Nature Tripping

A stone’s throw from the river in Hebden Bridge town centre Jill and Kathryn make a discovery under their eaves: House Martins have arrived. A summer of ups and downs follows and we track events over the year to learn more about the lives of these ‘epic’ little migrant birds, and how to love a ‘pile of poop’. We also find out more about Britain’s other Spring arrivals swifts, swallows and sand martins, and how to tell them apart.

What does rewilding in the British Isles mean, how do you start it off, and what happens when you do? In this episode we visit the 3000 acre Broughton Hall estate in Yorkshire with Rewilding Britain’s Alastair Driver to see how nature is bouncing back. A wide range of interventions and actions are now underway on land that was conventionally farmed for sheep and crops until very recently. Whether it’s tree planting, leaky dam construction, the introduction of ecosystem engineers (beavers), or just letting nature do its thing and embracing ‘scruffication’, the benefits for wildlife, the environment, the climate and people are compelling.

In an episode centred on climate change and community resilience, Jo and Cathy stay in their local town - Todmorden - to chat with Barbara Jones, a pioneer of natural building methods. Sustainable materials including clay, lime, wool, wood fibre and straw as well as stone and timber come into their own. We find out practical steps we can all take in our homes, whether they are old or new, to improve breathability (thus minimising unwanted condensation and mould), reduce heat-loss, and shield indoor spaces from increasing outside temperatures.  Barbara also tells the story of how the local college, condemned for demolition, was rescued by the community and is being transformed into a grassroots hub, sharing the skills and resources needed to take on the climate change challenge.

In this episode we visit Gronant and Talacre dunes with Mandy Cartwright from the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust to investigate the only Welsh population of Natterjack Toads, re-introduced after the Second World War. The shallow pools (scrapes) and sandy burrows provide a perfect habitat, but development pressures, predation, human activity and climate change mean life for these small, yellow-striped amphibians is precarious.  How exactly do Natterjack Toads live, and what are landowners and conservationists doing to ensure they keep croaking long into the night?

 With thanks also to Yvette Martin (ARC) and Darren Mason (National Trust).

What does the future hold for the ancient trees of the New Forest?  Join us inside the Forest, at Denny Wood, for an in-depth discussion with ecologist Adrian Newton and naturalist Lynn Davy.  Long term ecological monitoring of the woodlands is revealing the rapid and dynamic transformation of much-loved habitats that have existed for thousands of years.  Why is this happening?  Who are the winners and losers?  How should we assess the condition of an ecosystem that is changing so rapidly, and how do we go about making conservation management decisions in such an ecologically and culturally complex landscape?  Are processes of recovery - as well as collapse - in motion and if so, how can we promote these and ensure the future resilience of one of England’s most biodiverse places?

Cathy and Jo join wildlife biologist and hare expert Carlos Bedson on location in the Dark Peak to find out more about the only mountain hares in England. Their ancestors arrived on a train from Scotland!  500 metres up on the moor looking out for ‘white fluffy blobs’ Carlos explains more about the likes and dislikes of this amazing creature, his long-term survey work to map the extent and size of the Peak District  population, how to go about seeing one, and what we can do to ensure their continued survival.

Join Jo and Cathy for a Gaelic adventure to find out more about one of Britain’s rarest bumblebees – the Great Yellow Bumblebee (Bombus distinguendus).  We meet ecologist Janet Bowler on the dunes to discover more about what one small island has done to keep its special bee buzzing.  Charlotte Vale and Molly Knowles contribute readings in Gaelic from Beataidh Banrigh Super-Bee, a story book created by the children of Tiree.

“Come, summer visitant, attach to my reed roof your nest of clay”.  In this episode Jo and Cathy look back to the Victorian era with poetry scholar Clara Dawson.  Clara introduces us to poems by Charlotte Smith, William Wordsworth, Christina Rosetti, Edward Thomas and Thomas Hardy, and the interweaving of human and bird worlds. What is revealed about the poets’ relationships with nature as industrialisation took grip across the country?  And how might these poems spark our own imaginations, both in terms of experiencing nature’s previous plenitude, and in forging new relationships with the living world to carry us into an uncertain future?  The poems are read by Clara and set to field recordings.  This episode was supported by the University of Manchester. 

This episode takes Cathy and Jo to Shropshire to explore a church graveyard. Harriet Carty, from the charity Caring for God’s Acre, explains all about these oases of species-rich grassland, and how to manage them.  As well as meeting some of the plants and other creatures that make the graveyard their home - bats, rooks, butterflies, bees - they have a close encounter with an ancient yew tree, and find out how important burial grounds are to people, past and present. 

Following on from Episode 15 Jo and Cathy make a return to the peatlands, this time to a lowland raised bog on the outskirts of Manchester and Salford.  Little Woolden Moss formed over thousands of years but was almost totally destroyed in the 1990s by peat extraction – it became a barren, lifeless place, swirling with clouds of black dust. Jo and Cathy meet Jenny Bennion from the local Wildlife Trust and Dave Steel, a birdwatcher and bog volunteer, to find out how it’s now being brought back to life and becoming a wildlife haven once again.