Episode 3 Countryfile Autumn Diaries

It's the season that brings with it a kaleidoscope of colour,

when nature puts on some of its greatest displays.

Autumn.

When our countryside is bursting with bounty.

While some of us are preparing for the colder months ahead.

It's the perfect time to get your boots on, get out for a walk,

and enjoy the changing colours of the countryside.

And blow away the cobwebs in the great outdoors!

All week we're travelling the length and breadth of the UK...

We're not doing it in half measures, we're going the whole hog!

..bringing the very best seasonal stories that matter to you.

If autumn continues to become later,

could that potentially wipe out the dormice?

They could easily disappear completely

from the English countryside, which would be devastating.

Welcome to Countryfile Autumn Diaries.

Coming up on today's programme...

Keeley is finding out whether hill walking could be bad for your health.

We talk about the Ambulance Service wanting to get to casualties within

8-12 minutes, we just can't do that.

Steve's investigating if one corner of Kent could be harbouring dangerous creatures.

Look at that, five seconds!

Five seconds and we've got our first one.

And I'll see how my home-grown giant veg measures up

to some monster competition!

All this week we're celebrating the season in England's

largest national park,

the Lake District.

And today I'm in the stunning surroundings

of one of its hidden jewels.

This is Crummock Water.

Across the water is Scale Force. At 170ft, it's the tallest

single drop waterfall in the Lake District.

Hiking to reach spectacular views like Scale Force is a totally

understandable pursuit.

But are we pushing ourselves too far in our quest for great views and

fresh air? Keeley is just down the road in Ambleside to investigate.

The latest NHS guidance advises that we all get at least a ten-minute

brisk walk every day to stay healthy.

But here in the Lake District in recent years there have been some

dramatic spikes in the number of deaths amongst walkers.

And with a record number of visitors expected following its designation

as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the search and mountain rescue team

here believe that medical emergencies

are only going to increase.

So is walking really good, or bad for our health?

Luke Armitage from the Penrith Mountain Rescue Team

knows all about the dangers associated with hill walking.

So, I guess one of the things we have to carry all the time now is what's

called an AutoPulse. This is an automatic CPR machine that we take

to every single call-out we go to.

And why now? What's the change?

I guess it's the technology to have it with us,

in a relatively lightweight form.

And also I guess there's more people in the mountains now.

We've got a board that the casualty lies on with a band that straps

round them and does the chest compressions.

It would basically mean that we can do CPR on the move.

What are the implications of having either chest pains or a heart attack

or even a cardiac arrest somewhere like this,

opposed to in an urban setting?

Part of it is the time to get to your aid.

We talk about the Ambulance Service wanting to get to casualties within

8-12 minutes, we just can't do that.

We're talking half an hour, 40 minutes,

as the quickest we can do in the hills.

And we've all been out and about, be it in the mountains or just going to the supermarket,

and our phone has run out of battery, as well.

Absolutely, yes. So one of the top tips I always tell people now is to

take some form of, A, ability to charge your phone or,

have your phone on a lower battery setting, so things like flight mode.

Is that what people are to do, are they to ring you?

So yeah, the way to contact us is to contact the police.

They then contact us.

There is a text service that you can use, 999 text, it's a free service

that's good in patchy signal.

So part of the problem if you get into trouble out walking in remote areas

is that help can take a long time to reach you.

And when we head for the hills it certainly feels like that few degrees incline

can make us work that bit harder.

So just how much strain does walking up a hill put on your body?

To find out I've offered myself as a guinea pig, alongside Eleanor,

aged 48, who is a fell runner, and Frances, aged 72,

who is a regular walker.

I hope I don't show myself up!

And putting us through our paces is medical and sports sciences expert

Tim Barry from the University of Cumbria.

I'm going to put this on your arm.

After a quick medical check, we're ready to go.

So when you're ready...

Start!

We're starting with a test walk on flat.

Tim's measuring our heart rates,

and if you're wondering about my strange mask,

it's to measure the changes in my uptake of oxygen while I exercise.

