The Plodcast

The anglers have departed, the dog-walkers have gone home. The lake is still. You are alone by a strip of woodland on the edge of the water, listening to a gentle melodies of song thrush, blackcap and chiffchaff.

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 Fergus Collins, introduced by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the deep dark wood with composer and pianist Alexander Chapman Campbell to hear about his quest to raise awareness of the perils of conifer plantations – and their impact on wildlife, landscape and the human spirit.

Plodcast host Fergus Collins meets Alexander in one of Wales' larger conifer plantations, Hafren Forest in Powys, to talk about trees and listen to some of Alexander's music.

Where Now A Dark Wood Stands - composed by Alexander (Chapman Campbell), featuring Alexander at the piano and vocals by Julie Fowlis. Lyrics written by Alexander (Chapman Campbell), and translated into Scots Gaelic by Raghnaid Sandilands.

Beneath The Northern Stars - composed and performed by Alexander, from the album Journey To Nidaros.

The music video for Where Now A Dark Wood Stands can be viewed, and more of Alexander's work discovered, on his website: www.alexanderchapmancampbell.com

The Plodcast is the Publishers Podcast Awards Special Interest Podcast of the Year 2024 and the PPA Podcast of the Year 2022.

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. Music written and performed by Blair Dunlop.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's evening, just after midsummer's day, and a walk has taken you down a winding lane to a tiny medieval church. In the churchyard, lichen-crusted gravestones emerge from what has been left to become a flower-filled meadow. Only a few goldfinches break the mellow stillness.

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 Fergus Collins, introduced by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Plodcast heads to the dreamy surrounds of Richmond Park in south-west London to discuss the wonders of flights with author and conductor Lev Parikian. Along the way, Lev and Plodcast host Fergus Collins encounter a host of examples of strange and exotic winged creatures.

Lev's book Taking Flight: How Animals Learned to Fly and Transformed Life on Earth is published by Elliott and Thompson

The music Lev mentioned in the Plodcast was:

Olivier Messiaen – Catalogue d'oiseaux

Einojuhani Rautavaara - Cantus Arcticus 

Igor Stravinsky - Right of Spring

The Plodcast is the Publishers Podcast Awards Special Interest Podcast of the Year 2024 and the PPA Podcast of the Year 2022.

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. Music written and performed by Blair Dunlop.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Morning has broken. A wood pigeon coos its lazy welcome to summer, surrounded by a chorus of chaffinches, blackbirds, wrens and chiffchaffs. The new green leaves of June filter the sunlight into watery pools on the forest floor and the tall tree trunks create an acoustic effect of ancient columns and buttresses.

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 Caroline Greene, introduced by Hannah Tribe. Image by Getty

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join an unusual Plodcast adventure in an urban car park with artist and author Anna Chapman Parker. Anna spent a year watching and drawing the wildflowers in her local town – plants normally dismissed as weeds. And she created an astonishing diary of overlooked beauty.

Here she take Plodcast host Fergus Collins an urban journey of discovery to open our eyes to the magic in every crack in the pavement.

Anna's book: Understorey: A Year Among Weeds is published by Duckworth Books.

The Plodcast is the Publishers Podcast Awards Special Interest Podcast of the Year 2024 and the PPA Podcast of the Year 2022.

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. Music written and performed by Blair Dunlop.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week we're walking across the open grassland of Richmond Park in south-west London. While jets grumble overhead, rose-ringed parakeets can't resist a bit of back-chat from the fringing woodland. And in the brambly scrub, we hear the gentle mutterings of chaffinches and whitethroats.

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 Fergus Collins, introduced by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Take an adventure with the Orchid Outlaw – a man braving danger and risking his freedom to rescue Britain's endangered orchids.

Plodcast host Fergus meets Ben Jacob in the glorious meadows of the Stroud Commons to look for these incredible flowers – with a special quest to find the bizarre bee orchid.

Read Ben's book: The Orchid Outlaw, On a Mission to Save Britain's Rarest Flowers (John Murray).

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. Music written and performed by Blair Dunlop.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're walking in a summertime Narnia of dappled pathways, whispering leaves and the tall, smooth-skinned trunks of beech trees. This is the Blackwood Forest in Hampshire and as dusk falls on an evening in early June, a woodland choir marks the passing of the 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 you happen to be.

Recorded by Caroline Greene, introduced by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Savour the joys of foraging – this time in an urban green haven in the middle of Bristol. Plodcast host Fergus joins foraging expert Andy Hamilton for a journey into unusual flavours – and learns how to use wild plants to enhance everyday meals – and drinks.

Andy's latest book is The First-Time Forager, published by The National Trust.

Later, join the Plodcast team in the studio for a very special celebration!

Listen to Episode 192. A quest for rare wildflowers in the Avon Gorge - with Mike Dilger:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3PhEIpZDJZftG3a0b4B4U0?si=c0920a1075504655

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-plodcast/id886112661?i=1000611378135

If you've enjoyed the plodcast, don't forget to leave likes and positive reviews.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected].

If your letter, email or message is read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. Music written and performed by Blair Dunlop.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices