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Join Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin on a damp November evening at High Ash Farm for a nocturnal safari, starting in the bustling farmyard where torchlight reveals smooth newts feasting on wriggling worms amid leaf litter, their amphibian lives split between aquatic springs and terrestrial nights, alongside dusky slugs grazing on fungi and leaving slimy trails up mossy walls. Venture into pitch-black fields to spotlight hares congregating in open grasslands, leverets born furred and alert, contrasting with burrowing rabbits bolting for cover, while moths flutter by, evoking night-time predators like bats with ultrasonic echoes and nightjars trawling the air. Encounter reflective-eyed little owls on short turf, elusive roe deer flashing white rumps, and bounding Chinese water deer vanishing into undergrowth, all amid discussions of historical warreners, myxomatosis impacts, and seasonal shifts in wildlife behaviour. Reflect on listener queries about hybrid horse chestnuts with empty conker cases, cover crops boosting soil health and skylarks, and speedy hedgehogs scouting hog houses for hibernation. An enchanting after-dark exploration of hidden habitats, mammalian marvels, and the intricate rhythms of countryside nightlife, ideal for uncovering the secrets that daylight conceals.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/18116031-episode-2-44-nocturnal-newts-and-hare-havens.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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Join Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin on a blustery, rain-lashed Thursday morning at High Ash Farm amid Storm Benjamin's gales, retreating into the vast farm workshop where gleaming tractors, mowers, sprayers, and cultivators—worth fortunes in investment—await winter storage and servicing. Delve into the challenges facing young farmers, from soaring land prices and machinery costs to the need for diversification into school visits, livery yards, and public access, all while pondering the shift from traditional ploughing to min-till methods that boost soil health. Brave the elements to explore freshly trimmed hedgerows serving as wildlife corridors for yellowhammers and sparrows, then spade up sodden earth to reveal thriving earthworm populations—juicy Lumbricus terrestris and wriggling juveniles—highlighting their role in aeration, nutrient cycling, and drought resistance. Venture into Fox's Grove amid dripping canopies to admire ancient sweet chestnut trees, measuring girths of 15 feet on 250-year-old giants, tracing their Roman origins, coppicing history, and bountiful nut crops feeding badgers, deer, and mice in an autumnal feast. Savour listener emails on transplanting horse chestnuts and the podcast's uplifting impact, alongside reflections on a lively theatre event. A thought-provoking trek through farming's modern realities, soil secrets, and woodland treasures, perfect for weathering the storms of seasonal change.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/18068578-episode-2-43-stormy-sheds-and-soil-secrets.mp3?download=true

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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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Join Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin on a crisp mid-October morning at High Ash Farm, where autumn's gentle bite scatters colourful leaves across the woodland floor and Rat the terrier digs with unbridled enthusiasm. Venture into the bustling sparrow hide, alive with house mice thriving in a commensal harmony amid spilled grain and sparrow chatter, their musty scent and rapid breeding a testament to nature's opportunism. Explore the lush field margins teeming with harvest mouse nests—tiny, woven spheres of shredded grass suspended like living orbs, crafted with prehensile tails and teeming with history from binder days to modern conservation triumphs. Encounter signs of voles munching on cocksfoot bases, alongside wood mice and their underground burrows, all forming a vital prey base for predators like barn owls and buzzards. Wander into Notre Dame Wood to uncover abandoned nests: rook platforms in budding rookeries, domed magpie hideaways guarding against thieves, crude wood pigeon twig lattices, massive squirrel drays, and lofty buzzard eyries atop the canopy. Marvel at an unexpected open-air beehive of dangling honeycombs, mistaken for a short-eared owl, and savour listener tips on foraging edible fungi like chicken of the woods amid fairy rings and field mushrooms. A delightful delve into autumn's hidden habitats, mammalian marvels, and avian architectures, ideal for appreciating the intricate web of countryside life.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/18027166-episode-2-42-mousy-mysteries-and-nesting-wonders.mp3?download=true

