Episode 32: The Swallows Return

Chris Skinner (00:17):

Good morning everybody. It's a windy early morning here at High Ash Farm. It's warm southerly wind blowing across the field. I'm in the truck checking which fields we can get onto later on this week on some clay here at the farm and it needs reseeding and so there's lots of anxious farmers chomping at the bit wanting to get out onto the land. And the wind is a huge help in drying out the soil. They say in life it's an ill wind that blows no good, so hopefully it will dry this wet clay out a little bit so that we can get on. This southerly wind is ideal though because it will bring our spring migrants in much quicker, much earlier than can happen if the winds are unfavourable. So coming up from the south, we'll have swallows, martens, cuckoos and whitethroat all heading up to the UK from European boundaries. 

(01:24)
 So absolutely brilliant. It's blowing an absolute hooly. The truck is shaking about in the wind. Rat’s beside me. He's not too keen on going out into the wind my terrible terrier, so he's decided to curl up on the seat beside me and we're just looking round. And if it was a Raptor competition this morning, then I think Skinner would be a winner because just as I drove on to this field, there was buzzard, a kite, a kestrel hovering at the bottom end of the field and a marsh harrier all in five minutes. So that's quite something. Anyway, at this time of the year, this wind is favouring one of our trees, one of our British native trees. And it's one on particular particularly interested in because this is called obviously High Ash Farm and it's the ash tree and early April, we're now coming up to mid-April. 

(02:21)
 Matthew Gudgin will be here with me later on this morning. And the ash trees actually coming to flower now and they're wind pollinated trees. So two parts of each flower. You have the male stamens and they're the pollen bearing part and they're kind of bright purple, reddish purple colour. And then the female parts are called pistols as well. So as I said, wind pollinated. So this wind is actually helping distribute the pollen and ash trees have a lot of secrets about them, which always have fascinated me apart from the lovely scientific name they have, which is fraxinus excelsior. Sounds very posh. And so sometimes the flowers at this time of the year, mid-April, are on the same twig. You have male and female flowers on the same twig. Sometimes you'll have them on different twigs. So one long twig will just have all male flowers on and one next to it will be all female flowers. 

(03:28)
 And sometimes the flowers are all male on one particular tree with no female flowers. And then another tree nearby can be all female flowers, all on one tree with no male flowers. And then this is where it gets interesting. Sometimes you have a tree that's male one year and then female the next. And on the other side of this field, there's a lovely avenue of ash trees, which I planted in 1973. It was easy to remember ‘plant a tree in 73’. We had a dry summer that year and the motto went out, ‘plant some more in 74’. So these are around about 30 feet tall. I'm just looking at them now. And some of them have got, it looks as though there's birds perching in them. They've still got the ash keys on, they're called ash keys because they just look like bunches of keys that perhaps a prison officer would have hanging round his belt, 20 or 30 keys and ash trees bear their fruit in keys, which are called samaras, and sometimes you'll see a tree absolutely covered in them. 

(04:43)
 So I'm looking across the field now and I can see some of them just look like 2030 jackdaws perched in the tree, but they're not. They're these huge fist sized clumps of ash keys and quite interesting and finches love to eat them. So that used to be make gardeners smile because you had a good ash key year. The bull finches would be much later arriving in the orchards to strip out the buds on fruit trees, particularly plums and particularly apples. And one of our most colourful finches, and I think it was Gilbert White that describes the bull finch in a particular way and called it a half a tree a day bird just because he was recording the devastation caused by bull finches just nipping out the terminal buds on the apple trees in his garden down at Selborne there. So bit of history there, but why I love ash trees so much is that that incredible change. 

(05:51)
 So from one year to the next, the tree can actually change sex. And so all male one year, all female the next year and then the third year it can be going back to male and female flowers on the same tree, but interesting tree because they love High Ash Farm because just underneath the surface of this field that I'm sitting on is a very deep layer of chalk and ash trees absolutely love lime rich soil. The best place to see them is in northeast of England around Morecambe Bay up there and Malham as well where you have these limestone outcrops and they're completely flat where the glacier of the last ice age 10,000 years ago or more sort of smoothed across the top of the limestone. And then they have little cracks in the limestone and the ash keys blow in there on windy days. 

(06:52)
 Remember this is a windy day. So those keys, those samaras will be blown off the tree. And the windier, as far as the ash tree is concerned, the better because the keys will be spread as far away as possible from the parent tree. So that would also be good news. So hence they say that ill wind that blows no good is certainly do the ash trees a favour in distributing the seeds at the moment and the pollen as well. So they keep their samaras there. Ash keys on until this time of the year, right, it's about the shortest lived of all the native trees in terms of its leaves because it's often the first to lose its leaves in the autumn and the last as well to come into leaf in this time of the year in spring, often not until well into May. And there's an old motto about it explaining that an old adage and it says ‘oak before ash we're in for a splash’, meaning that you're just going to have a very dry summer. 

