Chris Skinner’s Countryside Podcasts
- Episodes
- 163
- Released
- weekly
- Location
- High Ash Farm, High Ash Lane, Caistor Saint Edmund, Norwich, UK
- Latest episode
- Nov 8, 2026
About the podcast
Nature, Wildlife and Countryside Living with Chris Skinner from High Ash Farm
Chris Skinner, a Norfolk farmer, takes a unique approach to farming, prioritizing biodiversity and wildlife conservation in every practice.
Tune in every Sunday morning as Chris, alongside broadcaster Matthew Gudgin, explores topics on nature, wildlife, and rural life.
Join them for strolls through High Ash Farm and beyond, spotting wildlife and addressing your queries about the natural world.
Email questions for Chris to answer to [email protected]
Episodes 163
Episode 2.97 - Tree Rats and 400-Year Hedges
Send us Fan MailOn a grey, still November morning in Fox’s Grove, Chris Skinner finally turns his attention to a mammal he has somehow omitted for years — the grey squirrel. One races up an oak as they arrive …
Show notes
On a grey, still November morning in Fox’s Grove, Chris Skinner finally turns his attention to a mammal he has somehow omitted for years — the grey squirrel. One races up an oak as they arrive, and the floor is littered with sweet chestnuts. Chris recalls the red squirrels that still lived here through his childhood in the 1950s and 60s, half the size of the greys, with ear tufts, before they faded away. He explains the multiple introductions from North America from the 1870s onwards (including a wedding-present release at Woburn), the role of squirrel pox, the football-sized drays of twigs and soft grasses in which the females raise two broods of kittens each year, and the heavy damage the animals do by stripping bark from sycamore and young oaks. Foresters nickname them tree rats; an early-20th-century bounty on tails was abandoned after gamekeepers began cutting tails and releasing the animals. Roughly a hundred greys now live on the farm, concentrated in the woods, and none hibernate.
Moving into the open, they walk a dead-straight, 400-metre hedge in Caister Park that Chris believes is about 400 years old. It has not been cut for five years and is heavy with wine-red hawthorn berries (one hard seed inside) and the elongated hips of dog rose, both rich in vitamin C. Ivy berries form the next course in the succession. Chris points out the old layered stems that once made the hedge stock-proof, notes that one new species appears roughly every century, and celebrates the 26 miles of hedges on the farm as vital wildlife corridors linking wood to river. All three British woodpeckers are present; the berries and the fallen fruit at the base feed winter thrushes and the small mammals that in turn support the farm’s owls.
Listener letters bring a pure-white crab spider (Misumena vatia — “hate-filled and bow-legged”) that has ambushed a honeybee, an invitation to vote in the RSPB’s Bird of the Year, a blue tit systematically pecking a wooden lintel (woodworm larvae), and a luminous photograph of an eyed hawk-moth caterpillar.
This episode is a November study of introduced mammals and ancient green corridors — ideal for savouring the contrast between childhood memories of red squirrels, the still-abundant greys, and the quiet bounty of a 400-year-old hedge at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/20084149-episode-2-97-tree-rats-and-400-year-hedges.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.96 - Weather’s Silver Linings and Bridge Butterflies
Send us Fan MailIn the dying light after Storm Boelo has begun to ease, Chris Skinner sits on a fallen ash trunk in Fox’s Grove and records the roar still moving through the canopy. Gusts of forty miles an hour …
Show notes
In the dying light after Storm Boelo has begun to ease, Chris Skinner sits on a fallen ash trunk in Fox’s Grove and records the roar still moving through the canopy. Gusts of forty miles an hour have brought down venerable ashes already weakened by dieback; some have simply keeled over with almost no root ball. The chaos, he reflects, is also opportunity: light now reaches the woodland floor for the farm’s famous bluebells, jays are frantically caching the newly thrashing acorns, and bats and woodpeckers will find new roosts in the snapped limbs. He recalls the far greater destruction of the 1987 storm and the three years it took to clear the timber.
A few days later, with mist burning off into November sunshine, he and Matthew Gudgin crawl under a farm bridge that can carry thirty tonnes. In the cool, damp stillness they find dozens of peacock and small tortoiseshell butterflies hanging upside-down like charred leaves. Chris explains how the sugars from late ivy nectar are converted into a natural glycerol antifreeze, and how the insects spend half their short lives asleep yet can still flash their eyespots if disturbed. The stream beneath them is little more than a trickle — a reminder that the eastern counties remain drought-stricken despite the recent storms.
Driving past twenty-five acres of overwinter wild-bird seed mix, they watch the sky fill with nearly a thousand wood pigeons, many of them continental migrants pushed west by cold weather further east. Yellowhammers, linnets, goldfinches and the occasional snipe or woodcock also use the crop; at night barn owls hunt over it.
Listener questions about rainfall prompt a careful check with Weather Quest at UEA: only 383 mm so far this year (just over a foot), with a mere 6 mm in April, though October’s 81 mm pushed the month slightly above average. Finally, at the High Ash Bog — still wet enough to hide an E27N Ford tractor that sank in the late 1940s — Chris discusses a free pond-restoration offer from the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, and the mysterious Roman oak pipes that once ran uphill from this low spot to a Romano-Celtic temple.
This episode is a weather-themed portrait of damage and renewal — ideal for savouring the strange beauty of hibernating butterflies under a bridge, the silver linings of a fallen ash, and the quiet importance of water in a still-parched Norfolk landscape.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/20047523-episode-2-96-weather-s-silver-linings-and-bridge-butterflies.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.95 - Bracken Croziers and Brambling Flocks
Send us Fan MailOn a breezy but still mild late-October morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin walk into Cantley Hill Plantation and finally give proper attention to a plant Chris has …
Show notes
On a breezy but still mild late-October morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin walk into Cantley Hill Plantation and finally give proper attention to a plant Chris has overlooked for years despite its lifelong link with him — bracken. Covering about five acres on the farm and still shoulder-high and green after the drought on a south-facing gravel slope, the fronds rise from long underground rhizomes that allow it to recover almost overnight, as it did within a fortnight of the Dunwich Heath fire. Chris explains the tripinnate leaf structure, the curled spring croziers once eaten like asparagus (and still popular in Japan), and the plant’s double reputation: toxic enough to cause staggers in cattle and horses and linked to cancers, yet invaluable cover for slow worms, grass snakes, field voles and wintering woodcock whose plumage mirrors its golden-brown litter. Its spread, he notes, was helped by Neolithic forest clearance and later by the shift from cattle and horses to sheep.
Barely leaving the truck, they are then treated to a mixed flock of finches on the overwinter wild-bird seed mix. Yellowhammers, greenfinches, linnets and the first brambling of the year are feeding on fat hen and sunflowers only yards away, until a kestrel or the wave of a hand flushes the whole charm into the oak avenue. Chris celebrates the stewardship-funded plots that are doing exactly what they were designed to do.
