, whether it's the first snow drops coming through and they're just about finished here. And then you have the spring flowers, but there's a succession of them if you know where to look and what to look for because some of them are quite demure, some of them are sort of keep themselves to themselves and you can walk past and just completely miss them. And in older parts of woodland all over, particularly the southern half of the United Kingdom, this plant in front of us comes through and comes into flower and it's got an unusual name. 

(22:18)
 It's called Dog’s mercury

Matthew Gudgin:

Dog's Mercury? Never heard of that. 

Chris Skinner:

And it comes into flower now. Right in front of you Matthew is a really good specimen. It's about 10 inches tall, about 200 millimetres tall, lance shaped leaves, bright green leaves. You'd almost think it's an evergreen, but it's only just putting an appearance in the last two to three weeks. So it starts to come up above ground in early January, grows through January. And now is its flowering time… 

Matthew Gudgin:

It's got little thorns on it as well. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, yes. A little spurs. Yeah, that's the female part of the flower down there. And this, I'll just take one off is the male part. And you can see it shedding pollen already and it produces little seed pods, drops on the ground. It's doing really well, particularly in the eastern counties. It's spreading itself. It's a sign of really old woodland because it's really slow to establish itself. 

(23:23)
 It can almost form thickets on the ground to such an extent. It will overpower the bluebells, things like early purple orchids as well, and some of the other sort of more delicate woodland plants. So just because the leaf burden is quite high and it obscures the light down in the lower part of the woodland fauna, but just coming into flower and producing yellow pollen, you can just see there. 

Matthew Gudgin:

You need very good eyesight to see though. 

Chris Skinner:

That's why I said you almost need to be walking around like Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass to see this. But nevertheless it's in woodland flower and I'm trying to follow each season as we go. So it'd be a bit of a crime to miss some of these plants which are very obscure. Very discreet if you like, but nevertheless really important. And they're indicators of ancient woodland because so slowly, as I said, there's some new sites. 

(24:26)
 Well if you have new woodland, you won't have dog's mercury in it. But it's another one of these plants. We already looked at yew this morning and it's another one of those plants that deadly poisonous and there's lots of references to it. It's rather peculiar because a couple in the mid 1800s, the wife went out and gathered a whole sort of satchel full of this plant and fried it up with a little bit of butter and then added some bacon lardons with it and fed it to the family. And about three to four hours later they were all being violently ill. And something strange then happened that the doctors hadn't seen before. Your jaw and the bottom part of your face turns bright, bright red. It's almost like fire. The husband did go to work the next day, but he had to have lots of water nearby to keep bathing his chin because it was burning. 

(25:25)
 His wife recovered, two of the children recovered. Sadly one was unconscious for three days and sadly died. So it just shows you how careful you have to be when you go gathering fodder from the woodland floor. You actually must know what you're consuming because some of the plants that we've talked about are quite dangerous if you actually eat them. And particularly for livestock as well. So there we are. So if you've not come across it before dogs mercury really interesting, it spreads itself. So all the plants around us are all joined together. If I pulled one root up, which I'm not going to do, it would be joined to that one over there and that one. And they're called rhizomes, which spread under the soil. Rhizomes is a way of vegetative reproduction and it's a slow, slow process, which again indicates you've got ancient woodland, which this little bit of the Norfolk countryside is, it's probably been trees forever. 

(26:25)
 It's just too steep to plough. Although the deer we saw skirted off up that hill like gazelles, didn't they? Through the woodland? There's no chance we were going to catch them to get a close look. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Well, we got a fairly close look, didn't we? 

Chris Skinner:

Yeah, we did. Yes. Yeah. So there we are lots to watch out for in the countryside at this time of the year, another day or two, those celandines, I think William Wordsworth describes celandines as bright as the sun himself. Those lovely glossy yellow flowers, which are now coming out the end of February and early March. 

Matthew Gudgin (27:22):

This is Chris opening some envelopes. There's always letters coming into the farm. Bills probably. 

Chris Skinner (27:28):

There's lots of bills. And yes, there's four bills. They're going over to that side of the table. 

Matthew Gudgin (27:34):

Daniel can sort those out

Chris Skinner (27:35):

Exactly that. Yes. And I've got a few letters and oh, we've got some emails, Matthew, so that's your department. So there's a little pile for you there. Just arrived.  

Matthew Gudgin (27:46):

Well shall we say hello to Ray Dumpleton who listens into the podcast in Manchester. And Ray particularly enjoyed our recent nighttime edition when we had a safari around the farm and saw lots of hares apart from anything else. But the real style of the show was that wonderful owl 

Chris Skinner (28:04):

That  was hovering. Yes, for a long time. Never seen that before. 

Matthew Gudgin (28:10):

Ray suggests a future episode on bats because he says whenever we do a guided bat walk here, it's always really well attended. 

