Episode 26: Spring Has Sprung

Matthew Gudgin: (00:34):

Its March, I can't believe it. Oh, we've survived another winter, although it still feels there's a little nip in the air, but it's more of a spring light Morning. This morning I've come to see Chris Skinner at High Ash Farm. It's the Countryside podcast and the daffodils are out and we've seen other blooms as well. 

Chris Skinner:

My goodness me. Yes, I know Spring is actually springing. Welcome to High Ash Farm Matthew and welcome to a new season as well and we'll be spoiled for choice for the next few podcast because it all happened so quickly. And not only that, but there's a big pine copse on the other side of this little road and the rooks are nesting in there. And I was sitting here really early this morning watching them bringing sticks in. Here comes a couple now and they're just going to land in two more now coming in and another one.

(01:25)
 And usually they're bringing sticks in to their nest building from quite a distance. I just love watching them and it sort of paints a picture of our countryside with the rooks building in the trees quite close to Caistor St  Edmund Parish Church and it's just one of those lovely sounds of them calling away and I can hear them in the background and they're flying off in every which direction and one going to come right over the top of us now just looking for the right stick. You know how fussy the ladies are. It's got to be just right. Anyway, I said we're spoiled for spring flowers and all the animals and mammals quite visible at this time of the year because the new growth hasn't really started yet. It's still all dying down. There's a general impression of browns still out in the countryside, but these are hayfields beside us, pollen and nectar field here, and that's just getting green.

(02:26)
 And like we learned last week, you have to kind of use your eyes a little bit. It's lovely walking through the countryside. If you've got a friend with you chatting away, but you miss so much. 

Matthew Gudgin:

But if you are the friend, we don't. Ha

Chris Skinner: 

That's right. Well just look here. You don't have to look very far. We're just come into one of the entrances of the permission. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Where are we looking? Oh look, some flowers.

Chris Skinner:

Yes. Violets. Now about two or three podcasts ago, we looked at one of the earliest flowering violets. It was a sweet violet viola odourata.

(03:01)
 And this one is a little bit paler in colour and it forms really large clumps and it's in full flower at the moment. I've got to go down on my knees. 

Matthew Gudgin:

It's very deep, rich purple. 

Chris Skinner:

It is. It's a gorgeous colour. Very, I mean you can walk past this and lots of people do every day without noticing it. And it's one of those delights. So these sort of round shaped leaves, slightly different leaf shape to the sweet violet. It's called the dog violet. And it's rather a derogatory term because what it means is it doesn't actually have a perfume. You remember I explained about the sweet violet. It's one of the most aromatic of all our British UK wild flowers. And this one, if I did pick one and sniffed it, there's there's nothing there. But nevertheless, it does have insects to pollinate it. And it's like many of the violet species including wild pansies as well.

(03:58)
 And one grows out on the light land on the farm called Heartsease. And there's also an estate on the north side of Norwich called Heartsease estate. Very light sandy soil there and they used to be masses of it growing there. But that's just a taster of what we're going to be looking at this morning. We're going to do a sort of hopscotch around the farm and see what's in flour because it all happened so quickly. Even towards the end of March, many of these early spring flowers have finished. We drove up this little road and as we came up here, Matthew, it's called Wash Lane. It's on a steep hill. It's actually missing an A at the beginning of it. It should be A Wash Lane because the water rushes down here and it's damp and sodden at the bottom there. And the whole bank is covered with lesser celandines and primroses.

(04:52)
 And because we are in spring, Matthew, Primrose is short for prima rosa, the first flowers of spring. And so that's absolutely beautiful. That lemon coloured flour open at this time of the year, first week of March is perfect for it. 

Matthew Gudgin:

What about celandines? What colour flower do they have? 

Chris Skinner:

They're even brighter yellow. I think William Wordsworth, I've talked about this before, he put it in one of his poems and together with some early spring daffodils, very famous poem. And he described it as bright as a sun itself because the upper side of the petals on lesser celandines are slightly waxy. And on sunny days, they're all open. Now, particularly on south facing banks, north facing banks are few days later, but in bright sunshine, they actually reflect the sun and almost look white because they're so waxy on the upper surface and they have to be because got to cope with all the vagaries that spring and throw at.

