BirdNote Presents
45 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 225 ratingsStories that connect us more deeply with birds, nature, and each other.
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Episodes
An Update on BirdNote Presents
November 18, 2021 21:56 - 1 minute - 955 KBHey BirdNote Presents listeners! A quick update on this podcast feed: Sound Escapes now has its own podcast feed! BirdNote Presents is mostly an archive — to hear the latest stories from BirdNote on our other podcasts: BirdNote Daily Bring Birds Back Threatened Thanks for listening to our stories! 🦜🐓🦢🦩🕊🦚🦉🦅🦆
Poetry Month: Heid E. Erdrich
April 30, 2021 16:45 - 9 minutes - 9.05 MBHeid E. Erdrich is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her writing has won fellowships and awards from the National Poetry Series, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Bush Foundation, Loft Literary Center, First People’s Fund, and other honors. Erdrich has twice won a Minnesota Book Award for poetry. Heid edited the 2018 anthology New Poets of Native Nations from Graywolf Press. Her forthcoming poetry collection is Little Big Bully, ...
Poetry Month: Timothy Steele
April 23, 2021 09:00 - 9 minutes - 8.36 MBTimothy Steele is an American poet who has received numerous awards and honors for his poetry, including a Lavan Younger Poets Award, the Los Angeles PEN Center Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Robert Fitzgerald Award for Excellence in the Study of Prosody. He has taught at Stanford University and the University of California in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Since 1987, he has been a professor of English at California State University, Los Angeles. Stele is known for his...
Poetry Month: Traci Brimhall
April 09, 2021 10:07 - 8 minutes - 8.01 MBA native of Minnesota, Traci Brimhall is an Associate Professor and Director of Creative Writing at Kansas State University. Her first published collection, Rookery, features many poems about birds. “Birds just seem to have a kind of spiritual or symbolic weight,” Traci explains. “They feel somehow ancient or ethereal – timeless in a way, and I think poets are often attracted to things that have that sort of feeling.” But her interest in birds began with a common bird, the Red-winged Bl...
Poetry Month: Wendy S. Walters
April 02, 2021 10:00 - 9 minutes - 9.07 MBWendy S. Walters is a non-fiction writer and poet, who holds a MFA/PHD in Poetry and Literature from Cornell University. She is the former Associate Dean of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons, The New School. Currently she serves as Director of the Nonfiction Concentration and Associate Professor of Writing, Nonfiction in the School of the Arts at Columbia University. While Walters was living in L.A. during the early 2000s, she wrote a chapbook, or short collection of poems, abou...
Grouse: Bonus Guest Episode: The Spotted Owl
November 20, 2020 14:00 - 33 minutes - 31.3 MBThis episode we're sharing "Timber Wars," from OPB. The show explores the fight over old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. And at the center of that fight was… a bird! The spotted owl became a lightning rod and a symbol of the divisions between timber interests and environmentalists back in the 90s. And there are some interesting parallels between the spotted owl and the greater sage-grouse and the fights it has sparked in sagebrush country, today. This is the third episode of the ser...
Introducing Threatened
November 17, 2020 11:00 - 1 minute - 5.64 MBA new podcast from BirdNote about about the enduring connections between birds, people and landscapes. Join host Ari Daniel for an escape to the natural world — and a glimpse into the lives of the people working to protect it. Subscribe to Threatened in your podcast app.
Grouse: If Not Hope, Then Courage
October 27, 2020 09:00 - 27 minutes - 28.9 MBIn the final episode of Grouse, Ashley returns to a lek in Washington with biologist Michael Schroeder and finds it scorched by recent wildfire. Michael cries as he looks out over an area that was once home to one of the largest remaining pockets of sage-grouse in the state. But he says he’s not ready to retire yet — there’s more work to be done. We’re all looking for hope right now, but Ashley says what we really need is the courage to keep fighting, loving and dancing, as the sage-grouse h...
Grouse: The Death of Compromise?
October 20, 2020 09:00 - 22 minutes - 26.2 MBBack in 2015, the Obama Administration hammered out a deal with leaders and land managers across the west that avoided listing the Greater Sage-Grouse under the Endangered Species Act. It was a grand compromise that protected key sage-grouse habitat while allowing for continued access to sagebrush country for a diverse set of stakeholders, from ranchers and energy developers to recreational users. There were pats on the back and photo opps with folks in cowboy hats next to folks in Patagonia...
