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00:24The
00:24farm droid had now been set to work replanting the onion
00:28and beetroot field.
00:31But with the skies still stubbornly blue,
00:35I wasn't sure I could see the point.
00:45So this planting is all very well,
00:47but pointless if it doesn't rain.
00:50Yeah.
00:51So it's reckoned 10,000 litres of water over a hectare
00:57gives you the equivalent of one millimetre of rain.
01:01And it's 24 millimetres you need every week.
01:10You've never seen a James Bond film,
01:12but I've never seen anyone as captivated...
01:14It's fascinating. ...as you are by that.
01:17Do you not just watch that all day?
01:19No.
01:20I mean, yeah, five minutes, but you...
01:22Look at his face.
01:25It's really...
01:28You love that machine, don't you?
01:29Yeah, I do.
01:30What gets me is it put 200,000 seeds in yesterday
01:33and it knows where every single one of them is.
01:37That's unbelievable.
01:38So when it's finished doing this, okay?
01:43And I've lost him again.
01:46He's gone back to his...
01:46It had a sense of...
01:49Corn hub.
01:49Corn hub.
01:49Corn hub.
01:50That's what he's watching there.
01:55Since there was nothing we could do about the lack of rain,
01:58we got on with other jobs.
02:05Caleb started mowing and baling the grassland to make silage.
02:1018 bales so far.
02:13All food for the cows throughout the winter months.
02:19Then it was time to move the easy care sheep and their lambs
02:23to a new pasture.
02:25How are you doing, Jeremy?
02:26You well?
02:27Yeah, good session. How are you?
02:28And to help us, our sheep farming neighbours had come round.
02:32You tell me where you want me, Jeremy.
02:34Not that Jeremy.
02:35The one that knows what he's doing.
02:36Which meant we had the treat of watching their sheepdog at work.
02:43Here they come.
02:48Look, there's the dog.
02:49Look, the dog's doing it.
02:51Look at the dog.
02:52I just love watching sheepdogs.
03:02Whoa.
03:07And the sheep are now corralled.
03:13They look stonking little lambs are, don't they?
03:15I'm impressed. Oh, yeah, really.
03:17I can't believe you're a committed sheep farmer
03:20who's never had easy care before
03:23and you always hated sheep.
03:24And both of you are going,
03:26well, why don't we all have easy care?
03:28It was a good decision you made here.
03:29I wish it was a penny.
03:31There you go.
03:32Was it what?
03:32Was it your decision?
03:33No, it was...
03:34Do you know?
03:35It was...
03:35Oh, fuck me.
03:38Hop! Hop!
03:39Go on.
03:40Here you go.
03:41Having loaded them into the trailer...
03:43Bah!
03:46We took them to their new field,
03:48which the government had made us fill with eco-plants
03:51that humans can't eat,
03:53but sheep can.
03:57Come on, lambers!
04:02Come on!
04:03Oh, my God, that is glorious.
04:05I know.
04:06Look at this.
04:07They've never seen grass this long.
04:09That is amazing.
04:11Unbelievable, isn't it?
04:12What a sight.
04:17They're going to be the size of zeppelins, those sheep.
04:20What's a zeppelin?
04:21Like a zebra?
04:24Fuck off.
04:25You know what a zeppelin is.
04:26Oh, it's an antelope.
04:34With the sheep's happily grazing away,
04:36I set off with Diddly Squat's resident zoologist
04:40back to the yard.
04:42What I'm going to do is just check my mirrors before reversing.
04:45I find, I don't know, it kind of helps.
04:47If somebody's parked their car behind you,
04:50you just have a look in the mirrors, just check it out,
04:53and make sure there's nothing.
04:54Never going to fucking live this down, am I?
04:56No.
04:57No, he wasn't.
04:59Because the day before,
05:02Caleb had given me the absolute best of sticks
05:06to beat him with.
05:13Bad job, innit?
05:14That's the producer's Land Rover.
05:16I know.
05:17I wonder how its windscreens got broken
05:19and all the fronts smashed up.
05:20Must have been a pheasant.
05:23Must have been a pheasant.
05:25Is this you too?
05:26He's done everything.
05:28How?
05:28I was baling, it was parked over there,
05:30didn't see it in the mirror,
05:31it wasn't there beforehand,
05:33and then reversed into it.
05:33But when I reversed into the barn,
05:35you were really cross with me.
05:36Well, yeah, obviously.
05:38Look, there's that barn over there,
05:39you've done that barn over there,
05:41you've done the barn over there,
05:42and the gale breaker on the right-hand side.
05:43I didn't do that.
05:45Basically, I employ Caleb Cooper Contracting,
05:48who'd come round to the farm and smash everything up.
05:50You talk so much shit, it's unbelievable.
05:54So much fun catching him out.
06:00A few days later,
06:02a June morning arrived,
06:05bearing gifts.
06:07Only love
06:09can bring the rain
06:12that falls back tears
06:16from our heart
06:20Love
06:24Rain
06:25Rain
06:29Rain
06:30Rain
06:30Rain
06:46Cool
06:47Cool run.
06:51That's what we've got now.
06:54Cool, cool rain.
06:57Feels good, doesn't it?