(05:57)
 It's a very changeable season, perhaps more so than winter because you get lulled into some sense of security by a few mild days and then suddenly the wind whips in from the north and it completely changes in a few hours. 

Matthew Gudgin:

We can often get snow still at Easter, which is more than a month away still is it? 

Chris Skinner:

It is, yes. It's so changeable, but nature seems to be able to cope with that. And so there we are. Anyway, we're going to hop back in the truck and just visit another portion of the farm and look at some of the spring flowers and they have some secrets and some surprises. So come on, in you get.

Matthew Gudgin:

Lovely to see these purple flowers really close to the ground. The dog Violet. 

Chris Skinner:

Dog Violet, yes. Viola canina. Yes. So there we are. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Canine. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, in the Latin name.

(06:58)

Matthew Gudgin:
 The birds are singing as well. It must be spring. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, it's a delight. We've got more rain forecast. So February, which we've left behind as being one of the wettest on record and we've got valleys here at the farm. And on five or six occasions this year, the valleys have been flooded and turned into the Lake District almost, which amuses me. And then the water permeates… 

Buzzard right in front of us, Matthew! 

Matthew Gudgin:

Great wings flapping! 

Chris Skinner:

Just clearing the hedge there just over the top of the hedge. And we've had a pair of red kite here this morning, about seven o'clock this morning just at first light. And they were courtship flying. It was a lovely site. They were weaving round each other. Beautiful birds, both of them very mature and with that very distinctive forked tail. We're standing on one of the margins here at the farm.

(07:56)
 There's an arable field on our left with over winter, well bird seed mix there and there's teasels on the margin. Some blackthorn has spread itself out. And you can see all these little twigs well away from the hedge, which was planted in 2007. That's getting going nicely. And blackthorn prunus spinosa, the spiny plum is noted for suckering. It goes under the ground and then pops up at some distance. And if this was left, this would be a giant shrubbery very quickly indeed and impenetrable. So we'll keep the margin cut every third year and it's been sown with some coarse grasses, a mixture of a really coarse grass called cox foot and another one called giant fescue. And every morning I walk down here and throw some seed out, which you can just see on the ground there. And I've brought you here for a reason. Although we're looking at wild flowers, I'm easily distracted. I walked down there this morning and I thought it's a brilliant time of year to look for some of signs of our mammals as well. And we're got a little muddy track down here and lots of deer footprints.

Matthew Gudgin (09:17):

Oh, these holes are footprints?

Chris Skinner (09:18):

Yes. These are called slots. And we've got two species. You can identify your deer by the size of the slots occasionally. We have giant ones here which are red deer, and this is a muntjac there, quite small petite two very distinctive little cloven hooves into the ground. And there's a much larger one, a little bit further on.

Matthew Gudgin (09:41):

Yes, that's made quite a divot there hasn’t it.

Chris Skinner (09:41):

And that's a roe deer. One of our native species. 

Matthew Gudgin:

The ones we saw last week?

Chris Skinner:

That's right, yes. Beautiful, beautiful road air. And there's some droppings there as well from perhaps the muntjac. They almost look like rabbit droppings, but that's not what caught my eye this morning. This is a time of the year I look out for signs of last year's nests and just turn round behind because I think yes, look down there. Can you see anything unusual?

Matthew Gudgin (10:12):

No, it's just grass and 

Chris Skinner (10:16):

Tall stems…

Matthew Gudgin (10:16):

Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on. It looks like there's a nest of some sort.

Chris Skinner (10:21):

Yep, well done. 

Matthew Gudgin (10:22):

About six inches off the ground.

Chris Skinner (10:23):

It's a good six inches off the ground and it's the nest over one of our smallest, well, almost one of the smallest rodents in the whole world. It's the harvest mouse, Micromys minutus and it's the time of year to find out if you've got harvest mice in your margins and what you do, you walk along, make sure there are no neighbouring farmers are watching. You look down at the ground, just pretend you're very depressed as a farmer, but actually you're looking for harvest mice. And you look down into the clump of grass and it's a clump forming grass and already there's a lot of new growth. And this particular grass species here is called giant fescue. Used to do this as a child, you'd pick a leaf out, they're very coarse and there's veins all the way down the leaf and you can put your fingernail in and shred the little veins out like that and then you can peel back.

