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West Yorkshire

Matt, Anita and Joe Crowley are in West Yorkshire where Matt meets Dr Ryad Alsous, a refugee from Syria whose love of bees has helped him forge a new life here.

Matt Baker, Anita Rani and Joe Crowley are in West Yorkshire where Matt meets Dr Ryad Alsous, a refugee from Syria whose love of bees has helped him forge a new life here. Matt also meets some of the refugees and locals Ryad is inspiring with his love of bees. Matt gets to try his hand at making a beehive and samples a delicious Syrian dessert made with the honey he helps Ryad harvest.

Anita is on the moors looking for the Easter bunny - or should that be Easter hare? She's on the hunt for the elusive mountain hare in its most northerly English habitat. Anita also meets Susan Sroka, a one woman hare rescue service who's been nursing a baby leveret back to health.

Joe explores Emily Bronte's passion for wildlife and finds out that she had her very own bird of prey.

Tom Heap looks at the reasons for the decline in our hedgehogs and Adam Henson buys some of the rarest native breed cattle there are, blue albions.

55 minutes

Last on

Mon 9 Apr 2018 02:00

The bee-keeper

The bee-keeper

Matt meets Dr Ryad Alsous, a man who’s using his passion for bees to inspire others.

An expert bee-keeper back in his home country of Syria, Ryad, together with his wife and children, fled the conflict in 2013. It meant leaving his 500 bee hives behind, as well as nearly all of his extended family.

But today, Ryad runs a bee-keeping course in Huddersfield called The Buzz Project. It teaches local refugees and job seekers how to keep bees and produce honey, whilst helping them learn English and find a place and purpose in the community.

Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs

Tom’s looking into the decline of one of our nation’s favourite animals: the hedgehog. Its numbers have dropped dramatically in the last 30 years and, perhaps surprisingly, the steepest decline is in the countryside. So what’s behind this 'population free-fall’?


Easter hares

Easter hares

Anita is up on Marsden Moor on the trail of Easter bunnies…or what they originally were in legend: hares.

A symbol of new life associated with the Spring, hares are meant to be really active at this time of year and Tom Aspinall, from conservation group Moors for the Future, is often out and about photographing them.

But on a damp, foggy day on the wild moors - even with Tom’s help - can Anita catch a glimpse of an elusive mountain hare?

Emily and the merlin

Emily and the merlin

Emily Brontë  wrote what is probably the best-known love letter to the Yorkshire moors, Wuthering Heights.

But 200 years since her birth, it’s emerged her connection to the moors and its wildlife go even deeper than previously known.

Joe meets filmmaker Kate Whiteford whose special project to mark Emily’s birthday explores the bond between author and the UK’s smallest bird of prey, a merlin.

Adam's farm

Adam's farm

Adam is following in his father’s footsteps, doing his bit to save a rare breed of cattle.

A dual-purpose breed bred for both their beef and their milk, Albions were originally called the ‘Bakewell Blues’, developed in the 1920s to graze the hills of Derbyshire.

They’re renowned for having a calm temperament – which makes the vet’s job a lot easier when he comes to carry out a full health check on the pregnant cows.

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Matt Baker
Presenter Anita Rani
Presenter Joe Crowley
Presenter Adam Henson
Presenter Tom Heap
Executive Producer William Lyons
Series Producer Joanna Brame

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