Chris Skinner (00:08):
Good morning everybody. It's half past four in the morning, exactly British summertime, and it's the 1st of May. The old traditional start of the season of summer when children in villages years ago used to put up the maypole in the middle of the village, the adults did and the children dance around. It kind of symbolising the unfurling of the seasons. The two old geese with the goslings, I bought them making a lot of noise out on the meadow. It is just getting dawn. The sky's lighting over in the northeast. There's mallard flying over me

(01:11):
And there's a half moon just hanging in the sky quite low the last quarter of the moon. And I'm just walking down the farmyard into the stable blocks because we've had some warm southerly winds yesterday and that's brought in another batch of swallows, mostly females this time. So the males are really celebrating flying around the farmyard at great speed showing off as boys do. And I'm just going to walk into the oldest stable block here at the farm and just see if there's a bit of a swallow dawn chorus. So I'm going to stop speaking and we can see if we can hear that wonderful song with all the beak clicking that they make. Here we go.

Matthew Gudgin (04:59):
What a difference a week makes. Last week felt like mid-winter. This week we're into May, and it's a gorgeous Norfolk lunchtime with blue sky, fluffy clouds and warm breezes as well. Chris Skinner at last you've sorted the weather out.

Chris Skinner (05:14):
Absolutely, Matthew, especially for you. And just as you were speaking, a blackcap, one of our spring migrants chimed up right behind you, really loud. That was a lovely sound just perfect. Beautiful, beautiful. Yes, we think many blackcaps spend the winter with us now, although they'll come up from come up from southern France, but because we're feeding birds in the garden quite regularly, right across the UK now, quite a number have been seen on bird tables during the winter months. And so it's beautiful song, very fluent, eloquent, and tiny bird. Not much to look at, kind of beige, but the male has quite a striking black cap on his head, hence blackcap. I love it. What a lovely sound. I hadn't arranged it I promise you that's not a recorder hid up in the bushes down there. That's the real thing. What

Matthew Gudgin (06:20):
A way to greet us on our weekly podcast at High Ash Farm. A square mile of delicious Norfolk countryside with Chris Skinner looking after it, custodian.

Chris Skinner (06:31):
Yes, exactly. And that's all you ever are, Matthew. A custodian of the countryside. Although I am a tenant on part of the farm, my own part of the farm, and I'm a trustee as well until very recently I've just retired from that. I'm being top trumped by a blackcap, which we believe. And so when you go away from the planet and look back at it, you realise that you can't own it. You're here for a while and you live and then you pass on. And that's amusing me, that blackcap is such a lovely zone. But yes, it's all you are. You're a custodian or a trustee, however you like to look at it. And my ambitions to leave the farm at least as healthy for wildlife, particularly as it was in my childhood. So it's been quite a task because I was almost atilla the hun through my early farming career when you were paid to grub out hedges and make the fields as large as possible and employ all the latest machinery which was being developed, especially for farmers.

(07:45):
On top of that, all the new varieties. And as a young man itching at the bit or champing at the bit, as they say in horse terminology, I very much did all of that. And now it's a chance to turn around and look back and change my ways, so to speak. And it's really celebrate the countryside. And that's exactly what we're doing because right beside us is a venerable old apple tree and it's in full flower at the moment just before the buds open. They're bright, bright pink. You can just see one or two there, careful. It's on quite a steep bank. There's an old hedgerow line, there's a row of old ash trees, Scot's pine behind us, lovely dead and rotten Scot's pine there full of woodpecker holes. Look, looks like a totem pole. And it's almost, we could give that a push between us and it would fall over, but it's such a valuable nesting site. Anyway, this is the crab apple tree, and I've tried to find out exactly why it's called crab apple.