In an evening recording from the duck pond, the resident moorhens are in open war with their own offspring. The two successful broods have left seven birds on a pond that can only support one pair through winter; the parents are now aggressively driving the young away to prevent overcrowding and inbreeding. Chris reflects on the strange light-triggered timing around the shortest day that sets so many birds’ internal clocks, and on the parallel dispersal of young foxes from their natal territories.
Listener letters bring a luminous photograph of a pale tussock caterpillar, a query about leeches in a dried Italian pond (prompting a history of the medicinal leech), and strong agreement that snares should long ago have been banned.
This episode is an autumn lesson in overlooked plants, mixed flocks and the sometimes harsh necessities of family life — ideal for savouring the resilience of bracken, the colour of a brambling, and the noisy drama of moorhens sorting their winter numbers at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/20007759-episode-2-95-bracken-croziers-and-brambling-flocks.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.94 - Band of Gold and Hedge-Gap Wires
Send us Fan MailOn a warm, unseasonably sunny mid-October morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin are stopped in the pickup by a spectacular feeding display beside the farmyard. A charm of …
Show notes
On a warm, unseasonably sunny mid-October morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin are stopped in the pickup by a spectacular feeding display beside the farmyard. A charm of around 250 goldfinches — the “clown faces” with their red masks and yellow wing bands — is working the five-acre teasel plot. The birds prise the loose, nutritious seeds from the prickly heads with their specialised beaks, rising briefly to the electricity wires to watch for sparrowhawks before dropping back into the crop or resting in the trees. Chris recalls how these same finches were once caged and trained as “draw waters,” pulling tiny carts of water with their beaks.
A short drive to the southern edge of Cantley Hill Plantation reveals flowering ivy still encircling the trunks of larch and Douglas fir. Red admirals in pristine condition are feeding and sunbathing on the last nectar flow of the year. These are the UK-born offspring of spring migrants from southern Europe; whether they will attempt to hibernate on bare oak trunks and in ivy or fly south again remains one of the countryside’s open mysteries.
On a boundary hedge the tone turns more serious. Chris produces a free-running snare and explains how such wires are set across traditional animal runs through gaps in old hedges. Though self-locking snares are illegal and the law requires checks every 24 hours, loopholes remain, and Norfolk has ranked high for wildlife persecution in recent years. He makes clear his own disapproval: at High Ash there is no predator control, and nature has been left to find its own balance.
In Notre Dame Wood, rabbit excavations have brought up a new and potent plant — thorn apple (Datura stramonium). Its trumpet flowers last only a day or two before forming spiny capsules full of black seeds rich in powerful alkaloids. Once grown commercially for asthma, the plant was also used in “witch’s brews”; its seeds can remain viable in the soil for well over a century.
Listener letters bring memories of sheep stripping ivy from hedges, the sad news that the young shepherd has had to sell his flock, practical advice on establishing yellow rattle, oxeye daisy and sainfoin in existing grassland, and an invitation to a talk on the changing fortunes of Britain’s wild birds.
This episode is a rich late-autumn mixture of colour, mystery and hard countryside realities — ideal for savouring a charm of goldfinches, the lingering beauty of red admirals, and the quiet power of plants that wait a hundred years to emerge at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19972263-episode-2-94-band-of-gold-and-hedge-gap-wires.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.93 - Hedera Helix and Vespa Nests
Send us Fan MailOn a misty mid-October morning at High Ash Farm, with the clay pond in the woodland completely dry and deer tracks printed in the mud, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin turn their attention to …
Show notes
On a misty mid-October morning at High Ash Farm, with the clay pond in the woodland completely dry and deer tracks printed in the mud, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin turn their attention to ivy — the last great pollen and nectar flow of the year. Thick stems, some four inches across and fifty years old, climb the oaks without rooting into them, clinging instead by tiny sucker discs. Chris explains the plant’s two lives: the pointed juvenile leaves on the trunk, and the smooth lance-shaped flowering shoots that appear after five or six years, opening into yellow drum-heads now busy with bees, wasps, moths and the last butterflies. The green berries will not ripen until December, January and February, when they become vital food for wood pigeons, redwings and other winter thrushes. Evergreen shelter for nesting wrens and hibernating butterflies, and once the pagan symbol of Christmas before holly took its place, ivy answers much of the puzzle of the farm’s rich wildlife.
A short drive brings them to a common wasp nest in an old mouse hole beside a busy footpath. Sandy cell-caps litter the entrance as workers ferry nectar and insect prey to the grubs below. Chris follows the wasp year from the hibernating queen in March, through the first golf-ball-sized comb, to the late-season large cells that will produce next year’s queens — while the workers, males and old queen all die. Badgers, impervious to stings, have already dug out many such nests across the farm; Chris recalls the day he and Rat both fled after accidentally treading on one.
In Notre Dame Wood the jays are frantic, caching acorns in the long grass, while strange parallel lines on the woodland floor turn out to be sows dragging armfuls of dry leaves and pine needles backwards into a newly enlarged sett — fresh winter bedding gathered while the weather holds.
Listener letters bring an offer of unused swallow nest cups, a family visit that produced woodpeckers, a young marsh harrier and clouded yellows, and a thoughtful question about whether jet aircraft contribute to insect and bird decline — answered by Chris’s recording of the delayed “whip” of colliding air masses beneath a Boeing on the Norwich approach.
This episode is a late-season celebration of one overlooked climber and the hidden societies beneath our feet — ideal for savouring the last nectar of the year, the busy end of the wasp colony, and the quiet housekeeping of badgers at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19924444-episode-2-93-hedera-helix-and-vespa-nests.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.92 - Death Watch Frass and Nightshade Berries
Send us Fan MailOn a bright early-October morning at High Ash Farm, autumn has arrived in earnest at Fox’s Grove. Horse-chestnut leaves are already brown and falling as the corky abscission layer seals each …
Show notes
On a bright early-October morning at High Ash Farm, autumn has arrived in earnest at Fox’s Grove. Horse-chestnut leaves are already brown and falling as the corky abscission layer seals each leaf from its stalk, while field maples around the field edges glow scarlet and gold in the low sun. Fallen ash trees, victims of dieback, lie among the leaf litter, and a lawyer’s wig ink cap stands at perfection before it begins to eat itself — dripping black ink that attracts flies and so spreads its spores.
Chris then kneels beside a sycamore that has been down only a year. Its trunk is patterned with neat piles of fresh white frass. Blowing the dust away reveals the tiny holes of furniture woodworm (Anobium punctatum) and the slightly larger exits of the death watch beetle. He explains how the adult beetle headbutts its tunnel to make the clicking “death watch” mating call once heard in old houses, and how Harold Lefroy’s treatment of an infestation in Westminster Hall in the 1920s became the product Ento Kill — later registered as Rentokil. A fungus living in the beetles’ guts helps them digest the timber. A great spotted woodpecker works the dead crown of a nearby sycamore in search of the very beetles, and a jay pauses on the track to peck open sweet-chestnut cases before caching the nuts.
In an evening recording Chris shares his favourite moment of the day: a bucket of barley drawing some 200 mallard, now emerging from eclipse plumage, into a complete circle around him at the duck pond, joined by a teal, moorhens and waiting feral pigeons.