Grouse: Oil and Gas
October 13, 2020 09:30 - 19 minutes - 23.6 MBWestern Wyoming is home to many sage-grouse mating and nesting sites. And, in recent years, it’s also become a hub of oil and gas extraction. Matt Holloran knows this all too well. He did his PhD - back in 2000 - on sage-grouse and how natural gas drilling affects them, and has been studying the birds ever since. Ashley Ahearn heads to oil and gas country to visit a lek with Matt Holloran, and interview Paul Ulrich, VP of Jonah Energy, who says there’s “more work to be done” and it will invo...
Grouse: The Story of the Grieving Woman and the Sage-Grouse
October 06, 2020 09:30 - 21 minutes - 22.8 MBThe Greater Sage-Grouse appears in the the songs, stories and dances of many Indigenous Peoples of the West. In this episode of Grouse, Wilson Wewa, an elder of the Northern Paiute of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon, remembers the first time he encountered a sage-grouse lek as a child. He also shares an ancient story from the Wasco Nation about a grieving woman who finds solace among the sage hens. We are losing these birds, Wilson says, but they can still provide important lessons ab...
Grouse: Is What’s Good for the Herd Good for the Bird?
September 29, 2020 09:00 - 22 minutes - 26.6 MBThere are a lot of people who say cows are one of the biggest environmental problems in the west — and they’re making life harder for the Greater Sage-Grouse. But for many in sagebrush country, cows symbolize a way of life that is under attack. Merrill Beyeler, a rancher in Idaho who grazes his cows in sage-grouse country, is finding ways to make it work for the herd and the birds. This episode contains brief, explicit language at 6:52.
Grouse: Fire and the Questions It Raises
September 22, 2020 09:00 - 18 minutes - 22.9 MBCaleb McAdoo is a biologist with Nevada Fish and Game. He’s lived in sagebrush country his whole life — he loves this landscape — and now, he’s watching it disappear before his very eyes as cheatgrass and wildfire take over. In this episode of Grouse, join Ashley Ahearn for a trip to the vanishing sagebrush sea in Nevada — and find out what fire means for the Greater Sage-Grouse.
Grouse: In Search of the Bird, Through Time
September 15, 2020 07:05 - 17 minutes - 22 MBMike Schroeder has been studying sage-grouse in Washington state — where the population is declining — since the 1980s. Mike takes Grouse host Ashley Ahearn on a journey to find this troubled bird and explore some scientific and cultural lore surrounding it, from American Indians to Lewis and Clark to Roosevelt. Will they find any sage-grouse today? Why is this bird in so much trouble? Should anyone care?
Grouse: Stranger in a Strange Land
September 15, 2020 07:00 - 17 minutes - 22 MBGrouse series host Ashley Ahearn burns out on the urban rat race, leaves her job at a top NPR member station, and moves to 20 acres of sagebrush in rural Washington state. She discovers the Greater Sage-Grouse, a bird that is native to the land where she now lives — and fits in a whole lot better than she does. What is a sage-grouse, and why does everyone get so worked up about this bird?
Introducing Grouse
August 31, 2020 20:31 - 1 minute - 5.62 MBThe Greater Sage-Grouse has eclipsed the Spotted Owl as perhaps the most controversial North American bird in the 21st century. These strange, wonderful birds live exclusively in the sagebrush steppe of the intermountain west. But they are in decline and protecting them has sparked fights between stakeholders across the region. Host Ashley Ahearn is a newcomer to sagebrush country, and she uses her personal journey — as an outsider trying to understand rural life — to serve as the proxy for ...
Sound Escapes: Our Solar-Powered Jukebox
July 01, 2020 17:13 - 1 hour - 116 MBIn the season finale of Sound Escapes, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton takes us on a whirlwind tour of nearly every habitat on the planet. From tropical forests to deserts to wetlands, you'll hear what the Earth truly is: music spinning in an otherwise silent space. Thank you for joining us on this sonic journey. We hope each episode brought you a sense of peace during these troubled times, and that you have tapped into your natural ability to listen deeply. And now, let’s listen to t...