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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:
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Podcast | High Ash Farm

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Join Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin on a mild mid-October morning at High Ash Farm, where Rat scampers ahead amid grey skies and the vibrant blaze of autumn foliage—Norway maples glowing with reds and oranges from flavonoids and carotenoids, while elms, oaks, and beeches shed leaves in a seasonal symphony shaped by abscission layers and wind. Delve into the farm's fungal treasures in Foxes Grove, from dripping shaggy ink caps (lawyer's wigs) auto-digesting in real time to birch polypores on decaying trunks and scarlet fly agarics emerging like hallucinogenic gems in birch woodlands. Chris laments ash dieback's toll on roots and trees, sharing tales of dynamite stump removal and a resilient New Horizon elm. Answer a listener's query on attracting blackbirds, redwings, and thrushes with pyracantha 'Orange Glow' on a north-facing wall, offering year-round berries, bee blooms, and nesting thorny havens. A captivating exploration of autumn's vivid transformations, fungal feats, and wildlife wisdom, perfect for embracing the season's fleeting beauty.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/17987964-episode-2-41-colourful-canopies-and-shaggy-surprises.mp3?download=true

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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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Join Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin on a crisp October morning for an away day to the serene Forncett St Peter Low Meadows, an SSSI beside the River Tas, where frost lingers and fog clears to reveal plans for re-wiggling the river—restoring ancient meanders to slow flows, curb flooding, and revive oxbow lakes. Explore this unimproved grassland's biodiversity, from four orchid species and quaking grass to barn owls, kestrels, and otters, amid discussions on historical straightening, pollution from nitrates and phosphates, and the delicate balance between nature and human needs. Chris shares childhood tales of fishing for roach and dace, evading pike torpedoes, and the 1912 floods that reshaped Norwich. Back at High Ash Farm, thrill to Chris's solo dawn quest spotting elusive goldcrests and firecrests—Europe's tiniest birds at 5 grams each—darting through conifer canopies, with folklore of "woodcock pilots" and their acrobatic feats. A captivating mix of river restoration, habitat wonders, and avian delights, ideal for savouring autumn's emerging chill.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/17930758-episode-2-40-meandering-meadows-and-goldcrest-glimpses.mp3?download=true

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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:
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Podcast | High Ash Farm

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Join Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin on a changeable September morning at High Ash Farm, where Rat eagerly explores hedgerows amid fleeting showers and sunshine. Discover the unexpected dominance of yellow foxtail in the overwinter wild bird seed mix, its delayed dormancy creating a seed bonanza for linnets, yellowhammers, and goldfinches, while swallows skim the crops on their southward journey. Witness dramatic aerial pursuits as kestrels hover and hunt along field margins, only to be chased by territorial buzzards. Chris reflects candidly on farming missteps, from a carbon-offset woodland acre revealing the staggering 105-year timeline to neutralize the carbon share of 12 passengers flying to China, to ambitious bird hides that proved ahead of their time. Capture the rhythmic sounds of a late-season haylage harvest, with balers wrapping green forage to combat shortages from a dry summer. Delight in a listener's discovery of wild hops twining through hedgerows, evoking brewing history and tropisms, alongside global greetings from Australia. A thoughtful blend of seasonal surprises, wildlife drama, and honest rural insights, perfect for embracing autumn's unpredictable rhythm.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/17897439-episode-2-39-foxtail-surprises-and-kestrel-chases.mp3?download=true

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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 Farm

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Join Chris Skinner for a twilight woodland wander at High Ash Farm, where the evening air hums with pipistrelle bats darting acrobatically overhead, serotines weaving through the canopy, and noctules launching into the dusk—accompanied by the rustle of roosting jackdaws, rooks, and the earthy scents of fox and fungi. Shift to a rainy morning in the farmyard, celebrating a bountiful mast year with thousands of acorns carpeting the ground beneath ancient oaks, as jays cache their prizes and young saplings promise future groves. Venture to the bustling apiary, exploring towering hives alive with forager bees gathering ivy nectar, crafting propolis, and sealing golden honeycomb with intricate precision. Chris delves into listener queries on plant tropisms, unveiling how roots seek water through hydrotropism, shoots defy gravity via geotropism, and tendrils embrace touch in thigmatropism. A poetic blend of nocturnal mysteries and autumnal wonders, ideal for embracing the countryside's seasonal shift.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/17872464-episode-2-38-nocturnal-flights-and-honeyed-hives.mp3?download=true