Later, beside a permissive walk, they examine black nightshade in flower and fruit — a close but less deadly cousin of belladonna, whose shiny black berries and reflexed, potato-like flowers still carry powerful alkaloids. Chris recalls how Italian ladies once used deadly nightshade juice to dilate their pupils, and how both nightshade and poppy seed can remain viable for a century or more.
Listener letters bring swallows pausing on a Spanish roof during migration, concern about hare coursing, drought-stressed oaks under tree preservation orders, and a pair of beautiful hand-thrown mugs from Alsager Pottery. Chris also offers free teasel seed — 10,000 seeds in a 30-gram pack — to anyone who would like to grow this wildlife plant at home.
This episode is a rich autumn miscellany of hidden lives in dead wood and late flowers — ideal for savouring the strange beauty of ink caps and frass, the nightly ritual of the duck pond, and the quiet chemistry of nightshade at High Ash Farm.
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.91 - Tenancy Act and Norfolk Gem
Send us Fan MailOn a bright late-September morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin sit on a homemade oak bench with a panoramic view of Norwich and begin an unusual episode. 452 acres of the …
Show notes
On a bright late-September morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin sit on a homemade oak bench with a panoramic view of Norwich and begin an unusual episode. 452 acres of the farm have been put on the market for around £2.5 million, yet the 1947 Agricultural Holdings Act means Chris — and in time his son Daniel — remain tenants for life. The pair set off to show what a buyer would actually acquire: not just land and cottages, but a working conservation landscape that Chris has spent decades shaping.
They examine the soils first. Rabbit burrows on a sunken track reveal a buried beach of glacial sand and powdered chalk left by ice 200–300 metres thick. On Dirty Close the clay has cracked a metre deep after the drought; nearby, a pond once supplied clay for Saxon cremation urns now displayed in Norwich Castle Museum. The holding includes two scheduled ancient monuments — part of the Roman town of Venta Icenorum and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery planted with Scots pine — plus flint tools dating to 5000 BC that Chris once picked up while hoeing sugar beet.
Wildlife is thriving. A spring count found more than 70 hares; house sparrows have returned to nest boxes; hedges are heavy with hawthorn and rowan berries; a jay works non-stop caching acorns. Five acres of teasels are ready for seed collecting. Chris contrasts his approach — no predator control, free public access — with other versions of “rewilding.”
Listener letters bring thanks for last week’s horse mushrooms, concern about missing waterfowl on the Broads, another giant puffball mistaken for a football, mysterious woolly aphids on American beech, and the quiet after the autumn equinox once the swallows have gone.
This episode is both a love letter to a farm and a clear-eyed look at its future — ideal for understanding how a 1947 Act still protects a tenant, why a “Norfolk gem” of wildlife and history is for sale, and how the landscape beneath High Ash Farm has been shaped by ice, Romans, Saxons and one determined farmer.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19863805-episode-2-91-tenancy-act-and-norfolk-gem.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.90 - Fairy Rings and Giant Puffballs
Send us Fan MailOn a fine mizzling mid-September morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin begin in the farmyard and notice that September has lived up to its name as the changeling month. The …
Show notes
On a fine mizzling mid-September morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin begin in the farmyard and notice that September has lived up to its name as the changeling month. The swallows have vanished almost overnight — more than a hundred young sent south after a successful season — while a handsome young cockerel struts among the nest boxes and a robin still sings. The pair then set out on a fungal foray.
At the base of an oak they find beefsteak fungus, a rich red bracket that “bleeds” when scratched. Chris explains how cabinet-makers once rubbed its juice onto other oaks so the heartwood would stain a prized deep orange-brown. Nearby, a velvety Ganoderma bracket is already shedding spores. In the horse paddocks they test field mushrooms by peeling, smell and gill colour, then walk fairy rings — some perhaps three or four hundred years old — where a single spore has spread an inch a year, burning the grass in a circle and releasing nitrogen that darkens the turf. Inside another ring they gather horse mushrooms, identified by their aniseed scent, peeling cap and lack of yellow staining.
On the Anglo-Saxon cemetery field in Caister Park a giant puffball has appeared in two or three days, still snow-white and the size of a small football. Last year’s dried specimens release clouds of spores that the wind can carry as far as the Continent. Along a damp lane, water mint has flowered again after the council mowed the verge, filling the ditch with its scent for a late buff-tailed bumblebee.
Listener letters bring nightingales singing beside a Berlin beer garden, a visit from listeners who travelled from Western Australia, the first fieldfares of autumn, a polecat-ferret on camera in South Wales, and news of hirundine flocks and pink-footed geese passing Spurn Point.
This episode is a rich harvest of autumn’s hidden harvest — ideal for savouring the strange beauty of fungi, the sudden switch from swallows to fieldfares, and the simple pleasure of gathering a safe supper from the fields of High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19826686-episode-2-90-fairy-rings-and-giant-puffballs.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.89 - Ivy Bees and Falling Ash
Send us Fan MailOn a beautiful early-autumn morning at High Ash Farm, after another 13 millimetres of welcome rain has turned the fields verdant once more, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin begin at the farmyard …
Show notes
On a beautiful early-autumn morning at High Ash Farm, after another 13 millimetres of welcome rain has turned the fields verdant once more, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin begin at the farmyard entrance. A robin is singing again after its midsummer silence, rooks and jackdaws corkscrew down from the sky in display flight while a peregrine circles high above, and late swallows are still feeding young in the barn. On the flowering ivy they discover a new arrival: ivy bees (Colletes hederae), first recorded in Britain in 2001. These late-season solitary bees, with their orange thoraxes and wasp-like stripes, are gathering the last major nectar flow of the year.
A short drive to Greensides Loke reveals their nesting site — a west-facing sandy bank riddled with rabbit holes and thousands of tiny burrows. Females excavate straw-width tunnels half a metre into the soil, line them with saliva, and provision them with pollen and nectar before sealing them for the winter. Males hover at the entrances and pile onto females in frantic mating clusters. Though solitary, they nest in dense congregations wherever the habitat is right.
In Fox’s Grove the pair turn to fungi and trees. Chicken of the woods (sulphur polypore) glows on a sweet chestnut, while a 250-year-old ash — one of the farm’s giants — stands in its last hours. Ash dieback has rotted its roots to pulp; a trail camera is trained on the trunk, ready to capture the moment it falls. Chris reflects on the 1,500 ash saplings that died young, the black staining of Chalara, and the Norse idea of ash as the tree of life. Once down, the timber will feed beetles, woodworm and more fungi, returning at last to the rich leaf-mould of the woodland floor.
