Chris Skinner (00:10):
It is 10 o'clock in the evening, the light is fading fast now. I'm sitting on damp soil in one of the woodlands at High Ash Farm, the blackbirds, the robins, and the song thrushes have all finished their evening song and just at dusk this is a long established roost for jackdaws, carrion crows and rooks to bring their young to this area of woodland. And right now they're flying in the dusk above my head. And it's their kind of even song if you like. I'd like to think of it as pillow talk. I'm just wondering what the jackdaws are saying to their young and the rooks to their youngsters as they spend their night together. High up in the canopy above me. A lovely evening sound. Matthew Gudgeon will be with me in the morning and we'll be looking at some of the summer orchids at High Ash farm and visit a pond that's got one hide mini monsters swimming about it. Join us then.

Matthew Gudgin (02:55):
It's surprisingly cool for approaching the middle of June, but still very pleasant with patches of blue sky. And here at High Ash Farm, all is festooned with wildflower finery and we've got some horses looking over the hedge at us as well. And ah, here we are a lesser spotted farmer as well to greet us. Hello Chris.

Chris Skinner (03:16):
Hello, Matthew. I'm the right side of the hedge, I don't need to crane my neck over and have a look at you. Corr. Yes, it's cool this morning. And so weather's very fickle for this June, but we've just had a mild wet May. Very, very welcome at High Ash Farm, the old motto of wet May, long hay still holds true. And there's hayfields right at the top of the hill there. We're at the bottom of one of the valleys of High ash farm and lots of variable soil types here. There's chalk just underneath where we're standing. If I gave you a spade of half an hour, you'd be turning out pure white chalk that you could write on a blackboard with.

Matthew Gudgin (04:04):
Does the spade come with instruction?

Chris Skinner (04:07):
Yes, you hold the handle and use your feet, but we're standing on one of the old tracks that run through high ash farm. It's got a lovely name. It's called Greensides Loke, and I do know there was a Greenside family living in the little keeper's cottage at the top. He was the game keeper for the farm. And the cottage is on a high spot overlooking the quite a bit of high ash farm so he could keep an eye on the pheasants and any of the other game and be very protective of it.

Matthew Gudgin (04:41):
So poachers as well.

Chris Skinner (04:42):
Oh yes. And I have kept a relic from Mr. Greenside when he left that house. And it's a poachers gun not used by poachers, it's used by gamekeepers to shoot poachers and things like that happened hundreds of years ago. Whereas the greenside family carried on right until the sort of mid 19 hundreds, 1950, I think he perhaps left the property. But the gun has a cable, a tiny invisible piece of brass wire that goes across a woodland ride. And if anybody walks through it sets off a little cannon hidden up and your legs, there'd be peppered with lead shot. Simple as that.

Matthew Gudgin (05:29):
I don't think his majestys police force probably encouraged th at sort of thing these days.

Chris Skinner (05:34):
No, there were things like man traps as well. Huge.

Matthew Gudgin (05:37):
Oh yes, great big teeth,

Chris Skinner (05:39):
Yes. And if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. But nevertheless, that's why this is called Greensides Loke out of memory of the gamekeepers that looked after the game here at the farm. And we're standing on this track and the field is quite high one side of us and the soil has dropped away. And effectively we've got a bank to look at a soil profile. If we just have a look here quite close in. it is quite interesting, let's or bop down, there's a rabbit hole there and you can see there's three coloured soil types, very distinct. The top one is one that everybody will know about. It's obviously called top soil. And if you dig your garden, it's usually about a foot deep. Here. It is perhaps just over that. And that's where all the plants grow on. It's all full of natural nutrients.

