BETWEEN THE EARS - THE LARK DESCENDING (320kbs-m4a/66mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 3 broadcast: 29th May 2022
Half environmental warning, half re-imagining of a classic work - The Lark Descending features the premiere of Hinako Omori's new electronic arrangement of Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending.
When Vaughan Williams wrote his most famous work in 1914, the skylark would have been a ubiquitous presence in the British countryside, but today the skylark is on the "red list" of conservation concern. This bird may have inspired one of the most famous pieces of classical music ever, but now we're facing an increasingly silent sky.
Between The Ears explores what we have lost, presenting The Lark Ascending in a new light, with a fresh, electronic arrangement. Here, the soloist is the skylark itself - captured by sound recordist Chris Watson in Northumberland this spring.
Naturalist and broadcaster Lucy 'Lapwing' Hodson explores the relationship between The Lark Ascending and the birds disappearing from our skies. Along the way, Lucy meets concert violinist Jennifer Pike at Vaughan Williams's childhood home, producer and nature beatboxer Jason Singh, and writer and conservationist Laurence Rose.
150 years after Vaughan Williams was born, the contrast between the popularity of his most famous work and the steady decline of skylark numbers in the UK has never been as stark. Composer Hinako Omori's electronic re-imagining of the piece explores this contrast, in the premiere of her new arrangement Conversation With A Lark.
Produced in binaural sound, immerse yourself in the skylark's world by wearing headphones for the best listening experience.
Credits
Producer: Rebecca Grisedale-Sherry
Mixing Engineer: Marvin Ware
SABLE ISLAND - A DUNE ADRIFT (320kbs-m4a/64mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 13th November 2021
100 miles east of Nova Scotia lies a 30 mile-long sand dune: Sable Island, population, two, who work in the weather and research station - and 300 wild horses.
Sean Street reveals how this remote place, this dune adrift in the Atlantic, is providing information vital to us all, and has gained a powerful presence in the imagination.
In the middle of the world's worst weather systems, held tentatively in place by ocean currents, it's the perfect place to monitor climate change, and air and sea pollution.
More than 500 ships have been wrecked here. There have been several attempts at colonisation, by the Portuguese, the French (Sable is the French word for Sand) and even a group of prominent Bostonians, and all have failed.
Thomas Raddell, Nova Scotia's finest writer, was a radio operator on Sable for a year, and this inspired his novel The Nymph and the Lamp. Poet Elizabeth Bishop visited and wrote about the island.
Sean examines wreckage from some of over 500 ships that came to grief here. There is a poignant baby's crib made from wreck wood. He meets artist Roger Savage who battled to capture the landscape. And he meets a man who dedicated years to studying the rare Ipswich Sparrow, which nests only here.
What emerges is that Sable Island is for the Canadians what the Galapagos are for the people of Ecuador, or Easter Island for Chileans. It is important scientifically and historically, but more than this it is important culturally, as part of their identity.
Producer: Julian May.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2009.
LIVING WORLD - GREEN HAIRSTREAK (320kbs-m4a/49mb/21mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 10th August 2014
The Living World is a natural history strand that revels in rich encounter, immersion in the natural world and warm, enthusiastic story telling.
The Green Hairstreak butterfly is small, bright green and feisty. The males fight for females, spiralling in the air at break neck speed. This lovely butterfly was not recorded in the Pentland Hills, south of Edinburgh, until 20 years ago but now populations are being discovered in more and more places. Sensitive management is helping bring back this bright jewel to the bilberry and heather clad hills. By excluding sheep and letting gorse and bilberry grow together the right conditions now exist. Green Hairstreak only appear on the wing in May and Victor Partridge takes Mary Colwell to see where he first spotted them in the Pentland Hills.
LIVING WORLD - THE DANCE OF THE DRAGONFILES (320kbs-m4a/50mb/22mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 4th September 2016
Chris Packham relives programmes from The Living World archives.
In many ways 1985 changed Raury MacKenzie-Dodds' life. Idly walking along a London canal towpath a dragonfly landed on his shirt. So mesmerised was Raury by the beauty and form of this dazzling 'devils darning needle' as dragonflies are sometimes known, that a few years later he created the Ashton Water Dragonfly Sanctuary in Nottinghamshire.
In this programme from 1994 Lionel Kelleway travels to the Dragonfly Sanctuary to discover for himself why these aerial predators delight Raury so much. With them is dragonfly ecologist Erica Towner who's studies are providing a vital link between dragonflies and a changing environment.
Producer: Andrew Dawes