Sound Escapes: Mark Twain's Limpid Brook
June 24, 2020 12:30 - 25 minutes - 47.6 MB“By modern standards, Mark Twain was really a switched-on listener,” says our Sound Escapes host, Gordon Hempton. “He brilliantly used sound in the crafting of his novels. Birds would sing at the right time of day and in the right situations. He would use thunderstorms to mark the locations of Jim and Huck's journey down the Mississippi.” In this episode of Sound Escapes, we’ll explore what made Mark Twain such an astute listener. Gordon was particularly inspired by a passage in Twain’s a...
Sound Escapes: Song of the Paddle
June 17, 2020 13:00 - 27 minutes - 51.4 MBAfter a long winter in northern Minnesota, everything seems to awaken at once. From the songs of migratory birds to the croaks of frogs and toads, we can witness a wonderful rejuvenation. In this episode of Sound Escapes, paddle a canoe through Voyageurs National Park alongside Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker. We'll hear the hauntingly beautiful duet of a pair of Common Loons — and learn why Gordon refers to cold water lakes as “magic amphitheaters.” Let’s listen…
Sound Escapes: The Poetics of Space
June 10, 2020 17:40Today we head to Pipestone Canyon in Eastern Washington, where you can hear a ridgetop wind come from a mile away. You can not only listen to the calls of animals in the distance, but also the waves of echos upon echos as the sound passes through the canyon: a form of dimensional information that Gordon Hempton calls, “The poetics of space.” Let's listen...
Sound Escapes: The Poetics of Space
June 10, 2020 17:40 - 28 minutes - 53.4 MBToday we head to Pipestone Canyon in Eastern Washington, where you can hear a ridgetop wind come from a mile away. You can not only listen to the calls of animals in the distance, but also the waves of echos upon echos as the sound passes through the canyon: a form of dimensional information that Gordon Hempton calls, “The poetics of space.” Let's listen...
Sound Escapes: Kalahari Sunrise
June 03, 2020 16:55 - 25 minutes - 46.2 MBExperience dawn in the Kalahari Desert as the sun rises over the sandy savannah in South Africa. It’s nearly level at this part of the Kalahari Desert. The trees are widely spaced. There’s almost no available water. You cannot see very far — the heat itself ripples the horizon. It's hard to imagine any animal feeling at home in this landscape — but they certainly sound like they are. Let’s listen… This podcast is made possible by Jim and Birte Falconer of Seattle.
Sound Escapes: John Muir's Yosemite
May 27, 2020 00:54 - 28 minutes - 52.9 MB“Water makes every sound imaginable and occupies every frequency audible to the human ear and certainly spans the dynamic range from the faintest sound to near distortion,” says Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker. The writings of John Muir can guide our ears, as we listen to the water music: “The deep bass tones of the fall, the clashing ringing spray an infinite variety of small, low tones of the current gliding past the side of the Boulder Island and glinting against a thousand smaller st...
Sound Escapes: Amazon Awakenings
May 20, 2020 18:10 - 29 minutes - 54.5 MBIn this episode of Sound Escapes, you'll hear sounds recorded by Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker, at Zabalo River Wilderness Quiet Park — deep inside the Amazon of Ecuador. Zabalo was certified as the world's first wilderness quiet park on Earth Day in 2019. Gordon calls this place a living Eden. "And when we listen there, we listen for miles. Not city blocks. We listen for miles." Whether you're sheltering in place or taking a break from your duties as an essential worker, we hope thi...
Sound Escapes: Songs of Spring
May 20, 2020 16:43 - 31 minutes - 58.6 MB"Olympic National Park has taught me that it's possible to not only love a place, but love a place deeply at first listen," says Gordon Hempton. "And spring is when Olympic is at its most musical." Delight in the sounds of Pacific Chorus Frogs, the Varied Thrush, grouse, and many more in our first sonic expedition. Support for Sound Escapes comes from Jim and Birte Falconer of Seattle.