(06:40):
And then over hundreds and hundreds of years, the rain washes through that soil and it dissolves minerals and elements into a very narrow band. And farmers will be quite familiar with it. It's called the pan layer. And it's quite hard, it's very distinct. And here you can see it's about two, three inches deep and it's a different colour and usually it gets stained with any of the elements that wash through. You often get an iron pan, it's called, and it's often associated with a bottom of a furrow with horses used to plough. And later on tractors always playing at the same depth and it kind of smears the soil and makes it impervious. And then very distinctly just under that is a much lighter coloured soil and that's called sub-soil. And that's really important at High Ash Farm because our fields are full of worms. And the worms go right down, particularly in dry weather.

(07:42):
They do something called aestivating and they almost hibernate because the soil's too dry in the top soil for them. And so they'll bring up soil, they'll dig their little burrows quite deep down and bring up soil and that can contain seeds. But the important thing is if you're doing, lots of people are planning wild flower fields to try and help endangered bee species. And what happens is the wildflowers that you sow kind of decide whether they like it or not. So the mixture of say 20 wildflowers, you might have five or six that really thrive at the end of it all. And it all depends on these three layers of soil. What wild flowers thrive in the high ash here we've got lots of chalk. As I mentioned, it's right underneath where I'm kneeling and if I carefully look in the side there, there's a little white crumb just fell down. And if I get that and just crush it like that, you can see it's pure white. And that's why the pH here at the farm suits some of the wild flowers in a particular way. Yeah, there we are. Look, I've crushed it up and my finger's now gone white.

Matthew Gudgin (09:01):
And these fragments are all in that lower layer and right up into the top soil.

Chris Skinner (09:06):
Absolutely. So the natural pH of the soil, the lime content is crucial as to what's growing on top of it. So that means you have a particular set of plants, things like legumes, they rely on need and totally depend on the correct pH in the soil. They won't grow on acid soil, in other words. So things like the sand and the clover that we have growing on the fields there. This one in particular, sort of brushing the top of my head oxide daisy. Yeah,

Matthew Gudgin (09:39):
Lovely display of the daisies here. Yes.

Chris Skinner (09:42):
Oh look above our head. Speaking above there, two buzzards checking you out. Look there

Matthew Gudgin (09:48):
They are circling, gliding on the thermals.

Chris Skinner (09:51):
Yes, thermals today. So there we are. That explains why the flora and fauna is so variable out in the county, this particular county of Norfolk, it's how the glaciers left the soil. So we've got acid soils, lime rich soil, which this is, and then it influences what grows on top hugely. And we've had a question to start us off this week. It's really interesting.

Matthew Gudgin (10:21):
Yes, it's from Matt Hay. We love the names that fit in with what we do here. Matt, thank you for your note. He says he loves listening to the podcast and it was great to hear you Chris discussing bee orchids in the last episode. We've got some popping up in my village and they've been marked out with tiny stakes so the council don't mow them by mistake. Chris referenced the mystery of the orchids being self pollinating, but they actually evolved to be pollinated by a type of solitary bee, the longhorned bee and across much of their range, it is still the primary mechanism for their reproduction, ensuring good genetic mixing to keep the species healthy. And if you didn't hear last week and it's still available to listen to the bee orchid has this sort of fake bee attached to the flower.

Chris Skinner (11:13):
And everything about that letter is Matt is completely correct there. And so I haven't yet seen a longhorned bee, although I did know in the past that the bees, the bee orchids must have lured in bees of a particular species. And many plants and flowers are pollinated by one species only. It is always quite surprising. So we are looking at this bank, we've seen the three soil types. It's rather like a sandwich with a dark layer in the middle. And if you look here Matthew, there's lots of very fine soil, it looks like the screed layer at the bottom of a mountain looks

Matthew Gudgin (11:57):
Looks like sand.

Chris Skinner (11:58):
It is come out, the sand portion of the soil has come here and it's all come from this bank, but it hasn't been washed there by rain. It's been dug out by tiny holes. They look about the size, you could get a match head in them and they're the solitary bees, not the longhorn bee that was mentioned there, but generally mason bees. Yeah, you've got your eye in there.

Matthew Gudgin (12:25):
 It's a Swiss cheese.