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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 Farm

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Join Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin on a crisp September morning at High Ash Farm, where the farmyard's ancient oak hosts a luminous display of sulphur polypore—known as chicken of the woods—its vibrant, edible brackets spilling like molten gold. Bid a heartfelt farewell to the swallows in the stables, with over 100 fledglings reared amid a frenzy of aerial feeds. Wade into sun-kissed fields of sunflowers and wild bird seed mixes, uncovering whorled wonders like aromatic field mint, spearmint, and marsh woundwort, their orchid-like blooms thriving in the understory. Stroll a berry-laden hedgerow to witness a migrant red admiral feasting on ivy's vital late nectar, celebrating this unsung hero's year-round gifts for wildlife. Chris fields listener queries on lead shot's toll on waterfowl, shares tales of Dutch birdwatchers marvelling at the farm's swallows, and delights in a vibrant viper's bugloss submission. A poetic nod to fungi, flora, and fleeting summer migrants, perfect for savouring the countryside's turning tides.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/17837742-episode-2-37-sulphur-glows-and-swallow-farewells.mp3?download=true

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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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In this captivating episode of the Countryside Podcasts, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin wander through High Ash Farm’s breezy late August pastures, where September’s dawn heralds autumn’s subtle arrival. Autumn hawkbit carpets the hillside with dazzling yellow blooms, its serrated leaves hiding antioxidants and vitamin C, a medicinal marvel for eyesight once mistaken for hawk bites, thriving in close-grazed grass amid drought. The month’s changeling nature unfolds with Norway maples blushing pink, whispering of flamboyant colours and brisk northwesterlies to come. Viper’s bugloss dazzles in cobalt blue, its bristly leaves and snake-like stems a toxic deterrent, while seeds mimic viper heads, echoing ancient remedies for bites. In Cantley Hill Plantation, a fallen ash tree—snapped by winds—reveals ash dieback’s grip, its skeletal form a mystery amid drought and over-abstraction, a poignant loss in a landscape scarred by 1987’s hurricane. Listener tales of robin’s pincushions, tardy tadpoles, and insect absences weave into this lament, as the farm’s live show beckons on October 19th at Norwich’s Maddermarket Theatre under a freshening sky. From Saxon "hara" hills to family histories at Stoke House, this episode celebrates nature’s cycles amid shifting seasons.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/17787602-episode-2-36-hawkbit-bites-and-tree-tombs.mp3?download=true

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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 Farm

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Join Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin on a sun-drenched late August morning at High Ash Farm in the Norfolk countryside. This episode explores the serene beauty of the farm’s lake, where a majestic young mute swan is moulting amid darting swallows, vibrant kingfishers, and upending mallards. Discover the perils of lead poisoning for swans and the thriving aquatic plants like gipsy wort and flag iris. Venture to bountiful hedgerows laden with hawthorn berries, blackthorn sloes, and rose hips, signalling a spectacular mast year for wildlife. Delight in the orchard’s overflowing harvest of Victoria plums, Cox’s apples, and the quirky native medlar tree. Chris answers listener questions on peculiar rose galls, lingering tadpoles, and the alarming decline in swifts and insects. The episode closes with a poignant reading of Kevin McManus’s poem “The Turning of August,” capturing the subtle shift from summer’s warmth to autumn’s edge. Perfect for nature enthusiasts seeking a poetic glimpse into rural life’s rhythms.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/17747895-episode-2-35-lakeside-moults-and-orchard-opulence.mp3?download=true

Support the show

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