Now, this might not look like hard work,

but how will it affect our heart rate?

Five, four, three, two, one, and end.

Tim cranks up the gradient to something a bit steeper.

And now for the uphill challenge.

Pump those arms.

A recent study found that over 6 million adults in England alone

don't achieve one brisk ten-minute walk per month.

So how did we get on with our relatively gentle ramble?

We saw your heart rate almost treble from resting.

For Frances, we saw your heart rate go from 94 at the start, up to 149.

Eleanor, again as a fell runner, your heart rate was 55.

So a low resting heart rate,

but went up to a maximum 143.

And Keeley, you went from 78 at rest but at the end you were puffing

a bit and it was 154.

I was wearing the mask, though!

I know! We'll let you off. Yes, you were carrying the extra 1.5 kilos of weight!

What about the oxygen levels, what about this?

OK, the gas analysis showed that your resting gas has quadrupled

-on that walk.

-So going uphill, I'm using four times as much oxygen

as when I'm resting.

What you're doing, you're trying to get oxygen to your muscles,

because they're being asked to work hard.

So the heart is working harder to get that oxygen round.

And we're seeing now that you're actually taking on board around about just

over a litre of oxygen a minute.

So is walking good for you?

Walking is great for everybody.

It's a great exercise,

it increases the strength of your heart and makes you healthy

and helps prevent heart disease.

But we must be really careful that we don't go straightaway up a steep

slope, ie, come to the Lake District and think, "I'll climb Scafell Pike."

Start slow, build it up gradually.

And if you want to work out how hard you should be exercising,

Tim has a useful equation for working out your maximum heart rate.

Simply minus your age from 220.

And it's not just your physical health that walking is good for.

It can also boost your brain.

Sion Jeyer was told by doctors four years ago that he has dementia.

But he believes that walking has helped him manage his illness.

I was forgetting things and having problems with money and adding up

and going out of one room into another and totally forgetting what I'd done

before that. And finding it difficult to learn and remember new things.

Despite this, Sion walks on his own every day in the Lakes

and never uses a map.

Now that sounds like I shouldn't be on the fells, doesn't it, really,

at all. But anything that I'd been doing for a long time...

..including ascending 10,000 mountains in my lifetime, you know,

I found that it was part of me.

What about navigating?

Because if you're forgetting things increasingly,

are you worried that you're going to forget your way around mountains

-like this?

-No, I'm not worried.

I just know all the areas so well and I've been doing it for so long

that I don't... I don't think I'll ever forget it.

In fact, a study done on London cabbies who had The Knowledge showed that

one part of their hippocampus had become larger than average.

Right at the roundabout at Aldersgate Street and London Wall.

One passenger gets out for Liverpool Street station.

This part of the brain is the memory centre and has also been found to be

bigger in birds and mammals which hide their food and come back to it later.

So, walking and being in the outdoors and doing what you've

always done helps your mind, then?

Absolutely. It keeps it very active.

People say sometimes, well,

you go up and down the same mountain very often.

And I say, yes, but the conditions are nearly always different.

You meet a load of different people every day.

You talk to them and they talk to you

and that keeps your mind active.

You're interacting with the environment,

you're interacting with other people and that in itself keeps everything

ticking over. You know,

and life doesn't end just because Alzheimer's begins.

Not all of us have the chance to hike in the hills every day,

but if you are planning a trip,

make sure you're fully prepared before you go.

For Sion, walking is obviously hugely important for his health.

And it's safe to say for the rest of us a quick stroll is good for this,

and for this.

It's not just we humans who enjoy the Lake District with its breathtaking beauty.

This place is also a real haven for wildlife.

With their chilly waters and incredible clarity,

the Lakes are the only place in England to find Arctic Char.

And on the shores of Crummock you might catch a glimpse of some otters

which have made a comeback here over the past decade.

But there are some creatures who are in this country completely by chance.

And Steve now sheds some light on how one particular species came to be on

our shores and on just how dangerous it really is.

The Isle of Sheppey lies just off the North Kent coast,

and it's a place I know very well.

