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Go on a sleepy voyage with British birdsong and gentle classical music

Take a sleepy sonic voyage across British woodlands, reedbeds, coasts and farmlands, filled with gentle British birdsong, accompanied by classical music from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Introducing.

Take a sleepy voyage of flight across five integral bird habitats: reedbeds, coasts, farmland, woodland, and bogs. This journey features recordings from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½â€™s Springwatch team, accompanied by gentle classical and ambient compositions from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Introducing artists, as well as excerpts from Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast, celebrating the season of the dawn chorus and the fledgling nest.

We start our voyage at a feathery margin along the water’s edge, amidst the rustle of swathes of reeds in the reedbed, with the sound of the willow warbler, and bittern. We travel to the cliffs, rocky shores, and shingle beaches of the coast, hearing the calls of the rock pipit, oyster catcher, and Manx shearwaters, along with the beach surf and the sounds of the sea from a clifftop vantage point.

Our voyage turns back inland, to the flower-rich grasslands and green fields of farmlands, where we hear the calls of the owl, chaffinch, and skylarks. We move among the cool shade of gently rustling leaves from oak, ash, hazel, and beech trees in British woodland. We hear the songs of whitethroats and redstarts, as well as the sounds of the song thrush and blackbird. Finally, we journey to the squelchy, muddy wetland bogs and boreal forest habitats, hearing the churring of nightjars, willow warblers, and snipe.

A Reduced Listening production for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 3 Unwind
Produced by Cat Gough

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Sounds to play The Sleeping Forecast."

Available now

1 hour

On radio

Saturday 23:30

Music Played

  • Helen Keeling-Maston

    Water

  • Sarah Baker

    Sunlight on Water

  • Eleri Morgan

    Across The Water

  • Liam McCollum

    Waterways

  • Steve Luck  

    Coasting

  • Martin Andrew Smith

    Waters Of The Sea

  • Hayley Morton

    From An Oyster Shell

  • Lake Turner

    Near The Shores

  • Angeline Bell

    The Silent Owl

  • James Peter Moffatt

    The Barn

  • Stuart MacRae

    Field

  • Anna Wilson

    Deer In Sunlit Woodland For Cello and Piano

  • Roger Evernden

    Born To Sing (Blackbird)

  • Rachel Leah

    Woodland Stream

  • Richard Laurence

    Woodland Daisies 

  • Christof R Davis

    The Owl The Dark (ambient version)

  • Pangolin Dreams

    Nightjar

  • IMAGINARIS

    Bryony Weiss Out On The Marsh

Broadcasts

  • Last Monday 23:30
  • Saturday 23:30
  • Thu 19 Jun 2025 23:30

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