Listener letters bring a perfect comma butterfly displaying the white mark that gives it its name, recordings of a blackcap and a nightingale, and a precise reminder of the Game Act 1831.This episode is a poignant celebration of autumn’s dual nature — new life arriving with the ivy bees, and an ancient giant preparing to fall — ideal for savouring late pollinators, the first fungi of the season, and the quiet power of even the smallest organisms at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19791131-episode-2-89-ivy-bees-and-falling-ash.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.88 - One-Tooth Charlie and Glacial Water
Send us Fan MailOn a grey but mild early-September morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin slip through a gap in the hedge onto Hallback Lane and stand beside a remarkable hollow tree known …
Show notes
On a grey but mild early-September morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin slip through a gap in the hedge onto Hallback Lane and stand beside a remarkable hollow tree known locally as the Africa Tree. Around 500 years old and pollarded two centuries ago, its great cavity faces them in the almost exact shape of the African continent. The tree becomes the doorway into Chris’s childhood memories of Charlie Graver, a diminutive farm worker who left school at twelve, cycled daily from Stoke Holy Cross with his silent terrier Skippy in the front basket, and once took eight-year-old Chris “fishing” at dusk — assembling a long cane rod fitted with a rabbit snare to lift sleeping pheasants from the trees. Chris recalls the 1950s farm of 31 workers, ten-pound weekly wages paid in cash, straw stacks thatched with hazel broaches, threshing days, chewing tobacco, and a world of horses, binders and unguarded machinery that has now almost vanished.
A sudden roe deer in summer coat flashes across the ride before they climb onto the high northern fields. Here Chris explains why 250 acres were taken out of arable production in 2006: to protect the chalk aquifer a hundred metres beneath them. Rain falling on these grasslands now takes forty to fifty years to reach the glacial water stored in the chalk. From wells on and around the farm, Anglian Water abstracts some 16–20,000 cubic metres a day — water that supplies Norwich and the villages to the south. Historic applications of sewage sludge, pig and chicken manure have left the aquifer high in nitrates, yet the same fields have become a new harvest of bee orchids and pyramidal orchids.
Listener letters bring a photograph of thousands of green shield bugs turning brown for hibernation, a beautiful recording of a male tawny owl beginning its autumn courtship, and a delighted account from early-morning walkers who completed four miles of the farm and met Chris and Rat in person.
This episode is a rich weaving of living memory and hidden landscape — ideal for savouring an old pollarded tree, the vanished skills of a farm worker, and the invisible river of glacial water still flowing beneath High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19759036-episode-2-88-one-tooth-charlie-and-glacial-water.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.87 - Alfalfa Aphids and Self-Pruning Giants
Send us Fan MailOn a misty, humid late-August morning at High Ash Farm, with rain threatening after another dry month of just 17 millimetres, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin stand on the farm’s poorest …
Show notes
On a misty, humid late-August morning at High Ash Farm, with rain threatening after another dry month of just 17 millimetres, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin stand on the farm’s poorest south-facing sandy field — the one exception still lush and green after the pollen-and-nectar crop was mown for fire safety.
Chris digs into the concrete-hard ground to reveal the secret: lucerne (alfalfa) and sainfoin sending wooden tap roots two to two-and-a-half metres down to moisture, while nitrogen-fixing nodules on their fine roots feed the plants without any fertiliser. Deer and hares graze the protein-rich growth, and the stems are plastered with black bean aphids that reproduce like Russian dolls — wingless females giving birth to clones already carrying the next generation inside them. Ladybirds feast on the aphids, ants milk them, and the plants already show the first tiny germinating seedlings from last month’s mowing.
The pair then walk an avenue of ancient oaks, where a colossal limb — perhaps three tonnes of timber and fifty feet long — has crashed down overnight with no wind at all. Chris explains the forestry term “self-pruning”: these giant trees shed huge branches unpredictably, creating both magnificent habitat (oaks support more than 350 insect species) and a serious safety challenge on a farm with daily public access. He reflects on their history as naval timber, the kestrel and barn owl boxes they still carry, and the careful ten-metre uncultivated margins left around each tree.
Listener letters add further colour: changing farmyard smells and fertiliser use, hobbies nesting in Yorkshire and the surprising origin of the game Subbuteo, rats and the risks of secondary poisoning, and a heartfelt visit from a listener who travelled from New Zealand to walk the farm she had only imagined.
This episode is a close-up celebration of hidden plant power and the raw drama of veteran trees — ideal for marvelling at drought-defying legumes, the astonishing lives of aphids, and the unpredictable grandeur of English oaks at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19715819
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.86 - Beech Cupules and Clay Pond Drinks
Send us Fan MailOn a fresher late-August morning at High Ash Farm, after just under ten millimetres of welcome rain has begun to tint the parched pastures with the faintest green, Chris Skinner and Matthew …
Show notes
On a fresher late-August morning at High Ash Farm, after just under ten millimetres of welcome rain has begun to tint the parched pastures with the faintest green, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin begin at the duck pond. An extraordinary mallard mother who successfully raised nine ducklings earlier in the spring has now returned with a second brood of thirteen tiny balls of fluff. The youngsters form a tight “football” when geese approach, while the attentive mother keeps constant watch. Nearby, moorhens continue their own remarkable family life, with older chicks helping to feed the latest brood.
The pair then walk into Cantley Hill Plantation to examine the beech trees, here close to the northern natural limit of the species. Chris gathers the hard, hairy cupules of beech mast, explains their value to squirrels, birds and once to pigs during pannage, and recounts how the dry, scrunchy leaves were once stuffed into mattresses known in France as a “talking bed.” A remarkable horizontal beech that keeled over in the 1987 storm but re-rooted and sent up new vertical trunks illustrates the tree’s resilience, while drought is already forcing some leaves into early autumn gold.
In Barnwood they discover a deep clay pond — a vital woodland drinking hole. Trail-camera footage has already captured a female green woodpecker (the yaffle) and a great spotted woodpecker coming to drink, with hopes of adding the elusive lesser spotted. Dead trees and thick ivy stems provide further habitat, while Rat the terrier briefly becomes stuck in a bramble thicket.
Listener letters bring a perfect mossy wren’s nest (and a discussion of polygamy), a discarded whisky bottle posing a fire risk, stressed cattle and early silage use in Northumberland, a kidney-spot ladybird, a mysterious wood-pigeon nest containing four eggs, and a long list of sightings from recent walkers including nuthatch, treecreeper, clouded yellows and roe deer.
This episode is a gentle celebration of maternal devotion, woodland resilience and the quiet drama of late summer — ideal for savouring the determination of a mallard mother, the beauty of beech mast, and the vital role of a hidden woodland pond for Britain’s woodpeckers at High Ash Farm.
