A nuthatch and blackcaps join George on another glorious walk.

[birdsong]

Now that is a blackcap, singing for its life. Well, actually for its mate. Wow. He’s just flown off. Maybe he’ll stop and do some more. Yep. He’s really having a good old go.

Darting around in the, oh, I don’t know, about ten metres up in the… under canopy I suppose, you could call it, except there’s not much canopy ’cause the leaves aren’t out yet. Probably he’s trying to find a few insects. It’s a bit early, cold, not even six around here.

[birdsong continues, melodic and trilling]

Hello, it’s George in north Shropshire. On my morning walk with Lupin, sitting in the sun in a leafless glade of well — young sycamores and beech. There’s a bird singing. There’s a pheasant in the background. The continuing “weet-weet-weet-weet-weet” is a nuthatch calling out for a mate, and what I can hear in front of me is one, maybe two blackcaps survived, overwintered here — that survived the winter — or they’ve arrived very early. But someone pointed out to me the other day it’s probably too early, so the odds are they’ve overwintered. Well. A few tits around as well, calling out.

[pigeon cooing, distant cawing]

A pigeon, another pheasant. And that sounds as if it’s probably a narrowboat chugging — yep, I can just see it, chugging up the Llangollen arm of the Shropshire canal. It goes all the way up from here, Colemere, to Llangollen.

Oh, my word, the male cock pheasants are really making a noise at the moment as they find a suitable mate. And there’s a lot around here because they have a very active shoot all winter. Ah, just pause for a minute.

I don’t really need to add much to this, it’s such a beautiful morning, and sound. April the – thirteenth I think it is today. This time last year we were at the — well, well into two months of really hot weather following lockdown. So dry, we effectively had a bit of a drought round here. I hope that doesn’t happen again this year, ’cause last year I lost all my apples off my young trees because they dried out too much. Last night we had about three or four degrees of frost and I hope that hasn’t killed the blossom on the plums and damsons. It shouldn’t have, greenhouse didn’t — the greenhouse stayed at about five degrees, with just a candle [chuckles] — a somewhat vain attempt to just lift the temperature by half degree or so, just in case the worst happened. Big, pillar candle in a terra cotta fryer pot. In fact I probably should have put two in. But as it happens, temperature was fine.

Right, I think that’s it, I’ll continue. I’ll speak again when some more birds have arrived, no doubt. Keep walking, keep out there, stay safe.