Pond Playlist

Jules Howard is joined by writer and TV face and all round fantastic voice for wildlife gardening, Kate Bradbury. Together they discuss the wildlife moving into Kate's own garden pond, recently featured on Springwatch. The episode is recorded at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Festival 2019.

Photo: Charles J Sharp: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Honey_bee_(Apis_mellifera).jpg

A FROG! A FROG HAS TURNED UP! Jules visits Froglife's Jenny Tse-Leon and Emily Millhouse to talk about FLIPPIN FROGS! Recorded at Hampton Nature Reserve, Peterborough.

You can find out more about Froglife and their range of really interesting projects at www.froglife.org

Professor Adam Hart joins Jules at Cheltenham Science Festival to talk about a tardigrade (sometimes called a moss piglet or water-bear) that turned up in some moss dangling over the pond edge. Topics include microscopy, memories and invertebrates that are gateway drugs to hardcore entomology.

Michael Rosen's book 'We're going on a bear hunt' features heavily.

Yay! Bloodworms are in the pond at last! Jules is joined by the magnificent Dr Erica McAlister, world fly aficionado who is based at the Natural History Museum, London. We talk about chironomid larvae, commonly called bloodworms, and about why flies are such a fantastic part of the insect family tree. We also talk about their vital role in pond foodwebs.

In the latter stages, Erica mentions the Dipterist's Forum, the The Society for the study of flies. You can find loads more about this brilliant society (and join in!) here: http://www.dipteristsforum.org.uk

Copepods have arrived! Jules is joined by the marvellous Dr Ceri Lewis, marine biologist at the University of Exeter. We chat about copepod behaviour, their anatomy and their role in ecosystems. We also talk about how badly they may be being impacted by plastic pollution - including in the Arctic.

Interested in copepods and Ceri's work? Course you are! Now go check out this unbelievably good website for information and educational resources: encounteredu.com

Finally! After four weeks, an animal we can see with the naked eye! Jules is joined by Dr Helen Scales to talk about the gorgeous ramshorn snail that is currently making the pond its home. We talk about shell evolution, snail anatomy and the wonderful world of molluscs. Their is loads of information on Helen and her marvellous book here: https://helenscales.com

Enjoy!

The musical introduction features a sample of a man discovering froglets in his patio conservatory. The video is here.

Jules is joined by Dr Chris Wilson of Imperial College London to talk about the pond's third coloniser, the charming (and wholly sexless) rotifers! We talk about how these animal have tamed time and space to become masters (mistresses?) of the world's temporary freshwaters. Enjoy!

Chris's biog and a link to all of his teams papers can be found here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/chris.wilson

Thanks for listening! Don't forget, if you have pond-based questions don't forget to get on Twitter on Thursday nights between 6pm and 7pm and tag your questions with #wildaboutponds

Thanks! Jules

Jules rambles on about nematode worms, the second visitor coloniser of his tiny pond. Scientific insights and general brilliance come this week courtesy of Emma Sherlock, the Natural History Museum's worm guru.

Emma is very keen on earthworms as you'll hear and is a champion of the Earthworm Society of Britain - go to https://www.earthwormsoc.org.uk/ to find out more.

Music this week was from N3rgul and the track was THE RETURN OF THE "A FEAST FOR SNAKES". More details of the track (which you should totally download because it's brill) is here: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/N3rgul420/

In this -THE FIRST EPISODE!- Jules speaks to Dr David Williams (of the Natural History Museum, London) about the pond's first coloniser, a humble diatom. Also some chat about British pond projects - especially the cool map of new pond projects that can be found www.wildaboutgardens.org.uk.

Music by Harmony Molina - the track is called _‘This flying circus is just beginning’