Nature's Voice

The results of this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch sees the lovely long tailed tit making it back into the number 10 spot on the chart. On this edition of Nature’s Voice Jane Markham examines the results with RSPB conservation scientist Dr Daniel Hayhow.  Nowadays most entries arrive online but in 1979, when it all started, they arrived by post. We hear from Peter Holden who had the task of sifting through and recording the results from huge sacks of mail.

Hen harriers will begin their spectacular courtship sky dance in and around March but they remain one of the UK's most threatened birds of prey. Illegal persecution on upland intensive grouse moors is the most important threat to their survival. On this month's Nature's Voice Jane Markham meets Bea Ayling who manages the RSPB's Hen Harrier LIFE+ project about this remarkable bird and to Andre Farrar about his hopes for a new government backed hen harrier action plan. 

Hattie Garlick's new book Born to be Wild is full of ideas to get children outdoors without spending lots of money and in this – the 100th edition of Nature’s Voice – Jane Markham visits Hattie for a sneak preview. The book's published in March, and as an RSPB licensed book, part of the cover price willbe helping save wildlife. We’ll also be looking at things to do outdoors at RSPB reserves as the February half term approaches.

If your image of a scientist is someone in a white coat then RSPB conservation scientists Dr Jennifer Smart and Dr Ellie Owen will dispel that image for good. Their work has them up to their knees in water or harnessed on the edge of some of the UK's highest cliffs! Jane Markham meets them both. But science isn't the only way to help the natural world and she also talks to singer and songwriter Miel de Botton about her song Birds without Borders inspired by the RSPB's campaign of the same name.

Beecroft Academy in Dunstable is centre stage on this episode of Nature's Voice. Jane Markham went on a school visit with RSPB early years education officer Rebecca Kerfoot in the run up to January's Big Schools Birdwatch. And there are lots of new things for teachers, and the children in their classes, can do to prepare for the count which takes place in the first half of next term. 

In the run up to the Paris Climate Change Conference this edition of Nature's Voice looks at how climate change is affecting wildlife. The RSPB's conservation director Martin Harper talks to Jane Markham about the challenges ahead and we celebrate a success story. Bitterns, their reedbed habitats on the coast threatened by rising sea levels and reduced to a handful of breeding pairs in the mid 1990s, are now flourishing at Lakenheath Fen in reedbeds planted with the help of volunteers.

Response for Nature is a follow up to The State of Nature Report published in 2013. Two years on, and after detailed research, the RSPB and more than 20 other conservation organisations have joined forces to call for action from each of our devolved governments to stop the decline in biodiversity across the UK. On this edition of Nature's Voice Jane Markham talks to Philippa Richards the RSPB's project officer for the Response for Nature project. She'll also be visiting Fevered Sleep (the performing arts company) to find out about their response to the State of Nature Report  - an online digital artwork called An Open Field.

This July, sections of the sea wall at Wallasea Island in Essex were breached as part of a project to recreate more than seven square kilometres of rare coastal habitats. These are to compensate for habitat lost for development and rising sea levels due to climate change. It's one of the RSPB's most ambitious ventures to date and has been made possible with the help of three million tons of clean soils from one of its key partners, Crossrail, who are building London's new railway. For Nature's Voice this month Jane Markham was given a guided tour of the reserve by the RSPB's project manager, Chris Tyas, to see how the new saline lagoons and mud flats are shaping up.

The puffin is on the new European Red List of birds under threat. Their main breeding colonies in Iceland and Norway have seen sharp declines in the number of chicks making it through to adulthood, and the alarm bells are ringing for this iconic and much-loved sea bird. On this episode of Nature's Voice, and with this year's breeding season in full swing, Jane Markham talks to the RSPB's Keith Clarkson about the puffins (and their pufflings) breeding at the Bempton Cliffs reserve, and to conservation scientist Dr Mark Eaton about what is going wrong and what can be done to help. Plus, we look ahead to this year's Big Wild Sleepout.

EU legislation – the Birds and Habitats Directives – which protect the most important wildlife species and habitats in the UK and Europe are being reviewed and at risk of being weakened. On this month's nature's voice, Jane Markham visits the RSPB's heathland reserve at Arne in Dorset, one of the world's rarest habitats, and a place which is protected thanks to the Birds and Habitats Directives. She also speaks to Alistair Taylor, the RSPB's Senior Policy Officer for Nature Directives, and looks at the Defend Nature campaign, which is how you can help protect the laws which protect nature. 