(07:56)
 And if ash comes into leaf before oak, it would be ‘ash before oak we're in for a soak’. So it is not very reliable because nearly always the oak is in leaf before the ash. So there we are. Excellent fuel though. And my parents taught me ‘ash dry or ash green makes for a fire fit for a king or queen’, but it's better described a better description I should say by Walter de la Mare because I had to learn this one at school, a little bit of poetry of all the trees in England, her sweet three corners in only the ash, the bonnie ash burns fierce while it is green. And so there we are a little bit of history there. And historically I'm sitting quite close to an Anglo-Saxon cemetery. It's only about 400 yards away. And the Anglo-Saxons used ash for their spears and their lances because it's a very strong wood, it can be used for alls as well. 

(09:01)
 Parallel bars in the gym at school. Wow, the truck's actually shaking at the moment. Goodness me, the noise is incredible. The first dust is blowing off this field now. Wow, that was a powerful gust. 40 miles an hour plus. So the Anglo-Saxons used it for their spares, shafts and lances, as I said. And so the Anglo-Saxon word I think I can remember it is A-E-S-C is the word that also means spear in Anglo-Saxon language. And go right back in Scandinavian folklore as well. The ash tree was meant to be the tree of life and it's branches reached up into heaven and the roots down into hell. And on the top branches, an eagle lived and it would send messages brought to it by a squirrel who lived down at the bottom and the squirrel would scamper up and down the tree taking messages of what was happening down in earthly world up to the eagle. 

(10:11)
 The eagle would then fly off and take the messages to the gods who were keeping an eye on what was happening down below. And so it was called the tree of life. And there's lots of drawings of it in history as well. So lots and lots of history, but nevertheless, I absolutely love having them here. And the trouble is now, it's one of these trees that's suffering from a new disease, chilara or ash dieback it's called. And all the young ash trees are planted in three or four new areas of woodland here at the farm. Most of those youngsters have succumbed, occasionally get one which remains untouched, but it's really, really quite devastating. And there's some venerable old ashes here, six, seven feet through the trunk, absolutely colossal with lots of holes for jackdaws and other birds to nest in kestrels, love nesting in them as well. And so they're a really valuable and important part of the British countryside and one of our most common trees as well. But I absolutely love them. So come on, Gudgin, where are you? We've got work to do. He'll be turning up in a few minutes and come and find me. And then we'll do perhaps some of our spring wildflowers. And I'm waiting for those swallows to arrive at the farm. Maybe we'll be lucky in about an hour's time.

(11:40)
 I'll be able to tease my grandchildren later on. It’s that windy, a chicken in the farm yard's just laid the same egg twice!

Matthew Gudgin (12:23):

What have you seen Chris? 

Chris Skinner (12:24):

Matthew, welcome to High Ash Farm and look above us, a swallow. 

Matthew Gudgin (12:31):

The sun is out. We've got blue sky and light cloud, and it's a very fresh spring morning and a swallow. 

Chris Skinner (12:37):

Beautiful. What more could you want? Just they make me feel really special. I know I've kind of lived another year here. They've been here every year since I was born in the old stable block here. And it fascinates me because way back in the 17 and 18 hundreds, everybody thought, including Gilbert White, the naturalist thought that swallows hibernated underwater. And it wasn't until much later that they actually do something right above our head. Again, 

Matthew Gudgin (13:12):

Expert aeronautics from a swallow, a very early swallow.

Chris Skinner (13:17):

Yes, yes. The average arrival date here at High Ash Farms the 6th of April every year. And they arrived bang on queue this year. There was a strong southerly breeze that brought them up and there was a flush really all over the county of Norfolk. And most of them are male swallows. Absolutely fascinating. But going back to Gilbert White, I get, sorry, I get so excited when I see a swallow. It was thought they hibernated over the winter because they suddenly disappeared and nobody could explain why it was extraordinary to think that birds went underwater. But some of our bird species do do that. Kingfishers is obviously, Dippers is another one. They go under the water and walk up the stream and nobody could explain their disappearance. But when the truth dawned, it's even more fascinating that these tiny birds weighing less than an ounce go all the way down to South Africa. 

(14:14)
 It's 5,000 miles from where we're standing right down where the gold mines are, Johannesburg region, and they go across the Sahara or parts of the Sahara and on the northern migration backwards, come back to the UK to spend their summer with us. Again they cross the Sahara and if the winds are not favourable, if they hit northernly winds, they can be doomed. So last year we exported from High Ash Farm around a hundred swallows, including all the young. And I think if we got 20 back here, that would be a good result. But you were spoiled then. So I think one of our listeners actually sent a question as well, which ties in with this morning perfectly. 

