Episode 28: Rat Steals The Show

Matthew Gudgin (00:31):

A grey morning, misty. It's a little chilly as well with this easterly wind blowing in. Welcome to another Countryside Podcast, right in the heart of March now and springtime is moving a pace, and we're on High Ash Farm with our host Chris Skinner, and we're between a couple of the fields here. Chris, on your farm with this lovely, lovely row of trees separating the two fields. 

Chris Skinner (00:57):

Yes, it's a latter planted woodland in about 1850, so it's good 150 years old now. There was an original avenue of oaks separating the two fields and because shooting and game and also protection from the wind was so important, back 150 odd years ago, this area of woodland was planted right beside that monumental avenue of oaks that runs all the way up here and lots of Scots pine planted as a nurse crop and then underneath them and in front of us oak trees. Here, all right, beside us. These are all oaks planted under or close to the scots pine that makes the trunks go up straight. So you have really good timber. The oaks have to kind of fight for the light because the conifers are much faster growing and some of the Scots pine trees in front of us are absolutely enormous. That is as big as any Scots pine can get. That one up in front of us there is about nearly five feet through the trunk, five feet diameter. 

Matthew Gudgin (02:07):

And this band of woodland between the fields is probably about 40 yards across. 

Chris Skinner (02:12):

Yes, it's not that wide. It's a long area of woodland. It's about close to 400 metres long, getting onto the quarter of a mile long. And we're sort of examining some of the signs of spring as we have been for the last few podcasts and things to watch out for as well as some of the creatures, animals, mammals in particular that live at the farm here. And there's Rat. He's running ahead of us. He's very excited. He had an invitation for me to join us on this morning's podcast. 

Matthew Gudgin (02:47):

Well, Abigail Bonnie has emailed to say what has happened to Rat Chris? Such a character. He's exactly like my cat, Squeak. You've not mentioned it him for a long time. I don't think Rat would like being likened to a pussycat. 

Chris Skinner (03:03):

No, absolutely not. He does have quite a good relationship with cats. He chases them up trees and barks at them. But no, he's very amiable, but Rat is kind of stealing the show and that's why I haven't invited him. He's top trumping me because of his mischievous antics that he gets up to and he's just walked ahead of us and this is one of his favourite spots on the entire farm. 

Matthew Gudgin (03:33):

Rat is a terrier, a dash of Chihuahua you always tell us.

Chris Skinner (03:36):

Yes. Oh, definitely. He's got very large eyes. He's kind of a site hunter. We call them out in the dog world because it's been Crufts recently. And I did wonder whether to pop him into the Flyball competition because he is so fast. He actually almost looks like a whippet when he's running along and he's gone ahead of us a bit. I can just see a flash of white around his collar and he's with me all day every day. But the tricks he gets up to is so embarrassing sometimes that I'll often leave him in the truck because there's a greater interest in Rat's antics than the wildlife I'm explaining here at the farm. But this is his favourite area on the farm. Now, it's really interesting because we're under full shade. We're under monumental Scots pine. We've just walked up into the woodland a bit and you can see lots of green on the ground here. 

(04:38)
 And these are fox gloves, and they're going to come into flower around about late May, June time in all this shade. And because it's been such a wet damp autumn and winter, normally they'd be almost wilting now because we're on sandy gravelly soil, the field next to us is called frozen or friston field on the old maps from years ago. And that just is sandy ground full of stones. You can see lots. Oh, Rat’s coming back. He's said, yep, I know there's something in this area because the master's talking and has stopped walking up the woodland, so he's brought himself back. Now when we turn around and look, can you see the ground is about nearly two feet taller than where we are standing. 

Matthew Gudgin (05:28):

There's a hump in the middle here, isn't 

Chris Skinner (05:29):

Yes. And it goes right the way through. And the same here on this side. The ground is good, higher than my knee, each side of us, and it's a warren. The whole thing is one warren, and warren means a guarded place from years ago. It was actually one of the early meanings of the word. Warren was a fenced in area, a secure area, and it was also an early name for a brothel, but we'd best not to talk that. And Rat is now disappearing down one of the rabbit holes, and they are between 250 and 300 rabbit holes right beside us. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And this is an active warren? 

Chris Skinner:

Absolutely. We have over a hundred rabbits here. And at the moment we are being filmed because just over on that little tree trunk, there is a camera, one of our trail cams and on the podcast that we hope to put out next Sunday, we'll have a look. 