(11:21)
 Can you see? And that's what the female harvest mice does. Two sorts of nests. They make one quite close to the ground which the male and female will occupy and it's just a loose structure. And then the kind of world famous nest harvest mouse is about what five centimetres long body and the tail is almost an equal length and it's like a fifth leg, it’s prehensile tail. So they can wrap their tail around these tall grass stems and hold on, pull another stem towards it. Or if there's a wheat here on the top, they can eat that. But this grass shreds like this and that's why cox foot and the giant fescues are really important for their habitat. They like nesting above the ground. They're omnivorous, they'll eat seeds, fruit, berries, and at this time of the year if they get hungry they'll eat other small rodents and cannibalistic. They'll eat each other as well if things get bad.

Matthew Gudgin (12:22):

Oh they look so sweet as well.

Chris Skinner (12:23):

They do.

Matthew Gudgin (12:24):

Like butter wouldn’t melt.

Chris Skinner (12:25):

No, that's right. But I used to do this as a child to show how sharp edge it is. You can get a little grass strip like that, put it between your thumbs and then I'm trying to do it. Let's have another go, see if I can get it to work nearly. That's how sharp it is.

Matthew Gudgin (12:52):

It’s like the reed you get in a woodwind instrument. 

Chris Skinner (12:54):

Exactly. That's right. So there we are. So if I just part the grass, it's the nest won't be used at this time of the year and it's very distinctive because the female will have got the leaves and shredded them into almost a tennis ball size nest. The hole is really always really hard to see. I dunno if we can find the hole, it's in there somewhere. If I get my little index finger in, you can just see the entrance there quite near the top and she will have had 4, 5, 6 babies in gestation. They'll start mating in about April onwards, certainly into May, and they can have four or five litters in a year, as many as that.

Matthew Gudgin (13:39):

And the nest is skillfully woven on this taller grass and it's sort of suspended. It's six inches above the ground.

Chris Skinner (13:44):

And that's their favourite. It's usually halfway up in a clump of grass and in the summer months it's not impossible to find them. I walk down here and look, so as the grass gets battered and it's been hit by lots of rain and you get sleet, occasional snow and it bashes the grass down and exposes the nest, which are kind of built through the grass stem. As you can see, she's look, the nest is completely with one or two grass stems right through the middle of it. So there we are, tiny territories. So you can have six or seven pairs down this margin, probably 40, 50 square metres, something like that, as small as that. 

Matthew Gudgin (14:27):

And that is their world

Chris Skinner (14:28):

That's their entire world. And so we don't come on here, we're tractors occasionally once every three years. So there we are. It's just a lovely little site. Anyway, we've got something we've got to get back on track now and look at some of our spring flowers and we just go to the other side of this newly planted hedge and there's a new area of woodland here is sewn with oak, field maple, some ash, hornbeam and we're on heavy wet damp clay. It's a real difficult soil to work. And so there's some woodland planted here. Here, is today's subject, it's pussy willow, it's one of the willow trees and it's just coming out. You can just see the willow there right at the top. There've got 12 feet up and I've managed to get us a branch down so you can have a closer look.

(15:25)
 Don't worry, because if you stick this in the ground, it almost certainly grow. It's an amazing thing. Farmers used to plant it alongside rivers to help stabilise the river banks and to stop erosion. And they'd often put stakes along to keep the cattle from going in the water and then the stakes would grow. So I think there's about between 13, 14 species of willow in the UK and there's three that are called sallows. And they used to make coracles from those years and years ago and cover the sort of sticks that you'd make the little boat shape from and cover that with animal skin. And so that's how it was used. It's also, although we call it pussy willow, it is called goat willow is a more proper name and farmers used to plant it and then used the foliage early on in the year to feed to goats.

(16:23)
 Matthew Gudgin:

These buds are really furry. I just felt one. It does feel like sort of tickling a cat under its chin. 