The folk rock band Stornoway's new album includes birdsong woven into the music. On this edition of Nature's Voice Jane Markham meets their lead singer and ornithologist Brian Briggs, and fellow band member Jon Ouin, on Oxford's Port Meadow to explore their inspiration. There are also details of how you can download a free track from their album, Bonxie. Plus the Big Garden Birdwatch results are out - Molly and Frankie are back to countdown this year's top ten.

Last year the Somerset levels were experiencing the worst floods in living memory - a year on how did the cranes, which are being reintroduced there, cope.  And what about the other wildlife? On this edition of Nature's Voice Jane Markham visits Damon Bridge manager of the Great Crane Project at the RSPB's West Sedgemoor reserve. Plus  the RSPB's conservation director Martin Harper looks ahead to an important year for climate change negotiations and we hear the voices of stars from Stephen Fry to Alison Steadman, Raymond Blanc to Meera Syal in their video contribution to the Climate Change Coalition. 

For the Big Garden Birdwatch this year, why not try photographing the birds that come to your bird feeders? The RSPB's Ben Andrew has been trying out a motion-triggered camera at The Lodge nature reserve and has tips and advice on how to do it. Plus, we visit the RSPB's Richard Bashford and his family and set them a Big Garden Birdwatch quiz. How many birds can you identify from their calls and a few hints?

The Sandwell Valley nature reserve on the edge of Birmingham is a great place to see the winter migrants which will be arriving throughout the month including goosanders and pintails.  On this edition of Nature's Voice Jane Markham braves the weather to visit the team there. Plus, now the BBC's Autumn Watch has completed its series at the RSPB's Leighton Moss reserve, we find the otters are still coming out to play.  

One of the last places where you are almost guaranteed to hear nightingales sing in spring is under threat after outline planning permission was granted on a Site of Special Scientific Interest in Kent. Jane Markham talks to the RSPB's Rolf Williams about what you can do to help. We visit the first RSPB Garden Festival, part of the Giving Nature a Home in Glasgow project. And look ahead to September's Members Day and AGM at its new home at the ICC in Birmingham with details of an 'early bird' discount if you want to go along. 

Sir David Attenborough is one of the speakers at September's Conference for Nature. The event builds on the State of Nature report which showed that 60 per cent of UK species are in decline. The 12 wildlife partners behind the event hope to develop ideas to work with politicians and businesses which will reverse these declines. This month's Nature's Voice previews the conference and finds out how the Vote for Bob campaign hopes to influence party manifestos in the run up to next year's general election.

The RSPB's Skydancer project has been nominated for a National Lottery Award in the Best Education Project category and on this month's Nature's Voice Jane Markham talks to Blanaid Denman about how the project is raising awareness of the Hen Harrier's plight as  England's most persecuted bird of prey. And Andre Farrar looks at the implications for wildlife caused by the  increasingly intensified management of moorland for the grouse shooting industry. 

16 years ago Doñana National Park in southern Spain was devastated by a blanket of toxic sludge. Today, after years of work costing £74 million, it is once again teeming with wildlife. But there are new threats to this internationally important wetland  - Jane Markham talks to RSPB campaigner Conor Jameson about its plight. Plus Clare Stringer, Head of the RSPB's UK Overseas Territories Unit,  discusses her team's report on the 28,000 species which live in these, often remote, parts of the world. It includes the incredibly rare yellow spiky woodlouse!         

For the Big Wild Sleepout this year why not host a sleepover in your garden? The idea is to get up close to nature, and raise money to protect it, by spending a night outdoors between June 16th and 22nd. Jane Markham talks to Richard Bashford about how to get the most out of your sleepout. Plus the RSPB's Minsmere reserve in Suffolk is the new home for the BBC's Springwatch programmes. Will they film a bittern 'booming' and perhaps, more excitingly, will these rare and secretive herons breed in the reedbeds? 

This year, as part of the Big Garden Birdwatch,  the RSPB asked about the wildlife that visits our gardens - not just the birds.  These results have just been released.  More than half of us saw frogs and toads and on this edition of Nature's Voice Jane Markham talks to Dr John Wilkinson from the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust and to Mark Ward, Editor of Nature's Home magazine, about the importance of our gardens when it comes to providing homes for wildlife.  And as swallows and swifts start to arrive in the UK to breed the head of the RSPB's migrants programme Danae Sheenan welcomes them back and talks about what we can do to protect them while they are here and on their long and perilous journeys.