Matthew Gudgin (08:57):
They're quite bitter, aren't they? Crab apple

Chris Skinner (08:58):
They certainly are. They're incredibly acidic, particularly early autumn. They will drop off on the ground, but more or less, there's two species of crab apple. One is the genuine McCoy, the old crab apple, which most of our, if not all are present. 6,000 varieties of apple that related to that would be things like bramley seeedlings, Cox's orange pippin, they're all related to the crab apple. And then there's a second batch of crab apples still call crab apples. You'll find 'em in hedge rows dotted about the countryside and they're called wildings. And what's happened is people walking along eating an apple and then throwing the core into the bottom of hedge and the seeds or some of the seeds germinate and they're not kind of true to type, but crab apples will grow in little bunches, two or three little apples together, often pale yellow with no colour on.

(09:57):
Occasionally you'll have a tiny pink blush. And because of the size of them, I'm wondering if the crab bit comes from the sort of shore crabs that you would see a bit about that size with a shell about two inches across. They're slightly rounded, sometimes they're a little bit flattened crab apples or just the fact that if you eat them you feel pretty crabby afterwards because they're so acidic earlier in the year and my mum used to ask me to gather them and she'd make jam with them. There's so much pectin in the fruit that it would actually help preserve the other fruits that she'd should be making jam from.

Matthew Gudgin (10:36):
Probably make a good chutney or a pickle, wouldn't it?

Chris Skinner (10:37):
You certainly can. Yes. Yes. So lots of uses and doing early autumn when the trees lost its leaves, the crab apple stay on well into winter quite often, then drop on the ground once they've had the frost on them. And then any fungus that's on the ground kind of invades the flesh of the crab apple. They lose that tartness, that bitterness, that almost acid taste. And then the birds. And it's really useful because birds are like mistle thrush, song thrush. Redwing fieldfares will all eat them because they've lost that. Now I have put my teeth into them in January and February because there are so many crab apple trees here at the farm, there's quite a number left over at that time of year and they are almost sweet. But we owe all our native apple species that we know grow. This is malus sylvestrous. So it's a really the ancestor of all these modern varieties that we all take for granted. And then many of them are grown on the old root stocks from crab apple trees. So there we are. It's a lovely way to start the programme. I've definitely been top trumped by that blackcap. I couldn't have made that up. What a lovely sound in the background.

Matthew Gudgin (12:00):
That's a feast for the ears and a feast for the eyes. There's this cherry pink and apple blossom white.

Chris Skinner (12:06):
Exactly that. Look at that. It's that beautiful. And the whole tree, which goes up about, what 25, 30 feet above my head. Look at the blossoms all the way up there. Anyway, our quest today is to look at some of the unusual plants that flower at this time of the year. So we got to hop off to a different part of the farm. Some of them are quite rare and some of them will certainly make you smile or blush.

Matthew Gudgin (12:37):
We're sitting in one of Chris's bird hides overlooking some farmland here in the distance I can see Norwich cathedral spire, but of more interest much nearer to us through these one-way glass windows. We can see some wonderful birds of the Norfolk countryside eating their fill and I suppose taking food elsewhere as well.

Chris Skinner (12:57):
Yes, Matthew, they're rooks. And the reason I've just brought you in here just for a very short while is we have a resident, Raven here now. And believe it or not, he's been coming to this hide. I think it's a male. And although the rooks appeared very large immediately in front of the glass, so we're only sitting three feet from adult rooks with their long beaks. The white skin around the base of the beak total about 75 mil long, that's about three inch long. It looks like a spear on the front and glossy plumage, baggy feathers over the legs. And they were right in front of us just now pecking away on some grain I've put there and I've discovered something I've never seen before because I'm very well aware that the rooks feed up on the grain and take it to the females who are incubating on this.

(13:56):
Their favourite food if we're cultivating the fields is soil invertebrates, certainly worms, beetles, anything like that. And not really the farmer's friend because they will eat freshly emerged cereal and just as it comes out to the ground, oh, one's come right back in front of us. Now I tend to want to speak quietly because it can't hear as the hide is sound insulated. So what's happening is they're filling up with grain, which of course is dry. And the problem is birds can't carry water. That's all bird species. So at this time of the year they feed on soil vertebrates. Oh, you're lucky three now. And you can see the glossy plumage 4, 5, 6 right in front of Matthew. This is what I call kissing distance. Matthew,

Matthew Gudgin (14:53):
You won't want to kiss one of those. I mean those beaks look really vicious don't they?

