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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-loving habitat, and the extraordinary numbers appearing this year.

They also admire viper’s bugloss with its striking blue flowers and snake-like features, and discover dyer’s weld, an ancient dye plant linked to Neolithic cloth-making. A dramatic close-up encounter with a young hornet feeding on sugary extrusion from an oak tree (possibly honey fungus) adds fascination, alongside swallows skimming low, skylarks rising, and a marsh harrier quartering the fields.

Listener letters bring extra warmth: advice on managing new wildflower fields, redstarts and sand martins on Dartmoor, swift callers succeeding, RSPB summer feeding guidance, and more.

This episode celebrates the colourful revival of high summer — ideal for savouring the orchid-rich meadows, ancient dye plants, and the busy dramas of insects and birds at High Ash Farm.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19341757-episode-2-76-pyramidal-splendour-and-honey-fungus-worries.mp3?download=true

Learn about chalk stream ecology

Explore hornet nest biology

Include listener Q&A topics

Think Harder

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Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to
Chris@highashfarm.com

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