Chris Skinner begins the episode at dusk and captures the noisiness of the jackdaws, rooks and carrion crows circling the woodland before roosting.

In the morning, Rat is up to his usual mayhem and keen to steal the show. Chris takes Matthew Gudgin to the overwinter wild bird seed mix experiment site that we visited a couple of weeks ago and the results are in!

The pair traipse to a bird hide on the farm and enjoy a cocktail of birds visiting the feeders.

They retreat to the farm truck and read updates from across the pond and answer questions on how we can support birds and bees with small plots and they identify a mystery fungus.

Click here to download the MP3 file of this episode.

Chris Skinner's Countryside Podcast was produced by SOUNDYARD - a non-profit company on a mission to turn up the volume on under-heard voices.
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