(06:28)
 And Rat has decided that there's a rabbit down that particular hole, which is why I don't bring him. And he's busy digging it out with his front feet. Exactly the way the rabbits dig out, they scrub with their front feet and move the soil round between their hind legs and create these labyrinth of holes. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh no. He probably is digging. Does he ever catch one? 

Chris Skinner:

No, he doesn't. He's very good because the holes here, there are so many. Let's just walk up to the warren a little bit. I'm just going to show you something that proves how many holes are out here. If you just watch me and I'm going to walk out just a few steps like this…

Matthew Gudgin:

Immediately he sunk in. Oh, oh, careful. 

Chris Skinner:

It's not possible to walk on it because the whole ground just collapses. And it's quite a problem for farmers when rabbits go out onto freshly planted cereal fields with their tractors and the ground can actually collapse. 

(07:37)

Matthew Gudgin:
 It becomes like a honeycomb. And the bits between then collapse. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, exactly. So there's a lot of social hierarchy in the rabbit colony. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Now, I don't like to say anything, but where's Rat now? 

Chris Skinner:

You can see why don't bring him. He has disappeared with little bits of soil flying out of the hole, and that's the only sign of him. He gives me a heart attack anyway. We are likely to see a few rabbits bolting out of different holes any moment. And that was one of the ways that rabbits were controlled in the past, not with terriers like this miscreant one, but with ferrets. And that would be, remember there's no historical record because we go right back to Anglo-Saxon times and Roman times here at the farm, nothing relating to rabbits from the Roman records and nothing from the Anglo-Saxons. And we think rabbits were introduced as a source of food and fur as well back by the Normans years and years and years ago. And there's quite a lot of references to them from about mid 1100s onwards. So it's probably in the 12th century, they were introduced as a very valuable source, and they were kept in fenced in areas. And part of the sign, oh no, he's gone down another hole. And they were kept in fenced in areas, sometimes in islands just off the coast angles. He had a large warren, A to contain them, and B, there weren't foxes on some of the islands as well, which is another main predator of rabbits. 

Matthew Gudgin (09:23):

They're a good source of food though, aren't they? And in various times of crisis over the years, even within people's lifetimes now. During the Second World War, a lot of country folk would've relied on rabbits. 

Chris Skinner (09:35):

Absolutely. And it was a crucial source of food and very much part of the English diet. It was called Coney back then, C-O-N-E-Y. It was the name given to the adult rabbits and rabbit was actually used for the younger ones, so almost had two names. And you can still see public houses, pubs around the country called the Conies or the three Conies. And so it was one of their many names and so huge valuable source of food. And I can remember delivering rabbits. There was a full-time warrener here at the farm. There are six distinct warrens here at High Ash Farm because of the sandy soil, rabbits like sandy, well drained soil with close graze pasture. And because the soil's easy to dig and there's reasons for them choosing that because it doesn't flood. 

Matthew Gudgin (10:28):

So this was a warren when you were child?

Chris Skinner (10:29):

Yes, absolutely. This warren has been here and as I tried to walk across it, it very much demonstrated how unstable the soil is. Although there's large trees here, it just collapses under your feet if you try and walk on them. And because fresh soil's brought up all the time with a rabbit scrabbing and digging, you have an ideal seed bed for lovely woodland plants like these fox gloves. But I can remember delivering rabbits that had been ferreted or shot to a very large butcher shop right in the centre in Norwich, exactly opposite Norwich Cathedral. And there'd be rows of rabbits and hares hanging out in public display. I mean, there'd be a public outcry if you did that today, to actually show animals hanging there. People's sensitivity has increased with actually seeing a whole animal hanging there dead. There'd be pheasants, partridges, all sorts of game that would be for sale. 

(11:30)
 And of course it was a hugely valuable food source as well as a fur that was used much earlier on. And so that food source rapidly changed. In 1953, there was a disease brought in by the rabbit flea and it was called myxomatosis. And we think there was close to a hundred million rabbits back then in the early 1950s. So they're a huge problem. And the disease spread absolutely like wildfire through the rabbit population and brought it down to less than a quarter. But after it was 1955, 56, 57 in the years following myxomatosis, that serial yields went up and it just demonstrated how much damage that rabbits had done. And once they were fairly well eliminated, it wasn't until successive years, the late fifties, early sixties that people started to notice by the scars around rabbit's eyes that rabbit recovery was starting to happen and immunity was starting to come back in. And then the poor rabbits has suffered in recent years a new disease where they actually haemorrhage inside. It's called rabbit haemorrhagic disorder. So that's sort of again, decimated. I mean that's absolutely deadly. Myxomatosis takes six to 10 days to kill a rabbit. Rabbit haemorrhagic disorder will take like 24 hours, and quite often they will die in their burrows. It's that rapid they just haemorrhage and die.  

