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PROGRAMME INFO |
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From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
Email: open.country@bbc.co.uk
Postal address: Open Country, 91热爆 Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.
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This week Richard travels to a very wet and windy Skomer Island, just off the Marloes Peninsula of Pembrokeshire. It's separated from the mainland by Jack Sound, a narrow stretch of water, renowned for its strong tidal currents. The island is owned by the Countryside Council for Wales and managed by the Wildlife Trust South & West Wales. It's a National Nature Reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area under European Law. The waters around the island are designated as one of only three statutory Marine Nature Reserves in the UK
The island is famous for its huge numbers of seabirds - helped by the island's isolation which has led to an absence of predators such as rats, cats, dogs and foxes. In particular, it's one of the most important breeding sites of Manx shearwaters in the world, with an estimated population of 165,000 pairs. It's difficult to find spots on the island which are not burrowed by them. Puffins breed on Skomer in large numbers as well: approximately 6,000 pairs have been counted. Other birds present in large numbers are guillemots, razorbills and of course gulls: kittiwakes, the smallest, the lesser black-backed Gulls, herring gulls and the huge great black-backed gulls.
Richard meets the island's warden, Juan Brown and his partner Jane Matthews. They and their new baby Martha are the only permanent residents of the island - and even they leave in the winter. But in the summer they're joined by researchers - and of course by boatloads of visitors. Juan was born in Nottinghamshire, but his passion for birds started in childhood and he's spent the last few years on a succession of small islands. He and Jane met when she came to the island as a voluntary warden.
91热爆 is a bungalow perched on a cliff near the landing jetty. There is no regular electricity on the island, although a small solar set up powers mobile phones and a laptop (with internet via mobile phone).
Juan's now managing a major eco-building project to update the accommodation and build a visitor centre. The new facilities will have solar-powered showers, solar lighting and dry composting toilets. They're using environmentally sensitive materials, but bringing stuff ashore is a real headache because of the possibility of rats getting on to the island. If that happens, the bird population is in big trouble because rats will eat all the chicks and eggs.
Anna Sutcliffe is the previous warden's wife and tells Richard how she was born in London, but has always been a country girl at heart - she's "addicted to seabirds and boats." She lived on the island for 10 years and says it was the most formative thing she's ever done. It's because of her experiences here that she's now become a full-time naturalist guide and lecturer and for more than a decade, Anna has been a naturalist and/or expedition leader on expedition cruises to Antarctica, South Georgia, the Falkland Islands, the Arctic, Norway, the Seychelles and coastal Britain and Scotland. She says she'd never have done this without the confidence living on Skomer brought her.
And of course Richard encounters puffins and gulls galore. And David Boyle, who's on the island researching the Manx shearwaters shows him how to see if there's anyone home in a shearwater burrow - and introduces him to an astonishing bundle of fluff that's a shearwater chick - a tiny creature which in only eight weeks will be big and strong enough to fly to Brazil.
Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk
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