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While I lament the loss of several DAB radio stations, including Oneword, I was tickled to find that instead you can listen to birdsong - literally. Twist your DAB radio knob until you find the station, also called Birdsong.

Birdsong was broadcasted when Oneword went off air. It was originally used for the test transmission of Classic FM before its launch in 1992. It was then used three years ago for the station “D1_temp” and was popular with listeners who sent into complaints when it was taken off air in June 2005.

Since April 2008, it has broadcast (most effectively) in stereo.

Devoted listeners should note warnings on the UK Digital Radio website:

Listeners and Birdsong enthusiasts should note the transmission could cease at any time and that the recording is not commercially available.

Please note that the line up of birds featured in the cast may change without warning due to illness, weather and migration.

One listener quoted in a Telegraph Online article said:

It is a lot more enjoyable than some of the rubbish on air these days - and definitely better than debate or phone-in shows full of ‘oiks’ shouting at each other.

Read the Telegraph Online article about the surprising popularity of Birdsong.

As for me, it’s like having the outside inside which as I stare lovingly at the garden from one of the kitchen windows and over the urban valley through the other, makes me feel like I am in some weird kind of aural landscape! I recommend it.

Today I visited a bluebell wood for the first time (Mottisfont, Hampshire). I have always regarded bluebells as flowers of deep fascination and being in the middle of their magic carpet today made me feel like the eternal child of a great old tree. Incredible also to be in the wood within less than an hour from leaving home. A short train ride to the rural station of Mottisfont & Dunbridge and then a 15 minute walk up to the woods, many of which are protected and cared for by the National Trust.

Being in a bluebell wood for the first time transported me to a time which I only remember within the memories of my cells. There is no cognitive memory of it, but humans here, in this part of the world, have surely marvelled at this spring-time show in the same way I did today. There was a sense of that, anyway.

How can anyone call these weeds? They’re the sun, for free.

Before dawn on 21 June a group of 11 people made their way to a meadow in Wiltshire. The journey was made to found and witness the Circle in the West, a new stone momument that will comprise seven ‘circles’ in homage to Stonehenge. The dawn was clearing as Sun was about to break the flat horizon and we were all quieted by the spectacle in front of us while archaeological surveyors plotted the various angles and positions of the sunrise in relation to the centre point of the Circle. The Ox-eye daisies (the day’s eyes) unfurled and stretched in recognition of it. (more…)

Why is it that no matter how much you tread on a lawn with daisies, these beauties always spring back up again with their pure white and proud petals and their sunny centres? To me, daisies demonstrate that there is a place in this idiotic world for eternal optimism and unconditional happiness. They keep springing back up. So can we. These ones were photographed in the Imperial Forum in Rome (April 2005). They’ve obviously been happy for a long time. Enjoy.

These two ladybirds were mating on the leaves of one of the leaves of an oriental poppy in our garden (May 2005). It’s good to see these things still happen in the middle of one of the most innocuous cities in Britain.  How wonderful.