06:58And to keep our spirits up,
07:00we decided to release Endgame back into the fields
07:04to join the rest of the herd.
07:09Endgame, give us a hand.
07:11Yeah, push, buddy. Come on. You can do it.
07:20Go on, buddy.
07:23No, fucking good. Watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out.
07:25He looked smarter, didn't he? Don't worry, the winter.
07:27Yeah.
07:32Mate, I have to say, we are fucking good at our jobs.
07:35If there are prizes for loading a bull into a trailer,
07:40I think we've just won gold.
07:43It's still the best animal on the farm by a country mile.
07:46You can keep Richard Ham, you can keep everything.
07:49He's just tremendous.
07:56Hey, hey, hey, hey, I'm going to do something I haven't done
07:58in four months. Ready?
08:00What's that?
08:03Windscreen wipers have forgotten what they were for.
08:05LAUGHTER
08:16Hey, kids, Daddy's home.
08:22There's palpable excitement from these cows and cows.
08:26Ready?
08:26Yeah.
08:29Ooh, hello.
08:37Look at him, he's just beside himself, running with his kids.
08:42I love when a calf's tail goes up in the air, like I am fast.
08:46It's like a spoiler.
08:51Um...
08:52LAUGHTER
08:53You know, we've been ringed here.
08:58Hey.
08:59They're just running around.
09:00What are you doing?
09:03And there they go, sheltering for the rain in the trees.
09:08What a happy day, it's raining.
09:10And look how happy Endgame is.
09:11Yeah, yeah.
09:15We prayed the rain would continue.
09:18But the next day...
09:22Normal service was resumed.
09:27And because there was still nothing I could do about that,
09:30I decided to busy myself with a distraction.
09:34A pet project I'd wanted to do for years.
09:39One of the things that's depressed me a little bit
09:41since I started this farming malarkey is,
09:43as you walk around the place,
09:46you see quite a few songbirds, you know,
09:48yellow hammers and goldfinches and sparrows and so on,
09:51but you don't very often see any traditional farmland birds.
09:58And I was talking about this the other day to a girl in the next village
10:01who's a very keen bird watcher.
10:05And she said,
10:06OK, well, look, I'll come round and let's see what's going on.
10:10The problem with bird watchers, though, is that they're like the army.
10:15They never want to meet you at about 11 or let's have a spot of lunch
10:19and then get cracking.
10:20It's always, right, I'll see you at oh crikey o'clock.
10:26And so, at 4am, I met the bird watcher, Hannah,
10:30who was already excited having heard a bustle in the hedgerow.
10:37I know loads of people across the country come to Diddly Squat,
10:41but this guy has travelled 8,000 miles to get here to this thicket.
10:47What is he?
10:48A garden warbler.
10:51And birders get really crazy about warblers because they're so pretty.
10:55They kind of sound like Myra Carey in Fast Forward.
10:58A garden warbler?
10:59From South Africa.
11:00South Africa?
11:01Yeah, and he'll come back next year.
11:03Isn't he about that big?
11:04Oh, yeah, they're really small and they're dullards to look at,
11:06but they sound really cool.
11:08There's also a black cap, another warbler.
11:11What's this? Is this your list of things you've heard?
11:13Yes. Oh, that's a wren.
11:16It's like a pneumatic machine gun.
11:18From what I can gather so far, this isn't bird watching,
11:21this is bird listening.
11:22Yeah, this is a singing survey.
11:24That's not his technical name.
11:26I know, then.
11:27My Merlin bird app.
11:29Let's go over there because the garden warbler's hanging out here.
11:34That bird.
11:37That's a skylar.
11:38When it goes yellow, that's because it's heard that bird at that precise moon.
11:42That's what it's heard so far.
11:44It's this one.
11:47There, garden warbler, she was right.
11:50She doesn't even know the hair.
11:52And so I'd love, I'd always said I want to get that.
11:56Oh, listen, listen, listen.
11:57Can you hear the lorry reversing?
12:00To, it's a bird, but it sounds like a lorry reversing.
12:05That?
12:06Yeah, that's a greater white throat.
12:09Oh, greater white throat.
12:11Greater white throat.
12:13Hannah, faster than the Merlin bird app.
12:17Do you do it when you're just walking along?
12:19And you're constantly tuned into...
12:21Oh, look, skylarks.
12:23Well, I can't see any.
12:26How did you learn to do this?
12:28Um, I spent a long time living on my own in a bush in Africa
12:32where I had no friends and I had a bird in my hair
12:34and I just tuned into all the birds, so...
12:36You had what?
12:37Um, I just tuned into the birds because...
12:40No, no, you had a bird in your hair.
12:41I had a bird in my hair, yeah.
12:42I found a little nestling bird and his nest had been blown down.
12:47His whole flock had abandoned him.
12:49He would have died otherwise, so I thought, OK, fine,
12:51I'll try and be surrogate mother to this tiny little finch.
12:54And it worked, but it meant that I was his whole world.
12:58And so he lived on my body for all of his time awake.
13:02And when he went to sleep and napped,
13:03he would make little nests out of my hair.
13:05And this went on for three months.
13:08So I hung out with this little bird in my hair.
13:10What happened to it in the end, then? Did it just fly away?