Chris Skinner (14:57):
They certainly do and right. So what I've discovered is they will fill up with grain and you'll see this kind of lump appearing the rook on our extreme left. The sort of throat patch is just beginning to swell up. As I said in a previous podcast, it looks as though it swallowed a gob stopper and it's eating as much grain as it can, as quickly as it can. And then what I couldn't work out is why they're not flying back to the rookery. And it puzzled me until I watched what was actually happening. And they fly down the field and they go to the area of water at the bottom and then they drink lots of water and send that back to the female on the nest in as a form of a bolus in their beak. And it's absolutely perfect. And you talk about husbands looking after the wives while they're looking after the children because the young rooks have just hatched. Now you've got 12 rooks in front of you, you might

Matthew Gudgin (16:00):
You might be able to hear the pecking going on. Those are the beaks just on the platform outside.

Chris Skinner (16:10):
To give you an idea how big they are. Matthew, if you look to the right, that's a jackdaw.

Matthew Gudgin (16:16):
Yeah, it's quite petite compared with the brutish rooks in front of us. So what they do then is they peck this seed, then mix it with water and form a sort of porridge.

Chris Skinner (16:26):
 Yes, exactly that. Yes. So they're not eating it themselves, they're not digesting it. Remember the females are incubating. If you leave your eggs and you're on a rooks nest...

Matthew Gudgin (16:36):
And off they go.

Chris Skinner (16:38):
And the eggs are really vulnerable of course to being predated by mag pies carrion crows. And even when the young rooks have hatched, we now have three pairs of buzzards on the farm and the buzzards create havoc when they fly over the top of the rookery. Just imagine if that was happening in a football match and some strange creature dropped in and took one of the football supporters out of the match. You can imagine that it would be louder than Norwich city scoring a goal I should think and just fly off with it. And that's what happens. That's what the rooks have to endure. So you spoiled just then. If we had a bit more time, which we haven't got, we would just go there goes one look, it's flying straight down to the lake, see 'em go down the field directly over the hedge and towards the lake.

Matthew Gudgin (17:29):
And that's a new behaviour.

Chris Skinner (17:31):
I've not ever seen that before. It might've happened. It is not in any of my books. I do lots of reading at nighttime and I haven't found any references to that at all because I am fully aware that this grain is about 12 to 14% moisture. It is very dry indeed. It's been stored over the winter. And so the rooks cannot really feed that. And so the only way the female can use that food is to leave the nest. And I did mention they're really vulnerable, particularly this week when this is egg hatching week for rooks in the first week of May. And you have these tiny little fellas which are in an egg just a few days ago about the size of a bantams egg. The eggs are quite small. And look at that. You are unbelievably spoilt. I was hoping we'd have the raven come here because the size difference between the jackdaw and the rook is one thing, but when you see the size difference between the rook and the raven sitting three feet from you, then it's astonishing. Look just down in the distance, a buzzard almost flying towards us. And that's got a nest in that tree. Can you see it?

Matthew Gudgin (18:45):
Yes. Just plaining over the field there.

Chris Skinner (18:47):
Yeah, there it is.

Matthew Gudgin (18:48):
Yes. No wing flaps, just purely on the thermal.

Chris Skinner (18:51):
Look at that. Yeah, right. Well I'd sit in here all afternoon waiting. I'd be ravenous at the end of it to see

Matthew Gudgin (19:01):
Raven ravenous. Yes.

Chris Skinner (19:04):
There's another rook straight down the hedge to the lake. And so I checked this out and I drove down, used a pair of binoculars so I could actually see the water. And there's the best part of 40 rooks there, all drinking water. But they weren't swallowing it, they were holding their heads up and you could actually see their little bolus at the bottom sort of moving about at the base of their bill. So something new I've learned after all those years here on earth. I keep learning new things every week and that makes me smile. Museli for breakfast.