Matthew Gudgin (15:00):

Yes. Had a note from Colin and Jackie Taylor. Just a quick note to let you know that our first three swallows turned up on the 6th at the farm in Woodbridge, which was lovely to see. They began arriving on the 1st of April last year. Love listening to the podcast. 

Chris Skinner (15:15):

Excellent, thank you very much. That's bang on cue, so I can't wait. There's about 25 nests in the little building right behind us. And the new stable blocks over here now have a double roof on as well because under the corrugated sheeting, the heat is so intense that when young baby swallows are in their nest, they can actually bail out onto the floor. The bedding of the horses. They don't get hurt, but I'm constantly putting them back into the nest and just amazing to see that. So double roof. So there's a layer of insulation there and the sparrows are making the most of it as well, right beside us. 

Matthew Gudgin (15:57):

And that roof is in honour of the swallows.

Chris Skinner (15:58):

It is, yes. I'm slightly, I don't know what you'd call it, demented according to my son, but it works a treat. And as you can hear with a smile in my voice, I love having the swallows here. And if you want to help nature, sometimes you have to go that little extra mile, forget what the neighbours are going to say about you. And it's so rewarding to have a yard full of swallows. And that's why the horses are all here. The girls don't know this, but the horses mean that we can have pasture around the farm buildings, the horses poo on the pasture. There's lots of insects there. The mucky down there, which has just been cleared, attracts lots of flies as well. And of course they don't perch up like many birds to feed. They actually feed only on the wing. So they're kind of aerial plankton I like to call it. 

(16:53)
 So, and all the species and migratory birds, although the swift isn't completely related to swallows and martens certainly swallows or barn swallows more correctly called house marten, sand martens all feed on the wing in the same way. And it's just a treat to have them here. And the stable doors, you have to actually duck your head sometimes. Another one just over there just flying down over the top of the horse, just went down right low over the pasture. And there it is going round the tree. 

Matthew Gudgin:

There's two I think. 

Chris Skinner:

Yeah, there is, yeah. Oh, perfect. And the sun's on them, they're happy. And I go round at night. Yes, well done. Yes, you've got your eye in now. Now you could tell if you really sharp eyed that there's long tail streamers and the tail streamers, the two little single forked feathers that come out of the rear of the swallow are much longer in the male than the female. 

(17:50)
 And I haven't yet got any females. And that's typical that the male swallows arrive here at least a week ahead of the females. Remember the females are bringing five or six eggs with them on the way, so they're a little bit slower in getting here. And the males will, as soon as the females arrive, the males go in at nighttime and first thing in the morning. And serenade the females as she cleans last. So just lovely. I love them to bits. And you really know that springs properly here and summer's about to arrive when the swallows are here. 

Matthew Gudgin (18:25):

And they stay here till the autumn, till September. And the job is for them, well quite basically to produce as many young as possible 

Chris Skinner (18:32):

Yes. And I aid them with that. And that's the whole idea of them being here. I have my own, I wasn't allowed to play with mud as a young child, but now I have my own mud bath and I get some of the clay, mix it with little bits of chopped grass and have a little place in the middle of the farmyard where they can land together with the house martens and they make their own nest from mud pellets, which they mix with saliva and add a little bit to a nest cup each day, over a thousand mud pellets to make a swallows cup shaped nest. And they're just amazing. So just wonderful to have them here. Just jumped up and down. 

Matthew Gudgin (19:11):

Well, it's great fun being here with Chris Skinner at High Ash Farm for the Countryside Podcast each week. And we've got much more to see. 

Chris Skinner (19:19):

We have, we're out on the farm now and see what we can see. We've had the camera out all week and capturing some of the wildlife spectacles and you never quite know what we're going to see when we're out and about, but some of them will bring another smile to your face. So come on, let's get in the truck and off we go. 

Matthew Gudgin (19:54):

Some activity out here on the fields. Chris? 

Chris Skinner (19:56):

Yes, Matthew. It's been a long, long wet winter and we're a little bit behind with getting these spring crops in. This is over winter wild bird seed mix. It's been here for a year now and we are now cultivating the area and it's the new way of preparing seed beds. This is called mintill. And we're using what called shallow discs or short discs, they're more properly called. And they've got a 250 horsepower tractor pulling about four and a half metres with all these small discs there and then a compression device at the back to solidify the soil. So we keep the moisture in. That seems a strange thing to do, but the weather can change at the click of a finger can go from too wet to too dry. 

Matthew Gudgin:

It'll be drying out this morning to some extent, won't it? 

Chris Skinner:

It'll, there's this quite strong wind blowing from the northwest this morning. 

