The Diaries Of Brett Westwood

THE DIARIES OF BRETT WESTWOOD (320kbs-m4a/156mb/68mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 18th to 22nd August 2025

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.

Wildlife Sound Recordist: Chris Watson

Producer: Sarah Blunt

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2015.

THE DIARIES OF BRETT WESTWOOD - 1. FARMLAND (320kbs-m4a/32mb/14mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 18th August 2025

Brett visits an area of arable and pasture land where corn buntings sang their crackly songs, grey partridges creaked in spring dusks and the pee-wit cries of lapwing were regular sounds.

But intensive farming in this area has had a huge effect on how the land is managed, resulting in the loss of hedges, use of pesticides, loss of winter stubble. All these changes have impacted on the insects, shelter and nesting sites for wildlife.

THE DIARIES OF BRETT WESTWOOD - 2. VALLEY (320kbs-m4a/31mb/14mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 19th August 2025

Since Brett started visiting his local patch, the landscape in the valley has changed more radically than any other area - not as a result of management, but of nature taking its course.

The valley is a sandstone dip between two horse pastures and its steep sides have deterred any cropping or grazing.

As a teenager, this is where Brett soaked in the scents of basil and thyme which carpeted the banks. Young hawthorn saplings attracted whinchats and tree pipits. Turtle doves nested here in summer.

Instead, fieldfares and redwings roost in the thorns in winter and in summer chiffchaffs and blackcaps are commoner than ever.

THE DIARIES OF BRETT WESTWOOD - 3. SEWAGE (320kbs-m4a/31mb/14mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 20th August 2025

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.

THE DIARIES OF BRETT WESTWOOD - 4. WOODLAND (320kbs-m4a/31mb/14mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 21st August 2025

Fairy Glen is a small natural woodland in Brett's patch carpeted with bluebells in spring.

What was once oak has become a sycamore wood. However, it's now a great place to spot warblers; chaffinches and bramblings feeding on aphids in spring, and during his visit Brett watches a pair of Nuthatches bringing back food for their young to their nest hole in the trunk of a tree.

But for Brett, the attraction is the buzzards soaring over the canopy, which have returned and bred in the area since the 1990s.

There are ravens too – another bird which Brett would never have dreamed of seeing when he was a teenager on his local patch.

THE DIARIES OF BRETT WESTWOOD - 5. CANAL (320kbs-m4a/32mb/14mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 22nd August 2025

The River Stour has its source in the industrial Black Country and flows through Brett's local patch on its way to the Severn, about 9 miles away.

Today, although it is polluted, the river is far clearer than in years gone by, thanks to rigorous controls on pollutants. With their absence, fish have returned and damselflies such as the white-legged damsel which is sensitive to pollution, skim across the surface.

Last year Brett heard what he's convinced was the 'plop' of a water vole and saw footprints in the riverside mud for the first time in 15 years. With mink now well-established, could these water voles survive?