13:13No, well, I reintegrated him into his flock
13:15by stalking his family flock every day for 12 hours for two months with him,
13:19so that he learnt how to be a wild finch.
13:21And in that time, I had to tune into all the landscape sounds,
13:24because a lot of them were predatory sounds that would have killed him
13:27and also snakes and things that have killed me.
13:29And so I learnt all the sounds and I got addicted.
13:34I then explained why I needed her expertise.
13:39I don't think we're badly off for songbirds here.
13:42You see quite a few.
13:43Yeah?
13:44It's farmland birds.
13:45Yeah.
13:46So I'm super interested in the farmland birds that are here all year,
13:50and that's why I want to go and have a look at that hedge.
13:54What would you call farmland birds?
13:56Lapwings and curlews, obviously, but what else?
13:59Skylarks, linets, corn buntings, yellow hammers.
14:02And how many of them are endangered?
14:05Oh, there are 13 on the red list right now.
14:08Out of six?
14:09Out of, like, 20.
14:11So, I mean, most of them are on the red list.
14:13And it's not just that they're endangered, they're massively.
14:16So, turtle dove, 99% of its population gone.
14:19Oh.
14:20Grape artridge, 92%.
14:21And the point is, the reason why they're on the red list is because
14:24of the change in farming practices, intensification, the 118,000 miles of hedge
14:31that has gone in the last 70 years, they are starving to death in the winter
14:35because there isn't enough natural food.
14:37But I'm sure there's something we can do.
14:39Also, for example, one obvious thing is, oh, I just heard a yellow hammer.
14:44What, while you were talking?
14:46Yeah.
14:50We then headed to another part of the farm with Hannah drowning me in trivia about Swifts.
14:57Their first maiden flight, three years, no landing.
15:01Three years?
15:01Three years.
15:02They mate in the sky, they eat in the sky, they sleep in the sky.
15:05How can you sleep and...
15:06Oh, wait, look, can we just stop the car because this is, like, the most insane...
15:12So she's just ordered me to stop the car and literally leapt out while it was still moving.
15:18You've got a really special bird.
15:19What is it?
15:20I've never heard one in real life.
15:22What is it?
15:23It's a corn bunting.
15:24This is, like, the most exciting thing ever.
15:28And almost as though it wanted to give Hannah an extra treat,
15:32this corn bunting made an actual appearance.
15:35There.
15:36Oh, yes.
15:37That's a corn bunting.
15:39The corn bunting.
15:40That is so cool.
15:46We concluded this happy tour by visiting a field we'd given over
15:50to one of the government's environmental schemes.
15:55So this is rye grass.
15:57This was part of the scheme.
15:59Caleb's, look, he's been along and he's making silage.
16:02Oh, fuck.
16:03What?
16:04Oh, that's bloody awful.
16:08I might vomit in your car.
16:09What's he done wrong?
16:12So skylarks and other birds will nest in the crops.
16:18So, oh, if he'd just waited another two weeks,
16:22he won't have killed any of them.
16:24But there's a very good chance if you silage too soon,
16:27you'd kill all the chicks.
16:30He said if he cuts it now and then makes this into silage to feed the cows in the winter,
16:38by doing it now, the grass will have a chance to regrow and he'll get two cuts of silage in
16:44the year.
16:44Yeah, great, lucky him.
16:47Now you'll just have squashed chicks instead of living one.
16:51Um, he cut this yesterday, he's going to bag it today, I think.
16:55So wouldn't there have been chicks in here or eggs?
16:58There would be chicks.
16:59And he's minced them?
17:00Yeah. Look, there's a skylight right there, probably crying over its dead family.
17:06Right.
17:10The next field due to be cut for silage was the GS4 field we'd put the sheeps in.
17:18And because I could see both points of view,
17:22Hannah and I went there the next day, after the sheeps had been moved, to intercept Caleb.
17:29Hell of an evening though, isn't it?
17:31It's beautiful.
17:32I mean, just...
17:33If we weren't talking about the mullering of a red-listed, threatened with extinction
17:38bird, it would be a really relaxing evening.
17:41I'm doing my best here.
17:42I know.
17:44Imagine if you were baby skylight with that coming towards you.
17:48What, Caleb?
17:52Hannah, this is Caleb.
17:53Hannah, lovely to meet you.
17:54Hello.
17:56With us all gathered together, I called the meeting to order.
17:59Right, you two.
18:01Um, case for the prosecution, case for the defence.
18:05Judge.
18:06You want to go out there, literally now.
18:08Yeah.
18:09And cut it.
18:10And you say, if he goes out there now, he is going to decapitate.
18:1424 chicks.
18:16From the skylights point of view, they have an average of four eggs,
18:19and there are probably six nests with the corn buntings, so that's 24 chicks, let's say.
18:23In this field?
18:23In this 21 hectares, in all of it.
18:26So, when would it be safe to silage this field?
18:30Four and a half weeks after they stopped laying and started incubating, which would be about the 16th
18:35of July.
18:36Okay, so 17 days.
18:38Basically July.
18:38Can you wait 17 days before silaging this?
18:42No, not really.
18:44I'll tell you for why.
18:45The nutritional value for the food now is great, because of course it's green and so on.