Matthew Gudgin (13:20):

So really we haven't been very kind to the rabbit have we?

Chris Skinner (13:22):

No, in every way. I mean I think it was 1939, was it Flanagan and Allen sang a song, run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run. And this is where the farmer comes in, don't let the farmer have his fun. 

Matthew Gudgin (13:38):

We’ll get by without our rabbit pie. 

Chris Skinner (13:40):

Exactly. So it's imprinted on our memory as part of our culture way back. And I think it was Spike Milligan who said, I spied a young rabbit eyes full of puss, the result of scientific us. And that's a spike Milligan down to a T. 

Matthew Gudgin (13:58):

But something like Watership Down has had a very important role to play in the general perception of how we deal with wildlife and the countryside and the environment. Hasn't it? Richard Adams?

Chris Skinner (14:11):

Absolutely that. Yes. And it's that balance between looking after wildlife and enjoying it because often children have rabbits as pets. So they've formed a huge part of our society and once you study rabbits, you find they have an equally kind of role in society as well in their own world. And so you have in a rabbit warren like this, you'll have a dominant buck, although there's perhaps a hundred rabbits living here, there'll be one dominant buck. He'll be scrapping and fighting other upsurps. The does will be allowed to bring there, have their young in the deep burrows here under where we're standing, and they'll have four or five kittens. They'll take some fur off their own chest and nurse them. They're born pink, blind and absolutely helpless. Unlike hares, almost the opposite. They're born out in the open, not in a burrow, and their eyes are open from the word go. 

(15:16)
 But the sub ordinate females are not allowed to bear young in the warren. They have to dig their own holes out in the fields and that causes a problem. So they dig down to start with then horizontal and they're called stops. And the reason they're called stops is after the doe rabbit has given birth one of the subordinate doe’s. She goes down and gives the little kittens a nurse just in early evening. Then she'll cover up the stop hole in order for foxes or badges, stoats, weasels there’s a whole list of predators to dig out the hole and find the young. And then she'll carefully fill the hole in so you wouldn't actually know it's there. Really clever. Rat has just emerged. Hello, Rat. 

(16:09)
 Oh, you're in favour. He's wagging his tail before he goes off to the next burrow. Yes. My heart's been in my mouth while I've been talking because I couldn't see my dog. And in the past I've known him to go in a hole here and come out about 20 yards away because as I said, it's a cocoon under there. So there's a lot of hierarchy in the rabbit world as well. And what they love is easy digging sand like this, which is the warren we're standing on and the close grazed pasture out beside us. And at the end of the beginning of the myxomatosis era, out on the south downs in particular, farmers had never been able to graze it before, but just because the burden of rabbits, they graze the grass down so short past its little tillers, so it actually dies and then the ground becomes covered with things like ragwort and other plants like that and the grass dies. 

(17:11)
 But once the rabbit population had been removed way back then, farmers fenced it in and could graze sheep and cattle. And as I said, the cereal yields had already gone up hugely in 1955/56 and followed by grass and milk production and sheep production as well. And that's the history, a tiny bit of the history which we are intertwined with him. I turn around Matthew and you can see the ground is actually a great deal higher. And I bet you couldn't walk across there where Rat is without looking like you've been on too many gin and tonics 

Matthew Gudgin (17:51):

Rabbits on High Ash Farm. And they're pretty much left unmolested here, apart from when they get a certain dog coming over to sniff their burrows, 

Chris Skinner (18:03):

That's not their problem. It's the local buzzards will take the young ones. There's foxes here, badgers here. They'll all dig them out and feast on rabbits. And don't forget, it wasn't very long ago that many of our podcast listeners will remember eating and enjoying rabbit pie. 

Matthew Gudgin (18:36):

We've crossed the lane that bisects the farm and we've come to the other side of the property and more woodland and more fun for Rat who's gone zipping off up into the trees. I think we should mention as well that you're hoping that that camera provides some shots of the rabbits. 

Chris Skinner (18:53):

Yes, I am going to keep it there all week. It's an HD camera, one of these tiny ones. They're really good value these days, so not an expensive outlay. And you can actually pop it at the end of the garden if you have a garden and just enjoy what wildlife you have close to your house. So it always provides lots of secrets and surprises and I use them every day here at the farm and just makes me smile sometimes what I can actually see that goes on in the hours of darkness as well as night. You see it in negative as well, but the quality of the new trail cams they call them, it's absolutely superb. 

Matthew Gudgin (19:36):

So you can see those pictures and whatever Chris comes up with on High Ash Farm Facebook, correct?

Chris Skinner (19:41):

Yes. And we managed to capture the long tail feel mice last week. We visited their little holes and it was on last week's podcast and you can actually pop your index finger into the hole and see, get a rough idea of the size and then pop the camera in there down at ground level. And then I popped it about two metres above the ground looking down. So we had an owls eye view of them. Anyway, we've been following some of the spring flowers here at the farm. We came here about two weeks ago and looked at sweet violets, viola odorata, and there's another lovely blue flower just coming out and it's got a name, which it shouldn't have really. I'm going to go down my hands and knees, lots of blue bells coming up. And when you look at the leaves, you would think it's just another species of violet and it isn't. 

(20:36)
 It's called ground ivy. It's not related to ivy in the slightest, although the leaves are meant to resemble ivy leaves and it creeps across the ground and you get these very large clumps. The whole side of this bank, which is south facing, is covered in ground ivy, and it spreads itself along the top of the ground with long roots that here's one, I'm just going to lift the plant up. And if you look underneath, it's sending down little fragments of rootlets coming off the stalks and they're called stolons. Anybody that grows strawberries, we'll call them runners, and you have your mature strawberry plant. And then you'll see another one about a foot away and a long root joining the two. And those are called stolons. And that's one way of vegetative reproduction that plants adopt. If it's an underground route, it would be called a rhizome. 

(21:36)
 So it now comes into flower ground ivy, and it's got a lot of history and a lot of medicinal uses as well, and one that will perhaps interest you most of all and make you smile perhaps, it was used as an early substitute for hops to bring a bitterness into beer. So it was an early substitute for we discovered hops were actually better at clarifying the beer. So it's called ale hoff. Its proper name is probably best to call it Ale hoff. 

Matthew Gudgin:

I dunno what you're suggesting about my your alcoholic it consumption. 

Chris Skinner:

No, I wasn't casting no distortions. Don't worry. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Yes, you were. 

Chris Skinner:

Anyway, it now comes into flower and it's really beautiful, a little flower. It's one of these very low growing plants, very close to the ground, only at the most, about a hundred millimetres, four inches tall. And it creeps and forms these big clumps as I mentioned. 

(22:39)
 And the history of it is quite fantastic. It goes right back to the Middle Ages. It was used as a cough remedy early on as well. It was boiled up and all sorts of attributes were conferred on the plant. You can just see, oh, there's a beautiful flower here. It forms a kind of whorl, W-H-O-R-L, round the perimeter of the plant. And they're lovely little, just take one off here, little flowers, the most beautiful blue, cobalt blue or Wedgewood blue and a little trumpet like flower. And it stays open in the hours of daylight and at night as well. So it's attractive to moths. It does produce seed, but its main way of reproducing is by these stolons, overground stems that root down onto the ground at various points, but really lovely. And one of those early spring flowers that's so easy to miss. 

(23:41)
 So that's why I love the countryside in early spring. So much happens. So you come here in a week rather like our snow drops we visited three weeks ago, they're all but gone. So spring really gets a move on once you start having the warmth from the sun, which is getting higher each day now. These flowers get on and then the next succession comes over and overwhelms. And there's stinging nettles here and the bluebells are all the way out the hill in front of us. And they'll come into flower at the end of April, almost clockwork time. And I noticed that we came with Rat. He has disappeared from sight and sound. Normally if he's found something, there'll be some bugs. I can see a little silhouette halfway up the hill. There he is. Oh my heart started to beat again.  

Matthew Gudgin:

Yeah, he's got miles up there, isn't he? Right up the hill.