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.85 - Eclipse Crowds and Buzzard Bales
Send us Fan MailOn another scorching mid-August morning at High Ash Farm, the day after a spectacular partial solar eclipse, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin reflect on an extraordinary evening. Around 500 …
Show notes
On another scorching mid-August morning at High Ash Farm, the day after a spectacular partial solar eclipse, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin reflect on an extraordinary evening. Around 500 well-behaved visitors and 250–300 cars gathered peacefully on one of the farm’s high points for the best view of Norwich and the setting sun. Dads fashioned pinhole cameras from cereal boxes and sieves; Chris shared his welding mask so everyone could watch safely. By morning the site was spotless — not a single tin can or crisp packet left behind — putting a huge smile on his face.The pair then visit a hay bale that has become a busy “takeaway” for two newly fledged buzzards. Parent birds watch peregrines make pigeon kills near the cathedral or on neighbouring pea fields, then dive-bomb the falcons and claim the carcasses (plus the occasional young rabbit). Trail-camera footage captures the young buzzards squabbling over their meal and tumbling off the bale. Chris celebrates the remarkable recovery of buzzards: once almost extinct in southern Britain, numbers have risen to around 50–55,000 birds, with three successful pairs now nesting on the farm.As dusk falls, Chris sits on his patio and watches a colony of pipistrelle bats stream from the old piggery roof and new extension. He explains their tiny size, delayed implantation, echolocation, and evening feeding routes over hedgerows and the duck pond, while noting the larger noctules that roost in a lightning-struck Scots pine. Later, in the welcome shade of Fox’s Grove, speckled wood butterflies patrol sunny patches on the woodland floor. Males vigorously defend their territories with aerial dogfights, using eye-spots on their wings to deter predators, before the pair discuss the grasses outside the wood that serve as their larval food plants.Listener letters bring further delight: a holiday photograph of barn swallows nesting on a balcony in Lesvos, reflections on churchyard wildflowers, and a gentle enquiry about rats on the farm (and the enduring popularity of Rat the terrier).This episode is a joyful celebration of shared wonder, recovering predators and the delicate night-time world of bats and butterflies — ideal for savouring an unexpected community eclipse gathering, the cunning of young buzzards, and the quiet magic that still thrives at High Ash Farm even in the depths of a prolonged heatwave.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19650899-episode-2-85-eclipse-crowds-and-buzzard-bales.mp3?download=true
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.84 - Drought Whips and Hornbeam Bracts
Send us Fan MailOn a breezy mid-August morning at High Ash Farm, with temperatures still high after another week above 30°C and only a fleeting six millimetres of rain quickly absorbed by the parched ground …
Show notes
On a breezy mid-August morning at High Ash Farm, with temperatures still high after another week above 30°C and only a fleeting six millimetres of rain quickly absorbed by the parched ground, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin survey the aftermath of intensive fire-prevention work. The last of the waist-high pollen and nectar fields have been cut short, tedded to knock seeds to the ground, and baled — one bale per acre — removing the worst of the fire risk, though the stubble remains flammable. Chris reflects on a close shave with a takeaway barbecue in Successional Woodland the previous week and welcomes the temporary removal of disposable barbecues from supermarket shelves across the UK.
Standing among the Sahara-coloured fields, Chris openly shares three “cockups.” A two-year-old double-row hedge of 750 hawthorn and oak whips, planted to divide a large arable block, has largely failed in the drought despite tree guards; fingernail tests reveal most stems are brown and dead. He also recounts the ill-fated “Hideaway” bird-hide venture of twenty-five years ago, when paying visitors used the sound-insulated hides as toilets, ruining carpets and forcing him to sell most of the carefully built structures. Nearby, a carbon-offset acre planted in 2006 for Notre Dame School pupils’ flights to China prompts deeper reflection: one day’s emissions from Norwich Airport would require the entire farm to be wooded for a century, while recent pollution killed thousands of fish in the River Wensum after a short downpour.
Moving to Cantley Hill Plantation, they admire ancient, gnarled hornbeams marking the woodland corners — hard, slow-growing native trees at the northern edge of their range. Chris examines the hanging seed bracts containing twin nutlets, a favourite of bramblings and hawfinches, and digs tiny seedlings from the dry woodland floor to gift to a neighbouring bonsai enthusiast. Amid the dryness, swallows skim the cut fields, pipistrelle bats replace them at dusk, and a pied wagtail forages on horse-grazed pasture already being fed winter hay.
Listener letters bring further notes: the return of chatty starlings after the departure of swifts, and a Dorset farmer’s shared anxiety over tinder-dry land and nearby open fires.
This episode is an honest, sun-baked reflection on drought, human error and the quiet resilience of native trees — ideal for savouring the hard lessons of extreme weather, the overlooked beauty of hornbeam, and the everyday wildlife that still thrives at High Ash Farm.
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.83 - Tinder Fields and Hobby Missiles
Send us Fan MailOn a fiercely hot, windy late-July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin stand on one of the highest points of the farm as temperatures push into the 30s and a strong breeze …
Show notes
On a fiercely hot, windy late-July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin stand on one of the highest points of the farm as temperatures push into the 30s and a strong breeze turns the landscape into a tinderbox. Chris recounts a heart-stopping encounter with a group of people barbecuing in Successional Woodland — the smell of cooking meat leading him to intervene and then race to mow nearly 80–100 acres of pollen-and-nectar fields that had just finished flowering. The cut crop, now brittle and dry as hay the moment it hit the ground, will be baled for animal bedding, reducing the risk of a catastrophic fire that could have raced through ancient hedges, oak avenues and the southern half of the farm.
As the pair survey the newly opened fields they watch kestrels hovering and dropping on prey, a lightning-fast hobby streaking through the oaks after swallows and house martins, and a hare that would have been invisible only days earlier. They then drive the Teasel Walk, where a hummingbird hawk-moth feeds at close range, painted ladies nectar on thistle, and Chris explains the seeding of perennial sow thistle and creeping thistle — favourite food of goldfinches — alongside emerging sunflowers, flax (a crop his mother remembered from the year he was born in 1949), phacelia and borage.
A short journey takes them to the edge of the Roman town of Venta Icenorum and into Caistor St Edmund churchyard. Chris reflects on the quiet importance of churchyards as wildlife refuges — hoary mullein, nettles and wildflowers attracting pollinators — while walking among family graves and sharing memories of a lifetime lived within a few hundred yards of this peaceful spot. Listener letters bring further colour: advice on an unwanted ant hill, a remarkable close encounter with a young badger in Scotland, and a thoughtful discussion of Larson traps and countryside ethics.
This episode captures the raw tension of extreme summer heat and the quiet beauty that survives it — ideal for savouring the urgency of fire prevention, the dazzling insect and bird life of the farm, and the deep sense of place that runs through High Ash.
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmChapters (15)
Episode 2.82 - Rook Roosts and Meadow Makers
Send us Fan MailOn a still late-July evening at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner settles beneath a field maple in Fox's Grove as thousands of jackdaws and rooks gather overhead for their nightly communal …
Show notes
On a still late-July evening at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner settles beneath a field maple in Fox's Grove as thousands of jackdaws and rooks gather overhead for their nightly communal roost. As dusk falls and the woodland fills with a remarkable chorus of calls, Chris reflects on the social lives of these intelligent birds and the peaceful spectacle that marks the close of another summer's day.
Returning in daylight with Matthew Gudgin, they explore the hidden world of seed production. From bluebells casting glossy black seeds across the woodland floor to towering foxgloves carrying thousands of dust-like seeds, Chris explains how these familiar plants ensure the next generation. The pair also harvest yellow rattle — the famous "meadow maker" that suppresses vigorous grasses and helps wildflowers flourish — before a welcome encounter with the year's first clouded yellow butterfly brightens the morning.