Chris Skinner (12:25):
Exactly, yes, absolutely. Full of all these tiny holes. And that's why I love these sort of features on the farm so much. I was always tempted to put a sand martin nesting colony here and make this wall a lot higher and put holes in it, an artificial one because we have sand martins all around the farm. None nesting on the farm unfortunately. They nest in the two local quarries in the sandbanks there and they're delightful to see. Beautiful, beautiful little birds close relative of the swallow and the house martin, but not the swift. And they're very local and they feed in these valleys here across the wild far fields at this time of the year. I love them to bits. They're literally called the river bird in their scientific name. riparia, riparia. Anyway, with going back to those orchids, Matthew, that's a really interesting question because all around us, the field just at the top of this bank and now has well over a thousand bee orchids in which we did last week. And I did say as we follow summer through follow the wild flowers that succeed each other, all offering something different for our pollinators. We'll go and visit another couple of the orchids this morning and so we'll just hop back in the truck and a very short drive and I'm going to blow you away with their beauty. Come on, let's hop back in.

Matthew Gudgin (13:57):
You could say on today's podcast we are being the orchids squad

Chris Skinner (14:00):
Yes, I think we are. Yes. As usual

Matthew Gudgin (14:05):
Thanks to Matt for the email and more questions coming up later on. Where did you put your car?

Chris Skinner (14:10):
Oh, that's right down the track here. Come on. You're used to walking aren't you?

Matthew Gudgin (14:25):
The sun has disappeared hopefully only for a short while. But here on High Ash Farm, it's such a pleasure to see the wildflower meadows and we've come a bit higher than we were down in the gully just now and to just looking out over this field. Chris, what a feast for the eye.

Chris Skinner (14:41):
You're telling me Matthew and anybody can enjoy this because we're standing on the edge of a field and there's a wide moan track here. It's a public footpath called Boudica Way and it runs right down the eastern boundary of High Ash Farm. So it's a lovely spot that you can visit. And just behind us is a lovely seat here, a cast iron seat in memory of one of the ladies that walked here. She was called Dawn Victoria Hill. And so we've renamed this little spot that we're standing on Dawn Hill. So when I talked to Daniel or Neil, who both do a lot of the work here now, and I said, oh, just where dawn hill seat is, they all know exactly where this location is. So I said I was going to spoil you this morning and enjoy some of the other species of orchid that we have here. And I've marked some further down the track which are Bee orchids, which we did last week.

Matthew Gudgin (15:43):
So if youre walking down here, look for the canes because Chris marks them out.

Chris Skinner (15:47):
Yes, I do. And so you can actually photograph them and here is a little delight for you. It's marked with a cane. Usually the canes have numbers on them, which are the amount of orchids that I've found. And this one's just a yard in from the track and it's a beauty. And I invited a local photographer here yesterday, Laura Cuffing, and she's ace with a camera and she laid down beside this. I mean it is funny the things you have to do to get good photographs sometimes. And she's photographed this particular specimen and although it's got common at the start of its name, it's stunningly beautiful and anything but common these days is called the common spotted orchid. And here it is, loves the high pH soil and the clay underneath it. So if we just bop down a little bit, you can see it's incredibly delicate and there's a fly on it and many people don't realise that flies and ants and lots of other insects are really, really important pollinators.

(16:58):
Just look at this and good identification feature is the leaves at the bottom look rather like the early purple orchid, which we have in the woodlands here at the farm, which love growing in shade and they look as though they've been dabbled with spots of blood. These little spots on the bottom leaves are rather browner and blacker and all the leaves have that pattern on them. Little Rosetta leaves at the bottom, then a long stalk coming up, which at the moment is about 10 inches tall perhaps. And then it's topped with the most beautiful flower. It's got a rather unusual scent and so it's attracting flies and another one has just arrived. Matthew, can you see

Matthew Gudgin (17:44):
That Fly is really enjoying it there because he's not scared of us being nearby, is much more intent on enjoying the pollen.