Chris Skinner (24:35):

He's been very well behaved. I've keeping an eye on the rough area because when he goes through the undergrowth like that, he goes through bramble patches without even a care, and suddenly you'll see a bird fly out and that will be one of the UK's resident woodcock. Most of the migratory species of woodcock, which come across in the near continent, will have returned now. And any wood cock remaining out in the countryside, particularly on the east coast, will be resident ones, scolpax rusticula love them to bits these woodland waders with huge long beaks. So as he skirts where he's just coming up to some bracken there, which is all brackled over and that would be perfect camouflage for our woodcock. There he goes. Come on rat, I think we better get back and do some more work. Good boy.

Matthew Gudgin (25:28):

Here he comes. These little blue flowers, they ground ivy. 

Chris Skinner (25:31):

Ground ivy not related to headerohelix, the ivy that you see climbing up trees, it doesn't go up trees, it stays on. Why it's called ground ivy, I do not know because the leaves don't look like ivy. It's a bit like that plant we visited further down the woodland earlier on called Hemlock. And I turned you around and I said, this is a hemlock. And we got a plant called hemlock and a tree called hemlock growing right next to it. Nature and studying nature can be very confusing when you start off. 

Matthew Gudgin (26:05):

Where is that dog? Oh, he's looking at you.  

Chris Skinner (26:13):

Is he? Come on. Next stop. Good boy. Look at that. 

Matthew Gudgin (26:18):

Here’s master.  

Chris Skinner (26:19):

That’s the first time he's been obedient in his life. Come on in the car, 

Matthew Gudgin (26:24):

Go without you. 

Matthew Gudgin:

We are out on the open fields now just by a hedge here. And Chris, you've brought your eight foot pole with you.

Chris Skinner (26:42):

Yes, I have. Yes. My pole vaulting days are long since over, and this is called a pruner. I've got a lovely apple orchard at the farm and I use this which is a handle and a little cutter right at the top end like that. And it's quite handy out on the farm when there's things you want to examine or to look at. And in front of us is the remnants of a whole avenue of elm trees. And the main means of getting themselves about the countryside is by suckering rather than seed production. Nevertheless, they do produce seed and they do flower as well. And as we are sort of going gradually through spring, we have to keep pace with the trees and the wild flowers, which are all starting to do their thing at this time of the year, mid March. So I'm just going to put pruner up in the air and open up the little bit. 

(27:47)
 We'll try and hook onto a tiny twig about 10 feet up in the air, and then a quick snip, 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh, that's the microphone. 

Chris Skinner:

And that one has just come down nicely. And this is elm, English elm and it's in flower. So yeah, many people don't imagine that trees actually come into flower, but they don't produce flower necessarily. Flowers with petals on them. They produce pollen distributing little organs. And that's exactly what this elm has done. They're sort of blood red to pink at the tip and they're busy, busy producing pollen, which everywhere the wind's blowing and we've got quite a strong northerly. I see you pulling your collar up around your neck, which is a sign that it's chilly where we're standing because we are close to the North sea and northeasterly, even a gentle breeze coming across, it certainly has a chill in it, which explains why my face is the colour it is. 

(28:52)
 Nothing to do with excessive alcohol consumption, you understand? But so elm trees in flower at this time of the year and a week ago I came here with my pruner and I snipped off another twig. And this is what happens within the space of a week. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Well, these have got leaves. 

Chris Skinner:

No, they're not leaves, flowers to seeds in just over a week. This is elm seed. Can you see a little paper disc? It all happens. You're quite right to call them leaves in a way. But this happens before the trees come into leaf and elm trees are so strange for people now because of Dutch Elm disease that happened in the 1970s, particularly a new virulent form of the disease struck the UK and took out, I mean elm trees are so common, the whole of this, which is called Boudicca Way. There was avenues of trees here and we are slightly in a valley here. 

(29:55)
 Then there's a hill behind us and at the farm, which is three quarters of a mile away, I could actually see the mature elm trees, huge trunks, six, seven feet through the trunks, visible for miles. And it just grew everywhere as prolific as these elms suckers in front of us. And you can see even now if we walk down this little avenue, I'll get you out the wind a little bit. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh, thank you. Ha!

Chris Skinner:

You can see there's a data elm there look with no bark on it. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And that's Dutch elm disease. 

Chris Skinner:

It's Dutch elm disease. It's carried by the bark beetle, which carries the fungus and that fungus affects the water transportation part of the capillaries in the elm trunk. And that's the bit that kills them. So lots and lots of dead ones. Another three dead ones there, one here. And generally they get up to about 20, 25 feet tall and then they succumb once again. 

