Blog Archives

Afternoon Play: The Ditch
BBC Radio 4

Monday 1 February 2010, 14.15-15.00

Tom Saunders, a wildlife sound recordist, goes missing leaving only a collection of recordings and a notebook. These fall into the hands of his radio producer and the drama’s narrator who tries to piece together what has happened. His quest leads him back to the disturbing aural landscape of Slaughton Ditch where an obsession with hidden sounds has terrifying and fatal consequences. Recorded on location, this chilling tale is written and narrated by Paul Evans.

Tom Saunders: Jimmy Yuill
Narrator : Paul Evans
Other parts played by Christine Hall and Richard Angwin

WILDLIFE SOUND RECORDIST: Chris Watson
SOUND ENGINEER : Mike Burgess
PRODUCER / DIRECTOR: Sarah Blunt

NATURE: A Local Patch (part 1)
BBC Radio 4

Tuesday 2 February 11.02 (rpt Wednesday 3 February, 21.02)

In the first of two programmes exploring our relationship with the landscape and the value of getting to know ‘a local patch’ three wildlife enthusiasts share their experiences of their own ‘local patch’.

For wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, the local patch is his suburban back garden in Newcastle upon Tyne, where the recordings he has made over the years chart not only the changes in the landscape and the wildlife, but also trigger memories of the past. For wildlife cameraman, John Aitchison, it’s the sea loch which lies just beyond his home on the west coast of Scotland which is his local patch; a place which he shares with sea otters, curlew and migrating geese. The local patch of wildlife artist and writer Jessica Holm, is the woodland on the Isle of Wight where she spent four years studying red squirrels.

Recordings from each location are weaved together highlighting the value of getting to know a patch of landscape so well that its ‘like having a second skin’, says Jessica Holm. It’s a revealing and fascinating insight into the power of experience and the relationships between people and place, between Man and Nature.

Wildlife sound recordist: Chris Watson
Producer: Sarah Blunt

(NATURE: A Local Patch (part 2) is on BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 9 February 11.02, rpt Wed 10 Feb 21.02)

Monday – Friday, 16- 20 Nov, 2009
15.45-16.00

The story of an Oxfordshire garden through time and the seasons.

Peter France narrates this fascinating series about an Oxfordshire garden from its earliest beginnings as a field in Mesolithic Britain to the present day. A fictional story based on fact, this is no ordinary story, but a dramatic and evocative acoustic journey, following life in the garden as the seasons change. The wildlife sound recordist is Chris Watson.
Today more than at any other time in history, the vast network of Britain’s gardens plays a vital role in the conservation and survival of our native wildlife. The Garden is a story about the changing dynamics between man, wildlife and landscape across the seasons and over time.

Producer: Sarah Blunt

The Radio Times writes: “A beautiful and evocative portrayal of an Oxfordshire garden, from Roman times through to 2050, using sounds specially recorded by Chris Watson, the David Attenborough of Radio.”

Presenter by Paul Evans

Feet-stomping termites, head-banging beetles, tymbal-clicking cicadas, stridulating crickets, whining mosquitoes, pulsating moths, toe-tapping plant hoppers and a whole choir of tuneful songsters join Paul Evans in this unusual sound safari around an ‘orchestra’ of insects.

Their songs announce their presence, define their territory, lure potential mates, and even shock predators.

This programme explores the ways in which insects produce sounds, and hears what this insect ‘music’ is all about. There’s a journey through a termite mound at London’s Southbank Centre during Pestival (see below),where recordings made within a Macrotermes mound were sent to wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson who used them to create a sound track which was played through speakers inside the Termite Pavilion (a scaled-up model of a termite mound), to recreate the sensation of being inside the mound… and the programme ends with an extract from an evening of experimental music curated by Chris Watson at Pestival, featuring recordings of a suzumushi ‘bell’ crickets by Hajime Matsuura (Natural Audio Laboratory, Japan) and voice musician Maria Jardardottir.

Producer: Sarah Blunt

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ for more information and to listen again to the broadcast which is available for a week after broadcast.