(19:39):
Exactly that.

Matthew Gudgin (19:54):
We've come to Notre Dame Woods, which is one of my favourite parts of the farm here in a relatively new piece of woodland that Chris has introduced us to on many occasions. But we are here now on this plant search, aren't we?

Chris Skinner (20:06):
Yes, we are Matthew, because at this time of the year, early May, right through May, and certainly up to the middle of June, many of our wild flowers come into flower. It's important all the year round for plants. And of course we take particular notice of them when they come into flower and it's great fun because you can learn their names and perhaps learn some of the history as well. Anyway, we're standing in a patch of nettles because I'm very good to you. I'm glad you've not got your shorts on.

Matthew Gudgin (20:38):
I was going to say, where are the flowers? These are just nettles.

Chris Skinner (20:41):
Yes. Yeah, it is exactly that. There's goose grass growing or cleavers as it's known in a farming community, and they're the ones that'll give you the little cleaver seeds that stick on you as well. And lots of other plants as well growing here apart from the nettles, but it's a sunny glade. Oh, lovely. Fox gloves growing there. Look a nice clump which will be in flower in about a week to 10 days time. And we'll visit those because we've got some huge displays this year of foxgloves. But I said I was going to make you blush a bit this morning if that's possible because in front of us is a species of Lily, Arum maculartum is the correct name, but you'll understand why it's a bit suspect when you hear its name and it's in all the wildflower books. It's called Lords and Ladies.

Matthew Gudgin (21:36):
Okay. The sensor will be listening to this

(21:38):
Well come over here. Yes, the sensor will be listening. And here we are arum maculartum.

(21:48):
Oh gracious. Yes.

Chris Skinner (21:50):
Cuckoo point. It's got, I think we say for even cuckoo is kind of got connotations about that name. Right. If I describe it, there are large leaves with kind of lobes at the end of the leaf. And the leaves are 8, 9, 10 inches long. And although it's shady, we're actually in woodland and my eyes just been caught by a comma, just emerged the comma butterfly looking at the freshly emerged stinging nettles, thinking of laying some eggs on there.

Matthew Gudgin (22:26):
This is the first butterfly day you were telling me for some weeks, isn't it?

Chris Skinner (22:29):
About three weeks now. Yes. It's warm enough and that's lovely. It's in super condition. Come through the winter, look at that ragged on the edge of the wings, but just normal.

(22:39):
So sorry, I get so carried away. Firstly, the leaves of arum maculartum, lords and ladies, a good eight inches long with two lobes that look like ears on the back of each leaf. And then something strange happens. This plant's been in leaf since January on cold days as well with the wind blowing through here. And it seems to the shaded conditions, it doesn't like full sunlight and it likes soil with lots of lime in as well. Grows all over the UK, but particularly in the southern half of the country. Now, this is where it gets slightly embarrassing if you like, because at this time of the year the plant puts up a huge, this is called a spathe. It's like a big hood. Imagine somebody with a huge ear with a point on

Matthew Gudgin (23:29):
It looks like Mr. Spocks ear in Star Trek.

Chris Skinner (23:32):
Exactly. That's very good. I see you're well educated with Star Trek and it's actually got veins on it as well to help give it a strength and it's a really strange structure. So that's its proper name.

Matthew Gudgin (23:47):
But there's also a column inside there isn't there?

Chris Skinner (23:50):
 Yes, there is. And this is where the Lord's park comes into it. It's got all sorts of names. It's called Silly Willy as well. It's got hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of nicknames. And so I'm sorry about this, but there's no other way of describing the plant. And now that structure in the middle is really unusual. It actually is warmer than the air around it and it radiates light at nighttime. It's bioluminescent.