(30:57)
 But from years ago in the 1970s elms, you had avenues of elms everywhere all over, particularly the East Anglian countryside where we are, but all over the UK as well. And suddenly you'd see a gap in these trees where wanted succumb to Dutch elm disease. And then you have these sort of dead stagheaded trees and lots over there. Oh, look over that one. That's about 25 feet tall. And in full flower it's made a kind of a dense top to quite a good living tree. And then right next to it, four or five dead elms. It's so sad. And of course there seems to be some huge pressure on our native trees. Elms were native, our oaks are native. And of course ash trees as well. Yes, and I saw your turnaround because that's how distracting my dog is. He's barking away a little bit down the track here. 

(31:54)
 He's probably found another rabbit hole and he's busy distracting as you wait, like catch him this time. So elms sort of formed a huge part of the countryside and now we've got another new kid on the block, which is ash dieback, only been about probably 20 years maximum now. And that's already devastating the ash trees. So something's changed in our environment to cause these diseases. Yeah, Dutch elms been about a long, long time that has even records of it 3000 BC when the elm pollen count from radiocarbon dating suggested a huge long period with no elm pollen whatsoever. And then there's been various outbreaks in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. But to see elm seed being formed, it has to drop on the ground when it's dry and germinate almost in 24 hours. 

Matthew Gudgin:

They look like green leaves, don't they? But there's a lump in the middle and that's presumably is the seed. 

Chris Skinner:

That is the seed. But their main way of getting them out and about in the countryside, sort of propagating themselves is by suckers because the seed is only viable sometimes people have said for only 24 hours before it can sprout. So beautiful, beautiful trees. And I miss them incredibly. I can hear some high pitched barking. So we've got to walk down a very steep embankment and see if we can retrieve the Rat. 

(33:42)

Matthew Gudgin:
 This is Boudicca’s Way. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, I cleared this three or four years ago with some initial help from the ramblers and then I'm actually get the tractor through and it's now a beautiful countryside walk. Just look on our right, the blackthorn, it's bristling with buds all about to burst open. There's a flower open there, five petals. And soon this will be, it doesn't look anything at the moment. It'll be look. So it's dressed up for a bride to go off to her wedding. Where's this dog? 

Matthew Gudgin:

Well, we've come down here. He's probably gone back up there now. 

Chris Skinner:

I doubt it when it goes quiet. It's always a worry. And that means he's gone down a hole. Rat! There he is. But something ran off. I have a guess it was a rabbit. 

(34:43)
 He gets into the most impenetrable places imaginable. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And this is quite a thicket, isn't it all? 

Chris Skinner:

Yes it is. Yes it is. It's all bits of dead elm and grown through with brambles. It's a lovely habitat for nesting birds and for hiding terriers as well. We'll get him out. So Matthew, do you think you can climb through there? 

Matthew Gudgin:

I do anything for you, Chris, but that might be a little, I can see a reflection through there. I think there's water. 

Chris Skinner:

There's definitely water there. Oh, there's water down at the bottom of the ditch, which is why I'm sending you in. You've got wellies on and I haven't, I think he's probably gone down there. Here Ratty. Here he is. Come on. Good boy. He's out of an impenetrable mate. Here, Here, here, here, here, here. Rat. Come on. 

How he's getting through that. That's blackthorn. 

Here. Here rat. Come on here. 

And he's walking across the blackthorn over a ditch, which has a foot of water in it. He's very happy with this wagging his tail. 

Here. Come on, come boy here. Here come boy. Here. 

Matthew Gudgin (36:07):

You really do have to be Houdini to get out of that. 

Chris Skinner (36:09):

Look at that through the brambles. And here he is now he's not sitting on anybody's lap back to the farm this time. He's got clay on his feet. Your trousers already testament that. 

Matthew Gudgin (36:25):

Whatever did I think of putting light coloured trousers on today?

Chris Skinner (36:28):

I don't know. Well you, you're an icon of fashion, that's why. 

Matthew Gudgin (36:51):

Well, we're back in the farm truck now you’ve got Rat under control because of his muddy paws. 

Chris Skinner (36:56):

Yes. And there's doggy footprints all over this week's questions as well as your trousers

Matthew Gudgin (37:03):

Yes, there is. Shane has emailed and Shane says, over the winter months, I've been generally getting up well before sunrise and have noticed small to medium sized gulls flying in loose formation over Spixworth, which is my home village near Norwich. I grew up there. They're at a height of around 50 to 200 feet heading in a roughly south southwesterly direction near Norwich airport. The fly pass starts about an hour before sunrise and stragglers are still flying over when the sun comes up. I've counted at least a couple of thousand and I'm pretty sure it's not just a small group flying round in circles. Do you know where they're coming from, where they're heading? I see them flying back the other way some evenings. 