Thursday 20 August
21.02-21.30

Noise is making itself heard. Man-made noise pollution is becoming increasingly invasive in our lives; in homes, offices, parks, gardens, oceans and wilderness areas, and the effects on both humans and wildlife are causing concern.

Wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson presents a personal investigation into this acoustic pollution; exploring what noise is, the effects of man-made noise on both wildlife and man, and the possible long term consequences if we don’t turn the volume down.

Presenter Chris Watson, Producer Sarah Blunt

The Radio Times:

The Times:

This show is now available on the BBC iPlayer.

John Richardson’s workbook for ‘A Collection of Words on Water’.

“We’ve had a bunch of unique podcasts made to compliment the book and they are now available to download (for free) over at iTunes.

Click here to go to the CBTR page where you can hear Bill Drummond, Chris Watson, Hannah Hamilton, Gavin Pretor-Pinney and Chris Yates read extracts from their contributions. There is also the treat of hearing Robert MacFarlane reading Roger Deakins, ‘Jack Frost’ piece. All of these recordings have been produced by Chris Watson.”

Sunday 31 May – 28 June 2009
14.45 – 15.00

Brett Westwood is joined by keen birdwatcher, writer and broadcaster, Stephen Moss in this informative and entertaining series to help you identify many of the birds which are found or near freshwater, whilst wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson provides high quality of recordings of the calls and songs of the birds under discussion.
Recorded on location in Somerset, each week the series focuses on a different group of birds, namely waders of wet meadows, (like Lapwing and Redshank), Ducks (including Mallard and Teal), Warblers (like Grasshopper and Cetti’s warbler), Rails (including Water Rail and Spotted Crake) and the River Birds, (birds like Kingfisher, Dipper and Grey Wagtail). Not only is there advice on how to recognise the birds visually, but also how to identify them from their calls and songs .…. after all, its more likely that you will hear a bird first and than see it.

A Guide to Water Birds follows A Guide to Garden Birds (broadcast in 2007), and A Guide to Woodland Birds (broadcast in 2008)

Series details
1. A Guide to Water Birds : Waders of wet meadows
BBC Radio 4, Sun 31 May, 2009 14.45-15.00
2. A Guide to Water Birds : Ducks
BBC Radio 4, Sun 7 June, 2009 14.45-15.00
3. A Guide to Water Birds : Reed bed warblers
BBC Radio 4, Sun 14 June, 2009 14.45-15.00
4. A Guide to Water Birds : Rails
BBC Radio 4, Sun 21 June, 2009 14.45-15.00
5. A Guide to Water Birds : River Birds
BBC Radio 4, Sun 28 June, 2009 14.45-15.00

Producer Sarah Blunt

The Lake which was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, is to be repeated on BBC Radio Ulster…

Sunday 5 April 13.30 -14.00.

A haunting and evocative sound portrait of Britain’s largest lake, Lough Neagh. With a shoreline measuring over 70 miles long, this vast stretch of water in Northern Ireland is more like a sea than a lake. Recordings made above and below the waves reveal a moody, stormy, wild and even dangerous place where legends of a buried town, a horse god and three sisters emerge from the shallows, whilst smoke-like plumes and huge flocks of birds rise from the surface as the seasons unfold.

Sound recordists: Chris Watson and Tom Lawrence
Producer: Sarah Blunt

Monday- Friday, 23 – 27 March, 2009
15.45-16.00
Narrator: Hugh Quarshie
Wildlife sound recordist: Chris Watson
Producer: Sarah Blunt

SOUNDSCAPE: The Lion Pride is an intimate and revealing story of one of the greatest predators on earth; the story of a male lion, from birth to adulthood, and life amongst his pride in the Masai Mara in south west Kenya.

Narrated by HUGH QUARSHIE, this fictional series combines a powerful narrative with location recordings by wildlife sound recordist CHRIS WATSON to take listeners into the very heart of a lion pride in Africa.

