Fields, Forests and a Fun Guy

A Cheshire birdkeeper who has watched the same fields for a lifetime explains what has gone.Tom Holland's first guest is his father, Mike Holland, a birdkeeper, falconer and former meat trade worker from Barnton in Cheshire who has bred Scottish crossbills since 1982.They walk through one patch of countryside: the orchards that became housing, the song thrushes that stopped singing in the village, the insects that stopped hitting the windscreen, and the forty acres of lime beds outside Northwich that now hold almost nothing. It ends with a target. Seven acres of gorse, three filled in ponds, two years to raise the money.IN THIS EPISODE🐦 Breeding Scottish crossbills from two pairs bought in 1982, and the year six pairs produced 44 young📺 The crossbills that ended up in a BBC series, filmed in a Cheshire garden and cut into a wild Scottish nest🦡 What the BTO nest camera data actually says about badgers, foxes and ground nesting birds📉 Why tree sparrows collapsed, and the one farm change that brought the linnets back🌿 What actually works in a garden, and why a plastic lawn does notTHE GUESTMike Holland, birdkeeper, falconer and lifelong naturalist, Barnton, Cheshire.WHAT YOU CAN DORecord what is in your own patch. BTO BirdTrack is free, takes minutes a week, and it proves what changed.https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/birdtrackSOURCES AND FURTHER READINGWe check the numbers our guests use, and say so when we cannot.PART RIGHT. Nest predation. The study is real: Barton et al, "Identity of predators of bird nests in the British Islands", Ibis 2025, BTO and University of East Anglia, 2,088 nests and 609 predation events. For waders it reports badgers, foxes and hedgehogs together at 53% of predation events, and ungulates, mainly sheep, at 6%. There is no separate badger figure, so the 42% and 23% stated on air are not supported, and 42 plus 23 will not fit inside 53. The sheep figure is right, and it is the surprising one. https://www.bto.org/our-work/science/publications/papers/identity-predators-bird-nests-british-islandsVERIFIED. Tree sparrows down about 93% between 1970 and 2008, with an 18% rise since 1995 from a very low base.https://www.bto.org/understanding-birds/birdfacts/tree-sparrowVERIFIED. Squirrel pox is carried by greys, harms them not at all, and is usually fatal to reds.https://www.lancswt.org.uk/RedSquirrelFAQPART RIGHT. Badgers. About 480,000 is broadly right: 485,000 for England and Wales, 2011 to 2014. The 37,000 before protection is not supported; the published 1980s estimate for Great Britain is nearer 250,000.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00378-3PART RIGHT. The farm with the flower margins is almost certainly the Allerton Project at Loddington, Leicestershire, not Lincolnshire. A 97% rise in songbird numbers since 1992.https://www.allertontrust.org.uk/projects/long-term-wildlife-monitoring/ABOUT THE SHOWFields, Forests and a Fun Guy is a UK conservation podcast hosted by Tom Holland. Nature Uncensored. An unhurried hour with the people actually doing the work.FOLLOWInstagram: @fieldsforestsandafunguy/Facebook: @FieldsForestsandaFunGuyTikTok: @fieldsforestsandafunguyX: @FieldsforestsFGYouTube: @FieldsForestsandaFunGuyRestore Habitat UK, charity 1209108: https://www.restorehabitat.ukA NOTE ON BALANCEThis show hosts people who disagree with each other. Views expressed by guests are their own. If we have got something wrong, tell us and we will correct it.