The Plodcast

We return for a second episode at the Folk by the Oak Festival in Hertfordshire. Annabel Ross talks to Karine Polwart from Spell Songs and we hear their song Jay. We also meet nature guide and folklorist Sherloak as he leads a tour in Hatfield Forest and finish with an interview with the great Proclaimers – and listen to two of their most famous songs.We'd like to say a huge thank you to the organisers and the musicians for their time and beautiful music. Photo by Tammy MarlarContact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.com. 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.comPPA Podcast of the Year!Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Enjoy a relaxing experience paddleboarding on a stretch of the River Wye in Herefordshire, where a flock of about 300 Canada geese begin an extraordinary evening chorus. The gentle swish of the paddle and the evocative cries of the wildfowl create a haunting river music. Pure delight. 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 Maria Hodson, presented by Hannah Tribe. Image from Getty. Email the Plodcast team – and send your sound recordings of the countryside – to: editor@countryfile.comVisit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.comPPA 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

Enjoy the delights of the Folk by Our festival In part one of two brilliant episodes, Annabel Ross visits the Folk by the Oak festival in Hertfordshire to meet musicians and hear music steeping in landscape, wildlife and countryside lore. In this podcast, you’ll hear Magpie by The Unthanks, Trouser Worrier by We are the monsters and The Same Land by Salthouse. But first Annabel talks to Caroline and Adam Slough who founded Folk by the Oak…We'd like to say a huge thank you to the organisers and the musicians for their time and beautiful music. Photo by Tammy MarlarContact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.com. 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.comPPA Podcast of the Year!Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Besieged by gales and restless sea, a rocky peninsula holds firm on the northern Anglesey coast, unchanged through many millennia of daily assaults. Meanwhile, seals sleep in the quiet bays that it protects. Beyond the breakers, the Skerries lighthouse keeps watch from the largest of a group of raw-looking islets.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.Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.comVisit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.comPPA 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

Catch up with writer, presenter, farmer, forager and campaigner Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, 20 years after his first adventures into smallholding which inspired millions to grow their own, keep chickens and live the good life. Plodcast regular Annabel Ross heads to River Cottage HQ on the Dorset/Devon border to walk around the farm and learn how Hugh's new book River Cottage Good Comfort offers healthier – and tastier – takes on classic country dishes. There are plenty of adventures along the way – including meetings with strange squashes, hungry pigs and a Hugh-special picnic.Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.com. 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.comPPA Podcast of the Year!Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Between the great, lumbering bulk of the Cambrian Mountains and Shropshire’s autumn-kissed hills there is a landscape of quiet repute. Here the ground rolls and tilts. Sheep graze the knolls, and between these there are cwms; pinched, deep and green. You make your way into one, leaving the low autumn sun for the coolness of a mossy, earthy woodland. At its bed is a stream, so vibrant and cheerful that not even the end of rain could quell its tune.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 and presented by Hannah Tribe. Image from Getty.Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.comVisit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.comPPA 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

In this episode podcast host Fergus Collins heads to a wild island off the coast of Scotland. Called Handa, it is managed entirely for wildlife by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and is an enchanting, sometimes haunting place to explore.The main quest was to witness the massive seabird cities – but there were plenty of other wildlife surprises along the way. You’ll also hear the voices of fellow explorers Joel Burden and Gavin Meredith. So come us for a very privileged wander into a truly wild place. Image from Getty.Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.com. 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.comPPA Podcast of the Year!Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's a lazy September afternoon on a Somerset canal. You've found an enchanted place to rest beside a bridge – where a robin's wistful song sweetens the stillness. Even the dragonflies are dawdling. Clouds puff in the blue sky, perfectly reflected in the water and the last of summer's house martins are hawking for small insects high above. Nearby, a pair of anglers are catching small fish.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 Hannah Tribe. Image from Hannah Tribe.Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.comVisit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.comPPA 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

Welcome to a new season of mindful escapes into the green outdoors in search of wildlife and wild people. As well as heading out into beautiful landscapes as autumn stretches into winter, we’ll be enjoying some episodes that the team and I recorded over the spring and summer – so expect some soothing escapism at this dark time of the year.Our first episode is one such adventure. Plodcast regular Annabel Ross heads to a fabulous meadow in Oxfordshire with a remarkable young botanist Leif Bersweden to meet some of the wildflowers and talk about the importance of allowing more nature into our lives. Listen on for an absolute treat. Image by Trevor Ray Hart.Leif's new book is called Where the wildflowers grow: my botanical journey through Britain and Ireland – Hodder and StoughtonContact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.comVisit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.comPPA Podcast of the Year!Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Deep in a wooded cwm in Powys, there’s a spot down by the brook, half in the trees, half out, where the sunlight falls in ribbons onto the water. You go to it and settle on the pebble bank. Somewhere above, hidden among the broken canopy that staggers up the steep valley, a robin reels out its morning song.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. Image from Graham.Contact the Plodcast team and send your sound recordings of the countryside to: editor@countryfile.comVisit the Countryfile Magazine website: countryfile.comPPA 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