Introducing Sound Escapes Season 2
May 19, 2020 18:14 - 1 minute - 4.53 MBFor those of us sheltering in place, it’s easy to feel the walls of our homes closing in. But sound can set us free. All we need to do is listen. In these eight episodes, you'll hear soundscapes from the wildest places on the planet personally selected by host Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker, from his thousands of hours of recordings. "These sound portraits are really about my love for the planet, and I hope to transfer to you that same feeling of reverence," says Gordon. "Isn't it spe...
In the Clear: The Problem with Birds and Glass
February 18, 2020 22:42 - 24 minutes - 34.2 MBWindow strikes are among the most serious threats to birds in North America, killing an estimated 1 billion birds every year. In New York City, between 90,000 and 230,000 birds die annually from collisions with the city’s buildings, according to NYC Audubon. But recent legislation requiring bird-friendly glass on new construction offers a hopeful precedent. BirdNote's Mark Bramhill visited the Big Apple to learn more about this complex problem — and how the community is responding. Join Ma...
Rachel Carson and the Veery
January 07, 2020 01:24 - 25 minutes - 34.9 MBRachel Carson is known best for writing Silent Spring. It’s a condemnation of DDT and other toxic pesticides and how they hurt the environment. When the book was published in 1962, it was full of new information that shocked most Americans. Silent Spring led to a radical shift in national pesticide policies, and the book has been credited with sparking the modern environmental movement. But before all that, Carson built a summer house. It was at the edge of a cliff on the coast of Maine, o...
Wingspan Takes Flight
December 04, 2019 17:00 - 5 minutes - 16.5 MBThe board game Wingspan came out this year to a lot of buzz. The bird-themed game is fun, but it’s also having a surprising impact. It’s gotten board gamers hooked on birds — and birders hooked on board games! Wingspan from Stonemaier Games Buy Wingspan on Amazon
A Conversation with J. Drew Lanham
November 19, 2019 20:54 - 37 minutes - 45.6 MBBirdNote host Ashley Ahearn recently sat down with Dr. J. Drew Lanham at the University of Washington College of the Environment Symposium on Nature and Health. The conversation wove through Dr. Lanham’s poetry, readings from his memoir, and his thoughts about faith, climate change, the loss of birds, and the ways we can work together to confront systemic racism. “What I’ve learned from all the years of looking for birds in far-flung places and expecting the worst from people is that my as...
Introducing BirdNote Presents
November 14, 2019 20:36 - 1 minute - 12.6 MBHey Sound Escapes listeners! Just a heads up that this is now the feed for BirdNote Presents, the home for all longform and special podcast projects from BirdNote. We've got lots of great stuff coming, including a story about Rachel Carson and a kind of thrush, a series on cats and birds, and another season of Sound Escapes. If you're subscribed to this feed, you don't need to do anything — new episodes will download automatically. We can't wait for you to hear what we've been working on. ...
7: Nightfall on the Zabalo
August 14, 2019 16:56 - 30 minutes - 54.9 MBToday we’re visiting the Zabalo River in Ecuador. It’s a completely undisturbed ecosystem, where all the creatures we hear are all native to the land, and have coexisted and continued to evolve together for thousands of years. No animal is stepping on the communications of another animal. No two birds sound alike. Let’s listen… This is the final episode of Sound Escapes. If you’ve enjoyed this special BirdNote production, consider giving a donation today. No matter how much, know that ever...
Sound Escapes: Nightfall on the Zabalo
August 14, 2019 16:56 - 30 minutes - 54.9 MBToday we’re visiting the Zabalo River in Ecuador. It’s a completely undisturbed ecosystem, where all the creatures we hear are all native to the land, and have coexisted and continued to evolve together for thousands of years. No animal is stepping on the communications of another animal. No two birds sound alike. Let’s listen… This is the final episode of Sound Escapes. If you’ve enjoyed this special BirdNote production, consider giving a donation today. No matter how much, know that ever...
6: Cold Lake Amphitheater
July 12, 2019 16:00 - 25 minutes - 46.1 MBA great place to listen to insects — and birds — is a remote mountain lake in the spring. The surrounding mountians and properties of the cold water make these lakes some of nature's great concert halls. Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist and sonic guide for the this series, recorded the sounds of this lake in Washington’s Methow Valley. The air is so clear of noise you’ll actually be able to hear the tiny splashes of lake trout gobbling up insects from just below the surface. Now let's ...