18:49If we wait 17 days, with this heat here, it's going to die off and become half dead.
18:53So, if we lose all the nutritional value, we're going to be short on cow food.
18:57We're already short now.
18:58We might have to start feeding our winter resources now, because we're so short on grass.
19:02So, you've already mullered the ryegrass skylarks.
19:04You kind of have to make the decision whether you want to actively contribute to the decimation
19:08of farmland birth.
19:09No, no, it's what the bloody hell to do.
19:11I'm sorry, you want to go tonight, and it's already half past seven.
19:16So, I've got to make a decision.
19:18I've got to compromise.
19:19I've had an oh what?
19:20So, put the chain on.
19:22What's the chain?
19:23So, it's like on your mower, on your front mower, you have like a chain hanging beforehand,
19:27which is about two metres out.
19:28So, therefore, when it rattles, yeah, before I get to that nest, or that bird or deer,
19:33they know.
19:33Yeah, the chicks will be died, but the mums and the dads will...
19:36Yeah, so then...
19:36OK, so the chain isn't going to solve...
19:38No, what for deer is that, to be honest with you?
19:39I'm just trying to focus on the skylarks, because I know they're here, because we can hear them.
19:44I can't see them now.
19:44You can hear them.
19:45So, we...
19:46I can't just hear them.
19:46I can just hear them.
19:48There's one there, right there.
19:50That's a skylark, it is a skylark, look at it.
19:52Yeah, because there's babies over there, look, not in here.
19:55All right.
19:55Anyway, the point is...
19:57The chain isn't going to save the babies.
19:59So, the most important thing is cut higher than you might normally do,
20:02so five inches or 12 centimetres.
20:04I don't think I can, though, because the bed's still laid set on...
20:06I don't think that's going to enable the chicks to survive.
20:09The bed of the mower goes across the floor.
20:12What I'm doing is doing this.
20:13What's the bed? I don't know what the bed is.
20:15The bed of the mower.
20:16Look, if we go into the back, it's probably easier...
20:17Caleb then took us over to show us what he meant.
20:21This is what sits on the ground, look.
20:22That's what I'm saying.
20:23Well, where are the...
20:24Where's the blades?
20:25Here, look.
20:26This spins round, right?
20:29And then, so it slices the little bird's head off,
20:32and then the rest of the bird is smeared into the ground.
20:35Like a smash burger.
20:37It might go underneath it, though.
20:38Why can't you just lift the whole frigging thing up?
20:41Because then I'm going to be...
20:41It's not how it works.
20:42It's designed to sit on the floor.
20:44Can you push this up so it's five inches?
20:46No.
20:47Why not?
20:48Because that's the stabiliser.
20:50This proves how shit it is for birds if you're nesting...
20:53But every single...
20:53What I'm saying is every single mower is like this.
20:56Yeah, but that's why there's a national population decline of 63%,
20:59because everybody's mowing like this.
21:01What I can do, you see, yeah, when you go down...
21:03You've got that little bit there that you see, which is then...
21:06It's like a fucking shit show.
21:08No, I'll just mow it. It won't take me two minutes.
21:09What, and you're saying, well, they'll die quickly?
21:11No, no, they won't.
21:13It was time to end the arguing and make a decision.
21:23I'm going to say, do not cut this tonight.
21:26Yeah?
21:28Yeah, yeah.
21:31I'll see if I can come up with a plan.
21:38Fuck.
21:48I needed a plan that would save the skylarks without hurting the farm.
21:54But there was no time to come up with one, because the next day,
21:58we had other bird business to attend to.
22:02Come on, yes, mate.
22:04Have you ever heard of geese?
22:06Really, no.
22:07I have not.
22:09Lisa had bought another gaggle of geese's for her goose night endeavours at the pub.
22:15And this lot now needed moving down to their new living quarters.
22:21They really do walk in a funny way.
22:24I feel like I'm Amish.
22:26Amish.
22:26Yeah.
22:26Amish.
22:27Do you know what I mean?
22:27I do.
22:28How do you know what an Amish person is?
22:29I just watch them build barns.
22:30They're really fast.
22:34That is beautiful.
22:36Why can we do this every day?
22:37I'd like to do this.
22:38This is fun.
22:40Not far now, geese's.
22:42Kiss, kiss, kiss.
22:44There we go.
22:45Look at that.
22:46And there they are.
22:47They've got their shade, their water, their house.
22:51Santa's Grosso.
22:52I know.
22:52Has it still got that bit of thing in the middle of it?
22:54No.
22:55So, last year I just used half.
22:57This year I'm going to have to use all of it.
22:59Oh, for God's sake.
23:01Mother of Christ, Jeremy, who left these in here?
23:03What?
23:04What?
23:05We've got Mother of Christ, literally.
23:10Is this some joke?
23:12No, it's not a joke.
23:13Honestly, I've broken the ramp.
23:16He's, um...
23:17Yeah, you need to keep going on flat jabs.
23:19Yeah, the Manjaro ramp.
23:21I think there's enough for it not to be hobby farming.
23:25Er, well...
23:26Borderline, but...
23:27Goose Line did well last year, so it's not hobby farming, I don't think.
