BBC North West Today - Neston Marsh Recovery report

Living World - The Late Arrivals

LIVING WORLD - THE LATE ARRIVALS (320kbs-m4a/49mb/21mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 8th September 2017

Brett Westwood relives programmes from the Living World archives, this week an episode from 2008.

More familiar in our gardens and parks, the Red Admiral butterfly is found throughout the British Isles and is one of the highlights of the butterfly season. It is an unmistakable butterfly with its black wings, and striking red bands. But how do they get here?

Well for this Living World, Lionel Kelleway travels to Lulworth Cove in Dorset where, standing on the cliffs and fully expecting to be looking out for autumnal bird migration, instead he witnesses the small bands of Red Admiral butterflies flying in from the sea as they migrate from mainland Europe. With Lionel is Richard Fox from Butterfly Conservation, who explains what's happening.

Living World - Nightjars

LIVING WORLD - NIGHTJARS (320kbs-m4a/50mb/21mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 18th October 2021

Chris Sperring is in Somerset during the last days of summer to find a bird that is one of the first to leave before the autumn.

As the light fades a strange whirring sound fills the air and silent masters of flight hawk for moths and other airborne insects.

Producer: Ellie Sans

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2014.

Living World - Skomer

LIVING WORLD - SKOMER (320kbs-m4a/50mb/22mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 23rd June 2019

Brett Westwood travels to the island of Skomer off the Pembrokeshire coast in search of burrow-nesting puffins. As well as these 'clowns of the air', he finds an island carpeted in pink sea campion, fading bluebells, and lime green bracken. Away from the cliffs which are bustling with sea birds, he enjoys his very first encounter with the Skomer vole, which as its name suggests, is endemic to this island. Producer Sarah Bunt

Living World - Guillemots Of Skomer

LIVING WORLD - GUILLEMOTS OF SKOMER (320kbs-m4a/49mb/22mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 17th 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.

Skomer Island lies off the south east coast of Wales and is home to thousands of seabirds.

There are 25,000 guillemots packed together on the cliffs, no other bird breeds in such close proximity to its neighbours. Fights and squabbles constantly break out, but friendships and pair-bonding are very strong. They keep the same mate for life and produce one chick a year. The fledgling has to leap from the sheer cliff face into the sea below to find its dad, surrounded by thousands of others, and try to avoid being eaten by predatory gulls. Each year each guillemot pair comes back to exactly the same place on the cliff ledge and they defend it vigorously.

In the early decades of the 20th Century there were 100,000 guillemots on Skomer but numbers plummeted to just 2000 after the second world war, probably due to oil pollution in the sea. Now numbers are slowly recovering but the increase in storms may be a problem for them in the future. Professor Tim Birkhead from Sheffield University has led a 42 year study of the birds and reveals some of their secrets to Mary Colwell in this week's Living World.

Professor Tim Birkhead, of the University of Sheffield's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, first visited Skomer Island in 1972. No one had tried to conduct a census of guillemots before and Professor Birkhead came up with an innovative way to count the birds and determine how many chicks were produced each year.

By marking birds individually with colour rings Professor Birkhead was able to measure their breeding success, see how old they are when they first start to breed and see how long the birds live.

When Professor Birkhead began his studies the guillemot population breeding on Skomer was just 2,000 individuals, yet pictures of the island thirty years earlier showed that there had been around 100,000 guillemots then. In 2011 the population showed signs of recovery as around 20,000 individuals were recorded.

Discovery: The Curious Cases Of Rutherford And Fry - 6. Why Do Birds Sing?

DISCOVERY: THE CURIOUS CASES OF RUTHERFORD AND FRY - 6. WHY DO BIRDS SING? (320kbs-m4a/19mb/27mins)
BBC World Service broadcast: 17th June 2019

"What happens to the human voice as we age? If I hear a voice on the radio, I can guess roughly how old they are. But singer's voices seem to stay relatively unchanged as they age. Why is this?" All these questions were sent in by Jonathan Crain from Long Island in New York.

Doctors Adam Rutherford and Hannah Fry discover how the human voice is produced and listen to how our voice sounds when it emerges from our vocal cords. Acoustic engineer Trevor Cox, author of Now You're Talking, explains why German and French babies have a different accent. And neuroscientist Sophie Scott describes what happens when boys' voices break, and why a similar thing can happen to women during the menopause.

Finally, our voices often change dramatically in later life, as demonstrated by comedy impressionist Duncan Wisbey. Expect cameos from David Attenborough, Dumbledore and Paul McCartney.

Bird Song

"Winter is finally over and the birds are all singing their hearts out at dawn. What is all the noise about? And why are some songs so elaborate?" asks Tony Fulford from Cambridgeshire in the UK.

We find out how birds produce multiple notes at once, which one has the widest repertoire of songs, and why males like to show off quite so much. Plus, we talk to researcher Lauryn Benedict about the project which aims to solve the mystery of why female birds sing.

Featuring interviews with RSPB president and nature presenter Miranda Krestovnikoff, and world-renowned birdsong expert and sound recordist, Don Kroodsma from the University of Massachusetts. TV archive courtesy of The One Show, BBC TV.

Please send your cases for consideration for the next series to curiouscases@bbc.co.uk.

Presenters: Adam Rutherford, Hannah Fry
Producer: Michelle Martin.

(Photo: Eurasian Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes). Credit: Getty Images)

Slow Radio - Fair Winds

SLOW RADIO - FAIR WINDS (320kbs-m4a/66mb/29mins)
BBC Radio 3 broadcast: 28th August 2022

Fair Isle sits between Orkney and Shetland and is the most geographically remote inhabited island in the UK with a population of around 60 people. The world-famous Fair Isle knitting patterns originate from there, and are still in production to this day on the island. It is also a stopping off point for migratory birds, and, as a result, is a mecca for bird watchers who visit the island to try and spot a 'blow in'.

Inge Thomson is a musician and composer who was brought up on Fair Isle and spent her childhood playing in rock pools and birdwatching. Her music has been influenced deeply by not only the traditional music of Fair Isle, but the sounds she grew up hearing around her - lapwings, the ever present and changing wind and the sea around her.

In this Slow Radio piece, producer Helen Needham accompanies Inge to Fair Isle after an absence of eight months. They explore the island together, from clifftop to cave, capturing the unique sounds of this special place. They also stop by the knitting studio of Marie Bruhat to capture her at work on her contemporary Fair Isle pieces. And finally we hear a sound composition created specially for BBC Radio 3 by Inge featuring sounds from Fair Isle.

Produced in Aberdeen by Helen Needham
Sound Composition by Inge Thomson
Mixed by Ron McCaskill