Sound Escapes: Cold Lake Amphitheater
July 12, 2019 16:00 - 25 minutes - 46.1 MBA great place to listen to insects — and birds — is a remote mountain lake in the spring. The surrounding mountians and properties of the cold water make these lakes some of nature's great concert halls. Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist and sonic guide for the this series, recorded the sounds of this lake in Washington’s Methow Valley. The air is so clear of noise you’ll actually be able to hear the tiny splashes of lake trout gobbling up insects from just below the surface. Now let's ...
Sound Escapes: Riot of Music
June 14, 2019 22:15 - 26 minutes - 49.2 MBThe young Samuel Langhorne Clemens - later known as Mark Twain - signed on to train as a pilot on a Mississippi riverboat when he was just 22. He quickly discovered that if he volunteered for the early morning shift, he could experience one of the most incredible musical shows there is.
5: Riot of Music
June 14, 2019 22:15 - 26 minutes - 49.2 MBThe young Samuel Langhorne Clemens - later known as Mark Twain - signed on to train as a pilot on a Mississippi riverboat when he was just 22. He quickly discovered that if he volunteered for the early morning shift, he could experience one of the most incredible musical shows there is.
4: Land Between the Lakes
May 10, 2019 22:43 - 26 minutes - 48.5 MBLand Between the Lakes National Recreation Area is a massive inland peninsula, bordered by sections of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers that were permanently flooded as a part of FDR’s New Deal. Humans changed this landscape, but now birds have claimed it - and they are flourishing.
Sound Escapes: Land Between the Lakes
May 10, 2019 22:43 - 26 minutes - 48.5 MBLand Between the Lakes National Recreation Area is a massive inland peninsula, bordered by sections of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers that were permanently flooded as a part of FDR’s New Deal. Humans changed this landscape, but now birds have claimed it - and they are flourishing.
3: The Auditory Horizon
April 09, 2019 21:22 - 25 minutes - 47.5 MBWe’re back with our guide, Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker. Today he’s taking us to Saskatchewan’s Grasslands National Park, just a few miles north of the Canada/US border. As you’re listening, close your eyes and envision how all of these voices fit together — how each one is settled into just the right place on the spectrum.
Sound Escapes: The Auditory Horizon
April 09, 2019 21:22 - 25 minutes - 47.5 MBWe’re back with our guide, Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker. Today he’s taking us to Saskatchewan’s Grasslands National Park, just a few miles north of the Canada/US border. As you’re listening, close your eyes and envision how all of these voices fit together — how each one is settled into just the right place on the spectrum.
2: The Song of the Big Island
March 08, 2019 22:42 - 29 minutes - 54.8 MBTake a carbon-free journey to Hawaii in the second episode of Sound Escapes. The Song of the Big Island takes us from the waves on the beach to deep within the Hawaiian rainforest.
Sound Escapes: The Song of the Big Island
March 08, 2019 22:42 - 29 minutes - 54.8 MBTake a carbon-free journey to Hawaii in the second episode of Sound Escapes. The Song of the Big Island takes us from the waves on the beach to deep within the Hawaiian rainforest.
1: Relearn the Art of Listening
February 13, 2019 01:12 - 27 minutes - 50.2 MBGordon Hempton has spent his life recording the sounds of the natural world, from the rainforest of Hawai’i to the vast dry prairies of North America. Then, one morning, he woke up to silence. Ever since his first sudden encounter with hearing loss, Gordon has made it his mission to share the art of truly listening. He believes that in our noisy, busy world we’ve forgotten how to hear. With Sound Escapes, a new podcast from BirdNote, we teach you how to listen with new ears.
Sound Escapes: Relearn the Art of Listening
February 13, 2019 01:12 - 27 minutes - 50.2 MBGordon Hempton has spent his life recording the sounds of the natural world, from the rainforest of Hawai’i to the vast dry prairies of North America. Then, one morning, he woke up to silence. Ever since his first sudden encounter with hearing loss, Gordon has made it his mission to share the art of truly listening. He believes that in our noisy, busy world we’ve forgotten how to hear. With Sound Escapes, a new podcast from BirdNote, we teach you how to listen with new ears.