23:31Caleb then headed off, thinking the job was complete,
23:34but, er, it wasn't.
23:38Oh, shit.
23:38The fence is off.
23:40Oh, no, no, no.
23:41Ah, ah, Lisa, quickly.
23:42Kiss, kiss, kiss.
23:43That way.
23:43Come on.
23:44Go on.
23:45We've got them now.
23:47Oh, my God.
23:49No, ah, ah, ah.
23:50Edith, come on.
23:51No, no.
23:52Over here.
23:52Ah, shitting now.
23:55This is just ridiculous.
23:58Is it on?
24:00It's on.
24:01Right, now they're safe.
24:03They're about to get their first lesson in electricity.
24:11Oh, poor geesers.
24:16Nevertheless, they were now protected from the foxes.
24:20And with that done, I went off with Charlie to check on some other newcomers to diddly squat.
24:27Hello, donkeys.
24:29My granddaughter has decided they're not called Bill and Ben.
24:32She called them Ben and Ben.
24:36I feel now I've...
24:39I'm on a petting zoo.
24:41Pessing farm.
24:42Come on.
24:42I don't think there's anything wrong with having donkeys.
24:44Do they take your fingers off when you're early?
24:45Have you felt how soft it is?
24:47I know, it's stunning.
24:48I know that you say petting zoo, blah, blah, blah, blah.
24:51No, I'm joking.
24:52It's great.
24:53You know, that's what a lot of people forget about farming is you've got to enjoy it.
24:56Yeah.
24:57Look, the birds, the animals.
25:00Have I got one more?
25:02Listen to the sound when they eat a carrot.
25:20Back in the car, I brought Charlie up to speed with the problem of Caleb and Hannah.
25:25Being at loggerheads over the birds...
25:28So, can you see my dilemma?
25:30Cut it now, we get silage, but we kill all the skylarks and the corn buntings
25:35and all the other birds that have nested in that field.
25:37I mean, have you tried walking through that GS4 field with a chicory in it?
25:41It's bloody impossible.
25:42Yeah.
25:42It would take an army 300 years to find a skylark nest in there.
25:48Um, now, I don't know, but they can use drones to heat-seek
25:54grey partridges now.
25:55So, where people are having grey partridge projects, they're putting a drone up.
25:59So, you can go up at night and then you can literally pinpoint where they are.
26:03Oh!
26:04Well, I wonder who's got a drone.
26:09Yep, we do.
26:11So, I went off immediately to find Chris, the man who flies it.
26:16Charlie was just saying, if we had a heat-seeking drone, it might be able to locate the skylark nests.
26:24Yeah.
26:25In the fields?
26:26In theory, yes.
26:28We know which field they're in.
26:29So, you know they're definitely in a field, right?
26:30Yes, yeah.
26:31Yeah.
26:31So, we've got drones that have got thermal cameras.
26:33Not this one, but it's about the same size as this.
26:35So, it wouldn't disturb the birds.
26:37Yeah.
26:38But you need a very specific scenario.
26:40So, for a thermal camera to work, it needs to see a difference between something hot and something cold.
26:45So, we would have to do it very early in the morning before the sun came up and warmed the
26:49ground.
26:49Yeah.
26:50Well, Sunday, it's down to 16 degrees, apparently.
26:52So, that could work.
26:53We'd have to do it probably about four o'clock in the morning.
26:56Again, before the sun comes up and warms the ground.
26:59And we would have to hope that the birds were giving off some kind of heat signature.
27:02So, obviously, the birds are designed to conserve the heat with feathers.
27:06Before I got sucked into a drone operator tech-speak black hole,
27:13I said yes to Chris.
27:18And the following morning at 4am, he was duly in position, ready to initiate Operation Skylark.
27:33So, I could see if he'd found anything.
27:42Um, okay, cold earth, which it was at half-past four in the morning, is pink.
27:48Plenty of blue shoots leaking around up there.
27:51But these greeny-yellow splodges are patches of warmth.
27:57And that is a potential Skylark nest.
28:03This is fantastic.
28:07Because we never, ever would have found that.
28:10No, another one.
28:11There, look.
28:13Unbelievable.
28:16So, anyway, we got all this.
28:18And then, here's where it gets really quite clever.
28:22I feel like I'm an adjacent Bourne movie here.
28:26So, this is one of the five Skylark nests that we found in Barn Ground.
28:33Juxtapose that with Google Maps.
28:38So, we know it's there.
28:39And from that, we've been able to get a precise what-three-words location.
28:46So, I'll go in my phone.
28:49Yes.
28:50And there it is.
28:51In that three-metre square is the Skylark nest.
28:55I go, mark it.
28:56Caleb drives round it.
28:58He gets his silage.
28:59All the Skylark chicks survive.
29:03Armed with this Langley-style surveillance,
29:06I got hold of Lisa.
29:08And we headed to the field so we could locate and mark the nest sites with flags.
29:14Right.
29:1975 metres away.
29:24Sweet.
29:26I'm still watching where I put my feet in case I tread on one.
29:3139 metres.
29:34This way.
29:3715.
29:40I think we're getting quite close.
29:43Ooh, six metres away.
29:46We're here.
30:03Oh, fuck's sake.