Matthew Gudgin (24:27):
Because the coloration at the moment sort of bluish, reddish, a

Chris Skinner (24:31):
Bluish almost purple, isn't it? Yes, yes. But

Matthew Gudgin (24:35):
Completely at odds with the colour of the leaf

Chris Skinner (24:38):
Exactly, yes. It's sticking up like that and it's sticky and it does give out a very faint smell. So it's attracting flies and other insects to it. And the reason is that further down on that little spathe structure that wraps around the plant much further down is where the flowers are and the flowers get pollinated. And I might find a spay that's just gone. Oh, here's one, we might find one. I've just got to fold the nettles down the things I do.

Matthew Gudgin (25:15):
Ouch. He's been stung.

Chris Skinner (25:16):
That one got me right. This one's finished. So, oh look, they're right beside us

Matthew Gudgin (25:21):
There's your comma. Oh, crinkly wings.

Chris Skinner (25:25):
Looks though the edge of the wings have been nibbled, right? This one's finished. So we can just open it up a little bit and then round the base. So where the pollen is, and there's the flower at the bottom. Can you see it?

Matthew Gudgin (25:39):
Like a pineapple shape?

Chris Skinner (25:40):
It looks exactly like a pineapple. And that commas absolutely insisting to be on this podcast. Look at that. It's landed right beside us. Full sun ragged leaves a beautiful sort of brown colour with black dots on the wings and some little white margin wings on the hind wings. Beautiful. It's been hibernating as an adult.

Matthew Gudgin (26:05):
There's proper weather. Today's 20 degrees the sunlight's strong as well.

Chris Skinner (26:09):
Yes. Anyway, getting back to this, Arum maculartum lords and ladies,

Matthew Gudgin (26:14):
Silly willy.

Chris Skinner (26:14):
Yes, there's the flower at the base, the spathe on that one has done its job and there's insects crawling all over it. And you can see the down facing hairs on there. And that traps the insects down at the bottom. So the only way back up for them is to brush past those hairs, which had the pollen on them, and then they fly off. Now later in the year, all this little pineapple structure you so eloquently described there turns orange and then bright blood red into the autumn. And you have the seeds which are highly poisonous, but birds eat them and they seem to be able to pass through without being affected by the poison. But sometimes sadly, children eat them. They look rather like miniature holy berries all in a tight bunch. And they ripen sort of late September and certainly into October is the time that this plant finishes its annual cycle. So there we are. Cuckoo pint. I've tried to be as discreet as possible, which isn't easy lords and ladies, yes, Lords and ladies, cuckoo point, Arum maculartum. There you are. It's a new one for you at High Ash and it grows all over the farm. Southern half of the UK is quite common and yeah, well I can feel a slight blush or that's either the plant or the very warm sun today.

Matthew Gudgin (27:41):
Got to congratulate you on the standard of your nettles here. I've been stung through my trousers.

Chris Skinner (27:45):
Yes. So have I, and I'm on my knees in the middle and I can feel the sort of tingling here.

Matthew Gudgin (27:51):
These are serious stinging nettles.

Chris Skinner (27:53):
Absolutely. And that comma was going to make the most of them by laying its eggs on the underside of those. And nettles are the top plant at this time of the year for laying butterfly eggs, peacocks red admiral, we'll use them and several other species as well, and lots of insects and caterpillars. So there we are. Lovely time of year, right. We've got a few more to visit just on the outside of Notre Dame Wood here. A few more surprises for you.

Matthew Gudgin (28:33):
South facing bank here, just outside the woodland and well, it's got a profusion of different wild flowers and plants. It's a really beautiful size, isn't it, Chris?

Chris Skinner (28:44):
Yes. As I said, the variety at this time of the year of wild flowers and plants coming into the fruition part of their year, if you like, coming to flower and to fruit already is astounding. The whole variety is amazing, but they're easy to miss because many of them are diminutive and they're the ones that interest me. And some of them are quite rare and some of them are unusual. So another hands and knees job, Matthew, just look at these tiny pink flowers. I think they're really beautiful. And yet their first part of its name is common. So it's called common Stalks Bill. And it's a bit like saying to one of your friends at school, you've got really long nose kind of thing. And so its name for the plant is named after the beaklike structure that happens about two to three weeks after this plant is finished flowering.

