Countryfile

Shropshire (26x21)

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Countryfile is in Shropshire, where Matt Baker discovers the garden that inspired Charles Darwin's thinking. He gets stuck in restoring the fabled 'Thinking Path' in the garden of Darwin's birthplace and helps survey the garden's wildlife for the first time since Darwin's day. Ellie Harrison is in Shropshire's own 'Lake District,' where a special restoration project is creating the right habitat for one of Britain's rarest mammals, the water vole. She also visits the RAF base where a big project to breed one of the most productive honey bees is being run with military precision. John Craven uncovers a secret wartime plan than saved thousands of lives during the Second World War, but was almost unheard of until now. And Adam Henson is on HM the Queen's Balmoral Estate in Scotland, where he handles rare Balmoral ponies and witnesses the birth of the first of the new season's foals. Few animals look as calm and relaxed as cattle, so it is hard to believe that, every year, walkers are seriously injured, and in a few tragic cases killed, by bulls and cows. Tom Heap asks whether we should we be frightened of a field full of animals.