Chris Skinner:

This is just coming into flower now. So this, everybody will groan because willow produces a huge amount of pollen, all the willow species. And this one's now going bright yellow and it has another name, although we call it pussy willow, it's also called goslings as well. One of its countryside names because of this lovely colour you can see it's bright, bright yellow and incredibly soft and you can just get the little pollen on your finger there. It's bright yellow. It just starts to come off now and blow about in the wind. So you have male pussy willow trees and female pussy willow trees. So the big willows you'll often see growing by rivers, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 feet tall.

(17:17)
 They're absolutely giant and they will gradually lean over the river and in flood conditions the water tries to go underneath and then you'll get hollows under the tree and the bottom of the river. And that was always good place to fish when I was a young boy as well along the River Tas, which runs along the west side of the farm. But there's lots of amusing stories. You can go right back in history because neolithic people used willow to make their coracles, their little boats with animal skin. And then it's right back, I think it's in 1826, willows used to be used a little bit thicker than these, probably about that thickness, about two inch thick on the trunks. And that would be split down the middle and you'd pay your taxes to the government with willow and they were called tallies. So you'd have the willow would be split into two and you'd each have a copy of it. So one copy would go to the government, you'd keep the other copy almost like a receipt. In 1826, a new system of paying your taxes was invented. And all the old tallies which were kept at the houses of parliament in London, they were fed into the boiler at the houses of Parliament. You're going to have to smile at this. And the boiler overheated because there were tens of thousands of these tallies and it set fire to the House of Commons and completely burnt it down. And it does make me smile. 

Matthew Gudgin (18:50):

So I mean yes, historically, that's almost 200 years ago. And the building we see now in Westminster with Big Ben. And that was a Victorian rebuild wasn’t it. Because originally it was a medieval palace

Chris Skinner (19:04):

That's right. And it was caused by this creature here, this tree in front of us.

Matthew Gudgin (19:10):

I tell you the flies love it. There's all these little winter flies.

Chris Skinner (19:13):

Yes, they're moths or tiny moths here in the evening. So the sallow here, the pussy willow is pollinated by moths at nighttime and these little gnats, which are called winter gnats, they're flying. And that's a really good sign. We're standing in the lee side, there's a slight southwesterly breeze this morning. It's quite mild, little bit of drizzle in the air and it's perfect sort of pollinating weather for our early insects and some of those flowers that we've already looked at. So absolutely stunning. So there we are. Now, something interests you as well because I mentioned willows and the two main willows in the UK are the white willow and the crack willow, but they hybridise together. And when they do that, it's called cricket bat willow. And we think cricket bat willow was first discovered in Suffolk. And I have some relations down in Suffolk which make the cricket bats from the cricket bat Willow. They're a family called the Watts. My father's sister married one of them and they became quite famous. I don't know if they still make cricket bats today, but a decent cricket bat. Willow, you can get 25 to 30 bat blanks out of it and then it's carried on and made. But it's quite flexible wood. So the crack willow is very brittle. The white willow is quite flexible and the two and a hybridised produces exactly the right word for your cricket bats. I know you're smiling, I thought I'd bring that in. 

Matthew Gudgin (20:53):

Well all cricket bats in the world, apart from very cheap ones that aren't used in proper games, all cricket bats are English willow.

Chris Skinner (21:01):

Yes, exactly that and good. They were this one, the hybrid from the two largest species of willow. As I said, it's the white willow and the crack willow and they will breed together and give you the cricket bat willow very fast growing and very, very flexible wood as well. So we're just walking out into the field now. We'll leave the willow behind us.

Matthew Gudgin (21:22):

Now you've talked about tracks. I can see tracks everywhere.

Chris Skinner (21:25):

Yes. Once you see that these are deer tracks and they go off every which way and the deer, the light using the same track over and over again if they've used it once, they follow the trail that they've made previously because it's always a safe route. And they learn when it goes through a hedge where you can go through the hedge quickly and escape any predators. So always really useful. And it's a good time of year after lots of rain or snow to find out what you've got out and about. You can be your own nature detective, which makes life very interesting. 

