BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Natural history programme offering a unique insight into the natural world

Natural history programme offering a unique insight into the natural world and the rich variety of creatures inhabiting it

Nature: Series 5

Nature: Series 5: The Water Boatman's Song

The Water Boatman's Song

Series 5

BBC Radio 4 - Nature, Series 5, The Water Boatman's Song

Paul Evans goes in search of the Water Boatman's song.

Writer Paul Evans accompanies sound recordist Tom Lawrence on a journey in sound across Pollardstown Fen to hear an extraordinary underwater orchestra of aquatic insects.

For over a year, sound recordist Tom Lawrence has been capturing the sounds of Pollardstown Fen in Ireland. These are no ordinary sounds, but the sounds of a hidden world; an underwater world, where an orchestra of creatures create an extraordinary and vibrant music. Above the water's surface, grasshoppers and crickets stridulate; that is, they rub one part of their body across another to produce 'those fiddling tunes so evocative of summer'. Below the surface, something similar happens as water beetles, water scorpions, great diving beetles, water boatmen and lesser water boatmen and hundreds of other species produce sounds day and night at over 2Khz, reaching 99 decibels in some cases - the equivalent of sitting in the front row of an orchestra "Tapping, knocking, hammering, drumming, clicking, creaking, cracking, croaking, buzzing, fuzzing, bleeping, winding, reeling, revving, puttering, pattering, humming, pulsing, squealing, shrieking.... the insects reveal themselves". Writer and narrator Paul Evans meets Tom Lawrence and takes a journey into the Fen to hear these sounds for himself. Tom leads the way. His friend, Jim Schofield joins them, bringing with him a boat (an inflatable boat that they first have to pump up), and then the three men 'wobble' along reed-lined drains into the Fen. It's a journey of revelations; not only does Paul encounter the underwater orchestra, but also Old Ireland and with it a magical adventure; They find a snake, haul up a bag of treasure, climb the steps of a Famine Tower, experience vertigo as they stand with their heads in the clouds high above the quarried land, watch Peregrines swipe through the air like sharp knives, and learn the story of a hanged man, his lost love and a vixen who wanders amongst the reeds, her piercing cry echoing through the darkness.

Producer Sarah Blunt.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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The Water Boatman's Song

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