Life for our pride is not easy. They have to face the harsh realities of life when two nomadic lions, chase our pride male out of his territory, before killing his cubs and mating with the females to sire their own young. Amongst these newborn cubs is Kidogu (which means ‘little one‘ in Swahili), whose life we follow. New born cubs are helpless, born with their eyes shut, and weighing less than a bag of sugar, they are highly vulnerable to attacks from hyenas, pythons, eagles and leopards. Half of all cubs fail to survive their first year, and whilst only a few weeks old, Kidogu, witnesses two of his siblings being killed by hyenas, before being separated from his mother during a terrifying ordeal when a herd of buffalo attack the pride. But Zuri, his mother, does not abandon her cub, and after finding and being reunited with him, she provides the security and protection Kidogu needs, until he is old enough to leave his family and find a territory of his own.

Over the course of several years, wildlife sound recordist CHRIS WATSON has been recording the most intimate details of the lives of African lions. We hear the unique calls between a lioness and her cubs as they suckle, feed and play; we’re with the pride when they are attacked by a herd of buffalo, when they go hunting at night. We’re with Kidogu when he’s chased by a herd of elephants, pursues a warthog, attacks a herd of wildebeest and eventually leaves his pride to find a territory of his own. There are the sounds of the landscape and its wildlife; lions, hyenas, buffalo, elephants, vultures, wildebeest, zebra and crocodiles; there are the sounds of dawn, dusk and night, the sounds of the Mara River, where hippo bathe and crocodiles target vast herds of wildebeest; the sounds of the riverine forest, grassy plains and marsh.

Together, the evocative and thrilling soundtrack and powerful narration make for a very exciting and dramatic story of life in the Masai Mara as experienced by a young lion cub and his pride.

Chris’s recording of Hippos was aired on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. This recording is one of many available on his CD ‘Outside the Circle of Fire’, which is avaiable from the TouchShop here…

Wednesday 25 March, 2009
21.02-21.30
Writer and Narrator: Paul Evans
Sound recordist: Chris Watson
Producer: Sarah Blunt

On a warm May evening, the boat trip across the river from Orford Quay to Orford Ness takes only a few minutes but the distance is enormous, as narrator PAUL EVANS discovers in this sound portrait of Orford Ness. And so begins ‘a journey in sound’ around one of Britain’s most haunting, unsettling and seductive landscapes.

Orford Ness is the longest vegetated shingle spit in Europe. It runs for over 10 miles along the Suffolk coast from Aldeburgh to Shingle Street, north of the port of Felixstowe. It’s not quite a proper island because its nose is attached to its Suffolk face at the northern end, but access is restricted and the only way to get to the area that’s now a nature reserve owned by the National Trust is by water.

“Its distinctive elements seem a simple trinity: stone, water and sky” explains the narrator “but there’s something in the way these elements sound to me – the way the sea smacks against the shingle; the way the light reflects on the stones and pools; the way the wind cries over the flat ground. This is far from simple. There is something else in the aural landscape of Orford Ness, some feral power, disturbing yet seductive. “

Written and narrated by PAUL EVANS and with sound recordings by CHRIS WATSON, the programme explores this feral, disturbing yet seductive power of “one of the UK’s most important and most secretive military establishments”.

It’s an unsettling landscape. Deep, low mournful vibrations chase shadows across the shingle. Railings whistle and whine, twisted arms of metal clank against one another in skeletal remnants of buildings where the crash of heavy laboratory doors are part of an orchestra of sounds which also feature the hiss and sigh of waves of shingle furrows, the ever-present gasp and roar of the wind, cries of curlew and gulls, dot-dot-dot alarm calls of redshank and the rattle and scratch of sedge warblers.

Here Paul encounters shadows from the past; Cobra Mist, Blue Danube, nuclear bomb testing sites, a wall built by the Chinese Labour Corps, the skeletal remains of vast laboratories called Pagodas and the sea “polishing and resetting each pebble”.
This is a journey into a disturbing landscape; a fusion of creation and destruction, of man and nature, a poem of words and sounds, a trinity of stones, water and sky.