I grew up just a mile inland from here and I used to spend hours

along this coastline, in and out of the rock pools

and along there amongst the

stones, looking for these - fossilised sharks' teeth.

And if you think that's a funny thing to find on a beach in Sheppey,

you wait and see what I found out's lurking along there!

At the busy port of Sheerness, the centuries-old dockyard has hosted ships

from around the world. But a few stowaways liked it here so much they

decided to make it home.

Dr Sarah Henshall from Buglife is going to introduce me to them.

-Sarah!

-Hi, there.

So, this wall in Sheerness Docks houses scorpions?

It does, yes. They've been here over 250 years.

The history books say that they came over on Italian masonry boats,

so they were found in fruit boxes in the mid-1800s.

And tell me a little bit about the type of scorpion we've got here and

-what we're looking for.

-So, we're looking for the yellow-tailed scorpion.

And it's a beautiful dark chocolate colour with a yellow tail.

There's around about 10,000 scorpions living in the walls all around the

docks and around the town.

And what makes a wall like this a prime location?

If you look around us, we're surrounded by the perfect habitat for them.

They love these walls, particularly where the mortar is crumbling away

and they're living in the cracks and crevices.

And this is a nice south-facing wall and the yellow-tailed scorpion is

native to northern Africa and southern Europe, so it likes the warmth.

Often in sort of desert and sand dune habitats.

So here it's really, really key that it's dry, warm and stable for them.

Is there anywhere else in the country that they're...?

There's a couple of other locations in the South East,

particularly around docks. And there's also a very small population

in the London Underground.

-The Underground?!

-Yeah, the Underground.

And again it's that warm, dry environment for them

which is absolutely perfect.

There are around 2,000 species of scorpions across the globe,

found in almost every habitat.

Preferring warm conditions,

this invasive colony of the yellow-tail variety is the

northernmost limit where scorpions live in the wild.

And you can see where there is going to be a little bit of competition for them.

I've seen spiders running around, you've got the webs here.

How is it going to work in terms of hierarchy on the wall?

The scorpions aren't the only stowaway that you find here.

There's a beautiful spider again called Segestria Florentina which is

a beautiful Latin name.

But the English name is a green-fanged tube web spider.

Again, it came over on the boats.

This invasive tube web spider is the biggest of its species and a bite

from its striking but venomous green jaws can induce a painful reaction

that lasts for several hours.

There is a nifty little way of trying to kind of entice one of these

spiders out. It's a tuning fork.

We ding the tuning fork on the brick here.

Put it on one of these little drag lines.

-Wow, look at that.

-So we can keep trying to entice her out.

But the tuning fork will mimic a flying insect that's got stuck...

-I see.

-..in the web.

-Slowing the footage down,

you can just catch a glimpse of the spider's striking green markings

and sometimes the victims of their attacks are the scorpions.

When's the best time to see them?

All scorpions have a hard exoskeleton which glows in the dark.

So if we get a UV light and scan it over the wall,

we should be able to detect the scorpions.

-We need to come back later.

-We do indeed.

It's not just scorpions and spiders who have made their way to the UK.

There are a whole host of other bizarre species living here.

Like this population of rednecked wallabies,

deliberately introduced to this small island in the middle of Loch Lomond in the 1940s.

Or the rose-ringed parakeets in south-west London,

presumed to have grown from a pair of escaped captive birds,

they now number in their thousands.

But unlike scorpions in the Sheppey wall,

some invasive species have been devastating to the British countryside.

Thought to have arrived in ships' ballast tanks,

Chinese mitten crabs are invading the British waterways,

causing damage to river banks and competing with native species.

Night's falling in Sheppey and Sarah and I have returned to the wall to

hopefully catch sight of a scorpion or two.

I'm excited. Come on, don't keep me waiting.

-I want to see what's happening.

-Right, let's go. OK.

So we need to just kind of like sweep it over really, really quickly.

Oh, there we go. Look, look, look.

You can see his little pincers.

-Yeah!

-And he or she is exactly where we thought we would find them.

