As the Season Turns

For November we are in the glen, where despite the dark damp of autumn, treasures abound. Bright ferns, mosses and fungi glow on steep slopes of rock, each species with its own stories to tell. In the stony stream of this remote place, there are trout, handsome and wise. High above, buzzards call, and as night falls the winter constellations glow with that special late-year brightness, disrupted o...

For October, Alice visits Emma Thistlethwaite, founder of floral design studio Thistle by Nature, at her workshop in Gloucestershire. As autumn settles in, Emma weaves a wreath from heather, while they talk about circles and cycles, the stories held in plants, and valuing place through flower arrangement. Found Sounds are sonic scrapbooks of field recordings and interviews with people who help us...

For October we’re amid grass-spiked sand dunes, where small birds scrap over autumn berries. Late bees search for nectar ahead of winter, a rare toad crouches amid the roses and sea buckthorn, and the wind whistles, carrying songs of mermaids in from the sea. In the water, flounders flip and shimmy through the shallows, while in the sky above we see the trail of a great comet. If you enjoyed Octob...

For September, Alice visits iconic Welsh singer Charlotte Church at The Dreaming, the retreat she has created in the Welsh countryside. Alice and Charlotte explore the ancient Welsh rainforest as their conversation moves through nature, music, ritual and creativity - and our relationship with the land. Found Sounds are sonic scrapbooks of field recordings and interviews with people who help us str...

For September, we’re on a shingle beach, where the shifting pebbles reveal unexpected life. Tall stalks of wild fennel have long memories to share, while above us black-headed gulls call insistently in the fading sky. At sea, tiger-striped mackerel slip and shimmer through the waves, displacing the water as our feet dislodge small lichens on shore, where we listen out for story and song. This is a...

Jackie Morris has the word ‘entrance’ on her studio floor - to remind her that’s her job, she says. For August, Alice visited Jackie at home on the wild Pembrokeshire coast, to be entranced by Jackie’s reflections on her extraordinary career as one of Britain’s most celebrated illustrators, revealing an artistic practice rooted in her deep belief that we are not separate from nature, but part of i...

In this August episode, it’s an unsettled day on the estuary. As the tide retreats the mud gives up its treasures - molluscs, aromatic wild herbs and the calls of wetland birds. In the water, small sharks scull through the shallows, while back on shore we hear tales of transformation, and a gentle song of the harvest.  As the Season Turns is an award-winning podcast presented by Lia Leendertz...

This July, Alice meets gardener and artist Errol Reuben Fernandes, Head of Horticulture at south east London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens. Errol leads Alice to an overlooked place that’s been special to him since childhood - an abandoned brownfield site that nonetheless thrums with life. Found Sounds are sonic scrapbooks of field recordings and interviews with people keeping heritage crafts alive...

For July, we’ve arrived by the sea - strolling along the rocky shore to find fossils at our feet, while swifts and swallows whisk along the sand. The rockpools burst with anemones and crabs, and we forage for seaweed along the tidelines. Lisa Knapp sings goodbye to the cuckoo, soon to fly from these shores. As the Season Turns is an award-winning podcast presented by Lia Leendertz and created by F...

As the Season Turns presents singer and composer Muco as he ventures to find a hidden Medieval chapel in Dorset and share his unique musical interpretation of the Arthurian legend – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – commissioned by Ffern for their Summer 26 Green Knight season.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For June, Alice travels to Swanage in Dorset to meet the songwriter and composer Muco. Together they take a walk through Studland Woods, where he spent time as a child, reflecting on the influence of his mother and father on his love of words, his passion for old and middle English and his love of interpreting stories and folklore from Burundian and English traditions. As they walk Muco plays folk...

This June we’re by the creek, trying not to get stuck in the rich mud as we forage for samphire and other salty snacks. In the water there are eels, travelling just one stage of their incredible life cycles, and above it flit dragon- and damselflies, and bright blue demoiselles. The rising wind whispers old tales - and a midsummer’s love song that calls on us to get outside.  As the Season Tu...

'The point of this has always been bliss.' As the Season Turns presents author Max Porter, reading his ecstatic springtime poem, commissioned by Ffern for their Spring 26 film, 'This Wild Land'. The film was made at Knepp Wilding - a rewilding project in Sussex. Watch This Wild Land, narrated by Claire Foy, at www.ffern.co/cinema and listen to our full interview with Max in the 15th May episode of...

For May, Alice travels to Bath to meet critically acclaimed writer Max Porter in a quiet woodland on the edge of the city, discussing how landscape shapes his work, the process of writing, and the interplay between the fantastical and the domestic. We hear Max reading from the ecstatic springtime piece he wrote for Ffern's recent film, 'This Wild Land'. Found Sounds are sonic scrapbooks of field r...

For May, we are in the wet woodland - where ferns glow amid the alders in the light of this month’s pair of full moons, and we catch sight of a tiny spiny monster in the water. We hear a song about May’s unpredictable weather, and a story about a sparrowhawk. Meanwhile we forage for skullcap and keep our eyes peeled for an elusive wood spirit with long white hair… As the Season Turns is an award-w...

For April, Alice travels to East Sussex for the homecoming event of Singing with Nightingales . Here she meets friend of As the Season Turns Sam Lee, a Mercury-nominated folk musician, song collector and founder of the project, which brings people together each spring to experience the magic of nightingales in the wild - and sing alongside them. We’re given a special window into the evening, with...

Our April chalk stream is sunlit and clear, a river in a fairytale. We spot amphibians and salmon in its crystalline waters, pick wild watercress and stand rapt on the bank to listen to Britain’s most virtuoso songbird. This month’s music is a new version of the rousing old song ‘When Spring Comes In’ - and we hear tell of the ancient Salmon of Llyn Llyw, the oldest animal in Britain. As the Seaso...

For March, Alice is in South London. Here she meets author and DJ Zakia Sewell for a spring equinox ritual. They quest together through landscape and story - while walking to the Hilly Fields stone circle, gathering signs of spring as they go.  Found Sounds are sonic scrapbooks of field recordings and interviews with people keeping heritage crafts alive. They are part of As the Season Turns ,...

For March, we’re by the river - where ancient fishes swim amid the water weeds, and not every spring green is as lovely as it appears. Today, we hear tell of strange dreams, look out for Zodiacal Light, and listen out for birdsong, that harbinger of spring. Also singing is Lisa Knapp, with her version of the traditional song, 'Hares on the Mountain'. As the Season Turns is an award-winning podcast...

For February’s Found Sound, Alice Boyd visits Muireann Ní Sheoighe Eachthighearn, one of only a handful of female luthiers, or fiddle makers, working in Ireland. Alice records the many interesting sounds of Muireann’s practice - from a chisel in maple to the sound of water hitting a hot bending iron. Found Sounds are sonic scrapbooks of field recordings and interviews with people keeping heritage...

This month, we’re out on the marsh - exposed beneath the fleeting February sky. Wading birds chatter and forage around us as we note the names of grasses, and hunt for sea beet and will o' the wisps. Silver fish slip through the shallows, and as we get closer to the sea a song of the shipping forecast drifts across the water. As the Season Turns is an award-winning podcast presented by Lia Leender...

For January’s episode, the first of 2026, Alice Boyd meets artist, illustrator and curator Tabby Booth at her studio in Falmouth, Cornwall. They talk outsider art, re-connecting with your creativity and retreating into the cave - meanwhile meeting Raisin, Tabby's rescue pigeon. Found Sounds are sonic scrapbooks of field recordings and interviews with people keeping heritage crafts alive. They are...

Come with us to the chilly canal for our first episode of 2026, a series themed around water. We forage for nettles along the banks and dip below the surface with a fearsome fish of the month. Above us, amid the emerging constellations, starlings murmurate, moving mountains in Cynan Jones' new telling of the Welsh tale of Branwen. And Lisa Knapp joins us as this year's folk musician, with an origi...

For December's Found Sound, Alice Boyd walks with broadcaster Matthew Bannister, creator of the podcast Folk on Foot, through the Wildbrooks of Amberley in West Sussex. Their conversation wanders through Matthew’s discovery of folk music to the new voices keeping the tradition alive today. Found Sounds are sonic scrapbooks of field recordings and interviews with people keeping heritage crafts aliv...

Wrap up warm for our December episode - the last of our 2025 series. We prune our orchard’s sleepy trees, make ephemeral ink from sloes, and visit the coast for one of the UK’s most exciting wildlife spectacles. In the sky, the Geminids are falling - and we’re bringing in the green for the midwinter festivals. As the Season Turns is an award-winning podcast presented by Lia Leendertz and created b...