Matthew Gudgin (22:01):

Seems an awful long time since I came here for a snow visit.

Chris Skinner (22:04):

Yes, I know. I've still got the snow plough at the farm and we get it already each late autumn for the snow season. And I do some of the routes inside Norwich. And the past I've cleared county hall, car park, which you have to learn where all the curbs are

Matthew Gudgin (22:23):

And all the counselor's cars.

Chris Skinner (22:25):

Yes, you have to dodge own them. Yes. And that was police headquarters back then. Right. We've walked right out in the field and I've got a little tiny flower here, which was a huge problem for farmers way back getting on for a hundred years ago. It's a member of the cabbage family and at this time of the year it starts to come into flower and it's got a lovely name. It's called Charlock, C-H-A-R-L-O-C-K.

Matthew Gudgin (22:55):

And it's this little yellow flower.

Chris Skinner (22:56):

Yes and it's a crucifer, so it's all the same family as kale, cabbage, broccoli, and lots of them. And you can tell Crucifer because they have the flowers in the shape of a cross, a crucifix. So there's always four petals and that's what's there. And it's bright yellow and it's the first one has just come into flower. It's on heavy clay soil here and it loves that. And the plants can go up to two, three feet tall at least. So that's always a surprise. And it was such a problem that a company now, it's now and still called Boots, developed hormone weed killers in the 1940s and early 1950s. And they developed one called MCPA. That's its abbreviation. It's got a long chemical name and it is absolutely deadly. So although it was such a common weed, farmers using MCPA in the 1960s and 70s virtually eliminated this weed. You could almost take the lid off a can of MCPA on one side of the field, not spray the field. And the vapour was so deadly both for tomatoes and for this weed charlock, that it would actually curl this weed up, although it hadn't actually been sprayed.

Matthew Gudgin (24:16):

It's quite nasty stuff.

Chris Skinner (24:17):

It certainly is. Still used today, but it's deadly to this family of crucifers. And I can just see here some of the little blue flowers, the speedwell flowers, only an inch tall look. It's called bird's eye speedwell

Matthew Gudgin (24:32):

Tiny bloom on that

Chris Skinner (24:32):

Just tiny, about an eighth of an inch across.

Matthew Gudgin (24:36):

But this charlock though is there in the middle of this field and I can't see any other examples here. So it's quite a lone species.

Chris Skinner (24:44):

No species, you have to, there's a few more about, but there's lots of plants. I've been trained sort of to recognise wild flowers but not to enjoy them, to actually identify them in growing crops to kill them. It is embarrassing for me. So I'm trained to look for the seedlings because that's when you actually control weeds before they become too competitive with a crop. Farmers used to say you can't grow two crops in one. You've either got the grow the crop or the weeds. And if I walk about, I can find you juvenile emerging. There's one and it's not in flower yet. Look one there.

Matthew Gudgin (25:29):

That's charlock

Chris Skinner (25:29):

Yes. And it's got a very peppery taste. So it produces shiny black seeds and if you do allow it to seed in your crop, the seed can last 8, 10 years quite comfortably in the soil. Poppy obviously even longer. It produces thousands of seeds, poppies do. And that will last for probably a century or more. So here's some more charlock look, it is dotted all over the field together with lots of other plants as well. So diminutive little plants. But we'll come back perhaps in four weeks time and this will look like a field of rape in flour. Bright, bright, yellow. So there we are. So a little taster of some of them lovely plants out on the farm. We'll go back to the farm now the drizzle just setting in. But I've got one more little surprise, a real secret, and we'll visit that on the way back to the farm.

Matthew Gudgin (27:01):

This is the woodland that we often visit on these occasions and I can see lots of squirrels. This is Fox's Grove.

Chris Skinner (27:08):

Yes, well done Matthew. We're being accompanied by a jet aircraft at the moment, way up above us. And I'm just looking up in the canopy of the trees, seeing lots of blue tits, great tits flying about. And there's some dense shrubbery in front of us. It's laurel and box hedging, which goes right through the farm, but we've got to get through this to the other side. I promised you a spring delight, so just don't have to get through some of the undergrowth.