Listener questions range from the extraordinary wingbeats of hoverflies and the noisy gatherings of gulls to blackbird song, declining insect numbers and the importance of creating flower-rich habitats for wildlife.
This episode celebrates the remarkable journeys of birds and plants alike—from bustling evening roosts to seeds waiting for autumn winds—offering a fascinating glimpse into the quiet processes that keep the countryside renewing itself year after year.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19548859-episode-2-82-rook-roosts-and-meadow-makers.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.81 - Flamingo Pond and Burnet Banquets
Send us Fan Mail On a beautiful but still dry mid-July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin explore Woodcock Wood and a rarely visited blue clay pond — an old hand-dug clay pit that now …
Show notes
On a beautiful but still dry mid-July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin explore Woodcock Wood and a rarely visited blue clay pond — an old hand-dug clay pit that now serves as a precious watering hole in the drought-stricken north half of the farm. With the water table dropping and a hosepipe ban in force, Chris explains the pond’s history, the floating water fern (Azolla filiculoides) known locally as flamingo weed that turns bright pink, and its vital role for wildlife. Trail-cam footage reveals buzzards, tawny owls, barn owls, little owls, deer, badgers, foxes, and horses all coming to drink, while parent buzzards mew overhead from a nearby nest — one of three pairs on the farm this year.
The pair then move to a sun-drenched south-facing wildflower meadow alive with six-spot burnet moths and common blues feeding on knapweed and birdsfoot trefoil. Chris details the moths’ life cycle, their remarkable cyanide defence that once puzzled early collectors, the hairy green caterpillars that hibernate through winter, and the paper-like cocoons attached high on grass stems. Swallows sweep overhead gathering aerial plankton as the meadow pulses with summer insect life.
An early-morning interlude from Chris’s porch captures the fascinating swarming behaviour of black garden ants — first the winged males, then the larger females on a thundery morning — complete with observations on their social structure, mating flights, and colony life.
Listener letters add warmth and reflection: late-arriving house martins near King’s Lynn, the sad impact of early silage cutting on curlews, a remarkable painted lady migration witnessed from a kayak off Sicily, and Anna’s inspiring recovery story from a hip injury while enjoying butterflies and deer in the Wenning Valley.
This episode is a sun-baked celebration of drought refuges, dazzling meadow moths, and the hidden dramas of insect societies — ideal for savouring the preciousness of water, the resilience of summer wildlife, and the everyday wonders unfolding at High Ash Farm even in challenging conditions.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19511536-episode-2-81-flamingo-pond-and-burnet-banquets.mp3?download=true
Explore Azolla filiculoides ecology
Investigate UK chalk aquifers
Refine title to highlight ants
Think Harder
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.80 - Butterfly Banquets and Nettle Nurseries
Send us Fan MailOn another scorching July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin explore the extraordinary abundance of butterflies thriving despite the relentless heat. Among thistle-lined …
Show notes
On another scorching July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin explore the extraordinary abundance of butterflies thriving despite the relentless heat. Among thistle-lined field margins they encounter meadow browns, green-veined whites, six-spot burnet moths, peacocks and a surprise brimstone butterfly, while Chris explains how drought, migration and nectar-rich wildflower crops shape the fortunes of Britain's summer butterflies.
The pair then visit a carefully managed patch of stinging nettles, where Chris reveals why he deliberately mows sections each year to produce fresh growth for caterpillars. From eggs and hungry larvae to chrysalises and adult butterflies, he follows the complete life cycle of species including the small tortoiseshell and red admiral, showing how thoughtful habitat management can make a remarkable difference to wildlife.
Along the way they admire brilliant blue chicory flowers glowing beside the farm walks, discuss their surprising culinary history, and enjoy yet more butterfly encounters among teasels and wildflowers.
Listener letters bring plenty to ponder, including brimstone butterflies, haymaking and wildlife, horse mushrooms after summer thunderstorms, roosting rooks and pipistrelle bats, organic wildflower strips, protecting swallows during heatwaves, and a dramatic crab spider feasting on a bumblebee.
This episode is a celebration of Britain's summer butterflies and the hidden importance of their humble food plants—ideal for discovering how nettles, wildflowers and careful conservation combine to keep the countryside alive with colour and life.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19479846-episode-2-80-butterfly-banquets-and-nettle-nurseries.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.79 - Hayfield Kites and House Martin Mud
Send us Fan MailOn a glorious early-July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner rises at 6 a.m. to follow Neil mowing hay across Cantley Hill. A swirling flock of lesser black-backed gulls and red kites …
Show notes
On a glorious early-July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner rises at 6 a.m. to follow Neil mowing hay across Cantley Hill. A swirling flock of lesser black-backed gulls and red kites follows the mower, hunting small mammals and insects disturbed by the blades.
Later, they watch the tedder fluffing and turning the crop in the intense summer heat, while Chris explains the shift from traditional small bales to modern Heston bales. In the farmyard, a delightful surprise: house martins gathering mud for nests — late arrivals whose origin remains a mystery.
A massive honeybee swarm forms a football-sized ball on a pine branch, the old queen and workers seeking a new home. They also admire vibrant sainfoin and colourful wildflowers, including beautiful field bindweed, in the meadows.
Listener letters bring warmth: cockchafer beetles (“blind bees”), Scottish hedgerows, summer bird feeding, and more.
This episode bubbles with the energy of high summer — ideal for savouring haymaking drama, bee swarms, late-arriving martins, and the colourful meadows of High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19441037-episode-2-79-hayfield-kites-and-house-martin-mud.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.78 - Foxglove Spires and Peregrine Kills
Send us Fan MailOn a breezy mid-June morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin stand among towering foxgloves in dappled woodland — spectacular spikes of purple, pink and white, buzzing with …
Show notes
On a breezy mid-June morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin stand among towering foxgloves in dappled woodland — spectacular spikes of purple, pink and white, buzzing with bumblebees. Chris explains their biennial life cycle, vast seed production, and the important heart medicine (digitalis) derived from them.
Nearby, a sobering discovery: the fresh remains of a little owl, plucked by a peregrine falcon near a busy road — a stark reminder of the raw predator-prey balance on the farm. They then admire a vibrant stand of sainfoin (wholesome hay) in the wildflower field, its pink blooms alive with bees and its deep roots fixing nitrogen in the light soil.
Listener letters add warmth: a rescued spotted turtle dove in Tasmania, sweet cicely’s aniseed burst, and more.
This episode captures high summer’s beauty and its sometimes brutal realities — ideal for savouring the tall foxglove spires, nitrogen-rich meadows, and the unfiltered dramas of life at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19360959-episode-2-78-foxglove-spires-and-peregrine-kills.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.77 - Dragonfly Dances and Bee Swarm Ball
Send us Fan MailOn a glorious hot mid-June morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin begin at the maturing lake, alive with emperor dragonflies laying eggs, banded damselflies, and thousands of …
Show notes
On a glorious hot mid-June morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin begin at the maturing lake, alive with emperor dragonflies laying eggs, banded damselflies, and thousands of tiny fish fry (young roach and rudd) shimmering just beneath the surface. Swallows and house martins swoop low for drinks while a little grebe dives nearby.