30:13Fuckin' hell, honestly.
30:15Yep.
30:16All the thermal camera had found were five piles of still-warm sheep shit.
30:24So, with no realistic way of locating the nests, I went with my heart rather than my head.
30:31And asked Caleb to stand down until the chicks had flown away.
30:39Then Hannah and I got on with another bird-related project.
30:45So, you're going to walk in front?
30:47Yeah.
30:48So that we don't mince a Skylark or a corn bunty?
30:51Right.
30:52Well, it's set to go two and a half kilometres an hour, so you won't have to sprint.
30:56Don't kill me.
30:58Right, you go front.
31:00Our plan was to create a winter pantry for the birds in the margins at the edge of the fields.
31:07And job one was to mow the grass in the margins using the agbot and Caleb's agricultural mower.
31:14What I will do for the dicky birds.
31:18Once the mowing was complete, I attached the cultivator to the agbot
31:25so that it could break up the sun-baked soil.
31:33That's not a good sound, is it? That's not how it should sound.
31:38We're going to break it.
31:41Well, hang on.
31:44Oh, that's fancy.
31:45I'm just going to drop it down on some actual grass bit.
31:54Yes.
32:01What are you doing?
32:03Cultivating, mate.
32:05Cultivating a margin?
32:07Yeah.
32:09Hannah's made this bird food mix.
32:12All right, yeah.
32:13It means that in the winter, when their food source is very low,
32:17they'll get to have a little bit more food in the farm than normal.
32:20Okay, so, okay, right, okay.
32:22But the point is here, though, it's not going to fuck up your cash crop, so it's all right.
32:26Yeah, I can see that.
32:28That is incredibly hard ground.
32:30Should you be doing this right now?
32:31It's doing it.
32:32Yeah, I'm not saying it's not doing it.
32:34It didn't do a very good job here.
32:34What I'm saying is the job that it's doing is shit.
32:37What are you on about?
32:38How are you going to break that up?
32:40At the moment, you're just making craters everywhere.
32:42And that's what you've officially done, is basically just wreck a margin.
32:46Come on, you know all this now.
32:49You've been five fucking years.
32:52You just got excited and wanted to use that piece of shit.
32:55I'll just look at your...
32:56Is that side parting on purpose in your hair?
32:59I don't think so.
33:01He's quite Yellowhammer-esque, isn't he?
33:03I'd say Hitler.
33:05Have a look at the ladies and gentlemen.
33:08I don't know.
33:09That is weird.
33:10Does it look bad?
33:11I think it looks like a Yellowhammer.
33:12It doesn't look like a Yellowhammer.
33:14He's just like our fat Hitler.
33:17Shut the fuck up.
33:20Maybe I should do like a middle parting.
33:22Yeah, okay.
33:23Now you look like from the 1920s.
33:25Now you look like Martin Bormann.
33:27You want to try and look like Yellowhammer?
33:28A Sky Sports guy.
33:30No, Martin Bormann is not a Sky Sports guy.
33:32That's Martin Brundle.
33:34I think you should tough it up.
33:35Martin Brundle and Martin Bormann are not the same people.
33:39We then got back to the business of cultivating the margin.
33:43And there was no denying that Caleb did have a point.
33:48Jesus Christ.
33:49That is like a sort of hairy paving slab.
33:53Yeah, so I don't think you should drill it today.
33:55I think you should leave it until we get some sort of moisture.
33:58I think your point is that there's no point doing it.
34:00It would just be a waste of seed without the rain.
34:02Yeah, yeah.
34:04There's no point doing it because it's not going to grow.
34:14Two weeks later, when we were certain the Skylark chicks had flown the nest,
34:20I allowed Caleb to mow the GS4 field, which to him felt like a complete waste of time.
34:28Look how dead this lot looks.
34:31If we would have done this four weeks ago, we would have had silage.
34:34Therefore, the nutrition in the grass is much higher, for example, than the sugars and so on.
34:39So, therefore, actually, the cows might actually like it.
34:42It's more palatable for them.
34:43Where I think now it's going to be like eating a bit of cardboard.
34:51In the grand scheme of things though, Caleb's silage problems were quite small.
34:58Because harvest was now approaching.
35:01And I was seriously worried about it.
35:05We'd had the driest spring for over a hundred years.
35:09In early summer, a drought had been formally declared.
35:14And in the five months since we'd planted the spring crops, we'd had 70% less rain than average.
35:26Consequently, my pre-harvest crop walk with Charlie was a grim affair.
35:34Onions and beetroots.
35:35Yeah.
35:36Or, as I like to call it, no onions or beetroots.
35:41What the bloody hell's gone wrong.
35:43Well...
35:43We planted this twice, remember?
35:45We've given it 1.6 million onion seeds and five have grown.
35:51Yeah.
35:51Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm wrong.
35:54Seven have grown, there's two there.
35:57It's very disappointing, because you put all that effort in.
36:00I know.
36:00Well, the machine did.
36:02I feel sad, actually, because the robo-droid is a fascinating piece of equipment.
36:08And everyone will just go, well, that's rubbish.
36:10But the truth of the matter is, it just hasn't rained.
36:13I think we've had no more than 20 mil in March, April, May and June.
36:19It's not even an inch.
