蜜芽传媒

When Brett Westwood began a wildlife diary aged 15, little did he think that he'd still be writing notes, nearly 40 years later about the same local patch in North Worcestershire.

In this series Brett returns, diaries in hand, to five different habitats in his local patch and compares notes from the past with the landscape and wildlife of today.

There are genuine shocks and revelations.

When Brett was a teenager, sewage was pumped out from a farm at Whittington onto an area of about a square mile where cattle were grazed. In icy winters the fields did not freeze owing to the warmth provided by the sewage and the life breeding in it.

Unusual for the West Midlands in winter, a regular flock of up to 200 curlews were joined by a pink-footed goose, pintails, wigeon, and in winter 1976 two spotted redshanks.

The old methods of spreading sewage stopped in the 1980s and the curlew flocks have gone but Brett still visits the area, and in recent years has been rewarded with sightings of barn owls and buzzards.

Wildlife Sound Recordist: Chris Watson

Producer: Sarah Blunt

First broadcast on 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4 in January 2015.

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