Chris Skinner (37:46):

Wow. The lovely question. Yes, I can answer that fairly accurately. Most of the gulls, many of us call them seagulls, but quite a few species of gull spend most of their life inland and don't actually go near the sea at all. And many of those flocks that you're watching early in the morning will be made up of black head gulls together with lesser black back gulls, which have become quite common. And they're the ones that are likely to steal your chips on Yarmouth sea front. But they're roost out on the mud flats out there and they're quite safe because predators can't get at them. And just before dawn, they will all take off in various loose flocks, sometimes from different locations, which is I see this long trail of birds flying over the top of you. And they'll be heading inland and high up, usually two, 300 feet on the way out and higher up in the evening on the return journey. 

(38:44)
 And what they're looking out for and listening for are farmers out on their fields. But agriculture in the last five to six years anyway, has changed hugely in the way that the soil is prepared and drilled. And instead of doing ploughing for the cereal crops in particular, and some other crops, we're using something called min-till. So instead of pulling a heavy plough behind the tractor, which brings up the worms, which we've been feeding the gulls for centuries like that because we were ploughing with horses before tractors and the gulls would follow the horse and plough 'em. And back then now we're using six or seven metre wide machines and we're getting a field done without disturbing the soil too much and bringing the worms up, which is good for the land because we like the worms in the soil to help improve soil fertility and drainage. So that's changed. And so those gulls are having a job to find food. And every morning I feed them out on the farm. I buy special food for them, soak it overnight. And I have between 100 and 200 gulls on my lawn every morning. And what I'll try and do is take a video of me feeding them because they come down and almost land on me. And so that's what you're seeing and you'll probably see the same thing happening in the evening returning, but usually at a much higher height. 

Matthew Gudgin (40:09):

Here's a note from Julian who lives in Halesworth talking about roe deer. Heard you talking about the fairies of the wood the other day. Probably my favourite deer says Julian and I was out walking last May and they were walking towards me in the woodland, quite a sight. I backed up a bit, then came forward again quite closely, and I realised there'd been some sort of distress signal, a barking. So I left. I've seen lots of roe deer, but never heard them either bark or act like that. It felt quite unsettling. 

Chris Skinner (40:45):

It is a very unsettling noise indeed. If you've never heard it before, it's almost frightening. Usually that barking sound is made by the roe buck, the male, but sometimes the doe as well. And particularly the time of year on the email was mentioned, it's May and that's the time of the year that the female, the doe will have given birth and there could be a young fawn nearby in the woodland and she was protecting it. So she walked towards you and probably stamping her feet, but she can bark as well. I never realised that female roe deer could bark like that. But more or less every morning when I'm out on my rounds on the farm, if I disturb roe deer, I get barked at. And for this week's podcast, I will try and put a little bit of world track in of me walking through the wood and see if I can record a roe deer, especially for you, especially from High Ash Farm as they bound off through the woodland. I just love to call them that word, fairies of the wood, which I used on last week's podcast 

Matthew Gudgin (41:50):

After Rayden in Suffolk. Now Lillian, Andrew, thank you for your notes and a photograph enclosed as well. They say, I believe this to be a black red start. We've never seen one before, so it was a real treat. What do you think? 

Chris Skinner (42:05):

Absolutely. That is what it is. It's a perfect picture. It's taken through a window. What you're looking at there is a rarity beyond belief. That's an incredible picture. Do you know, I've seen Redstart before. We've had some at the farm previous years, but they're less than common to say the least. But the black red start, it's called Red Start because of the redness on the tail and there's almost a T shape underneath the tail. And the males will use that, particularly the common Red start. They will shimmer their tails with a display flight and beautiful. Now catch insects on the wing and hover. They winter, so both the common red start and the black red start migratory species. And both of them spend six months, April, may, June, July, August, September in the UK and then they'll go back down to their home territory if you like, which is North Africa. But to see a black red start, this is confusing. That's got to be a red letter day. So well done. And congratulations. 

Matthew Gudgin (43:16):

An update on the swallow nesting sites at a supermarket. 

