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Episode 1

John Craven and the team investigate the worrying number of dementia suffers who go missing, discover how nature helps to crack crime, and pick up useful tips on battling fleas.

45 minutes

Last on

Mon 22 Oct 2018 09:15

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See all episodes from Countryfile Autumn Diaries

Missing

Missing

Beautiful as our countryside is, it can be a lonely and frightening place especially for the elderly and vulnerable. Keeley Donovan’s on Salisbury Plain to investigate a worrying trend. Every ninety seconds police receive calls about missing people. Wiltshire police alone handle 300 a month. One in ten of those will be for dementia sufferers – numbers set to increase as the UKs over- 65 population is likely to grow by another million in just two years’ time and cases of dementia are predicted to rise by 35 percent by 2025. Keeley joins the police and Wiltshire Search and Rescue on an exercise to see what challenges they face in vast and isolated rural areas - and she discovers how a new scheme might help to keep our loved ones safe and sound.

Castles in Crisis

Castles in Crisis

Visitor numbers to our fantastic historic sites are at record levels – in Scotland alone, they’ve shot up by 17 per cent. But a new report warns of catastrophic damage to famous landmarks including the Neolithic jewel that is Skara Brae in the Shetlands to Tantallon Castle just outside Edinburgh. Steve Brown reports from this fortress built in the 1300s. It’s withstood plenty of attacks in its long history but now it’s besieged by a new enemy – climate change. But all is not lost. Ewan Hyslop of Historic Environment Scotland shows Steve an artillery of weapons his team are deploying - from microscopic analysis to laser imaging - as he and his team wage war on the elements

Top 5 Autumn Wonders

Top 5 Autumn Wonders

John reveals some of nature’s most extraordinary Autumn migrations in his Top Five Favourites – from the eel ‘s marathon to reach the Sargasso Sea to the prowess of the leaping salmon to reach its spawning grounds.

Plant Super Sleuth

Plant Super Sleuth

Jules Hudson is sure to look at the countryside in a new light when he meets Prof Patricia Wiltshire who uses nature as super grasses to help crack crime. From spores to nettles and mud, the natural world has helped this ground-breaking forensic botanist bring some of our most notorious murderers to justice. Along with her partner in crime, Prof David Hawksworth, she let Jules into some of the clues our plants and fungi reveal.

Flea Plague

Flea Plague

They’ve been a problem in the summer heatwave and don’t think for a minute that now Autumn’s here, they’ll go away. Putting on your central heating is a sure-fire invitation to those pesky blood-suckers – fleas. Paul meets Hannah Wiltshire from the Blue Cross to discover how we can stop them from attacking our pets, our homes – and us. But there’s new research that suggests that some chemicals in flea treatments are polluting our rivers and affecting our wildlife – and that presents a dilemma for pet owners...

Dormice

Dormice

John Craven is on Wenlock Edge with the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, as they attempt to discover more about the dormouse population in this patch of woodland.  John learns about the habits of this sleepy creature, as the team from the trust put out new camera traps high up in the canopy. They hope these cameras will confirm these little animals are using the very tops of the trees to get around.

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter John Craven
Presenter Steve Brown
Presenter Keeley Donovan
Presenter Jules Hudson
Presenter Paul Martin
Series Producer Jane Lomas
Director Sam Challenger
Director Mark Davenport
Director Ian Hay
Director Richard Maxwell

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