They hang out in these tiny cracks and crevices.

They ambush predators, so they'll sit there with a claw sticking out,

waiting for woodlice and unsuspecting insects to pass on by.

Look at that, five seconds!

Five seconds and we've got our first one!

So if there's one, there will be many, I'm sure.

Well, it's the first of 10,000 we've got to find!

It is.

There's a very teeny, teeny one just in that crack there.

-Oh, another one.

-That's a big one, isn't it?

-Yeah, we have got a whopper.

-That's a big one, that one.

Why do they glow in the dark?

This is a trait that all scorpions have, that hard exoskeleton.

When you shine UV light on, it glows amazingly, like this.

Some of the theories are that it's something to do with attracting a mate.

So maybe they see in UV.

We don't really know,

but it's something that all scorpions do.

OK, so if I was to be having my nice summer picnic,

I lean against this wall, that scorpion crawls down my collar -

how dangerous is that to me?

Well, that's not going to happen, because these things are incredibly shy.

They're not aggressive at all.

As you can see, we're approaching this one and it's retreated back in its

burrow. They have got a sting in their tail

and there is a venom in there.

But a sting from this little chap would be like a pin prick, really.

Obviously if you are allergic to bee or wasp stings,

it might be more problematic.

But the likelihood of this chap hurting you is really,

really slim to none.

Well, I'm not allergic to stings.

Will we get him out of that crevice, do you think?

Yeah. Do you want to hold the torch?

I've got a little brush so we don't sort of damage him.

Look at that!

He's a big boy, isn't he?

And he's fast. Look at the body on him.

-It's chunky, isn't it?

-It's a big one.

And you see, they are really flattened

and when they come out of their crevice,

they are actually quite large when they spread their legs out, and their pincers.

It's a spectacular thing.

-Look at it.

-Isn't it just?

It's crawling over your hand and it's not causing you any bother at all.

No. By all rights, these shouldn't be here, should they?

No. They are a stowaway.

But they're a stowaway success story.

It seems this invasive species doesn't have such a nasty sting in its tail after all.

Well, this evening has been an absolute schoolboy's dream for me.

Who'd have thought it? Scorpions on the Isle of Sheppey?

I'm certainly going to be keeping my eyes open for more unusual creatures

around the UK.

This is a great time of year to look high above the trees into skies,

where you could well be rewarded with the sight of some of the many,

many thousands of birds that overwinter in this country.

And here are some of our favourite places for spotting them.

Autumn skies bring with them migrating birds.

The Exe Estuary in South Devon is a real haven for visiting water birds.

You can watch them from a number of reserves,

but take a guided boat trip for an even closer look.

Wake up early to catch the huge flocks of pink-footed geese

making their dawn flight at Snettisham on the Norfolk coast.

Further north, you can have a gander at even more geese with the arrival

of around 35,000 barnacle geese to the salt marshes of the Solway Firth.

These remarkable birds have travelled

a whopping 2,000 miles from Arctic Svalbard.

From the military precision of geese in flight,

to some incredible aerobatics.

Right across the UK you might spot huge numbers of starlings soaring in

what's known as a murmuration.

Watch them at dusk near reedbeds and woodlands,

as they fly in perfect formation, before settling down to roost.

From a sky filled with birds to clouds filled with rain.

Here in Cumbria they see some of the nation's highest rainfall.

But at a smallholding in Wiltshire, Paul has been doing a lot of extra

watering as he attempts to grow his own

record-breaking giant vegetables.

Now it's harvest season, but is he ready for the final weigh-in?

The sweetcorn is doing well, Dylan.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, what's your favourite?

-The strawberries.

-The strawberries, I thought so.

You know, our veg patch did really, really well last year.

But this year I wanted to go one stage further,

so I invited a couple of top growers down to take on the gardening

heavyweights, quite literally.

Margherita first met rivals Kevin and Ian

at last year's giant veg show.

Am I leaving you on friendly terms?

Oh, yes, of course you are!

When I heard about their exploits, I simply had to get their advice

on the best ways to get the biggest veg...