Matthew Gudgin (27:49):

Can't be bluebells yet. Surely?

Chris Skinner (27:52):

No.

Matthew Gudgin (27:52):

Oh, not blooming ones anyway.

Chris Skinner (27:54):

You are impatient.

Matthew Gudgin:(28:01):

There we go through this laurel.

Chris Skinner (28:04):

Yes, very shaded here. Typical good place for birds to roost. Lots of droppings on the ground. The whole ground is plastered with droppings

Matthew Gudgin (28:15):

Here we have to walk. Oh, look at that.

Chris Skinner (28:23):

This is breathtaking. The whole hillside is bluebells and dotted in all through this woodland. A remnants of what was here years ago. Wild daffodils. These are the ones William Wordsworth talked about. They were grow on damp soil in woodland and they are beautiful. So lint lilies, they're also called.

Matthew Gudgin (28:49):

These are lovely little miniature daffodils, aren't they?

Chris Skinner (28:51):

Yes, they've been copied and there are new garden varieties. I think one's called Tete et Tate, which is French for head to head kind of thing, tiny little ones. And these are proper wild daffodils. They've been here so I know they've been here since I used to come in here with my mum at five or six years old. So that takes us back 70 years. And there's even more on the other side of the hill there. They're growing on this very rich woodland soil. They grow from bulbs, they flower now, lots of twigs drop down right on top of them. I'll just clear those off. And they are beautiful. This clumps probably got nearly 50 blooms on probably long dark yellow trumpet and the petals folded back and so lots of bulbs there more to come into flower as well. So that will produce perhaps 60 to 70 blooms. And they spread really well. They love this. Saw another big clump over there and one right behind you as well. So really, really beautiful and quite scarce now. Real proper wild daffodils. 

Matthew Gudgin (30:03):

So most of them ones we see if I'm out in the car, I see lots of daffodils on the verges, but they've probably been planted have they?

Chris Skinner (30:09):

Yes, those are. And they certainly wouldn't really be like this. They'll be the modern narcissus varieties larger and much larger and you can even have double ones. And they don't do the business for me because you get one of these northerly winds and the flower heads are so heavy they just brackle over and look very, very sorry for themselves. And these are stout little fellows. They come here every year, come back into flower, lots of bulbs. If you did dig this clump up, there'd probably be 60 to 70 bulbs. They don't all flower each bulb every year, but just look at the foliage in there, only about eight to 10 inches tall, more blooms to come there. Look, that one's got to open up. So they're also called lent lilies and they used to be picked and in certain parts of the country, tourists would actually come and just view them where they are prolific, particularly up in the Midlands and Yorkshire up there. And they're very, very common there.

Matthew Gudgin (31:09):

The Lent Lilies. So we're in Lent now?

Chris Skinner (31:11):

Yes we are. Yes. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Have you given anything up? 

Chris Skinner:

No, I haven't. No, no, that's a sore point. What do I give up? Oh dear. Matthew Gudgin (31:23):

Well that's to suppose that you had any sinful things in the first place.

Chris Skinner (31:26):

No, I can't think of any off the top of my head. Just enjoying wildflowers like this. That's enough. I couldn't give them up. And I live to see them every year. It's absolutely beautiful. So there we are, right Matthew, we need to get back to the farm and answer some listeners questions. 

Matthew Gudgin (31:45):

Now, is it going to be warm in there?

Chris Skinner (31:46):

I hope so. We might even make you a cup of tea.

Matthew Gudgin (32:01):

Wipe our feet as we come into the inner sanctum of the farm here. The farm office. Yes. Excellent.

(32:12)
 Take the feet off our weight. And we've got a pile of questions here, haven't we? It is wonderful to receive everyone's emails and letters and we'll give an email address out at the end of this week's podcast. Lots of people enjoying the podcast, which is wonderful to read. 

Rachel in South Norfolk says, I have a question. Chris has spoken fondly showing his affection and knowledge of the River Tas. I live within a mile of it and even have a tributary flowing past my home, which has been a bit lively recently. I'd be really interested to learn where it originates and where it flows to.

