The blackbird @ Natural Histories on BBC Radio 4

The Radio 4 series 'Natural Histories' has been back with another series:
BBC Radio 4 - Natural Histories

This blog has featured some of the stars over the years:
Futures Forum: Butterflies @ Natural Histories on BBC Radio 4

This evening we have heard the most ubiquitous of them all:

Blackbird

Natural Histories

From their beautiful song that ushers in the spring to our rhymes of birds stuffed in pies, Brett Westwood explores the cultural significance of the blackbird. 

With Mark Cocker, Hanna Tuulikki and poems by Bertolt Brecht, Seamus Heaney and Adam Zagajewski. Reader: Anton Lesser.

Mark Cocker

Mark Cocker is a naturalist and author of 'Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet', 'Birds and People', which was a collaboration with the photographer David Tipling, and the New Angle Prize-winning 'Crow Country'.

In 2016, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the University of East Anglia, where he has recently placed his archive.

Hanna Tuulikki

Hanna Tuulikkiis an artist, composer and performer based in Scotland, who specialises in working with voice to create ethereal spaces that unearth ‘mnemonic topographies – the land encoded in the song, the lore embedded in the land’.

In research-led, multi-disciplinary projects she considers how sound, gesture, and language frame our connection with our environment, the more-than-human, and each another, re-imagining resonant stories of contemporary relevance.

Recent works include Tidesongs; Cloud Cuckoo Island; Sourcemouth: Liquidbody; Women of the Hill; Sing Sign: A close duet and Away with the Birds.

Photograph: Away with the Birds, Hanna Tuulikki, photograph by Alex Boyd, 2014

BBC Radio 4 - Natural Histories, Blackbird

Not forgetting:
BBC Radio 4 - Tweet of the Day, Blackbird
BBC Radio 4 - Tweet of the Day, Kim Durbin on the Blackbird
.
.
.