Open Country

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BBC Radio 4 FM

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

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Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

BBC Radio 4 LW

Open Country: Closed Country: A Spring Audio-Diary with Brett Westwood

Closed Country: A Spring Audio-Diary with Brett Westwood

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Closed Country: A Spring Audio-Diary with Brett Westwood

Spring - an audio diary with Brett Westwood

Spring - an audio diary with Brett Westwood.

It seems hard to believe, when so many of us are coping with lockdown and more, that the power of nature continues unfettered:  Spring, in all its fecundity, is altering our landscape as it always does.  To chart this time of great change we gave the naturalist, Brett Westwood, a microphone at the end of March and asked him to record a nature diary.  He lives in urban Stourbridge in the West Midlands, which doesn’t sound an obvious setting for a spring journal but actually it’s perfect:  What he sees at close quarters, with his expert eye, is available for us all if we know where and how to look.  His sightings include feather-footed flower bees who live in the brickwork of our houses, buzzards that might steal frogspawn from your pond,  bee-flies which coat their eggs with dust before shooting them at the nests of solitary bees, and mistletoe... which doesn't sound as intriguing, but it really is: Brett can explain why our behaviour is causing it to spread further than ever before. 

Note: The podcast contains extra material that couldn't be squeezed into the original programme: see the 'related links' box below for how to access and download the BBC Sounds App.  

Producer: Karen Gregor

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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Open Country

Closed Country: A Spring Audio-Diary with Brett Westwood

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