(20:57)
 And so this is a new way of doing it. And you can see the rooks of following the discs very closely and that's their favourite food. Soil invertebrates, things like worms and beetles and they'll be gathering those. In fact, the rooks actually look like gulls because the lights reflecting off their plumage. So I can tell that they're rooks with that really reflective plumage. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Spots of silver. Yes, tractor's making a turn. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, it's up there. Gone about 250 metres way away and it's now turned around and coming back down the hill. And this has fairly light soil, so it's enabled us to get a good start. And it's had a coat of horse manure on it. You can see there's a generous coating on the ground and it's actually incorporating that into the top soil all in one go and chopping up the crop residue as well. 

(21:55)
 So you're doing several jobs at once and making a seed bed for the following crop, which will be wheat, barley, triticale, three varieties of cereals, some black sunflower in there, lots of millet, linseed and a whole variety mustard and fodder radishes. Well, there's a big long list and it all gets mixed up on the barn floor and then broadcast on, and then one final pass with this machine to incorporate the seed back into the soil. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And that'll be feed for the birds during next winter?

Chris Skinner:

Yes, during winter, 20, 24, 25. So over that period of time. So here comes the tractor. It's very quiet, very, very sort of air conditioned as well. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And who's in there? 

That's Neil driving this morning. If he is driving, he doesn't really have to do anything at all. And 

Matthew Gudgin:

There's autopilot. 

Chris Skinner:

It's autopilot. And so we're walking behind the tractor in a moment and look up the line and you can see how powerful it is and all those discs, they're serrated edges and just turning round. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Big blue tractor. Massive wheels. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, colossal wheels. That's to reduce the compaction on the soil and back down. Yes. Neil's just sitting there.  

(23:24)
 There that would do most people's gardens in about five seconds. Okay. 

Matthew Gudgin:

You couldn't lend that to me, could you? 

Chris Skinner:

Well, I'll think about it. It is getting it. Look at that. It's absolutely perfect. Beautiful. Isn't it? Really lovely colour soil. The soil is very high in organic matter and lots of worms as well. But if you noticed, I said lots worms, he's only in what, 50 millimetres? That's two inches deep. And so the worms aren't actually being disturbed, although the rooks, we can see up there just looking and hoping to find beetles. And sometimes if the worms are near the top, they can be brought out on top. So we try and preserve the worm population. 

Matthew Gudgin (24:06):

Yes if you’re imagining deep furrows, well this just isn't it? It's a completely different system, but it turns the soil over and it's a lovely smell as well isn’t it?

Chris Skinner (24:13):

Yes, it is. That smell of fresh turned soil is really evocative of this time of the year and going back to my childhood. But years ago, all these fields would've been ploughed, which is really slow, whether it's done with a small tractor to single furrow ploughs, even then two furrow ploughs, you really thought you were somebody then. And then 4, 5, 6 furrow ploughs. And now this machine is really superseding the use of the ploughs. So you're not using all that energy bringing unweathered soil up, so you're staying in the top bit, which is where the plants will be growing anyway. So saves a lot of fuel and time as well. And that's the important thing. So you can see just behind us here, some of the flowers that are now being chopped up, unfortunately, but we've got over a hundred acres of wild flower fields here that are already coming into flower. 

(25:05)
 And this is the dandelion, lots of slang words to describe it. When I was quite young, I think it's the first swear word I knew. And it's called ‘piss the bed’ because it is a diuretic and it used to be ground up and used as a coffee substitute as well. And of course dandelion comes from the shape of the leaf down here. And just pick one because this one's about to be chopped up and the leaves are meant to represent the teeth of a lion, hence from the French don de Leon, teeth of the lion is where it comes from. But during the second world war in particular, the dandelion roots were dug up and dried and used as a coffee substitute. This quite good and dandelion leaves and the flowers are used in modern day salads 

Matthew Gudgin (25:54):

And these blue flowers?

Chris Skinner (25:55):

Speedwell. 

Matthew Gudgin (25:57):

That was in my mind. So I'm starting to learn 

Chris Skinner (25:59):

Yes, beautiful blue flowers with a pale centre. And they're now about, they've got a few seconds more to live. And this one's an interesting one that's groundsell. Great favourite with the finches and birds here on the farm. So there we are, tractor’s come back. 

Matthew Gudgin (26:17):

And we've got out of the way. 

Chris Skinner (26:18):

We have got out of the way or we'll both be incorporated into the soil. Yes. 

Matthew Gudgin (26:25):

I don't think I'd improve the quality of the soil.

Chris Skinner (26:26):

I'm sure that you would. Yes. And another one as well, mayweed, that's quite nice as well. Looks exactly like a white daisy and it is a member of the family as well. But don't despair, this will all be growing up again in about two, three weeks time and green again and all coming back into flower, there goes the tractor. Do you think you could pull that machine up the field, Matthew, at that speed? 

