We may be in the depths of winter but in this episode we're giving you a little Christmas present of hopeful spring birdsong. We're outside the ruins of Llanthony Priory with the ridges of the Black Mountains of Wales rising on either flank. Robins and song thrushes are singing lustily…

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. Presented by Hannah Tribe

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

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

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Head to Dorset in the ever-amiable company of Plodcast regular Kevin Parr. Angler and nature writer Kev takes us up onto Eggardon Hill to explore its wildlife and its mysterious hillfort. On the way, he meets a local farmer with some stark insights into life in the modern countryside. Beautiful and thought-provoking…

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected]. If read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

PPA Podcast of the Year!

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It's rained for days but there's a gap in the cloud cover this late autumn morning. You wander down to the river to find it in full spate. Another 50cm rise and it will burst surrounding fields. Its voice, a whisper in summer, is a roar now – the surging water unleashed and cleansing. And if you listen very closely, you might even hear the peeping calls of kingfishers.

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 and presented by Fergus Collins

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

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Meet nature writer and campaigner Hannah Bourne-Taylor who hit the news in recent weeks after walking from Hyde Park Corner to the Houses of Parliament to call for urgent action to help our declining swifts. So what you might ask? Well, Hannah walked the two miles naked, covered only in paintings of feathers…

We met up in a forgotten woodland in South Wales to about her extraordinary “Feather Speech” – and to go looking for wildlife.

Find out more at Hannah's website.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected]. If read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

PPA Podcast of the Year!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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You wake in the small village of Butterton in the Staffordshire Peak District. With the window of the cottage set ajar, you return to bed, rest your head on the pillow and listen as the village slowly wakes. The brook plays like the wind in the trees, which in turn mimics the brook. Blackbirds trill. A garden gate clunks. A milk truck crosses the ford.

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 Daniel Graham, presented by Hannah Tribe.

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

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Explore a wild and craggy stretch of the Anglesey coast path with Plodcast host Fergus as he wanders in search of rare choughs and curlews.

Later, in the studio, the team discuss the good, bad and ugly of Bonfire Night. Is this traditional UK festival of fire and fireworks a big problem for pets and wildlife?

Image from Getty.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected]. If read out on the show, you could WIN a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

PPA Podcast of the Year!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Come with us to the gentle pasturelands that link the summit of Y Fal with the bustle of Grwyne Fawr far below. Pause a while amid the patchwork of sheep field, farmyard and hedgerow, and a version of bliss envelopes you; a light wind picks hazel leaves from the hedge and sends them down the lane.

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 Daniel Graham, presented by Hannah Tribe.

Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the

countryside – to: [email protected]

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

PPA Podcast of the Year 2022

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

This week we’re off to the Hebridean island of Tiree, a stronghold of one of Britain’s rarest and strangest birds. Naturalist James Fair heads out into the wilds to search for the corncrake with local expert John Bowler of the RSPB. It’s a bird not famed for its looks – but it’s voice – well, that’s a different matter.

Back in the studio, the team enjoy a very eerie sound of the week – recorded deep in an ancient burial mound.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected]. If read out on the show, you could win a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

PPA Podcast of the Year!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

On the southern flanks of the Usk Valley beneath the damp uplands of Mynydd Llangatwg are the remnants of an old limestone quarry. Paths slink between the stepped hillside, now a miscellany of meadow, scrub and tree. When rain falls, the stunted hazel and oak woods are a joy to be among.

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 Daniel Graham, presented by Hannah Tribe.

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

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

PPA Podcast of the Year 2022

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Now the clocks have gone back in the UK and we’re heading into the dark days of winter it feels like a good time to let a burst of light and song into our lives. So this week we’re heading back to spring and an adventure I took in the New Forest with naturalist Dominic Couzens.

Dominic is brilliant at recognising birds by their song and he give some clever tips to help you learn them too – a neat trick for impressing friends and family on your next spring walk. Image by Getty.

Look out for Dominic's new book An Identification Guide to Garden Insects of Britain

Back in the studio, the Plodcast team 'interview' The British Cheese Awards Supreme Champion cheese and discuss how to cope with the dark nights of winter.

Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: [email protected]. If read out on the show, you could win a Plodcast Postbag prize of a wildlife- or countryside-themed book chosen by the team.

Visit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.com

PPA Podcast of the Year!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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