We want to go between eight and ten foot.

That is all of my veg patch!

What have I let myself in for?

..and both agreed the best start I could give my giant veg

was to grow them in a polytunnel.

Right, let's measure them up and see which one is the biggest.

I reckon that one.

You reckon this one.

That's a whopping 52 inches.

It is 1.3.

-But do you know what? I think this one.

-This is the biggest.

This is the one, isn't it?

-This one is about the same, actually.

-Is it?

Yeah, 1.3.

But I think this one is the best one.

Let's get it in the wheelbarrow and get it to the car.

Giant cabbages might be big,

but they are just as flavourful as the mini-me versions.

That is so heavy. Brilliant. But perhaps not the easiest to transport.

Steady it.

It's so heavy.

-There.

-It's not quite in.

But the cabbage isn't the only veg I've been super-sizing.

Well, it's the first time chilli-growers are competing at the Malvern Show

this year, so I wonder what the judges will think of these.

And here is my giant marrow.

Look at that. Actually, it's quite heavy.

But it isn't that big.

It's not super size.

But I'm going to take it to the show and talk to the experts,

because they will give me advice and top tips on how to get this bigger

next year.

Right, let's get changed and let's hit the road to Malvern.

And fingers crossed there's a trolley at the other end.

The giant-veg competition we have entered

takes place at the Malvern Show in Worcestershire.

Come on, then, guys. Let's get inside for the weigh-in.

For giant-vegetable growers,

this is their heavyweight championship of the world.

Well, that's weighing in at 8kg.

It's not bad.

But check out the competition.

The world record for the heaviest green cabbage is a massive 62kg.

I wonder if we will see any world records today.

Gosh, look at the size of these marrows!

I've already spotted mine.

You can't miss it.

-That one's mine.

-You've not won.

I didn't win, did I?

No, I didn't!

Maybe next year.

And my cabbage hasn't even made the table.

There it is!

It is one of the smallest.

In fact, that one's a bit smaller, so ours is second to last.

But do you know what? He's quite a handsome cabbage, isn't he?

-Yeah.

-It could be a girl.

It could be a girl. She's a very pretty cabbage.

Well, I haven't hit the big-time in giant veg.

Perhaps champion grower Ian can give me some more advice.

What went wrong, Ian?

We didn't start early enough.

You've got to start, this time of the year, preparing your soil.

It's as simple as that, is it?

-Simple as that.

-So, really, late September, get the soil right?

Even though you don't plant up until March?

Get farmyard manure, 46 inches deep, and leave it til the end of March.

So it rots right in.

It rots right in. That is the secret about giant-veg growing.

-Preparation.

-I think it came last.

It sort of weighed in at 6.7kg.

The prizewinner, well, it was just under 90kg.

At least you got one on the table!

-What happened to yours?

-Went rotten.

Did it? What, at the last minute?

-Yes.

-Were you disappointed?

-Yes.

-Were you a winner?

-Did you win anything?

-I won a big Swede and a long chilli pepper.

-A world record?

-That's a world record.

You've got a... Look at the length of that!

That is fantastic!

Ian might have the longest chilli pepper,

but archrival Kevin isn't about to be outdone.

-Are you a winner?

-Yeah, we had three firsts.

We got the world's heaviest chilli, which is 348g.

I had a 15lb carrot and heaviest melon.

-Congratulations to both of you.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you for the help, as well.

See you both next year.

Unlike Kevin and Ian,

my chillies didn't win a prize, but as a nation,

we've gone mad for the hot stuff.

Growers like Ash are determined to turn up the heat in the chilli world.

-All of these are yours?

-Yep.

Wow, you really are a chilli expert.

-Yeah.

-I wasn't expecting such a wide variety.

-And colours!

-Oh, there's thousands of varieties.

Some of the more wrinkly ones are obviously the super hots.

This one's called a wok killer.

A wok killer?

I've had naga chilli.

-Yeah?

-And that's quite hot, but that's even hotter, is it?

Yeah, that'll be hotter than a naga.

A chilli's heat is defined by the Scoville Scale.

A lively supermarket jalapeno pepper can measure as little as three and

half thousand, while a naga viper measures 1.3 million.

This is called a cascabel.

This is originally from Spain, and when they dry it out,

traditionally they are given to the children as rattles.

Yeah. That's lovely, isn't it?

They're all very tactile.

Can we try some?

-Of course.

-Maybe start with a fruity-ish one and then end on the hottest.

Yeah. Let's keep our powder dry...

..while we're still standing.

Right, OK, let's try some of those.

Try that sugar rush peach.

These are quite fruity.

-Average heat.

-OK, and just bite that one in half?

-Are you going to have a go?

-I might do.

At least halfway to get some idea of the flavour and the heat.

The fruity peach-coloured sugar rush was developed in Wales and, heat-wise,

shouldn't hit more than 300,000.

It's very crunchy. It's starting to burn!

And that's not the hottest?

Do you want the rest of that one?

No, thank you. This is a clockwork orange.

Try that, a clockwork orange.

OK. The clockwork orange is the devil child of the Carolina Reaper and the

Trinidad scorpion chillies.

This could be a mouth burner.

Ian, are you going to try some of this?

I'll try some, yes.

You're not going to eat all of that at once, are you?

No.

Yes.

In fact, that's fruitier.

Cor blimey, that's hot.

That's enough, isn't it?

I've had enough.

Can I have some of that?

Well, we tried some water but it's not taking the fire away, so Ian,

thank goodness, has come up with the idea of getting some ice cream.

So, Ash, thank you so much.

-Cheers, all the best.

-Red-hot.

Oh, that's better!

Well, it's certainly not ice-cream weather today.

It's more a day for a brisk Autumn walk, and after that,

we'll head back to our nice, dry, warm homes,

and it seems that we're not alone there.

Uninvited guests like spiders,

woodlice and even mice will do their best to creep their way in from the

cold as well. But they are now being joined by a new invader that is

arriving in swarms.

Margherita is finding out how a childhood favourite could turn out

to be the stuff of nightmares.

"Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home."

Well, that's how the famous nursery rhyme started, but these days,

our homes seem to be a little more inviting than their own.

Because now there's a new beetle on the block.

First seen in the UK in 2004, these tiny terrors are harlequin ladybirds.

Originally from Asia, it's the UK's fastest-invading

species and they're heading for our homes in their thousands.

At the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxfordshire,

Ecologist Professor Helen Roy is putting the harlequin

under the microscope.

This is a ladybird larva and you can see it's a harlequin ladybird larva

because it has this bright kind of orange stripe going down the side.

It's also incredibly spiky.

I'm always impressed when I see it up close, quite how spiky it looks.

That gives it a really good physical defence from other things attacking

it and also in terms of their chemicals.

The harlequin does have particularly nasty chemicals in comparison to our

other native species of ladybird.

Why are the harlequin ladybirds so deadly?

So, harlequin ladybirds are voracious predators.

They will eat other ladybirds, they'll eat lacewings, hover flies,

a whole range of different things.

So the harlequin seems to have the upper hand.

They are clearly formidable predators, not averse to a bit of cannibalism,

so could it be curtains for our British bugs?

When we go out looking for ladybirds now,

about 80-90% of the ladybirds we find are harlequin ladybirds.

They're a dominant species in some of the habitats.

So they are here to stay. What's going to be really interesting

to see going forward is how do the

other species manage alongside the harlequin ladybird?

Are they dangerous to us?

Not really. They are a little bit of a nuisance.

When they come in large numbers into buildings,

people may get a little fed up with having several hundred in their

bedrooms and sometimes they are reported to bite and some people have

allergic reactions, just as they do to many different things.

But no more than that, really. It really is a threat to biodiversity

that's the greatest concern to us.

Studies also show that harlequins have a powerful immune system which

gives them the edge over other species,

so rather than being a threat to us,

they may hold the key to our future antibiotics.

But as the weather gets colder, harlequin ladybirds start to move

into our homes in droves in search of a

warmer place to spend the winter.

Apparently it's not just our homes these spotty little visitors like to

congregate in, they've also developed a spiritual side.

At Saint Mary Magdalene in the village of Crowmarsh in Oxfordshire,

church warden Margaret Foster is preparing herself for the winter

onslaught.

So, Margaret, you've been a church warden here for over a decade?

-Yes.

-Have you seen quite a few of the harlequin ladybirds in recent years?

I've seen lots of them. I didn't really know what they were.

They are thick on the ledges sometimes,

you have to dust them off.

I don't know what it is, they tend to land on the pews.

Do you know why they are coming in or why they feel so at home here?

Well, they must like it nice and warm, I don't know,

because they come in over winter.

-I don't know.

-All creatures great and small?

All creatures great and small, all things bright and beautiful!

They may be welcome in church but they are clearly a threat to our

native species of ladybird.

Biologist Dr Peter Brown from Anglia Ruskin University

is monitoring harlequin numbers out in the fields.

Peter, morning.

-Good morning.

-Good to see you.

-Pleased to meet you.

-How's it going today?

Well, we've got one harlequin ladybird so far.

It's quite a big species for a ladybird.

-Ooh.

-Ooh, it's about to fly off.

How do you know this is a harlequin, what are you looking out for?

They're a little bit bigger than most other ladybirds.

A bit like the seven spot ladybird, though,

which is the one people will be used to seeing.

That's the standard garden ladybird.

That's red with seven black spots,

and these ones tend to be orange with lots more spots,

sometimes about 19 spots.

Autumn is when harlequin numbers start to build, so I'm keen to see

if we can find any more.

Where looks good? Good hunting ground?

So the ladybirds will be found where you've got aphids.

Which is mainly what they're feeding on.

How many would you expect to find,

having spent a morning or afternoon searching?

You can get...

..20, 30 ladybirds very quickly in some places.

-20 or 30?

-Yeah, easily.

Other times you might get nothing, so it's very difficult to predict.

Ladybird spotting is something you can get involved in at home.

Peter helps run the UK Ladybird Survey which has a website and

mobile phone app. So you can upload photos of your own sightings of both native

and harlequin ladybirds.

Find out more by logging onto our website.

Any luck?

Yes, so what we've got here, a harlequin ladybird larva.

So, Peter, if we find the ladybird in this stage of its life as well,

that's useful to you, too, in the survey?

That's very useful.

In a way, even more useful because where the larvae are found tells us

more about the ecology than where the adults can fly.

So if we're out hunting for these ladybirds,

-all the information we find can make a difference to the work you're doing?

-Absolutely.

So the message is clear, when you're cleaning the house or out and about,

keep your eyes peeled for the orange-and-black beetle.

So, next time you see a ladybird - especially a harlequin ladybird -

rather than considering it a nuisance, make a note of it,

get involved in the survey.

You'll be contributing to a greater understanding of the insect world.

Farming, especially for sheep and cattle,

has been at the heart of the community here in the Lake District

for many centuries now, but as Matt discovered further south,

there's one traditional autumn crop which is getting a big boost from

cutting-edge technology.

I'm in Kent, looking at the changing face of England's orchards.

Modern science has breathed life into the roots of these bursting orchards

and here on this farm,

the latest technology is ensuring that the perfect apple makes its way

into your fruit bowl.

MUSIC: Das Modell by Triology

The fruit harvested here is still hand-picked the old-fashioned way.

These apples were picked this morning?

These were in the orchard two or three hours ago and now they're in our cold store.

But the machinery used to store the apples is far from traditional.

This is the very latest state-of-the-art technology.

-Right.

-So, what we're doing here is we're storing apples at five and one,

so 5% CO2, 1% oxygen, and we bring the gas regime down.

The apple will become stressed at some point,

the colour of the skin will change.

You and I won't see it, Matt, we just won't physically be able to see

it, but that sensor will see it.

When the fruit is stressed,

we just back the regime off a little bit so the apple is comfortable.

-I see.

-Fast asleep.