Matthew Gudgin (26:56):

No. World’s strongest man I think he'd struggle as well. Yes. But when the tractor goes back up the hill, we then hear the sound of a skylark. 

Chris Skinner (27:06):

Yes, they're all around us. Yes, because all around the edges of the fields are quite large margins and there's a hectare of pure grass just beside where we are parked and on the south side of the slope to stop, run off into the stream, which runs along. But there's this skylark just over there. 

Matthew Gudgin (27:24):

Oh yes. Fluttering the wings. Yeah, yeah, just 

Chris Skinner (27:27):

Skirting around. I can just hear it too. 

Matthew Gudgin (27:31):

Flying on, flying and singing at the same time there. Yes, 

Chris Skinner (27:35):

There it goes down onto the ground and perfect. Yes. So this field, they will be able to nest on here as well because once it's sewn, it won't be disturbed at all for a whole year. And beside us there is a 30 acre field of hay and can you notice all the dark rings on it just over there? 

Matthew Gudgin:

Yes. 

Chris Skinner:

Fairy, ring champion, 

Matthew Gudgin:

A species of gardener's curse. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, I suppose so. You have it in the lawn, but lots of secrets about that as well because it increases the fertility so much that you get these dark green lines and that Skylark having insistent on being on this podcast this morning. Lovely. 

Matthew Gudgin (28:17):

And the rooks, well, they're not making any noise because they're too busy feeding on worms. 

Chris Skinner (28:21):

Yes, there's nearly 200 up there. 

Matthew Gudgin (28:25):

They’re glossy black feathers. 

Chris Skinner (28:26):

Yes, beautiful there. Now Notre Dame Wood right beside us, we're just going to drive that short distance over there and enjoy one of the delights of spring. 

Matthew Gudgin (28:48):

Chris, you're pointing. 

Chris Skinner (28:49):

I am pointing very rude to point. 

Matthew Gudgin (28:53):

Is that a hare. 

Chris Skinner (28:54):

Yes, the hare right on the edge of Notre Dame wood 

Matthew Gudgin (28:58):

A hundred yards away on the other side. Yes. 

Going over your fairy rings now. Yes. 

Chris Skinner (29:04):

Dodging in between the fairy rings. What a sight. We've got an aerial view of those dark rings now the sun's just illuminating them and it looks very strange sometimes they join together and they look like the Olympic rings the symbol of the Olympics. 

Matthew Gudgin (29:21):

Are you sure it's not martians? 

Chris Skinner (29:22):

No, that's what it looks like sometimes. People said you've had spacecraft landing on your field. 

Matthew Gudgin (29:27):

Were you ever tempted to take part in the crop circle? Craze was 40 odd years ago

Chris Skinner (29:32):

Oh, it was a nightmare here because of the valleys in Norfolk and the cereal crops I was growing at the time. We had two or three very, very strange martian arrivals on the fields. Some of them were huge. And they got on the front page of the local press, the Eastern Daily Press, and they were really intricate. They must have taken hours. But when you actually go, went and examined them, there was a few clues left as to what had caused them. And one of them was a half eaten pack of polos around the edge of one of the fields. So I came to think that martians eat polos and people would arrive, see the crops circle down in the field and just said they felt some strange power coming from the designs, which were, as I said, really intricate just as we stood there on the edge of Notre Dame Wood, a beautiful peacock butterfly just flew past us and disappeared into the trees. 

(30:36)

Matthew Gudgin:
 You’ve got some lovely white blossom on this tree here. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, we're just walking up to this particular one. Many of the trees over the last few weeks. We've been introducing everybody too because they come into flower, many of them at this time of the year. And this is perhaps the most flamboyant to all of them. It's the cherry, in fact, it's the wild cherry and it's more commonly known as Gean as well. Some people pronounce it as gean it's a glorious slash of white poster paint. In other words, the butterflies, there're wow, two butterflies on there right at the top and one's feeding on the blossom. And it is a peacock butterfly. And that will be right near the end of its life. So what it's doing, it's feeding up and then it'll be looking around in the understory here on this steep bank and looking for freshly emerged stinging nettles and it'll be laying its eggs on those. 

(31:37)
 And that's the peacocks food plant. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And you've laid the nettles on here? 

Chris Skinner:

Yeah, I have. Yes, especially all over. And look under the trees there, lots of fox gloves as well coming up in the shade. A mixture of field maple, Norway spruce, Scots pine and all lots of British native trees. And funny enough, although this tree looks very exotic and almost out of place, it is a British native and it's related. If you'd like to enjoy cherries in the summer, then this is the tree that our cultivated cherries will have been bred from and gives us those lovely cherries. So cherries that you buy in the shops at the moment will probably come from South Africa where those swallows were right down there. The other side of the equator. And it, let's just get up a little bit closer on a quite sharp escarpment here, which is why the woodland's here. 

(32:35)
 This is a hectare. There's two and a half acres, this area of woodland planted in 1990 by the children of Notre Dame school in Norwich. And it's maturing really beautiful. It looks as though it's always been here as a permanent piece of woodland. But let's have a little look at these cherries bottom here. Just look at that in the sunshine you can see five petals on each one and on each little clump there's probably 50 or so flowers. And then the stamens in the middle and you can just see a sort of crimson tip on them. And that's the holes of pollen. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Yeah, that dash of red gives it a certain hue, doesn't it? Oh, there's a bee that's a honeybee. 

Chris Skinner:

And on its legs you can just see, we call them pollen baskets. You can just see little dobs of crimson appearing. And that's the pollen from the cherry. 

(33:34)
 So each of the trees come into flower from now on later in the season, more and more flamboyant the trees because they have to compete with all the insects that come to pollinate them. Oh, that's such a lovely site. Look at that. 

Matthew Gudgin:

The sun are on it now as well. Yeah, just hovering away a busy bee. 

Chris Skinner:

And once you look up into the tree, you'll see there's a bumble queen buff tail bumble bee. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh, she's a fine example. Just came down to see it. Look at that. It's absolutely bustling. Quite a bit of insect life, isn't it? 

Chris Skinner:

Yes it is. And so when you walk past and just see the tree in blossom, that's one thing. But when you actually look at what it's doing, it's inviting the insects to come in and actually pollinate it and it will produce kind of greenish fruit in late May. 

(34:24)
 Then they'll gradually turn yellow in June and they will go sort of red. More often than not, they go straight to black, but they are sweet. And I do gather sloes in the autumn and make sloe gin. But I also make, which will be a treat for you this year, cherry brandy. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And you've never told me this before. 

Chris Skinner

No, I keep it secret because suddenly your face is lit up cherry brandy. Oh yes, yes. So you gather the wild cherries and you fill a bottle completely full with it. It's so easy to do a table spoon full of castor sugar in over the top and then you fill all the gaps up with brandy and put the top on, leave it for about 12 weeks. And that is what you call a drink. You have to drink it standing up. It's pretty strong, but oh, it's so aromatic and so tasty. 

(35:21)
 You only have it in the tiniest. If I gave you a thimble full, that would be plenty. So it's quite strong, but it's easy. So easy to make and so rewarding. And it doesn't take long either. And they make lovely presents that haven't cost much money. That honeybee is really digging in and you can see the pollen baskets on its legs and getting more and more loaded now as its gathers the pollen and transfers it back to the hind legs. Yeah. Cor, what a sight just in front of us to bees working away and you look up through the canopy, butterflies, bumblebees, honeybees all working away. And cherry wood is of course quite valuable as people that turn timber. Absolutely love it. It gives a lovely, it's if you polish it, it gets close to looking like mahogany. And of course it's made lots of furniture's made from it. 

(36:18)
 Tabletop sometimes. And right down to one that probably made famous by Harrold Wilson is pipes. He was a famous pipe smoker and they were always made as was my father's pipe made from cherrywood. So there we are, a little bit history, but just look at this. Oh, and holly blue at the top. Oh wow. Small diminutive little butterfly and a skipper as well. Oh, two of them. This one's coming down close to us.  Just coming out… You can just see through the wings. 

Matthew Gudgin:

The butterflies love this tree. 

Chris Skinner:

Oh goodness. And right at the top, another peacock. You have to be careful. We're standing on a steep bank. It's jumping up and down morning I tell you. Oh, just beautiful. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And the white flowers against this blue sky as well. Yeah, that's just as It's the heart sing, isn't it? 

Chris Skinner:

It absolutely does. And some of the coniferous trees coming into flower behind, there's some Norway spruce over in the distance there just about to shed its pollen another week and it will be mist of pollen coming off there and just such a lovely site. So thank you to the children of Notre Dame school. They did all the hard work. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Well they'd all be in their forties now. 

Chris Skinner:

Yeah, don't say anything. I know it is. Where does time go? You don't remind me. Yes. 1990. Just amazing. And it looks like a real mature piece of wood. And that's its name Notre Dame Wood. 

(38:14)

Matthew Gudgin:
 We're after another butterfly species, Chris. 

Chris Skinner:

Oh Matthew. We're following it up the side of a wood. It's a male and it's an orange tip and it's doing eight miles an hour. Beautiful. It's just come down on the ground, we can stop the truck. Oh, it's right beside you. Nearly flew in the truck. Nearly came in the window. Oh look at that. Perfect. 

Matthew Gudgin (38:36):

And we can say it's a him. 

Chris Skinner (38:37):

Yes. Because only the male has those bright orange tips. The female looks rather like what we call a small white and it's still carrying on so that looks like crazy flying. But what it's doing, it's flying around the margin. Another one further up the hill got to start the truck again. 

Matthew Gudgin (38:56):

They’ve always loved this little corner of the farm haven’t they? 

Chris Skinner (38:59):

Yes. Yeah, because it's a favourite of their food plant, which is garlic mustard and garlic mustard. That's a female they had just flowed and two more in front of us. Whoa. 

I dunno what you call a flock of butterflies. Two, they're just met and that's why it's patrolling up the edges of the woodland on the food plants. But it's looking for a mate at the same time. Look at that. Two of them join together. Are they two males or a male and a female? We're coming up to back one. The one behind is a male and the one in front's a male. And there's a food plant, garlic mustard. 

Matthew Gudgin (39:38):

You can tell by the white flowers. Yes. They come a long way. They must from the best part of a hundred yards, 

Chris Skinner (39:44):

That's 200 yards they've just done. And we are still following it. And it's flying into the wind as well. We've got on northwesterly this morning, bumblebee. Look at that. The whole side of the wood is covered in its food plant. The food plant is where it lays its eggs on, but it will take pollen and nectar from things like dandelions, anything. Once it's fed up so to speak, and filled up with nectar, then it's looking to find a mate. And that's why it's flying all this way down because all it's coming up with is other males. Look at that right beside us.

Matthew Gudgin (40:21):

And that's on the mustard

Chris Skinner (40:23):

The garlic mustard there. So what I'll do now is just stop the car. We've got a few questions to answer right beside us. I'm just going to get out and explain to you why it's called garlic mustard. 

Matthew Gudgin (40:40):

The butterfly already off in the distance. 

Chris Skinner (40:44):

There we are. Little treat for both of us one leafier. I'm just checking. There's no orange barrel shaped eggs on the underside, which means it's laid an egg on there. I'll check this one. No, that's okay as well.  

Matthew Gudgin (40:58):

Just putting it between my fingers. I can smell the mustard and the garlic. 

Chris Skinner (41:04):

It is not poisonous. I promise you you can't eat it once you crunch into it. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh, it's lovely strong, isn't it? I do like garlic and that's Oh gorgeous. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, right. We've just got to keep away from everybody for the rest of the day and the sun's come out. Oh that was perfect. So there we are seeing what three or four different butterfly species just in our hour together this morning at the farm now in the sunshine on one of the edges of the woodland. Absolutely perfect to answer some of our listeners questions. 

Matthew Gudgin (41:39):

Yeah, some emails. Thanks for all of the messages as always. Julian Lawrence in Halesworth was here the other day, enjoyed walking around High Ash, watching the nature on view some highlights, watching and hearing a lot of nut hatches. I saw more than 10 hares, a hunting sparrowhawk, kestrels, red kite and a tree creeper. Now that's a good spot, isn't it?

Chris Skinner (42:00):

That certainly is. It is one of my ambitions to get you close to tree creepers and this is the perfect wood behind us to actually see them in. So well done, Julian well spotted those tree creepers. 

Matthew Gudgin (42:13):

Trevor Courtney. Hello to you. While listening to your fantastic podcast, a hummingbird hawk moth buzzed around my Daphne shrub despite a healthy wind blowing. My question is, would this be a visiting moth that's arrived early in the year? I caught a slowmo snippet on my phone. I dunno if you've seen the snippet?

Chris Skinner (42:33):

Yes, I certainly have. And I can confirm it was a hummingbird hawk mouth. Now it's nearly impossible to say whether it's a homegrown one because we had such a mild winter this year. And the thing is, hummingbird hawk moths are migratory species, they'll come up from Southern Europe, Mediterranean region. And if you noticed about a week ago just before Storm Kathleen hit us last weekend, there was some very warm, quite strong southerly winds blowing. That's what brought the swallows to High Ash Farm, brought swallows across the county of Norfolk and also brought some of our migratory moth and butterfly species in. So some of the butterflies, if you're seeing red admirals at the moment or even an early clouded yellow butterfly, will have come up from southern Europe. So very difficult to say, but my guess is it came up on those southerly winds. But well spotted! 

Matthew Gudgin (43:31):

Ollie lives not far from the farm at Cringleford near Norwich. And Ollie says hello, captain Birdseye and the motley crew of the good ship High Ash. Just to say last night, Aubrey, Aubrey, the field mouse was taking the kids out for a run. First time I've seen them as a group. Very cute. 

Chris Skinner (43:51):

Yes, I've had a look on the computer and seen mum and the children scurrying about also called wood mice as well with those huge long tails. And honestly, Matthew, if you saw the video, they live life in the fast lane. 

Matthew Gudgin (44:09):

Yeah, they certainly do with their zebedee ways. If you remember the magic roundabout. Yes. Jane, Carl and Kai all tuned in at Alderby. We've got a couple of questions for you Chris. Firstly, the other day my grandson Kai found a bumblebee inside the house on the door curtain and knew that it needed to be put outside. So we managed to carefully lift off onto a piece of paper. But then Kai noticed it was covered in loads of tiny mites or something similar. He was concerned that they may be eating it. Any ideas? 

Chris Skinner (44:41):

Yes, I'm pretty confident it's the Varroa distructor, mite. And kindly she's taken a photograph of it here.

Matthew Gudgin (44:50):

Oh, that's nasty isn’t it 

Chris Skinner (44:50):

It looks absolutely appalling. There must be a dozen of these mites within the fur of the bumblebee and probably the varroa mite is UK's number one bee pest. We've got an apiary here at the farm, a dozen or so hives. And another area where there's a smaller number of hives and it's a beekeeper's bane. If you have varroa mites, you can fumigate the hive and try and control them like that. But very often the bees get so depleted. You have the whole colony will just collapse if the queen is heavily infested. And it affects bumblebees as well. But the varroa mites are really hitching and ride. They get themselves a boat from bee to bee because they will leave the bee when it's actually gathering pollen, say from a dandelion plant. And then another bee will come along and collect some more nectar or pollen from the same dandelion part and the varroa mite quickly hop on board. So that's how they get about. But it's really distressing to see. 

Matthew Gudgin (45:55):

And another question here about a blue tits that was showing some odd behaviour on the bird feeder says Carl thought it may have hit a window, but after a while he ate some peanuts, then flew off to another feeder. I was just inches away from it, obviously could fly. And the only thing I did notice was that its beak looked a little deformed slightly longer than normal, I’d say. 

Chris Skinner (46:21):

Yes. I think part of the beak slightly shorter than normal. I think it's probably had a collision with a window and was stunned. And so I think it was okay because it was feeding. And so that actually helps the situation an awful lot. It was getting some energy from the fat ball supplied for it. And so I don't think you need to worry, but to be able to get that close to one is quite amazing. Your hand was almost touching it on the video. 

Matthew Gudgin (46:49):

Now we've got another one about little owls here because we had great fun with the little owls last week. And here's a listener from Houston, Texas, an ex-pat Brit. I'm originally from South Devon. Really love the podcast. I'm a wildlife biologist and studied your little owl's cousin over here for my graduate shoot research, the Western burrowing owl. I was completely entranced by them. The ones I studied lived in prairie dog towns on the wide open prairies of Colorado and ate beetles and grasshoppers. I definitely have a thing about owls. One of my fondest memories was sitting early one morning by a prairie dog and watching completely captivated three to four little fuzzball babies popped up from their burrow one by one, literally a few feet away. Pure magic, something I'll never, ever forget. 

Chris Skinner (47:41):

Yes and quite right too, they are stunning birds. I did mention that the little owls here at High Ash Farm nest in hollow oak trees and various nest boxes I've put up for them. But one of my early memories was being able to go around the farm, single-handed without mum or dad. And I would spend time in the woodland over in the distance there, the top corner of which is a rabbit warren. And I'd sit and watch the rabbits playing and then I'd go back and tell my dad what I'd seen. And quite often I would see a little owl going down a rabbit burrows. And he just called me a stupid child that owls don't go underground. Not that he know of. And in subsequent years I come to laugh about it, although I was a bit upset at the time that he didn't believe me. 

(48:32)
 And put one of the trail cameras outside, one of the rabbit warrens at the farm here and recorded on several occasions little owls going down and rearing their young underground in the warren. So quite right. And they are both related. The burrowing owl and the formerly native little owl here, Athene noctua, they've both got the same introduction to their scientific name of Athene. So there we are. So wonderful and great footage still on High Ash Farm, Facebook of the little owls here at the farm and the rooks that we saw feeding behind the shallow disc cultivator that Neil's pulling this morning are also on the High Ash Farm Facebook. And if we are lucky, I've got a camera on the go at the moment and we've got so many red kites in this area. I hope to have a nice smart video of one of the red kites visiting some of the roadkill that we have out on the farm. So pheasant out there this morning might attract a kite

Matthew Gudgin (49:38):

High Ash farm Facebook, the place to go. Emails, questions, comments, whatever you like. Go straight to chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk. Send them along and I can guarantee Chris will look at them. We don't always have time to include them on the podcast though. But it's been great fun this week. I loved hearing you in the storm, but we've had beautiful weather for my visit this morning as well. And we'll see you next time. 

Chris Skinner (50:02):

Yes, see you then. Look forward to it.