Chris Skinner (17:52):
Yes, and the nectar as well. So it will use its little proboscis to go right down into the nectary. And you notice the two flies that have been here whilst we're here are feeding on the top part of the plant, the flower I should say, because the bottom petals have already done their job. And this is where it starts to get interesting with orchids. What fascinates people, the seed from orchids? Well the best way to describe it is dust because it doesn't have its own energy supply you know with wheat and barley and many of the cereals that we as humans eat, they've all got their own energy supply in them as well as the germ to start off the new plant and the energy supply, supply that's contained within the seed sets it off, whereas with orchids don't have that. They rely on a fungus in the soil and they kind of form a symbiotic relationship with the fungi.

(18:49):
And so the soy seed is extremely light, not as light and as small as the next orchid. We'll see. But this single flower can comfortably produce 10,000 seeds and probably double that. It's so job, such a huge task to count them and there'll be lots here. So this is the first one out. We're right at the beginning of the common spotted orchid flowering season. And it's not until you get in close and look at the detail as to see why people become fanatical almost about orchids. So I'm always a bit at risk by marking them with these canes. And because this is open public access with a public footpath, it's rather like having your most valuable treasures that you have in your museum, but no lock and key on them. So I kind of bite my fingernails hoping that this particular one right by the track here is still here when you arrive because I found it on Saturday.

(19:51):
And to tell you how excited I go, I just gave a huge whoop and then looked around and hope no neighbouring farmers were nearby for here because it is quite exciting when you see them because there's literally what we are looking at, several million oxide daisies and tall butter cups as well. And the succession is happening already and the season as it's cooler, everything's taking longer to be in flower. The fox gloves we looked at two or three weeks ago are still in full flower because of the weather that we're having. They're plants under stress from moisture or heat, which makes them go all through their flowering cycles very, very quickly.

Matthew Gudgin (20:39):
Its a beautiful thing, isn't it, that each year we have summer, but it's slightly different and there are the variations in conditions and it makes you marvel at how these plants are able to roll with the punches.

Chris Skinner (20:52):
Yes, you're telling me, and they certainly do that. They seem to be coping very well with climatic change because a year ago we were drought stricken on top of this hill and this crop, the oxide daisies were all about as high as this one here, look down here, 1, 2, 3, look, there's 20 oxide daisies only halfway up there, brothers and sisters. And they'll be in flower in about a week to 10 days time up level with the top of the buttercups, which are two feet tall. So a whole variety changes. And of course the grasses as well. There's one with a lovely pink flower head on just over there, not taking the attention away from the beauty of this orchid, but that's called Yorkshire fog and it's a hairy grass and normally it's 8 to 10 inches tall and that one's over there is already well over a foot tall, beautiful grass species and they're all coming into flower at this time of year as well, which is why anybody walking down this footpath is continually sneezing if they suffer from hayfever.

Matthew Gudgin (21:55):
Well, it's a large field and the general impression is of the yellows and the whites of these daisies and the buttercups and the green under furnishing as well.

Chris Skinner (22:07):
Understory. And you can see the grass is suppressed because wherever I look, if I just part those oxide daisies there, what's there just in front of my finger, a dozen yellow rattle plants. And that's taking care of the poor grasses which are in the understory, you see? So that's the other trick of establishing a wildflower field. If it's on the old meadow, the soil can be incredibly fertile. And plants like this orchid in front of us and some of the other rarer ones here just don't stand a chance. They're swamped out, particularly as farmers have left these old variety of grasses here and usually using in their silage fields, perhaps some in hay fields as well, modern varieties of grasses, which are twice the height and yield twice as much. But why wouldn't you if you're a farmer? And of course that fights against this plant, the sun's just come out. Just look at that common spotted orchid, Matthew tearful.

Matthew Gudgin (23:17):
We've waded into the wildflower meadow, which makes it sound like quite a small patch of land, but actually this is huge. It must be one of the widest expanses of this sort of wildflower plant there is in Norfolk.

