Send us Fan Mail 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 di

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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 sing

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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.

Send us Fan Mail 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 an

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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 interv

Send us Fan Mail 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

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 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 wa

Send us Fan Mail 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-r

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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 na

Send us Fan Mail 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-lov

Send us Fan Mail 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

Send us Fan Mail 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 migrant