The pair then witness one of nature’s greatest spectacles — a huge honeybee swarm forming a football-sized ball on a pine branch, the old queen and thousands of workers in holiday mood seeking a new home.
They walk through vibrant wildflower areas filled with sainfoin, field mint, woundwort and the beautiful pink-and-white trumpets of field bindweed — a plant farmers dread but which dazzles in the sunshine. Chris reflects on the start of hay cutting and the changing rhythms of high summer.
Listener letters add delight: cockchafer beetles (“blind bees”), Scottish hedgerows, feeding birds in summer, and more.
This episode is a sun-drenched celebration of high summer’s bounty — from dragonfly-studded waters and bee swarms to colourful meadows — ideal for savouring the warmth, wonder and busy life of the countryside in full swing.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19376539-episode-2-77-dragonfly-dances-and-bee-swarm-ball.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.76 - Pyramidal Splendour and Honey Fungus Worries
Send us Fan MailOn a breezy, showery mid-June morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin walk through the magnificent wildflower meadows, now refreshed by welcome rain after weeks of drought …
Show notes
On a breezy, showery mid-June morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin walk through the magnificent wildflower meadows, now refreshed by welcome rain after weeks of drought. The pyramidal orchids are at their spectacular best — tall, vivid pink-purple spikes rising through oxeye daisies and yellow rattle — while Chris reflects on their long life cycles, chalk-loving habitat, and the extraordinary numbers appearing this year.
They also admire viper’s bugloss with its striking blue flowers and snake-like features, and discover dyer’s weld, an ancient dye plant linked to Neolithic cloth-making. A dramatic close-up encounter with a young hornet feeding on sugary extrusion from an oak tree (possibly honey fungus) adds fascination, alongside swallows skimming low, skylarks rising, and a marsh harrier quartering the fields.
Listener letters bring extra warmth: advice on managing new wildflower fields, redstarts and sand martins on Dartmoor, swift callers succeeding, RSPB summer feeding guidance, and more.
This episode celebrates the colourful revival of high summer — ideal for savouring the orchid-rich meadows, ancient dye plants, and the busy dramas of insects and birds at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19341757-episode-2-76-pyramidal-splendour-and-honey-fungus-worries.mp3?download=true
Learn about chalk stream ecology
Explore hornet nest biology
Include listener Q&A topics
Think Harder
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.75 - Bee Orchid Wonders and Mistle Thrush Meadows
Send us Fan MailOn a breezy early-June morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin walk through one of the glorious wildflower meadows carpeted in oxeye daisies, yellow rattle and other species …
Show notes
On a breezy early-June morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin walk through one of the glorious wildflower meadows carpeted in oxeye daisies, yellow rattle and other species. Chris reveals the hidden wonders of bee orchids — their pink, bee-mimicking flowers, extraordinarily long life cycle involving mycorrhizal fungi, and the fact that the plants die completely after flowering once they’ve set seed.
They also enjoy a large gathering of mistle thrushes on the horse-grazed pastures near active rabbit warrens. Chris explains rabbit social hierarchy, burrowing habits, double digestion (re-eating soft pellets), and their long history in the British countryside.
Listener letters bring extra interest: brimstone moth identification, brown-tail moth caterpillars spinning colonial webs on spindle, moth trapping at High Ash, tawny owl boxes, and more.
This episode is a beautiful celebration of wildflower meadows, mysterious orchids, and the everyday dramas of rabbits and thrushes — ideal for savouring the rich tapestry of early summer at its colourful best.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19304173-episode-2-75-bee-orchid-wonders-and-mistle-thrush-meadows.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.74 - Firethorn Butterflies and Heatwave Heartbreak
Send us Fan MailOn a breezy, sunny late-May morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner rejoices in an extraordinary influx of Painted Lady butterflies drawn to the pyracantha (firethorn) bushes around his house …
Show notes
On a breezy, sunny late-May morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner rejoices in an extraordinary influx of Painted Lady butterflies drawn to the pyracantha (firethorn) bushes around his house. He explains this “eruption” — a mass arrival from southern Europe fleeing extreme heat and nectar shortages — turning the thorny evergreens into a fluttering feast for these powerful migrants.
The pair also enjoy green hairstreaks dancing along the long new hedgerow, their iridescent green underwings flashing in the sun, and visit the maturing lake where yellow flag iris (queen of the marshes) shines and the first damselflies and emperor dragonflies hawk over the water. A charming little grebe (dabchick) dives nearby. Chris reflects on the sad loss of around 20 swallow chicks during the recent 30°C+ heatwave in the stables.
Listener letters add warmth: tawny owl nesting and pellet advice, ladybirds mating, a brave sparrow vs squirrel, whirligig beetles, swift callers bringing new arrivals, wildlife camera recommendations, and more.
This episode captures the dazzling highs and occasional lows of a changeable late spring — ideal for marvelling at butterfly migrations, wetland beauty, and the unstoppable rhythm of the seasons at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19265370-episode-2-74-firethorn-butterflies-and-heatwave-heartbreak.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
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This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
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Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.73 - Holly Blue Heaven and Fox Cub Frolics
Send us Fan MailOn a bright late-May morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner is thrilled by the appearance of a stunning male holly blue butterfly basking in one of the wildflower meadows. He explains its …
Show notes
On a bright late-May morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner is thrilled by the appearance of a stunning male holly blue butterfly basking in one of the wildflower meadows. He explains its remarkable two-brood life cycle — using holly in spring and ivy later in the year — and the joy of seeing these tiny blue gems after a cold spell.
The pair then head to Cantley Hill Plantation, where a family of young fox cubs has taken over an old badger sett. Chris shares trail-camera footage of the adventurous six-week-old cubs exploring, learning their territory, and playing near rabbit warrens, while discussing fox family behaviour, vocalisations, and the natural balance between predators and prey.
A drive along the farm’s flourishing 2007-planted hedgerows showcases the growing biodiversity, with new oak trees and wildflowers supporting butterflies and birds. Swifts finally arrive, drinking from the lake, signalling high summer. Listener letters bring extra delight: first swifts in North Norfolk, whirligig beetles, a brave house sparrow chasing a squirrel, sand martins on Dartmoor, and an explanation of Heston bales.
This episode is a joyful celebration of summer’s winged arrivals and the lively antics of young foxes — ideal for savouring the bright beauty and natural dramas unfolding across the countryside.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19226835-episode-2-73-holly-blue-heaven-and-fox-cub-frolics.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.72 - Stoat Kittens and Soaking Rain
Send us Fan MailOn a welcome rainy mid-May morning at High Ash Farm, after weeks of drought, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin celebrate 10mm of soaking rain on the overwinter wild bird seed mix. They reflect on …
Show notes
On a welcome rainy mid-May morning at High Ash Farm, after weeks of drought, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin celebrate 10mm of soaking rain on the overwinter wild bird seed mix. They reflect on past hedge removal and changing farming practices while exploring an old clay quarry where solitary bees nest in ancient clay-block walls.