(29:53):
So if we look down at the ground quite carefully, and I'll see if I can find one for you. Yeah, I can see one here. There like a spike. It's like a huge spike. So although the plant is tiny, the flowers are what, four millimetres across and perfectly pink and serrated. They're really, really beautiful. And the seed pod is formed and it does look like a stalks bill. It's a bit perverse because there's some pink ones over there, which are called cranes bill. So there we are. Look at this seed pod. So this seed pod is what gives the plant its name stalks bill, common stalks bill. And it's still forming and it will get a little bit big. Oh, there's a larger one just there. It just got it in the sun perfectly. So a swollen base about the size of a match head and then a long spike coming out, which is 30 to 40 millimetres long.

(30:57):
It's about an inch and a half long. And then the magic happens, the seed pod ripens and still keeps that very sharp long point. And then on hot days later on in the summer end of June into early July, that pod structure with that very sharp spike on splits into four. Dries in the sun and curls up. The only way you can describe it is a cork screw. That cork screw bit with a quarter of the beak structure drills itself into the ground and the seed plants itself by a corkscrew action. It actually screws itself into the ground, the seed last of all. And then the little corkscrew portion actually contracts and pulls the seed just into the soil surface.

Matthew Gudgin (31:54):
We've got the stalk bill, but also at this time of the year, the lovely flowers as well, which are very small but very attractive.

Chris Skinner (32:01):
Yes, well look at these. Look, this is your proper forget me knot. Even smaller flowers on there.

Matthew Gudgin (32:07):
Well there little blue flowers. What are they?

Chris Skinner (32:09):
 Yeah, that's wild Forget me knot. And sometimes you'll see larger versions of it. One here, which is about what? 150 mil tall. But most of them are right down there in the understory of the plant field here. So as you said, it's a very steep facing pure sand under here. And the important thing for the stalks bill and the crane spill growing up there, a taller plant is the high pH here at the soil and the other plant that likes it, if you turn round, you'll see the ground looks almost red, particularly if you get down low and the sun's coming across. And that's sorrel. And believe it or not, in Tudor times, Matthew, that was the top vegetable to have on your plate, that the seed heads and the little leaves, which we can tell if it's sorrel, it's a lanch shaped leaf.

(33:01):
I'll see if I can find one down here. Light shaped leaf. There we pull,

Matthew Gudgin (33:06):
Looks like a salad leaf.

Chris Skinner (33:07):
It's exactly that. And now it's coming back into fashion. And SOL's got this secret, this long lanch shaped leaf, it's about 30 millimetres long and there's two lobes at the bottom of the leaf and they face back up the leaf. Can you see them?

Matthew Gudgin (33:25):
Two little lugs, yes.

Chris Skinner (33:27):
 They're little lugs. Look, just open the leaf up a bit. And that was also eaten as salads and it's come back into fashion. So you'll often find it in posh restaurants. Now it is sorrel with your salad and it gives it that kind of bitterness as well.

Matthew Gudgin (33:42):
Yeah, side dish of sorrel, that'll be 15 pounds.

Chris Skinner (33:45):
That's exactly about it.

Matthew Gudgin (33:47):
You must have several thousand

Chris Skinner (33:48):
and you get three or four leaves. This is the real McCoy. This is wild sorrel.

(33:53):
And just look as we look over the grassland, there's some grass coming into flower there just about 10 feet from us. And I know many of the grass species that grow here at the farm and that one's got a lovely name. It's called crested dog's tail. I'm sorry I didn't make all these names up.

Matthew Gudgin (34:12):
Is that in honour of Rat?

Chris Skinner (34:13):
Yes, in honour of my terrible terrier. So there we are. And there's just one more behind us. Let's just walk over here a little bit. So I mentioned the soil here is very high pH, there's lime quite away down beneath us, got a gravel overlay. But all of this land, including Notre Dame Wood here was arable land until about 1990 and planted Notre Dame Wood, the children did all the work there, which I like. And I stopped sugar beet growing in the early two thousands.

