Izzy is a young agricultural student who helps commoner John Heighway on his farm in Shropshire, learning about livestock, commoning and farm business. Here’s a short introduction to her, on a day when she’s tending ewes and young lambs in the fields below Clee Liberty Common.

A shepherd’s eye view while gathering sheep in from Kinniside Common in Cumbria’s Lake District. Join Lizzie Weir as she looks for and coaxes sheep away from the common and back to the home farm for sorting.

How can farmers calculate carbon storage when their farming system includes the commons? Farmers in Cumbria are beginning work to develop a new toolkit - we join them on Kinniside Common with Becky Willson from Farm Carbon Toolkit.

Kinniside Commoners Kevin, Vicky and Pete talk about their life, their attachment to the farming life in Cumbria’s uplands, and the challenges - and hopes - going forwards.

Curlews still live and breed on the edge of Long Mynd and around the Shropshire Hills but are threatened. Amanda Perkins from Curlew Country shares the story of years of conservation, and hope for the future.

Peat is precious, for biodiversity, for storing huge amounts of carbon, and to mitigate against flooding. But it’s degraded across many areas of England. Manon Pue from Yorkshire Peat Partnership tells us more about peat on Grassington Moor, and putting together a restoration plan.

Surveying open trees on Dartmoor’s commons: Harriet Fraser chats with Jez Ralph, director of Evolving Forests

Not many people live so high in the Yorkshire fells, but, as Moira and Adam reveal, doing so is a real delight. Here they talk about their time at Crina Bottom, which sits below Ingleborough.

Listen to Sam Rawling describing the process of gathering sheep in from Kinniside Common, down to the River Calder, in July 2022. Commoners work together to bring in the sheep so they can be sheared. The recording is shared with a selection of images from the day, as the sheep are brought into the pens, and sorted.

There’s an art and a kind of a dance when it comes to shearing sheep. A short film captures the process at East Okement Farm in Dartmoor.

Listen to Russell Hamby, Imogen Ogborne and Paul Bowden talk about what it takes to do the job well, in a break while they shear the sheep at East Okement Farm, Dartmoor.

Each year on Cumbria’s upland farms, lambs must be marked so that they can be distinguished from other flocks once they are back out on the common, where several flocks graze. Sam Rawling and Lizzie Weir add smit marks and lug marks to their herdwick flock.

An introduction to farmer Tess Hallet who has rights to graze her livestock on Stapeley Common in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

An introduction to Sam Rawling and Lizzie Weir, commoners who have a hill farm in Ennerdale, Cumbria, and use Kinniside Common for grazing

Sometimes a ewe needs some help to give birth to her lamb. This short film follows the process - please note that it contains close-up footage of the process.

A glimpse at the action during Keswick Spring Fair - a short video clip.

Keswick Tup Fair, or Keswick Spring Fair, is an annual event for the showing of Herdwick tups (rams). It’s the first gathering for Lakeland shepherd’s after the cold of winter.

Hunting for butterflies, and feeding sheep … Harriet and Rob Fraser join a butterfly hunt on Clee Liberty Common, with Mike Williams from West Midlands Butterfly Conservation and then head out into the uplands of these Shropshire Hills with farmer John Heighway, to find out more about caring for this complex mosaic of landscape.