The Plodcast

After a sunny afternoon of exploring the rock pools you take a seat and listen to the waves crash gently against the rocky shorefront. Down the beach visitors enjoy a quiet lunch whilst enjoying the sea breeze. BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be. Recorded by Jac...

Enter the wild worlds of Narnia and Game of Thrones as Plodcast host Fergus and local outdoorsman John Keating seek out the great Mourne Wall deep in the magical Mourne Mountains of Northern Ireland. What is this strange monument and why was it built? And why is this land associated with great fantasy epics? Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@cou...

It's early morning and as the sun breaks through the canopy of leaves and the wrens, blue tits, robins begin their cheerful chatter. A new day is coming to life and you're in the centre of it. BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be. Recorded by Jack Bateman, present...

Island poet Kenneth Steven reveals the wildlife marvels on his doorstep – the Isle of Seal in the Inner Hebrides – and introduces us to a range of avian characters. Plus, enjoy his wonderful poetry. Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.com. If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize...

This week we're paddleboarding on the River Wye, Leave all your worries on the riverbank and be lulled by the gentle, rhythmic swish of the paddle blade. The water swirls around you, shoals of fish shoot away from your bow, birds peep from the stooping alders. BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere bea...

In the second part of our exploration of the St Patrick's Way pilgrimage in Northern Ireland, Plodcast host Fergus Collins and guide Peter Rafferty walk south along the Newry Canal in Armagh. Abandoned in the mid 20th century, the canal is now a haven for wildlife – with whispers of history at every turn. Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countr...

We're in Beinn Eighe (Ben Ay) in the Scottish Highlands The mountains this morning are ill-manner; the trails rough, the gullies deep, the mist consuming. Winds elbow by like rushing commuters, and with them they bring rain. But such is the nature of summer in the Scottish Highlands that just as afternoon breaks the skies clear and a new day appears. Jubilant with the sparkling light, you pause by...

This week we’ve invited a former Plodcast guest to take the reins. Back in episode 199, I met James MacDonald Lockhart to hear the songs of skylarks in the Cotswolds. This week, we’re releasing him into his natural habitat – the wilds of Glenfeshie and surrounding Cairngorm mountain range – in a quest to meet one of Britain’s most unusual birds: the dotterel. Contact the Plodcast team and send you...

It’s night in a tent on the coast of Pembrokeshire. At some point during the dark hours, you stir. The rain is still falling, and there are layers to its sound. Great marbles of water fall from the beech tree above the tent; the wind throws buckets; then both become consumed by a deluge like no other, a shower so heavy that you could be in the raincloud itself. You’re grateful for your warm sleepi...

This week we’re heading back to early spring in the Welsh hills. But for the second Plodcast in a row, we’re not on foot. Following last week’s paddleboarding on the river Wye, plodcast host Fergus takes to two wheels to explore the hills of his beloved Bannau Brecheiniog. Borrowing an electric bike, he follows an old railway line into the wild to see how far he can get on a single battery charge...

Huddled between the urban brawn of Cardiff, Caerphilly and Newport is small woodland of spruce and birds and dank gullies. There is a stream in this woodland, the kind of you may not even notice, should your mind be elsewhere. Out of view beneath the path, it is the cool air welling up from its jostling waters that first alters you to it. You soon smell it, all earth and minerals, before finally r...

This week we’re out on the water – a two-day paddleboarding adventure on the Wye the great river that flows through the borders of England and Wales. Maria Hodson is our host, and with an enthusiastic raft of fellow paddlers she meets the river’s wildlife and explores some of the darker issues facing this troubled waterway. This is episode 12 of season 16: Get Active in Nature Contact the Plodcast...

It’s a sunny evening in a wooded glade on quiet stretch of the Isle of Wight's northern shore. Just beyond the trees, the sea bustles. But here, jolly holiday makers, blackbirds, woodpeckers and even bees are celebrating the end of a fine day. BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever...

This week Annabel Ross ventures forth to the tangled rainforest of Wistman’s Wood on Dartmoor to meet poet Elizabeth Jane Burnett. But their mission isn’t to celebrate the revered twisted oak trees or the famous song birds – nor even the ferns and flowers. It’s the mysterious, magical and mesmerising… mosses – especially wonderful when heard through the words and verse of Elizabeth-Jane. Her new b...

You spot a shelf of rock at the far end of the moon-shaped bay and make for it, the fine sand giving way to warm, angular, salt-rough ground. The scramble comes almost without thought, your bare feet gripping nimbly to the rock. You soon come to rest in a nook facing back to the shore. Kelp rolls in the mineral-blue waters at your toes; beyond that is the moon beach, your footprints already washed...

Plodcast host Annabel Ross is on a musical mission, discovering how nature and wild sounds can influence a modern composer – in this case, acclaimed musician Erland Cooper. Hailing from the Orkneys, Erland combines field recordings and environmental messages with electronica and classical motifs and we’ll be hearing some of his music later: Solan Goose and then Movement 5 from his new album Folded...

It's a still summer's evening on a beach on the Isle of Wight. It’s still very warm and the heat seems to affect the sea itself. Wavelets sweep lazily onto the beach and then flop and sink into the shingle. BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be. Recorded by Jack Ba...

The Plodcast team of Fergus, Hannah and Jack explore the River Frome in search of kingfishers, which some of the team have never seen. Along the way, they discover delightful urban wildlife, glorious wildflowers and a series of curious encounters… but do they find complete their mission? Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.com. If read...

This week we're heading deep into the Sussex countryside in the company of writer and angler Chris Yates. In this, the first chapter from his book The Secret Carp, Chris heads out on an eerie late summer's evening to find the perfect pool for fishing. The whole work is now available as an audiobook from merlineunwin.co.uk/products/” BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postc...

This week we’re going back to early spring and a trip to the north Cotswolds in Warwickshire to meet James Macdonald Lockhart who has written a book inspired purely by birdsong. Rather like our Plodcasts, James has spent several years on quests to listen to some of Britain’s most famous – and curious – avian melodies – and his book Wild Air reveals his adventures and the little known stories behin...

We’re near Loch Maree in western Scotland. You’re not sure what woke you first, the light or the birds. Either way, you stir peacefully in your bed, the sun casting half-light across the stone walls of the cottage as the lilts of Scotland’s avian world pour in through the open windows. A wood pigeon, a cuckoo, a blackbird. Sparrows in the eaves.   BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a wee...

This week we’re meeting naturalist Megan McCubbin who listeners will know from co-hosting TV shows such as Springwatch alongside her step-father Chris Packham. Plodcast host Fergus met up with Megan at the Hawk Conservancy Trust centre in Hampshire to talk about her new book – An Atlas of Endangered Species – and to find out more about her message of hope and action for a better future for our wil...

We're in Wester Ross in the Highlands. The drive to road’s end is long and leisurely, the statuesque mountains and island-scattered lochs of Wester Ross giving way to the persuasions of the sea. Tiny ocean inlets, sail boats, seaweed shores. By the time you reach Red Point, you hear the waves calling, and within moments you’re sat on the sand, the breaking water pulling all your senses towards it....

Plodcast host Fergus meets Isabella Tree, who with her husband Charlie Burrell, transformed a loss-making dairy farm at Knepp in Sussex into one of the most remarkable havens for nature recovery in Europe. Hear the incredible story – and the ongoing projects to further enrich the estate and the wider countryside with nature. Look out for Isabella's new guide to bringing nature back to the land: Th...

We’re tucked deep in the folds of the north Dorset countryside. As the light fades the dusk chorus rises. In a dense thicket of thorn, a single nightingale starts to sing - drowning out the tractor mowing the year’s first silage. Its performance attracts the attention of another male, who moves in closer and soon a competitive duet fills the night. BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a we...