Chris Skinner (23:31):
Yes, it probably is, but I don't like to say I've got the biggest and the best. It is just what it is. Basically this is a 40 hectare block, a hundred acres in old money. Brilliant Wheatland farmers would be pulling their hair out and say, why you got wild flowers here? Because of this around our feet, Matthew, there's oxide daisies everywhere, sainfoin. Although the sun's just come out again, you are absolutely spoiled. There's a few buttercups, lots of bumblebees. In fact, in the next week, oh look, two Bumbles, red tail, young bumblebees on one bit of sainfoin just there. That's a lovely site. And just over there behind you there's a large post and some steaks again there. Each steak's got a number on it. And those are pyramidal orchids or pyramidal orchids. There's a lot of argument among orchid specialists about how you pronounce it.

(24:35):
It's obviously pyramid because that's the shape of the flower. So just, it's just disappeared, there It is. so hard to see sometimes, but nevertheless, it's another hands and knees job. And this is a truly special and beautiful, beautiful,

Matthew Gudgin (24:56):
fabulous colour, fabulous shape.

Chris Skinner (24:59):
it is. So you've got that triangular shape. I'll just part the oxide daisies away from it. This one's almost exactly a foot tall and it will finish up about 18 inches tall. It's just started to flower and you've got this deep, deep purple Rosetta flowers around the base of the pyramid, which gives it its name. Is that bee troubling you?

Matthew Gudgin (25:26):
 Not at all. No, I'm just enjoying him.

Chris Skinner (25:28):
Yes, after the sanfoin right round your knee. And that's a red tail. Red tail bumble. Yes. Just flew past the microphone there. Now this orchid is rather different. It really, really loves this deep yellow clay that it's growing on really low fertility, so no competition.

(25:50):
And it's getting its energy from the two tubers at the bottom, which characteristic of all the orchid family, a double ovoid tuber it's called, as I mentioned last week with the Bee orchids. One tuber is larger than the other, the small ones supplying all the energy to put up this flower stalk. It's really another one of those erratic species of orchid where you can have 20, 30 in one spot one year and then none for four, five years. It's the county flower of the isle of white. And that helps solve the mystery as to why it grows in some places rather than others. Just inshore on the land from the isle of white, you can see the white cliffs there. And obviously that's the chalk layer and that chalk layer snakes northwards from the white cliffs of Dover through North and South Downs up towards Norwich where we are.

(26:54):
And then heads out just into the North Sea, you've got lovely chalk reef just out to sea off the north Norfolk coast, skirts up the eastern coast and then goes back out to sea off the coast of Yorkshire. So it is quite a chunk of chalk, but in places it's only a mile or two wide and perhaps a few hundred feet deep and we're situated bang on top of that chalk ridge. And that's why this orchid just loves it here. And again, it's a public footpath only 20 feet from where we are. And right beside the public footpath, there's a good dozen of these pyramidal orchids just grabbing away. Again. I mentioned something quite amazing with a common spotted orchid. We just looked at that, that common spotted single bloom could produce 10,000 seeds and wait for it.

(27:52):
Pyramidal orchid says I can top trump that 50 to 60,000 seeds from one bloom. You just can't make it up. It's just unbelievable.

Matthew Gudgin (28:04):
Why isn't the field covered with 'em then?

Chris Skinner (28:06):
Exactly. That's how they are. They get themselves about. Now that's a really interesting question because I don't know how the orchids have got here. I've never put any seed here. It's such a fine seed that it will blow in the wind, the autumn gales, when this lot, it's already thrashing about today in this rather cool breeze that we're having. And so the seed gets distributed over quite a big distance naturally anyway. And I did mention last week, animals walking past, we've got lots of hares in here, deer, and obviously the small animals can brush up against the orchid if I just touch it like that, you see it wobbles. And this dust can come out and land on the back of a mammal and then come off somewhere else.

Matthew Gudgin (28:50):
Because mice will nest in this.