36:20It's... It's...
36:21That much?
36:22It's 20-25ths. It's four-fifths of an inch.
36:26And over in the mustard field, things were no better.
36:30This is very, very disappointing.
36:33It's a bit of a desert.
36:35And the issue is, you've got a commercial need for mustard, which is one of the biggest sellers in the
36:42shop.
36:42It is the biggest.
36:44Shit.
36:47Charlie was just as downbeat in the wheat fields.
36:50You can see that the crop is much thinner than it usually is. There's a lot more light got in.
36:54We've got some pretty small heads. That is one ear of wheat.
36:58The grains are quite shriveled and look a bit rubbish.
37:04And even I could see that the barley wasn't much good either.
37:10It's just not tall enough.
37:13It's six inches below where it should be.
37:17I mean, if Russell Crowe walked through this, he'd have to have arms like a chimpanzee to be able to
37:24drag his fingers through it.
37:28I then dug out a clip I'd posted back in 2019, and that rammed home the point even harder.
37:35This is from June five years ago. And look at the barley then. Look how much taller it is.
37:45It hadn't even ripened than it is now.
37:49Marcus Aurelius.
37:54Nevertheless, we'd still have to do the harvest, which meant decluttering and cleaning all the storage sheds
38:01so they were ready to receive the grain. We've got to get all this out. Yeah.
38:08Whoa, whoa, stop. Okay, good.
38:23After the storage areas were tidied and prepped, I asked Charlie and Caleb to come to the office for a
38:30chat.
38:34Right, come on, you two.
38:39Harvest. Yep.
38:41It's upon us.
38:43I know, but I need some dates.
38:45Because last year it was a bit disorganised and we had a falling out. I don't want that to happen
38:50again.
38:51You were stressed.
38:52I was. Trying to open the pub was back. But I think this year...
39:01I think it's very clear. Oats next week.
39:04I think the weeks will be ready. Probably the week after.
39:09Say Monday the 28th.
39:11But all end of July, basically.
39:13All end of July.
39:13So, why are you going away?
39:16Fuck.
39:17Yeah.
39:20I've got cancer.
39:26No.
39:28Yep.
39:35Yeah.
39:38Where?
39:40Where is of no concern of anybody.
39:45I've known since May.
39:49I had a medical. Remember back in May?
39:52Yeah.
39:52And they went, hmm.
39:53And, you know, I disappeared off the other week and I had a biopsy done and it's cancer and it's
39:57aggressive but it's really early so the treatment will be, you know. I'm praying that we could get the
40:04harvest done and then I could go and get some treatment. But it's going to be slap bang in the
40:10middle.
40:13Look after yourself, aren't you?
40:14Yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:15But you go and do...
40:16Yeah, no, I mean, listen, I'm not that daft.
40:20So, it's going to be in about two weeks, maybe three, I'll have to go and have an operation.
40:28And then...
40:30And then...
40:32Will you stay away coming back after?
40:34No, no, no. The operation's in and out in no time but then you're slightly out of action for a
40:38little while.
40:40But in the meantime, Simon, the combine man, has retired.
40:44So, you were going to do the combining this year and I was going to do the grain carting.
40:49Yeah.
40:49But it now looks likely I won't be able to do the grain carting.
40:52So, we're going to have to get Lisa trained up.
40:54Yeah.
40:55Lisa can drive a tractor. She's perfectly capable of it.
40:58And if you load stationary, which only adds two minutes...
41:01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:01Well, she'd probably be good enough to do it on the move, I don't think.
41:04Well, I just wish you a very, very speedy recovery.
41:07Well, thank you. I will be. I promise I'll be fine.
41:10If you need anything, you just ring the...
41:12Yeah.
41:16Piss it though, innit?
41:20I didn't like this.
41:22No.
41:23I wasn't thrilled.
41:25No, but I wasn't prepared for this.
41:30No, I wasn't prepared for this.
41:38Mercifully, in farming, you don't ever have time to dwell on personal matters,
41:43because there's always something to do.
41:45And the thing I had to do the following day was put the cows through their six monthly tests for
41:51TB,
41:53along with an ever-shrinking dill win.
41:58Morning.
41:59What's true, mate?
42:01Yeah.
42:02Yeah, you're coming along as well, aren't you?
42:03Well, not much. Not like that.
42:05No, but I've been at it longer than you have.
42:08Well, you are literally an advertisement for fat jabs.
42:12Yes, possibly.
42:14So, all but one are pregnant again, aren't they?
42:17Yeah, you've got six of them pregnant in the space of about 35 days.
42:21Endgame's a busy boy.
42:23Yeah.
42:24These calves are fantastic, aren't they?
42:26They're good-looking calves, aren't they?
42:28That one, he's a bit under the weather, so I've just checked him out.
42:31He's got a touch of pneumonia.
42:32Has he?
42:32Yeah.
42:33Oh, no!
42:33Yeah, but hopefully he should be okay.
42:36Does look a bit peaky, that one.
42:37Yeah.
42:38Caleb's bringing some hay down.
42:40Yeah.
42:41Here he comes.
42:43That's dinner.
42:44Oh, they are excited by that.
42:47They can smell it.
42:49Right, come on, let's get him in here.