So, when you're talking about this stressed state, then,

is that what prolongs how long you can store it for?

It prolongs how long we can store it for.

Now, obviously, apples only grow at a certain time so this really is the

key to the business, isn't it, how long you can store them for?

This is absolutely the key.

Consumers want to eat apples 12 months of the year.

We can grow them and harvest them and if we can extend the storage

life with these processes,

then we can deliver them 12 months of the year to consumers.

This equipment ensures the apples are kept in perfect condition for a long

winter nap. Once they reach the pack house, yet more gadgetry sifts,

sorts and scrutinises the fruits.

These are the most advanced fruit-grading machines in the country.

The level of detail this technology is capable of is just extraordinary.

Well, this is mightily impressive for starters, but just talk us through

what is happening here, James.

What we've got here is a robot that scans the bin when it arrives so it

knows the size of the bin and then it's filling this floatation tank to

move the apples forward and on to the sorting process.

It's the ultimate kind of apple-bobbing tray, this?

Yeah.

Then on this first sorting table,

this is the only part of the process that has a human element.

I was going to say, there's a human, for goodness' sake!

She's just making sure that every leaf is removed and then we're flowing

in to what we call our first clean tank.

What we're trying to do with this section of the machine is to separate

the fruit out so that we can look at each individual apple before we move

under these brushes and then through it and under the cameras.

-Under the cameras?

-Under the cameras.

Right, lead the way.

So, is this the camera?

-Absolutely.

-Wow.

Under this piece of equipment, we're shining infrared lights.

-Right.

-We monitor the wavelength in and we measure the wavelength out of

-the apple.

-Yeah.

And the difference,

we can then tell you whether that apple is good inside or whether it's

rotten inside or discoloured,

so we can take those apples out of the system altogether.

-Goodness me.

-And we have to look at the external quality of the apple - the size and the shape

and the colour,

as well as any marks or any blemishes that are on the fruit.

And that's being done in this machine here.

Under here we have cameras

-taking between 16 and 20 pictures of every apple.

-At that speed?

Per second. 20 pictures per second of each individual apple.

We can then decide whether that's a class one or a class two apple,

-and we can see that on the screen.

-I was going to say, I've just caught a glimpse of the screen in here.

So, is this a line of apples or is it one apple?

This is one apple and you can see the marks on those apples have been

identified by the software and so it goes into a certain pack or grade.

I see. Just a reminder, then,

how many apples are actually coming from the orchards out there?

We'll bring in 120 to 130 million apples into this facility and run

-them over this machine.

-It's mind-blowing, isn't it?

Yeah, it

takes a little while to get your head around it.

I mean, when you look down, you just see how uniform they are, don't you?

Yeah, very much.

Here we've got one that we've taken out.

There's not enough colour on that fruit for any of our customer packs.

But are you making a rod for your own back here?

Because from a consumer's perspective - I mean, I like a characterful apple,

I don't mind that my apples aren't uniform.

-Absolutely.

-But if consumers get used to getting a pack of six apples

and every single one looks the same,

are you creating an issue there when things aren't quite right?

From our perspective,

we can grow a really good quality apple, and a good quality apple

graded uniformly like we're doing here makes our whole process quicker and more

efficient so we can deliver to the consumer at a much more economic price, let's say.

I think this is the most impressive robotics and technology that I've ever

-seen in agriculture.

-It's right at the forefront, this is cutting-edge.

Well, sadly, that's all we've got time for today

but please do join us again tomorrow

for more entries in our Countryfile autumn diaries.

Including...

Margherita is finding out if you can eat yourselves cheerful.

It can be quite noisy, I'm noticing!

They can be, they're pretty chatty, always keen for a chat.

HE GOBBLES

Steve witnesses a rare and beautiful event that attracts people in their

-droves.

-Look at that!

-Amazing, isn't it?

-It is.

Thousands of them. Wow!

And Paul is on a mission to remove some pesky garden pests.

DRUMS CRASH

Well, if that doesn't get rid of them, nothing will.

Until then, goodbye.