Clarkson voices his concern about insect numbers falling in the United Kingdom, stating that without insects all life on earth will cease. This drives him to start a new project: wilding some parts of his farm to make it more attractive to insects. He lays out a plan to start in "a boggy and sad place" and aims to have it converted into an ideal place for various types of wildlife to live.
To aid him in this endeavor, Clarkson hires a team of inspectors, led by conservationist Tom Haynes, to survey the area. Clarkson comes to see Tom's work and is alarmed at the amount of red flags the team had planted in the area; these indicate to him that he is unable to build anything in those areas due to the presence of a mammal, which Tom believes are water voles, a protected species by UK law. Tom recommends that work on the wilding project should stop until the mammals in the area can be confirmed as not being water voles, shooting down Clarkson's suggestion of attempting to dig up the area to confirm the mammal's species.
Clarkson eventually suggests the use of trap cameras to determine the species of animals, a suggestion Tom agrees with; Clarkson sets up the trap cameras with the help of some crew members. A few days later, Clarkson reviews the footage taken by the trap cameras and deduces that the mammals present in the area were shrews as opposed to water voles, meaning that work on his wilding project could begin. Clarkson rents an excavator to dig up the area to make a pond; thinking he made good progress, he goes for a lunch break, when groundwater rapidly fills up the pond, much to his dismay. Knowing he would have to pump all the water out before proceeding, Clarkson decides to build another pond and an accompanying dam but all he manages to create is a huge mess.
Lisa arrives in a Supacat to view Clarkson's project but is appalled at what he has done, going into an expletive-filled lecture directed at Clarkson. Once a furious Lisa had left, Clarkson begins to build his dam using wooden planks and stakes; he attempts to plug the leaks in his makeshift dam using soil and other techniques. As he notices the water level rising on the other side of his dam, he fills the second pond using water from the dam. Satisfied with his progress, Clarkson calls it a day and returns home, but his attempt is thwarted due to the mess he made and the gradient being too steep for most of his vehicles.
Clarkson contacts Kaleb to aid him in getting out of the bog he had created but to no avail; Kaleb gives up and attempts to drive off but is stuck in the bog as well. Exasperated, Kaleb launches into an expletive-filled rant. Kaleb and Clarkson attempt to pull themselves out of the bog the next day, assisted by Kieron, Kaleb's brother, and his tractor. Using teamwork they manage to pull Clarkson's tractor out, with Clarkson's tractor later pulling the Supacat out. Lisa arrives shortly after in her Massey Ferguson tractor, and they all celebrate with beer.
Charlie arrives shortly after at the site and begins to question Clarkson about his wilding project; he opines it caused more damage than it would help wildlife and mentions that they may possibly be in breach of some soil compaction regulations thanks to Clarkson's digging and lead to loss of revenue. Clarkson attempts to smooth out the situation by taking Charlie to one of the ponds created, but this leads to more lecturing from Charlie. Clarkson attempts to tell Charlie the aims of his project by imagining an ideal situation, which Charlie laughs at; while he does commend Clarkson's efforts, he affirms that his current way of doing things may lead to loss of revenue.
Clarkson, finally admitting he had made a mess, gets Kaleb to clean the messes up. While this is being done, Clarkson heads to the woods to get timber for a future project, for which he has amassed 200 tons. Wanting to also do something for birds, he seeks the advice of wildlife expert Roy Dennis, who is pleased at the surrounding areas having many positive traits that could help the birds; after seeing an infant barn owl in one of the derelict barns in the farm, Clarkson makes a decision to place numerous owl boxes around the farm and sets about to build them.
Using some disused telegraph poles left by the side of the road, Clarkson decides to repurpose them for his project. Kaleb offers to help Clarkson out in this endeavor by digging the holes for the owl boxes, while Clarkson discusses with him methods on how to get the pole standing up. After some bickering and a smashed fence in the process, Clarkson and Kaleb get the pole standing up; they soon realize that the pole is nowhere near straight and that they had forgotten to put the owl box on the pole. Clarkson later returns to the site of his dam, where he is dismayed to find out that some portion of the ground had caved in, causing water to seep to the other side of the dam, thereby making it useless.
The next day, Clarkson returns to find that the clay he used to block the water at the dam had caved in too; Lisa would assist him in repairing the dam. Soon after, Ukrainian beekeeper Viktor Zaichenko arrives at the farm to deliver Clarkson 250,000 honeybees for his wilding project, as well as to make honey for the farm shop. After the bees had been delivered, Clarkson returns to his dam, to find that his initial repairs had not worked and works on using big rocks to dam up the water as opposed to clay. With both done, Clarkson returns back to his owl box project; he encounters a BT Group employee named Dave, who offers to sink telegraph poles for Clarkson. As this is being done, Clarkson discovers a number of badger holes; he uses the trap cameras to ascertain what caused those holes, with the reviewed footage confirming the holes were indeed dug by badgers.
The next day, Clarkson and Dave sink the telegraph poles for the owl boxes, and claims his wilding project is "going well". Clarkson subsequently meets with Kevin and Ellen to check how many of the lambs had been successfully impregnated; Bob Blanden, the one administering the scans, confirms that all but one of the sheep had been successfully impregnated, with a total yield of 138 lambs split into fifteen carrying singles, three carrying triplets and the remaining carrying twins. After settling the sheep back into their field, Clarkson demonstrates a motion sensor to Gerald, complete with barking noises.
Clarkson, knowing the efficacy of insects in helping in pest control, hatches a plan to aid the insects in pest control. To do this, Clarkson willingly sacrifices some of his crops to create "superhighways" to allow insects to get to the middle of the field faster, followed by hand sowing seeds in these pathways. Clarkson then uses Kaleb's excavator to dig a stream between his pond and the dammed up mine to fill up the pond; when Kaleb arrives, Clarkson boasts to Kaleb about his achievements. A day later, the pond was filled; Clarkson decides to purchase 250 brown trout to stock the pond. Trout farmer Tim Small arrives and chutes the fish into his pond. Clarkson decides to check on the progress of his various wilding projects, and is delighted to see that the pond "looks tremendous" and the dam "finally" holds water; on closer inspection, Clarkson discovers that the dam is still leaking and lets out an extremely loud yell of frustration.
Clarkson reflects on the progress of his wilding projects, saying that they have been quite successful so far, having made homes for owls and kestrels, letting additional sun reach the forest floor, introducing wildflowers and creating "superhighways" for the pest-killing insects. Happy that he had created a better environment for insects, he gets praise from Charlie for finally putting the entire wilding project together; he is further amazed that he managed to do as much as he had done in his first year of farming, to which Charlie agrees.
Tropes featured in the episode:
- Actor Allusion: Top Gear's infamous Argentina Special is alluded to.
- Blatant Lies: Clarkson attempts to pass off his work on the owl boxes as being done all on his own. Kaleb sees through this immediately. Clarkson also attempts to claim his wilding project was going "very well".
- Everything Breaks: While repairing the dam, Clarkson manages to ruin "two shirts, four pairs of jeans and broken four of Kaleb's battery-operated power drills" in the space of three weeks.
- The Scream: Clarkson lets one out after discovering his leaking dam.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Lisa harshly lectures Clarkson about his wilding project, opining it only created a mess and that nothing would live there.