Chris Skinner (28:51):
Yes, they will. We've got all long tail field mice. We have a lot of harvest mice here at the farm now. They love these crops and we often come across the nests high up in the tall tuske grasses that we grow here around some of the field margins. Favourite nesting site would be Cox foot, which is a really tall coarse grass. And the female harvest mouse makes her a lovely little tennis ball size nest high up on the stalks, but there we are. It's high pH soil. That's the secret here. I've not seen bees visiting this ever. And I've watched these plants in warm sunny days in June and July and they again seem to be self pollinating, but I think we sat here long enough, there'll be a particular bee species come and there'll be over a hundred little blooms, tiny little orchid flowers around the perimeter coming up this central spike that makes the pyramid, which gives it its name. They'll be visiting that and pollinating them and it'll be in flower here for about three weeks in total from where it is now to when it's finished flowering and then later on in the year we mow all this and remove it, which helps to keep that fertility down. And again, you can hardly see any grass here because the whole field is covered in yellow rattle. Look just by your feet, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 yellow rattle plants and taking the nutrition away from the grasses. So there's no competition for this orchid. It's almost growing in its own little bare patch of soil down there on this bright yellow clay. Beautiful,

Matthew Gudgin (30:39):
Lovely subtle pinky colour as we enjoy just for a short time. The pyramidal orchid or pyramidal.

Chris Skinner (30:47):
Y.es, yes. So it will cause lots of fights today amongst husbands and wives arguing. It's about how it should be pronounced. But I suppose if we take where it got its name from as a pyramid, perhaps the best way is to say pyramidal orchid and you're fairly safe then

Matthew Gudgin (31:05):
What a lovely site. Well, we've completely changed our attack here as far as habitat is concerned. This is one of the farm ponds. I remember coming here two or three years ago and this was dry, plenty of water in it this year. And these curious red patterns just under the surface.

Chris Skinner (31:29):
Well the pond is blooming Matthew. That's a technical term for what we are seeing in front of us. And I came here this morning, the sun was out early just across the top of the water and the pond just looked like a jigsaw puzzle. And where each of the pieces of the jigsaw fitted together was a bright sort of blood red line seething and moving like some snake just beneath the surface of the water. And we've got, it is quite dark because the sun's gone in unfortunately. But you can just make out these curious red lines. There's one quite close to us. It looks like a red bandage coiled up just under the surface of the water, very close to the top. And it's a blooming pond. And what you're looking at is copepods, but you might not have come across that word, but if I tell you Cyclops, that's one of the members of the Copepod family you might know, you might sort of think of that Greek mythical giant with one eye in the centre of his head. Well these little critters have one eye in the centre of their head, so we call them Cyclops.

Matthew Gudgin (32:47):
So these red clouds as they look like really in lines, these are lots of cyclops altogether.

Chris Skinner (32:55):
Yes. And what they're doing is they're mating, they're forming, they all get together, they're all spread out equally over this area of water. It's deep. It's nearly 12 feet deep. That's three metres and a bit nearly four metres deep. And because we had such a wet winter, they're really thriving in here. So what happened yesterday, how I discovered them is a large oak tree, which is right on the other side of the pond, fell right across the pond here where on top of a hill. It's again, heavy, bold clay. And I pulled the tree out and I noticed that it was covered in ivy in November when it fell over in a gale. And the leaves have all been stripped and I was puzzling my head as to what had eaten them. And it was these creatures feeding on organic matter. They will feed on algae and ponds and clear your green water and make it crystal clear.

(33:56):
And they're the foundation food, although you think now what the heck is Skinner talking about now, their cousins are plankton, without plankton, without no whales, without a great fewer fish if any fish species. And here these feed are native freshwater fish, so people actually farm them and grow them. You can put them in jam jars and teach children about them. And again, the surprising fact is Copi pods produce more protein than any other creature on the planet that just stops and makes you think how important they are. So many things feed and depend on them. And these red, oh look, there's one quite close to the edge there. It just looks like somebody's spilt red paint across the top of the water and it's writhing and seething as we are talking.

