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Available for 16 days

Otters, wild swans, roe deer, starlings and hares in the mountains, valleys, rivers and fens of these, our Wild Isles. Today's programme takes us on safari all over the British Isles, celebrating its unique landscapes, flora and fauna. The poet Elizabeth Sears Bates asks what we would see from an owl’s perspective; Robert Burns converses with a wee sleekit, cowerin’, timorous beastie as he accidentally disturbs it from it’s comfy nest, and we’ll hear an archive recording of Noel Coward’s masterful reading of Clemence Dane’s poem “The Welcoming Land”. There are also Wild Swans from poet WB Yeats and composer Elena Kats-Chernin and a glorious murmuration of starlings by Peter Tallis. Our wild Isles soundtrack also includes Schubert’s Trout Quintet, Janacek’s “Cunning Little Vixen”, Orcadian sea birds from Erland Cooper and a Bonny Moorhen from Steeleye Span. Two recent winners of the National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award also feature today: Jacob Fitzgerald’s 2021 piece “Murmuration” for the Palisander recorder ensemble, as well as a poem by the 2022 winner Christopher Churcher, who celebrates the strutting, boisterous capercaillie. Oh, and Captain Beaky and his Band wander through the woodland singing songs and righting wrongs. Part of the ��ѿ��ý's Wild About Nature week of programmes on radio and TV which includes Katherine Rundell's series A Carnival of Animals broadcasting on ��ѿ��ý Radio 4 and ��ѿ��ý Sounds and a series of special concerts, the New Music show and guests on Radio 3 and Radio 3 Unwind programmes including the birdsong featured on Radio 3's Breakfast. Producer: Les Pratt Readings: Melissa Harrison - Rain (excerpt) William Cowper - The Squirrel Thomas Hardy - The Woodlanders (excerpt) Zaffar Kunial - The Hedge Claire Ratinon - Unearthed (excerpt) Clemence Dane - The Welcoming Land (read by Noel Coward) Henry Williamson - Tarka the Otter (excerpt) William Shakespeare - Venus & Adonis (excerpt) Elizabeth Sears Bates - What sees the Owl? Jini Reddy - Wanderland (excerpt) Jim Carruth - Roe Robert Burns - To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785 Peter Tallis - Murmuration W.B. Yeats - The Wild Swans at Coole Christopher Churcher - Capercaillie Katherine Rundell - The Hare (excerpt)