(34:48):
It was a commodity. And since then many of the wildfires have come back. But when I was a sugar beet grower every year because the light sandy soil on the farm is very acidic, I had spread on from the sugar beet factory, what's called Derbyshire limestone. And it's all ground up and it's used to filter the sugar at the factory and we called it Cantley waste sludge from the local sugary factory. Not a very pleasant name, but the pH here is still around about eight. And it suits this plant in front of us, which is one of East Anglias rarest. It's called Hoary Mullein, verbascum pulverulentum .

Matthew Gudgin (35:35):
It looks like you've spilled some icing sugar on them.

Chris Skinner (35:38):
 Yes, exactly what it looks like. And that gives it that name, that ancient name, Hoary, which is looks as though it's covered with haw frost, but it's in full growth at the moment. And there's one there almost pure white. And it sends out to flower shoot and it flies for about three weeks in July in the hottest part of the summer and attracts moths and hover flies. And the nice thing about the history of it is it was first discovered it was in a book called Gladstone's Botanica and the book was dated 1625 and inside was a page about Hoary mullein discovered much about the city walls of Norwich. So there we are, a little rarity and it grows really best in East Anglia.

Matthew Gudgin (36:27):
It's all up and down this bank here, isn't it?

Chris Skinner (36:28):
Yes, absolutely.

Matthew Gudgin (36:29):
We better go and answer some questions.

Chris Skinner (36:32):
As I said last week, there's more questions than answers every week, but we do our best. Come on, let's go and find some paper.

Matthew Gudgin (36:47):
Some ducks in the shade over there and swallows overhead. And who's that?

Chris Skinner (36:52):
A Black bird saying? Good morning, Matthew.

Matthew Gudgin (36:58):
Well here we are with lots of questions, Tom, who lives so many miles away Stoke Holy Cross. One of your neighbours loves the podcast, Chris, we were talking about lady birds doing what comes naturally last time. And Tom sent a photograph of two, once again mating lady birds. There are two different sorts though, says Tom, is this normal? How many spots? How many spots would the offspring have?

Chris Skinner (37:25):
Yes. Well they've got a four spot black ladybird with red spots on and then a seven spot normal ladybird. And they're busy doing what as you said, what comes naturally And right now there are instances of ladybirds actually being closely related. They will have offspring, but Ladybird have a bit of a problem in identifying the opposite sex. So quite often when you see ladybirds mating, there'd be two males or two females and obviously there'd be no offspring from those. So if they're fairly closely related, like perhaps a four spot and a six spot, they might what's called hybridise and have youngsters as normal. But there's not much sort of written evidence about what happens for completely different species. There's no real evidence that they actually successfully breed.

Matthew Gudgin (38:25):
Can't we just add up the spots?

Chris Skinner (38:27):
Yes, you could do. Yes. You've got a four spot black cased one and a seven spot one. So

Matthew Gudgin (38:34):
It's 11,

Chris Skinner (38:35):
It 11. So divide 11, that's five and a half spotter. But there are so many species of ladybirds well over 30 in the UK and they will right? I think the largest number of spots on any given species is a 24 spotter. And the 22 spot one is quite common.

Matthew Gudgin (38:54):
Hello to Susan Thomas living in America, listening in the USA a regular listener to this podcast. Coming over here though in May for 10 days towards the end of the month, hoping to see some bluebells here at High Ash farm. It's a bit late. That'll be,

Chris Skinner (39:10):
Oh yes, because this warm weather has suddenly arrived here in the UK. The bluebells will have finished flowering certainly by mid May. So you're just out of time sadly. But nevertheless, the main wildflower fields where we have the clovers, the sand fall in the oxide daisy, all vetures and many different colourful plants should be all out in bloom by then.