Chris Skinner (28:18):

Yes, we've got lots of bats here at the farm, particularly around this area where we are this morning. We're now in a farm office and lots of old buildings here together with the new ones. And I have got bats in my attic in my own house, pipistrelle bats and all around the farm buildings from early evening almost throughout the year now we've had almost one of the mildest winters on records and pipistrelle bats have been seen more or less every evening here, apart from the really cold frosty night that we had. Apart from that they're here present all the time. And out on the side of the woodland, particularly in November and December, we have species of moth called winter moth and the sides of the woods are plastered with these moths and the bats are busy, hoovering them up. It's such a lovely sight to watch them just as the light's fading, there's enough light coming from the city of Norwich so you can see them silhouetted against that light and I just love them. 

(29:21)
 We've also got a maternity roost of noctule bats in an old woodpeckers hole and there must be 20 to 25 of the females there and they all come out and go back at the same time. And they're quite noisy as well. You don't actually need a bat detector to hear them. So I think that's a good idea, something we'll do. But I'll have to get you here either very early in the morning, Matthew, as in very early in the morning sort of in March and April time or early evening. So a much more sensible time perhaps. So that's a future podcast. 

Matthew Gudgin (30:00):

Now Anna, Anna Holt who lives at Briston in Norfolk has sent a photograph in, she says, a couple of days ago I noticed this small collection of twigs and leaves just left very neatly on my lawn. Underneath, it was a small hole. I looked it up and it suggested earthworms, but the hole looks too big. I'm thinking maybe a mouse. What do you think Chris? 

Chris Skinner (30:23):

Absolutely. I'm in agreement with you on this one. Earthworms will sort of drag in sort of leaf litter and chopped grass stalks if you've been mowing your lawn without grass collection on. And earthworms will do that and stack that around the little cast that they make from the soil. But the hole is nearly index finger size and very kindly there's a coffee mug there still with a little bit of coffee left in the bottom of it. So do drink that before it gets too cold. And all around the whole, there's some quite large pieces of vegetation and almost certainly the culprit for that is somebody called a long tailed field mouse. And it has got a long tail and it's also called a wood mouse as well cause it's got two names, got lots and lots at the farm here. I'm often videoing them because they are so amusing to watch at night. 

(31:19)
 They're very fast, mainly nocturnal. And they are also called kangaroo mice because the strong back legs suddenly for no reason at all, they'll jump about 18 inches into the air and land somewhere else. And it's a form of defence. And of course it's top fodder for the owls here at the farm. We've got tawny owls, lots of little owls and barn owls as well. And occasionally you'll get other species of owls. But they're the main three here and that is top food for them. So poor creatures, I feel sorry for them. So the little turrets around the hole there, the little mountains that they're built around is all help a form of protection. 

Matthew Gudgin (32:04):

Well then Anna, thanks for the photo and hello to David, David Tennant lives at Adlington in Lancashire. Loves the podcast Chris and what you are doing here at High Ash Farm. He says during the programme last week you were chatting about Corvids the corvid family and in particular the carrion crow. Well I have a pair who I've watched for three years across from my home. Every year when they are building their nest, they travel over to a tree next to the garden to take twigs and to take back there to nest. I have often wondered why seem to waste energy by flying that distance. It's around 200 yards when there are several trees next to their tree with the nest in that seem perfectly suitable. Why is this happening? 

Chris Skinner (32:50):

Yeah, interesting question. And I watched the rooks at the farm here doing exactly the same thing. They'll fly quite considerable distance now they're very, very choosy nest builders. Although the nest is made of sticks, it's got to be the right length and the right strength as well. And it all sort of forms a sort of mesh together. And the female will help arrange the sticks as females do house building and very house proud. And so that's the reason. So some tree species have very fine twigs. Things that we don't see so much today. Elm trees were a real favourite and the twigs are quite dense. So you can pick a small twig up and it'll have three or four little branchlets off the side and that braids the nest together almost as one. It's like sort of plastering it together. And then on top of that, carrion crows and rooks both do the same thing. 

(33:45)
 They will add some grass to sort of make it a solid mass and sometimes a little bit of soil is added as well. And there's barely a nest cup. So at this time of the year, the rooks have already started to lay their eggs. Carrion crows will be quite close behind carrion crows a little bit larger than rooks about 19 inches from tip of beak to tail. Whereas rooks about 18 inches and rooks are the ones with the glossy plumage. And I've just been videoing the rooks on High Ash farm and hopefully that will be on High Ash farm Facebook for this weekend. 

Matthew Gudgin (34:22):

Onto Kathleen who's listening in the Cotswolds, Kathleen Bond says I am an avid listener that's in capital letters and she sent a photograph of her gorgeous chicory flowers alongside driveway, the driveway fence, last year's flowers. They seem to go on flowering for months. We had to tie string to hold them up. And there's the photo Chris, and they really are flourishing aren’t they. 

Chris Skinner (34:46):

That is stunning. It looks exactly like a very tall crop of bright sky blue daisies. So chicory from my past, my mother used to buy coffee called camp coffee and it had chicory in it to kind of add a bit of bitterness. And chicory is still grown. You can buy it as a vegetable, it is often forced and you have a kind of spear like piece of vegetable to cook and it is a little bit bitter for some people, but I quite like it mixed in a salad. And you're right, it has a really long flowering period. It's a favourite amongst pollinators. It can start flowering as early as the middle of June and go right through July, September and into August at least sometimes even in September. And the plants become quite woody, they can be up to a metre tall. And so tying them up like that is really helpful and the seed spreads quite readily and I'm growing it out in the over winter wild bird seed mixes here at the farm and it's spread itself all around the edge of some of the walks tracks. And it's one of the commonest questions I get asked, could you please tell me what that beautiful blue flower is growing on the track down at the bottom there and it's chicory. 

Matthew Gudgin (36:05):

Thank you very much for the note. And we've got a couple more here, one's from Gillian Handyside who says, I was wondering if you'd seen any bees yet this year over in Norfolk. We had our first bumblebee last year, February the 12th. This is in a suburban garden near Paris. Oh wow. Hello. Hello France. This year we saw our first honeybees on February the ninth. And it's the earliest I've noticed them there probably is going to be a bit of a difference in Paris is a long way further south. 

Chris Skinner (36:39):

Yes it is. And spring seems to move northwards. Each week that goes by the temperature a little further north is a little bit warmer. And it's interesting because this week, the very last week of February and the first week of March is the time that the swallows start to leave South Africa and begin their northern migration. So they're on the way and they follow, once they get past the equator, they generally follow what's called the 12 degree therm. That's the average temperature between day and night. And that temperature is crucial because it's a temperature that you get lots of flying insects at. And so that's what they feed. They only feed on flying insects. But bumblebees work a little bit earlier in colder weather than honeybees do because bumbles have got fur on their body so they can work and keep warm at a lower temperature. 

(37:36)
 They also vibrate their bodies to help keep their brood warm. And I saw my first bumblebees this year on Valentine's Day, and I think you were here quite close to that. And we actually saw a bumblebee on the Mahonia quite close to where we're sitting now. It was in full flower and they were out and about. We forget cold weather. They'll go back and they will get some pollen and some nectar and they have a little cup and they store that carefully. And they are the only bees, the bumblebees that survived last year from last year. All the workers from last year and the drones will have all died and just the queens hibernate over the winter months. 

Matthew Gudgin (38:18):

Your geese are having a nervous breakdown out there. 

Chris Skinner (38:20):

They are this time of the year, even though they're both very old and past it. That's  Quasimodo and Mildred, his wife. She's what, 26, 27 Now I think she'll still have a go at laying a few eggs this year. But for some reason at this time of year they both go cranky. And I can just hear them outside the office if I open the door, let's have a look. I dunno if they will oblige, they, they're just legging it.  

Matthew Gudgin (38:52):

You opening the door, sent them flying. Tim Edwards runs chatterbox in Norwich and Chatterbox will better explain for people who don't know, Chatterbox is a wonderful organisation and they put out sound magazines for people who are visually impaired, blind. And it's so popular, isn't it? And I know you used to do a special section on chatterbox and now in fact, hello to chatterbox listeners because this is going out on chatterbox every time now. 

Chris Skinner (39:21):

Yes, it is. I've done Chatterbox for a great many years and it always a huge delight because one of my favourite things to do on the farm is to record the sound. So either the mammals, the birds, the insects, anything that makes a noise, we'll have the microphone pointed at it and if you're visually impaired, but you can hear sound really well, it worked. It was a marriage made in heaven to do Chatterbox. I absolutely love doing it. I did a Christmas edition and sat by my lovely log fire with the crackling logs right beside it. And it's such a pleasure to be able to do that, to share the countryside because it's so difficult for some people who have any form of handicap to come out. Many people just take walking or vision for granted, but if you don't have that ability then farmers are privileged, privileged people because you can just go out on the farm and it's all there for you 24 hours a day. But for some people it's hugely difficult to do that. So it's something I've loved doing and I'm absolutely delighted. So quick round of applause. Thank you very much indeed. And welcome chatterbox listeners. 

Matthew Gudgin (40:35):

You are very welcome. And everyone else who tunes in each week to the Countryside podcast with Chris Skinner from High Ash Farm in Norfolk. And the email if you'd like to get in touch with Chris. Questions, comments, anything you like, chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk. You better go and round up your geese. 

Chris Skinner (40:57):

I certainly had, yes, I get attacked with the privilege of doing that. The gander gets a little bit too much testosterone at this time of the year and he will literally chase me. And particularly his pet hate in life is Rat, my dog.