42:51Yeah, come on then.
42:53The actual TB test involves Dillwyn measuring lumps in the cow's necks.
42:58What number is he?
42:59Hang on.
43:00Seven.
43:01But what you really hope for is no lumps at all.
43:05No lumps.
43:06Clear?
43:07Yeah.
43:08Okay.
43:09Off you go.
43:10Hay time.
43:13Oh, yeah, look at that.
43:14I'm going to wear my food.
43:20Good news?
43:21Good news.
43:23That's all I like to hear.
43:27Here we go.
43:30Are you not actually measuring them?
43:32There's nothing to measure.
43:34Oh, I see, I thought you'd have those little tweezer things.
43:36I have.
43:37But I only measure them when there's lumps.
43:39And there's no lumps.
43:40There's no lumps.
43:41Oh, so she's all right.
43:42He's all right.
43:42She's all right.
43:43That's number 11.
43:44Yeah, good.
43:51All right, calipers.
43:53You what?
43:55Lumps.
43:55You've got, this one's got.
43:59Go, go.
44:01Hold on, mate.
44:08She's got two lumps the same size.
44:11So, hold on.
44:12I'll just measure.
44:13I'll just check to see what her measurements was last time.
44:16Right.
44:17So, last time, the top one was 11 and the bottom one was 10.
44:20This time round, she's 12-12.
44:23Is that a TB chart?
44:25That is a TB chart.
44:26So, you've got different colours mean different things.
44:28So, red's obviously bad.
44:30Red is bad.
44:31I, I, the blue and white is inconclusive.
44:35And a green is a pass, right?
44:37It's 11 before and 10.
44:38Okay.
44:39And now she's 12-12.
44:40So, it's plus one.
44:41The top one's gone up one.
44:43Yeah.
44:44And the bottom one's gone up two.
44:45I don't like the sound of this, Dillwyn.
44:48And then, if you go down to this, that's a plus one.
44:51That's a plus two.
44:52So, it's that square there, which is the green.
44:56It's green?
44:57It's green.
44:59Pass.
45:00If that would have been one millimetre more,
45:03then we'd have failed her on the bovine.
45:05But she didn't.
45:07That was bloody close.
45:09Bah!
45:10It's shit to brick time.
45:11Well, it was.
45:12Yeah.
45:13Luckily, you passed, but only just.
45:18Don't talk to any badgers.
45:20Go on then.
45:22For the next cow, Dillwyn once more needed his measuring tool.
45:27Have you got the chart out again, Dillwyn?
45:29Yeah.
45:30Oh, shit.
45:34So, she's passed, but again close.
45:37I'll let her out.
45:38We've never had close before.
45:40No, no.
45:43It's a worry that two of them have done that.
45:46I think.
45:47All right, the ball's going to come through now.
45:49Go on then.
45:51Widen this out a bit for endgame.
45:54Stay there, mate.
45:55How are you doing, laddie?
45:58I know.
46:03What?
46:05It's going to work.
46:06Come on, Dillwyn, what?
46:08I think it's a fail.
46:12Oh.
46:16Fuck.
46:19Hold on.
46:23Um.
46:25It is actually a pass.
46:28Oh, fucking.
46:29Dillwyn, when was the last time somebody murdered you?
46:32He's got one lump 17, one lump 21.
46:37So, he is five millimetre increase at the top, five millimetre increase at the bottom.
46:43Right on the borderline.
46:46Go on.
46:47We'll see if we can finish on a high.
46:50So, that's number three.
46:51She's fine.
46:52She's fine?
46:53Oh, good.
46:54Off you go.
46:55Go on.
46:58And this one is carrying twins.
47:02Twins, I know.
47:03Yeah.
47:1310, 13.
47:16Close.
47:16No.
47:18What?
47:18She...
47:20I've got bad news.
47:22Fail.
47:23What?
47:24Fail.
47:34I'm putting the whole farm under restrictions.
47:39So, you've effectively lost your official TB free status.
47:45That's the long and short of it.
47:46The ministry will get in touch with you and then they'll talk through what you can and can't do.
47:53So, you'll have a test in 60 days.
47:57If she isn't inconclusive next time round, then she's called a reactor and she will be slaughtered.
48:04With twins?
48:05With twins.
48:07That means the whole herd is now stuck here.
48:11So, we can't bring cows in or we can't send cows out.
48:13No, we can't bring cows in or our big plan of getting more cattle this winter.
48:17Go on.
48:19I mean, we've got, obviously, Endgame and two others are marginal, yeah?
48:23Yeah.
48:24Right on the borderline.
48:25And that's a fail.
48:26Yeah.
48:29But what do you do with Endgame?
48:31Well, that is the big question.
48:34He is the most valuable thing on the farm at the moment.
48:36If he goes down, we are fucked in terms of reproducing calves.
48:43I'll fucking give up, mate.
48:45Shit, no.
48:52It never gets easier, this.
48:55And she's got twins and it's...
48:57Oh, she's got twins, innit?
49:00As if I haven't got into it.
49:02So, we're worried about the shit.
49:10Get that head up.
49:11Oh, bollocks.
49:14Fuck.
49:21I just don't even know.
49:26Fuck.