Chris Skinner (43:20):

Yes, at the Coop at Lincolnshire, that's for the house martens actually, and the stores being inspected this coming Tuesday. So not long to wait. And we hope then to have an answer from the Co-op store regarding hopefully the removal of the netting, which is preventing the house Martins. We've got to get a bit of a shift on with that one because house martens will return to the UK certainly at the end of March, first week of April, and they'll be looking to start nesting straight away. 

Matthew Gudgin (43:54):

Christine and Hunstanton. Just finally, I so wish people would see how important it is to cherish and nurture our fascinating natural world. I'd like to tell you my absolute favourite time every week is when I tune into Chris's podcast, a most pleasurable 45 minutes. I'm in awe of Chris's extensive knowledge. Christine, that's a lovely way to finish. 

Chris Skinner (44:17):

Yes, thank you very much. That warms your heart to have a little bit response from our listeners. Thank you very much and thank you Matthew and Sophie and Anna for oh dear. 

Rat: Woof

Matthew Gudgin (44:30):

Don't forget me!

Chris Skinner (44:31):

Don't forget me says Rat…. for making a silk purse, out of a sows ear and Rat has to have the final word as always. He's a real terror of a terrier 

Matthew Gudgin (44:42):

Email address. chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk

Chris Skinner (45:02):

We have two extra questions this week just in time for this Sunday's podcast. The first one is from Anne Robbins and it says, hello Chris, I enjoy your podcast every week. Please can you tell me what animal made these marks in a field near me in Nottinghamshire? And two lovely pictures sent through and just having a look, and I've already studied them a little bit and without doubt it's the footprint that the front paw and the hind paw of quite a large dog running across some quite wet soil. The soil is nice and flat, you can see the claw marks and the little pads. And just at the back, the indentations from the rear pads, the dog was obviously running. And so the foot marks are quite well spread out into the mud. And so it makes the paw prints look much larger than they actually are. 

(46:05)
 They sunk into the ground a little bit, so that's quite good and nice and easy. And the next question is from Jan Moritt with her partner Dave. And it says, we are avid listeners to all your podcasts and have been for many years. We look forward to them. The video that I have hopefully sent you is taken on my city balcony, St. Augustine's in Norwich. I am lucky that I have an elevated balcony that overlooks a good many trees and gardens. I have blue tits, great tits, starlings, blackbirds, great spotted woodpecker, Robins wren magpies, a squirrel and wonderfully a pair of dunnocks. When I was in my room that overlooks the balcony, I got very excited to see this unusual mating behaviour and that is why the video is a bit shaky as you can probably hear me breathing hard with excitement. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for all your wonderful work. 

(47:10)
 Love Jan. Well, I've had a look at the video and it's actually quite extraordinary and quite rare to capture what you've seen and for once I'm lost for words because I've been trying to find a word that describes this behaviour and the best I can do is unmating. So I'll tell you a little bit about the life history of dunnocks. It's a little bit after the nine o'clock watershed really, but usually dunnocks live in a trio. There's usually an alpha male, a beta male, the sort of subservient male and one female. And so it's a kind of ménage a trois. Now the beta male is allowed to stay on onsite and he eventually will help to bring up the young, but he might not be sort of old enough or powerful enough to hold a territory of his own. But he is allowed by the female to stay in this ménage a trois. 

(48:14)
 And so when the alpha male comes along, the female will quiver her wings and that's what you videoed. And she will display her cloaca to the male, which is a sort of opening at the back where the alimentary canal and the genital regions just combine. Now if you look cloaca up in a dictionary, it will actually probably tell you that it's an old ancient word for sewer, which isn't very tasteful. But nevertheless, this opening is inspected by the male, and if he sees a deposit made by the beater female, he will remove it. But pecking around her cloaca exit will often mean that any sperm that is there is ejected as well. And that's what you've filmed. It's quite a rare recurrence. The male has actually been filmed in the past removing the little sperm sack deposited by the other male. But occasionally, obviously if that's missed, then the subservient male will have mated with a female perhaps when the alpha male's out of the way. And he will then contribute to, and it also helps bringing up the next family, which will be reared in little tiny cup shaped nests with bright sky blue eggs, and it actually aids to the success of the dunnocks. They're insect eating birds, very sharp beaks. So those in Norfolk, we often call them hedge sparrows. They're not really related to sparrows in any way. They're a completely different family. So that's a brilliant, brilliant video. Sorry that it's a little bit embarrassing, but nevertheless, extremely interesting and well done for capturing that very special moment.