Matthew Gudgin (34:53):
And it's a living organism made up of lots of well many millions,

Chris Skinner (34:58):
Millions and millions of them.

(35:01):
So it's just extraordinary. You'd think I'd kind of hidden something just under the surface of the water if I brought a jam jar with me. I had meant to bring a torch, but I get so excited when we're going out on the farm. I forget half the things I'm meant to remember,

Matthew Gudgin (35:16):
but there's always Quite clear standing here though, even in this light, you can see them, look it.

Chris Skinner (35:20):
One of thems come up near the top and it's doing anti-clockwise. It's a swirl and there's a fly landed on the top of the water above them and the flies going round in a circle and he says, who's going to stop me? It's almost in the little whirlpool and they come up to the top. And so the rapid movement is their mating and just extraordinary. Oh look, it's a perfect donut now that one, just out in the middle.

Matthew Gudgin (35:50):
its a hole in the middle. Yes. Like a solar system out of space.

Chris Skinner (35:54):
Exactly that. Oh, it's just come up a little bit closer to the surface while we're talking about them. So there we are, one of the foundation blocks of the natural world and overlooked, hardly seen at all anytime of the year, apart from when the pond blooms, which it is at the moment,

Matthew Gudgin (36:14):
A rusty red colour. Look out for that when you're near a pond in the wild. Really? They like it, but also horse troughs

Chris Skinner (36:22):
Yes, horse troughs as well on the farm. We've been cleaning them out this year. We do that about June every year. So the old debris from the previous autumn and just look at that swarm of cyclops over there. A leaf has landed on the surface of the water and the cyclops are swimming in a circle underneath it and the leafs are now going in a circle. Yes. So there we are. Oh, it's just lovely there. The sun's just coming peeping out a little bit and it's just illuminating these particular blobs, which are about seven or eight inches across and in front of us. Oh, I can just see this one perfectly now. A long snake-like appearance in the water.

Matthew Gudgin (37:10):
Do you know what I thought when you led me here and I saw these red rusty shapes in here. I thought Chris has got himself a carp complex.

Chris Skinner (37:19):
Yes, exactly. Yes.

Matthew Gudgin (37:21):
They do look the same colour as some types of ornamental fish.

Chris Skinner (37:25):
Yes, They certainly do. Yes, I do know a joke about carp and the Noah's Ark because Noah sort of made a mistake that God actually wanted a multi-story carp park, but we won't go into that one.

Matthew Gudgin (37:50):
We are back at the farm vehicle and we're just going to pop inside the car to have a look at some of the emails that have come through in the last week and I'll give the email address out in just a few moments time. But first, hello to Kay. Kay Briggens lives in Michigan, USA on a small Spring fed lake behind the Lake Michigan Dunes. I love the podcast and the joy delight you express Chris about all aspects of nature from the tiniest fungi to the deer, your appreciation and explanations are wonderful. You've reminded me to revel in the wonder of the natural world or Kay lives in quite a wild place there. And Lake Michigan's a huge body of water

Chris Skinner (38:35):
We have just been looking at one of the ponds on the farm about 10 metres across and she's top trumped me there. So well done and enjoy your local wildlife.

Matthew Gudgin (38:45):
A photograph of a bird from a fair distance, but we'll find out if Chris can identify it. Terry Norman says, my wife and I were surprised to see this bird in our garden at tacolneston, which is not many miles from where we're sitting. My wife managed to take a couple of photographs, although they're not clear. Most notable was the bird's reddish tail. Are we writing thinking that this may be a black redstart?

Chris Skinner (39:11):
Do you know Matthew? Sometimes people top trump anything that I've seen before. It's a perfect photograph of a black redstart, the male with the russet tail and the white marks on the wing. First glance, I thought it's a partially albino blackbird, but then I realised it's about half the size. It's quite a diminutive bird, but it's a migrant. It's close cousin is the common redstart, which has much more red on its body than the black redstart. But a striking, stunning and a scarce bird as well. Quite often nesting in old industrial sites rather than in cliff ledgers. So it kind of, Moose started to move back into the UK at the end of the second World War when there was a lot of bombed out buildings in London and quite a few nested there.