Matthew Gudgin (39:36):
Chris Murray has emailed a photograph, just to let you know, the bees have returned to the dove cots. I have bees drinking water from the pond, but I'm not sure if these are the honeybees or baby wasps. Not sure if these are large enough for you to see and identify. Well let's have a look at the photos.

Chris Skinner (39:53):
Yes, perfect. And my son's enlarged the pictures and they're honeybees, apus meliflua. And they're busy drinking because obviously once you have the first warm weather come, bees need to drink. They're collecting nectar funny enough, which has an awful lot of water in, but they can't drink that. So what they do, they deposit the nectar in the little cell and then bees work all day on sunny days. And they also work all night and they fan the nectar to get the moisture out of it. And once it is at a certain specific gravity, they seal the little cells over and that's where your honey comes from. Yes. So there we are.

Matthew Gudgin (40:36):
Lovely photographs. Who's this from? Ah yes, Richard Turkington in North Lincolnshire. This is obviously from a few days ago, another rainy day outside. I was wondering how Chris' streams are doing on the farm because on previous episodes there was drought, wasn't there?

Chris Skinner (40:52):
There certainly was. And many of the streams here at High Ash Farm dried up. And I was really concerned about that because on the north side of the farm is a huge water pumping station by Anglian water and we're pumping out well over 20,000 cubic metres a day. That's double the height of Mount Everest to give you an idea. And many of the streams dried it up. And I was wondering if it was excessive abstraction from the aquifer under the farm here. But the streams have returned to normal. They're doing what streams should do and foddering the River Tass, which joins the River Yare on the outskirts of Norwich. But one of the is coming in absolutely full pelt.

Matthew Gudgin (41:38):
You just had five or six swallows just flew virtually between us.

Chris Skinner (41:41):
Really? Oh my word. I was so busy concentrating on the answer. But anyway, one of the streams that's coming in at a huge rate of knots, two 12 inch pipes going full bore and it's only leaving the farm with less than one pipe and the water is still going down at a massive rate into the chalk aquifer. The bottom of the stream is pure white. And so that's the chalk layer. And so it's obviously still taking in water.

Matthew Gudgin (42:09):
Ruth and Christopher, mother and son who enjoy listening to the podcast and they just wrote us a note to say they're spreading the word. We send the podcast to Florida where my niece Christine is learning a lot and her dad, my brother was a Norfolk man. So it's nice for her to be listening all about the county. That's good to hear.

Chris Skinner (42:29):
Alright, well in time. Thank you Ruth and Christopher.

Matthew Gudgin (42:32):
Oh, someone wants to give you something here. David Evans Jones of Thorpe and Andrew, which is only a couple of miles over the river from here, isn't it? He's got a pink chestnut tree grown a few years ago from a conker. It's about two foot six could do with going to a good home is the home here.

Chris Skinner (42:50):
This is the place. We'll certainly find it a home if you get it here to the farm, I'll guarantee to get it planted for you. And very conveniently, he sent a photograph of it. So welcome conker tree. And of course that brings back memories of my childhood and ones and twos in the playground at school where we were allowed to play with conkers until it was later banned.

Matthew Gudgin (43:13):
Well, it's a long way off conker season. We're in swallow season and they're really enjoying this weather at the moment. Blue skies.

Chris Skinner (43:19):
Absolutely. So this is why the horses are here. Some are now going to walk past us. It's not that I love horses, I love swallows. So I can have all these area of grassland around the farm buildings and that's perfect habitat for our swallows. They're just coming in and out of the building right beside as a stream of swallow. It's straight in. I mean they're just like flashes of lightning, aren't they? Just so busy. And now summer is here, the swallows are here, 27 swallows here counted last night and they're all overhead. Last week we were searching round for them and now we're spoiled. Wonderful.

Matthew Gudgin (44:02):
One swallow doesn't make a summer, but we've got dozens now and I'm looking forward to our weekly visits right through the summer when Chris can guarantee the weather will be this good. And we've got an email address if you want to send Chris a note. It's chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk.