I am a nature writer and novelist, and I’m lucky enough to be able to walk out of my cottage straight into Suffolk’s beautiful open countryside. For six months – as spring 2020 broke over the British Isles, and summer turned to autumn – I documented the wonder and richness of the natural world and the changing seasons and brought the outdoors into as many locked-down homes as I could.
Making a nature podcast is harder than you think... Note: Contains bad words and loud noises! Listen →
Join Melissa for the last time on a longer walk than usual, taking in some familiar landmarks from earlier in the series. It’s a damp and misty autumn afternoon and the air smells of wet leaves and woodsmoke. Listen →
Join Melissa in her cosy cottage as wind and rain lash down outside. The autumn migration is underway, and billions of birds are on the move; indoors, it’s time to light the fire. Listen →
Join Melissa as she cycles to an abandoned World War II airbase and explores the old runways. A sharp breeze is plucking acorns from the trees, and skylarks are feeding in the brown stubble fields. Listen →
Join Melissa and Scout as they walk down towards the village at sunset. The shadows of oaks stretch long over the stubble fields, the evening star comes out and pheasants fuss and cluck themselves to bed. Listen →
Join Melissa as the sun rises on a crisp, cool autumn day; there are deer and hares in the dawn fields, and robins sing wistfully from the hedgerows. Listen →
Join Melissa as she walks Scout through the grounds of a stately home. The weather’s wet and it’s starting to feel like autumn; there are sloes in the hedgerows, and the first horse chestnut leaves are on the ground. Listen →
Join Melissa as she gets lost in a tangled wood on the edge of the village. It’s windy, and a robin sings from the understorey, while toadstools are sprouting underfoot. Listen →
Join Melissa as she scrambles down from her perch in an ancient oak and walks to a five-acre meadow managed for wildlife. Potatoes are being harvested, and buzzards wheel on thermals high overhead. Listen →
Join Melissa as she watches a huge combine harvester bringing in the golden wheat. The air is full of flying chaff, dragonflies, and the reedy sound of yellowhammers. Listen →
Join Melissa as she explores a nearby arable farm. It’s a scorcher of a day, the heat hammering down, and grey partridges take cover in the shadier hedgerows. Listen →
Join Melissa at dusk as she strolls around the peaceful village, looking for glow-worms. A tawny owl is calling from behind the church, and the hedgerows are full of crickets. Listen →
Join Melissa and her dog Scout on a muggy walk among mudflats, creeks and saltmarsh where Phragmites reeds and sea lavender grow. Listen →
Join Melissa on a shingly Suffolk beach studded with sea kale, horned poppies and spiny blue eryngium. Listen →
Join Melissa on a circular walk around the village’s sunny meadows. It’s haymaking time, and grasshoppers zither from the tall grass. Listen →
Join Melissa as she listens for nightjars after dark. On Suffolk’s Sandlings the gorse smells of coconuts, while silver birches glimmer in the dusk. Listen →
Join Melissa as she pays a visit to a nearby rabbit warren. It’s the longest day of the year, and the weather is sultry. Listen →
Join Melissa as she looks for purring turtle doves. The tall June grass is thick with wildflowers, and songbirds are still in full and glorious voice. Listen →
Join Melissa at twilight – the ‘blue hour’ – in a tangled copse. The hedges are garlanded with dog roses, and ox-eye daisies glimmer beneath. Listen →
Join Melissa as she follows the course of her local river. Elderflowers are taking over from cow parsley, and red damselflies throng the water. Listen →
Join Melissa as she cycles around Suffolk’s lanes in pursuit of a cuckoo. Scarlet poppies dot the hedgerows and billywitches (maybugs) are in flight. Listen →
Join Melissa as she explores a ruined cottage in the woods. The hawthorn hedges are in flower, and blackcaps are singing everywhere. Listen →
Join Melissa in her garden as she waits to see swifts overhead. It’s warm and sunny; the birds are in full song, and mason bees are nesting in the back wall of the house. Listen →
Join Melissa as she walks around the village, listening to the dawn chorus. May has come in bringing sunshine and showers; everywhere the woods smell of wild garlic, and the cow parsley is coming into bloom. Listen →
Join Melissa as she listens for nightingales on a dark, moonless night. It’s the end of April, and in Suffolk the lilacs are in bloom. Listen →
Join Melissa as she sets out at dusk in search of barn owls. It’s late April and the weather is a little chilly. Chaffinches and great tits sing from the hedges, and the fields of oilseed rape are bright yellow. Listen →
Join Melissa as she walks to the next village and back. It’s the middle of April and the weather is warm and dry. Butterflies are on the wing, and the lanes are hemmed with stitchwort. Listen →
Join Melissa on her daily walk through the beautiful Suffolk countryside. It’s the beginning of April and the fields are finally dry after a long, wet winter. In the woods, chiffchaffs are singing, there are buzzards wheeling over the oilseed rape, and the wildflowers sleeping in the village churchyard will soon burst back to life. Listen →
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