Best of Natural History Radio

Crossbills are finches with large heads and bright colours: the males are red and the females are olive green. What makes them so unusual is that the tips of their beaks are crossed over; allowing the...

2 Mar 201421min

In 1985, a dragonfly landed on Ruary Mackenzie Dodds. Up until this time, he had never had much interest in insects, but so astonished and bewitched was he by "this beautiful" insect which had landed ...

25 Feb 201427min

Each year the reedbeds of the Somerset Levels become the winter home for hundreds of thousands of starlings. Making their way from across the UK and Europe these birds have found a safe haven to roost...

23 Feb 201422min

Every year between January and April, Humpback whales from all around the North Atlantic Ocean gather in an area called Silver Bank 100km north of the Dominican Republic to breed. After calving, the w...

18 Feb 201427min

Seeing a flock of black and white striped, powder puff pink flanked long-tailed tits bouncing through the grey and brown winter landscape is a cheering sight. Scruffy and bandit faced they are often h...

16 Feb 201421min

In the second of three programmes recorded in Iceland, wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson goes in search of Arctic Terns, which travel here from Antarctica to breed; the longest regular migration o...

11 Feb 201427min

Each year Britain's butterflies and moths attempt to make it through the cold, dark and often wet winter months. Some species will spend the winter as eggs, others as caterpillars or pupae but some ge...

9 Feb 201421min

In the first of new series of NATURE, we join wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson in Iceland. When it comes to dynamic landscapes, there's perhaps nowhere in the world more exciting than Iceland; wi...

4 Feb 201427min