Chris Skinner (32:51):

Oh, excellent. Well I know the River Tas like the back of my hand, Matthew. And it arises. Some people think the source is Tasburgh, but it isn't. It's much further south. It's somewhere called Carlton Fen and it's really wet. It's quite a low area and it's getting sort of close to Banham in that area of South Norfolk. And it's a really interesting area because there's two or three springs rising in quite a small area and that's called Carlton Fen. And it's got a specific name just there and it's called Rot Hole. Only Norfolk could have a name like that. And the springs rise up and that's the exact source of the River Tas, which then flows roughly northeastwards to start with and then almost due north and goes up towards Norwich. And that rot hole is a really interesting name because quite close to Carlton Fen is a farm and it's called Flax Fields's Farm.

(34:02)
 Years ago the flax used to be harvested, the seed could be taken off and of course you get linseed oil in linoleum for it as well. And the flax had to be rotted or retted. And there is a word in the dictionary called RET and you can look it up and it is actually to rot flax stems or various other plants as well with lots of woody fibres. Nettles could be rotted as well in these old rot holes or retting pits. And there's a very large retting pit, a little bit further north on close to the River Tas at Wrengingam  And that's where the flax used to be rotted. So I'm wondering if rot hole with the Tas actually rises comes from an old rotting hole for the flax plants. So it then travels northward to Norwich, roughly speaking, the river goes for about 20 miles and it joins the River Yare at Trowse. But that's not exactly true because I've discovered something in my fishing days that where the Norwich to London railway line is, it goes to Liverpool Street. There's a very large sort of pipe, about four to five feet diameter that goes under the railway line, actually joins up with the river year before its natural confluence down in Trowse. So there we are. That's the best I can do.

Matthew Gudgin (35:32):

I think that's a very good answer. Jill Larcom is sending you an SOS her local supermarket, a Co-op in Tattershall in Lincolnshire, always in the past had House Martens nesting in the summer, but she reports the shop now has netting up on the front so they have nowhere to nest.

Chris Skinner (35:53):

Yes, right. So I've been straight onto this one and I've talked to the store manager at Tatteshall, the co-op there, and her name is Tina Folson and I've written to her and we've had a long discussion and she's quite agreeable, but she doesn't have the say so in order to get the netting taken down. So we've sent an email to head office at co-op and with fingers crossed we'll have a positive result. And the same thing happened at the local Tesco store at Harford Bridges and we managed to, we now have a brilliant relationship with a manager there and we've put up some swallow nest boxes there and house martens are back nesting at the store. So fingers crossed, I've sent this off. This is a copy of the email that I've sent that I've kept and Daniel's printed it all out and fingers crossed,

Matthew Gudgin (36:46):

Absolutely. David, David Evans Jones lives near Norwich at Thorpe st Andrew and he's noticed the bat crossing structures built across the main Norwich to London Road, the A11. And also there's new roads being built around Norwich, which will also have these bat crossings. He says, do they work? Are they actually used by bats? Are bats not capable of flying over roads anyway?

Chris Skinner (37:14):

This is a contentious one because the bat crossings themselves are quite expensive to construct, and generally it'll join two pieces of woodland or two large hedge rows when the new road goes through. But in comparison to the cost of the road, the bat crossing is a minimal, minimal cost, but there's limited evidence that bats are actually using them. The only good way of finding out for certain is to have a bat detector, one of these little microchips on the back of a bat and see if they're actually using it. And so it is really difficult to find out. And of course it's quite contentious because the northern distributor road is going across the River Wensum if it goes ahead. And that's quite a rare bat colony there, which we're really concerned about. And the Norfolk Wildlife Trust is working in conjunction with the highways to try and find solutions that will protect the bats into the future. So it's a really difficult question to answer accurately. Bats are just, they live their own life and there's been no real evidence of bats being killed, going across roads. They fly quickly, but they're not quick enough to get out the way of a 70 mile an hour vehicle.

Matthew Gudgin (38:37):

Jeff Tucker has sent a note saying he remembers previously you did an episode about water fleas helping clearing algae from a horse trough. He also remembers about a decade ago, someone was conducting experiments with water fleas together with barley straw to get rid of algae on one of the lakes in the broads. They'd rigged up a small enclosure in the lake to try it out. Wonder if you've ever heard of this? And if so, maybe you know what the conclusions were?

Chris Skinner (39:08):

Yes, the conclusions are that in small areas of water, if you can get a bale of barley straw, barley in particular, oat straw is almost as effective. It does work to clear the algae out. You can have an algal bloom. If the water's got a source of nutrients coming into it like a surge outfall or something like that, the water's too rich. Then you get an algal bloom. And if the water fleas aren't there to actually consume the algae, then you'll have a buildup. So on the farm we have various water tanks. They're quite large, they're over a thousand gallons. And the farm duck pond also has daphnia and cyclops in. Cyclops are one eyed, tiny little about a 12th of an inch diameter, little tiny bodies with one eye at the top and they actually feed on the algae. And if as long as you're not too far away, you can come to High Ash Farm during late May and early June, and I can provide you with as many little cyclops and daphnia as you require. And they are then the right species that you need. The barley straw is a bit questionable because we don't know if it's the chemicals left in the straw that have been sprayed on as a fungicide early that actually helps to control the algae or whether it's a cellulose content in the straw itself, which dissolves into the water. So the jury's out on that one.

Matthew Gudgin (40:35):

Julian Lawrence from Halesworth, Julian writes about seeing an adder, and here's a photograph of what he saw. He was on Minsmere the Nature reserve on the Suffolk coast on a sunny day, and he saw lots of chiff chaffs and a swallow, quite so early. That's amazing, isn't it? But there's the picture of the adder and oh, he's a lovely example, isn’t it?

Chris Skinner (40:59):

Yes, absolutely. Perfect. Occasionally we have them at High Ash Farm. My favourite place to see them is on Winterton, SSSI, on the sand dunes there from about mid-March onwards. On warm sunny days, they'll come out of hibernation and they need to sun themselves all coiled up like a piece of rope to get warmed up to become active. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful creatures. I love to see them. And they've got that typical zigzag stripe all the way down the back, whereas a grass snake has a kind of yellow collar just behind the head and you can distinguish the two like that. But adders are quite rare now. You're really lucky to see those. And as for the first swallows, there's been evidence this winter that swallows have kept in the UK particularly right on the South coast, and that might be an indication of our climate changing more than we had anticipated. We've been out this morning and you've got plastered with gnats flying and of course that's the fodder for our visiting House Martens, swallows and Sand Martins, I should say, which will all be arriving. They'll all have set off from different parts of Africa and they'll be heading up to Norfolk as we speak.

Matthew Gudgin (42:17):

Heather Moss found a beautiful female kestrel at the base of a tree so thin and soaking wet from the rain. Sadly, by the time we got to the local rescue centre, she'd passed away. The rescue Centre has seen and heard many buzzards, Sparrow Hawks, owls, et cetera. They're turning up in this condition. What else have we got here, Kathleen? Hello, Kathleen. We headed off to look for the Snowdrops at Dunnage. Truly awesome. And here's a lovely one as well from Tina. Tina James, who loves listening to Chris Skinner's podcast and has been since last September. And my partner as a wonderful surprise, a Valentine gift this year. We had a trip to Norwich for a few days especially to come to the farm and to take a walk along the surrounding footpaths and I'm so thrilled, says Kathleen and can't wait to visit. Ah, so that's all booked in?

Chris Skinner (43:14):

Yes, this booked in. Yes. So we're looking forward to meeting and greeting you if you turn up at the farm. I'll show you a few more surprises, Tina.

Matthew Gudgin (43:23):

All the way from Leicester.

Chris Skinner (43:24):

Yes, I know. Yes. And somebody has made me laugh listening to the podcast late at night, sends her off to sleep and she has to listen again the next morning. I did find that. Amusing. Yes.

Matthew Gudgin (43:38):

Well you certainly haven't sent me off to sleep this morning. I've enjoyed every minute and Chris, I can't wait for next week.

Chris Skinner (43:44):

Excellent. Well look forward to seeing you again for yet another Countryside podcast.