The highlight is a remarkable stoat family: Chris shares stunning trail-camera footage of a female stoat (Mustela erminea) repeatedly returning to a wood-pile lair with fresh rabbit prey for her tiny kits. He explains their lightning speed, delayed implantation, extraordinary mating behaviour, ermine winter coats, and differences from weasels.
In the bird hide they enjoy close views of rooks, jackdaws, a carrion crow, yellowhammers and a grey squirrel as the rooks gather moistened grain for nestlings. Listener letters add delight: blackcaps as “northern nightingales,” hares in sugar beet, bee orchid queries, a magpie raiding a great tit nest, and more.
This episode is a rich celebration of rain-soaked relief, one of Britain’s most fascinating predators, and the bustling life of rooks and hedges — ideal for savouring nature’s resilience and the fast-paced drama of the countryside in May.
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.71 - Aphid Aerial Plankton and Blossoming Hawthorns
Send us Fan MailOn a chilly, grey early-May morning with a brisk northerly wind and five weeks of drought at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin explore the effects of the dry spell. Skylarks hover …
Show notes
On a chilly, grey early-May morning with a brisk northerly wind and five weeks of drought at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin explore the effects of the dry spell. Skylarks hover and sing over parched grass fields, while swallows sweep low hunting for insects. In Fox’s Grove, they examine sycamore leaves glistening with honeydew from vast colonies of green aphids — prolific breeders that provide vital “aerial plankton” for summer migrants.
Chris then admires one of the farm’s magnificent old hawthorns (May) in full luminous blossom beside an ancient quarry. He shares its long history as a hedging plant, its sharp spines, distinctive scent, pollination needs, and clever seed dispersal by birds.
Listener letters bring warmth from across the UK and beyond: a magical close encounter with a female hare searching for leverets, phacelia identification, first swifts and house martins, lapwings, goldcrests, glyphosate questions, and more.
This episode captures the resilient beauty of a dry early summer — from skylarks and aphids to shimmering May blossom — ideal for appreciating nature’s ingenuity even when the weather refuses to cooperate.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19151554-episode-2-71-aphid-aerial-plankton-and-blossoming-hawthorns.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.70 - Sand Martin Spectacle and Earsham Colonies
Send us Fan MailOn a breezy early-May morning, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin visit Earsham Gravel Quarry on the northern edge of High Ash Farm to witness a wonderful spectacle. Hundreds of sand martins swirl …
Show notes
On a breezy early-May morning, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin visit Earsham Gravel Quarry on the northern edge of High Ash Farm to witness a wonderful spectacle. Hundreds of sand martins swirl around the towering sand cliffs, pouring in and out of nest holes like a living Swiss cheese. Chris explains their colonial lifestyle, playful feather-chasing games, tiny size, brown collar, and long journey from the Sahel, while noting their sharp national decline and dependence on nearby river meadows for insect food.
Back on the farm they check a busy rookery in tall ash trees, where early nests hold well-grown young “branchers” stretching their wings. Chris highlights differences between rooks, carrion crows and jackdaws, and the challenges of dry weather for feeding the chicks. From the Yellowhammer Hide they enjoy a close roe deer browsing hawthorn and panoramic views across the fields, though the hoped-for rooks stay cautious.
Listener letters add warmth: stone owls and donations from Houston, Minnesota; min-till benefits in Africa and the UK; nettles in pots for gardeners; hen harriers and swifts in France; and thoughtful comments on the shooting industry’s role in conservation.
This episode bubbles with the energy of early summer migrants and bustling rookeries — ideal for savouring the lively return of colonial birds and the everyday wonders of farm and quarry alike.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19107894-episode-2-70-sand-martin-spectacle-and-earsham-colonies.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.69 - Bluebell Batteries and Badger Bedding
Send us Fan MailOn a bright but brisk late-April morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner welcomes Matthew Gudgin with a fresh sense of wonder after his recent heart surgery. Starting close to home, he shares …
Show notes
On a bright but brisk late-April morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner welcomes Matthew Gudgin with a fresh sense of wonder after his recent heart surgery. Starting close to home, he shares honey with common ants in a plant pot and explains their vital place at the base of the food chain — fuelling the swarming “aerial plankton” that feeds swallows, starlings and green woodpeckers.
Just yards from the back door, four well-grown robin chicks sit ready to fledge in a Virginia creeper nest, while a bold lone mallard duckling makes daily journeys from the pond to the workshop.
The pair then step into one of the farm’s spectacular bluebell woods, where 60–70 million blooms create a sumptuous carpet. Chris reveals how the flowers race to store sunlight in their bulbs before the beech canopy closes, and reflects on the peaceful living heritage of this ancient site near a Romano-Celtic temple.
Later, at a large badger sett, they explore huge sand mounds and tunnels home to several sows and their playful cubs, with Chris describing their digging skill, delayed implantation, and charming night-time footage. Listener letters bring extra warmth: sparrows in clematis, a Christmas wreath robin nest, wild cherry queries and recovery wishes.
This episode celebrates nature’s interconnected layers — from tiny ants to ancient bluebells and bustling badger families — ideal for savouring the renewed joys of spring and the quiet magic of second chances.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19069936-episode-2-69-bluebell-batteries-and-badger-bedding.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash FarmEpisode 2.68 - Morning Melodies and Orange-Tip Eggs
Send us Fan MailIn the soft pre-dawn light of mid-April at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner steps outside at 4:45 am to capture the awakening countryside. A blackbird sings gloriously from a nearby tree, its rich …
Show notes
In the soft pre-dawn light of mid-April at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner steps outside at 4:45 am to capture the awakening countryside. A blackbird sings gloriously from a nearby tree, its rich, fluid notes carrying beautifully in the cool, still air, while wood pigeons coo and the first lesser black-backed gulls drift overhead. Chris explains why birds sing so early — advertising territory, the sound travelling farther in dense cold air, and the simple fact that it’s still too dark for many to start foraging on the ground. A short walk to the stables reveals the farm’s growing swallow population — now nearly 30 adults — already busily repairing nests and chattering excitedly after their long journey from South Africa. Later, in the warm sunshine, orange-tip butterflies are drawn to garlic mustard, whose triangular leaves Chris picks and tastes, noting its pungent garlic-and-mustard flavour once used with mutton. St George’s Day flies drift through the woodland edge, and a red kite quarters the fields. Listener letters add warmth: dawn chorus recordings from California, a garter snake tackling a large goldfish, and support during Chris’s recovery. This episode is a gentle celebration of spring’s awakening chorus and the tireless return of the swallows, ideal for savouring the simple magic of an early April morning.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19032092-episode-2-68-migratory-masses-and-st-george-s-day-flies.mp3?download=true
Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
[email protected]
This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm.
Support us here:
https://donorbox.org/podcast-12
or from the Podcast page here:
Podcast | High Ash Farm
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