Matthew Gudgin (40:05):
Moving on to one from Sue Nicholson, who has enjoyed all our comments so far about Swifts and swallows, and she says, I always look forward to the return of the Swifts each year as they come screaming overhead, rejoicing in the return of the summer weather. This year, I was treated to a wonderful display of aerobatics as a screaming party of Swift's whirled around and round the village square like the red

Chris Skinner (40:30):
Arrows.

Matthew Gudgin (40:31):
I was in Acle, a place very close to here and there was some wonderful Swift sound effects. You get the impression of them without even seeing them sometimes.

Chris Skinner (40:40):
Yes. That high pitched screaming, which sort of gave them that nickname that we used last week, the Devil's Bitch, they were called because they're that sooty black plumage and right on the field beside us, this is all laid out with mustard and fodder radish, no insecticidal sprays. And last year we had a flock, a colony if you like, feeding quite silently over the top. It looked like a swarm of bees. Well over a thousand Swifts.

Matthew Gudgin (41:13):
Shane in Spixworth. I was wondering if you could shed some light on a small bird my brother photographed in Scole on the Norfolk, Suffolk border, unfortunately only got the rear view, but the wall we are sitting on may help with identifying its size. It looks like an escaped canary. I was just wondering if there were any wild birds that it could be.There we are. Goodness, that's just sort of bright yellow like a chick.

Chris Skinner (41:37):
Yes, it does look like that. There are a few birds with yellow on them. Wagtail is one, not pied wagtail. The other one would be the yellow hammer. And it's nothing at all like that. It's a very chubby Avary escapee and it's a canary. And we did have our own norwich canaries. My father used to breed them and we had a room in the farmhouse with lots of cages in. It was still called the bird room when I left the house 20 odd years ago. And he was an avid canary collector and that's exactly what it is, A canary, beautiful.

Matthew Gudgin (42:13):
Hazel Burnham. Hello to you. Hazel is a nature lover. She's got a bird nesting basket and the bee was going into it the other day, I thought that was a little odd. On closer inspection, I realised it must have been a wasp as there's the start of a wasps nests in there. It's quite close to our back door and on our route to the garden. So what would you do, Chris?

Chris Skinner (42:36):
Right. I would have a go. I'd trust it if it was a hornet's nest. Funny enough, they're quite mild mannered, but wasps are notorious, they will sting without provocation and it's inside that basket. There's one way of doing it by degrees and that's to move the basket before the nest gets too big. Just about a foot at a time until you get it outside. It's a foundation portion of the nest. So you're quite all right. Hole at the bottom, made out of chewed up wood. So it looks like paper mache.

Matthew Gudgin (43:07):
Looks like an upside down conical flask

Chris Skinner (43:09):
Yeah it does that exactly so. So that's one way of doing it, just to move it by degrees or to bite the bullet and say, sadly, goodbye and hope the queen wasp builds a nest somewhere else other than inside. It's a bit risky. They'll get stuck inside your porch windows and they can give a good account for themselves.

Matthew Gudgin (43:31):
Well, there we go, just a flavour of some of your emails, they're all read and appreciated, I know by Chris, just as we see swallows swooping low over the field in front of us here. Yes.

Chris Skinner (43:42):
Oh look, they're all over, just hovering inches above, hoping for some aerial plankton in the form of Matson flies. Perfect.

Matthew Gudgin (43:53):
Chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk is the email. And who knows, you may get a mention next week.

Chris Skinner (43:59):
Yes, we are stacked to the rafters with questions, but we do our best to answer them as fairly as we can.

Matthew Gudgin (44:07):
Let's go and watch some more of those swallows, shall we?

Chris Skinner (44:09):
Yeah, off we go.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
This is a sound yard Production. music is by Tom Harris.