The Plodcast
BBC Countryfile Magazine brings you The Plodcast - a weekly escape to the British countryside with fascinating guests and the wonders of the great outdoors. Enjoy a new escape into the countryside every Tuesday and wind down with our Sound Escapes on a Friday. Find out more about us at www.countryfile.com/podcast Subscribe to the print version of BBC Countryfile Magazine at https://www.ourmediashop.com/bbc-countryfile-magazine-wmonx25
Episodes
The RSPB's annual Big Garden Birdwatch is one of the world's biggest citizen science projects and provides incredible insights into the populations of our common birds.To find out more, Plodcast host Fergus meets the RSPB's Chief Operating Officer James Robinson in beautiful RSPB Nagshead Nature Reserve in Gloucestershire. As they listen out for winter birdlife, James explains to Fergus why the Birdwatch matters and how to get invo...
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January 8, 2026 • 12 mins
It's bright and sunny but it's an illusion: a gale is swirling through the treetops, the aftermath of last night's storm. Shielded among the trees, you enjoy a walk through piles of fallen leaves – even the most reluctant faller plucked from its twig by the wind.BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be...
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January 5, 2026 • 53 mins
Happy New Year and welcome to the first Plodcast of 2026. The Plodcast is a weekly adventure in the British countryside brought to you by BBC Countryfile Magazine. In this episode, Plodcast host Fergus Collins sets out on a bright morning into a little known upland landscape in the Bannau Brycheiniog to search for the legendary Chartists' Cave. He is joined by friend and regular walking leader for the Crickhowell Walking Festival A...
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January 1, 2026 • 13 mins
It's early morning and the winter's frost is receding as you step out into the brisk air. The low coos of wood pigeons greet you as you gaze at the mellow pink sky. The sounds of people to-ing and fro-ing tell you it's time to put the kettle on.BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be. Recorded by Jack...
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December 29, 2025 • 49 mins
A very special Plodcast to end 2025. The Plodcast team of Fergus, Hannah, Kev, Jack and Lewis head to the Somerset Levels in the hope of witnesses and recording one of Europe's most extraordinary wildlife spectacles: the great starling roost over the reedbeds of this wild and wonderful part of the West Country. It did not disappoint. Have a listen!
Thank you so much for listening and contributing to the Plodcast in 2025. Have a ...
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December 25, 2025 • 15 mins
Dusk is imminent and you're standing on a raised path, an old abandoned railway line through the marshes. For the past 30 minutes vast uncountable flocks of starlings have poured overhead and settled in the reedbeds. Now, millions of chattering voices sound like breakers on a distant shore while other wetland birds chur and chunter unseen.BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to h...
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December 22, 2025 • 58 mins
Join the Plodcast team of Fergus, Hannah, Jack and Lewis – with special guest and quiz master Kevin Parr. As well as tackling Kev's now legendary Plodcast quiz, the team gather by the fire to reminisce about the past year's adventures in nature and the countryside. Plus, Jack has some jokes... Thank you so much for listening and contributing to the Plodcast in 2025. Have a very Happy Christmas and don't forget to tune in on 30 Dece...
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December 18, 2025 • 15 mins
After climbing a few steps you're atop the sea wall and the vast skies and broad seascape of the Bristol Channel open before you. You're looking south from Wales across the water to Somerset and North Devon. It's eerily quiet with just a distant roar of water, a passing plane and the calls of occasional passing gulls, curlews and goldfinches.
BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countrys...
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December 15, 2025 • 50 mins
Plodcast host Fergus heads to Cleobury Mortimer in deeply rural Shropshire to visit the Netherton Foundry. Here, Neil and Sue Currie and their team make beautiful spun-iron cookware using traditional skills and tools. And Fergus gets the chance to fashion frying pans from scratch – a magical insight into a thriving, family-run rural business. A huge thanks to Neil and Sue, as well as Ryan, Toby, Colin and Maddie for their time – an...
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December 11, 2025 • 13 mins
A cold front has swept down from the north overnight but it's a bright morning over the frosty marshes. A breeze pushes ripples across a lagoon of deepest blue and then gently jostles the dead rushes and reeds. Nothing else stirs.
BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be.
Recorded by Fergus Coll...
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December 8, 2025 • 60 mins
Plodcast regular Kevin Parr joins host Fergus Collins for a charming mushroom hunting walk in a wooded Welsh valley. Along the way, as the foraging basket with treats, they discuss Kev's extraordinary new book, An Unnatural History of Britain – his series of epic quests in search of animals that really shouldn't be here.
It's an unmissable audio delight. An Unnatural History of Britain is published by The History Press.
The BBC...
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December 4, 2025 • 13 mins
After 36 hours of rain, the town floods and then the waters recede, surging down brooks such as this. You pause on a bridge above, hearing a stranger, bolder song in a stream you thought you knew so well.
BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be.
Recorded by Fergus Collins and introduced by Han...
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December 1, 2025 • 62 mins
This week, we're heading to the bleakly beautiful Essex marshes to meet historian and birder Michael J Warren – and thousands of waders and wildfowl in this stunning area of big skies, haunting calls and endless water.
Michael's celebrated new book, A Cuckoo's Lea (published by Bloomsbury) explores how our medieval ancestors included birds in so many of their places names (most of which survive today) and reveals how immersed in ...
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November 27, 2025 • 14 mins
Deep in the Essex Marshes, you find solitude on a path that skirts marsh and lagoon. But you're not entirely alone – from the creeks and open water the fluting calls of waders and ducks and the deeper gutteral utterances of Brent geese create a haunting soundtrack of true wilderness. Wilderness, that is, a sole fishing boat chugs by on its lonely morning mission.
BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard...
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November 24, 2025 • 39 mins
Join the Plodcast team of Fergus, Hannah, Jack and Lewis in a wild corner of the centre of Bristol for a long-awaited Plodchat – a round-up of our nature adventures plus listener emails, recordings and other funny moments we've had out in the countryside.
Photo taken from Ep. 312, where the team took on the Macmillan Mighty Hike (August 2025)!
Also, the Plodcast is very proud to announce that it is media partner for the Speaki...
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November 20, 2025 • 18 mins
It's a still autumn morning and you've headed to the sea wall along the edge of the saltmarsh. A gentle rain falls as robins sing in the scrub on the landward side of the wall while occasional redshanks peep and lament from the marsh.
BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport you somewhere beautiful, wherever you happen to be.
Recorded by Fergus Coll...
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November 17, 2025 • 57 mins
This week we're in Hampshire, looking for dormice. These tiny, charming little mammals are hard to find at the best of times but numbers have been declining for decades mainly due to changes to how we manage our woodlands.
Plodcast host Fergus joins Ian White from the People's Trust for Endangered Species, Charlotte Rimmer who is Senior Countryside Officer for Test Vally Borough Council and Richard Genn who owns the woodland to fi...
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November 13, 2025 • 20 mins
A path winds on before you, running along the top of an ancient earthwork constructed over a 1000 years ago. To the west, the land falls away into a deep river valley, to the east, fertile farmland that this fortification once protected. Your feet crunch on this year's freshly fallen beech and hazel leaves while a wind blows up for the west, breaking over the dyke as an echo of an invading army.
BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound E...
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November 10, 2025 • 50 mins
From the end of Saxon England last week, we head to the height of Saxon power in Mercia and the reign of King Offa (757-796). Plodcast host Fergus takes a walk along Offa's great work – a massive defensive earthwork that ran along much of the Welsh Borders and can still be encountered today.
What is Offa's Dyke and why and how did Offa build it? Listen on to find out more.
Also, the Plodcast is very proud to announce that it is ...
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November 6, 2025 • 10 mins
You've wandered down to the river to listen to its gentle song – but what's that strange birdsong? A metallic chirruping from the far bank... it's a dipper, it's while bib bobbing at the water's edge. And now a kingfisher zips past with a hoarse, high-pitched whistle. Moments of magic on an overcast autumn day.
BBC Countryfile Magazine's Sound Escapes are a weekly audio postcard from the countryside to help you relax and transport...
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