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PODCAST

The Listener Podcast

The Listening Planet, podcast series draws from a lifetime of recording the natural world across more than 60 countries and five continents, offering listeners an intimate journey into Earth’s most remarkable soundscapes. Each episode immerses audiences in authentic recordings of birds, mammals, insects, amphibians, and entire ecosystems — from fragile rainforests and vast oceans to deserts, wetlands, and remote wilderness. Through these soundscapes, you reveal the hidden voices of nature, the rich

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All Episodes

3:29

[PREVIEW] EXTINCTION HAS A SOUND

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/10/01

When I was a young boy in Birmingham, I first learned what the word extinct meant.Gone forever.Back then, I couldn't really comprehend it. Today, that word has followed me throughout my life.For more than five decades I have travelled the world recording the voices of nature. Some of those voices have now disappeared from the wild.I recorded the Hawaiian crow, the ʻAlalā, now extinct in the wild.I recorded the Panamanian golden frog, a species that has disappeared from its natural soundscape.I

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2:13

[PREVIEW] THE HYENAS OF THE SKELETON COAST

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/08/14

The first time I ever recorded wild hyenas was on the remote Skeleton Coast of Namibia.I ran a cable from my rooftop tent, placed my microphones near a carcass and waited in the darkness.What I recorded that night completely changed the way I thought about hyenas. Their communication was extraordinary — arguments, warnings, excitement, submission and a very obvious hierarchy within the clan.Years later, those same recordings found their way into a project with Stewart Copeland of The Police — and,

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9:51

The Bee That Found Me

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/08/05

I've wandered through rainforests where the air was so thick with life it almost hummed. I've stood on Arctic tundra in silence so complete you could hear snow settling. I've recorded dawn choruses in Africa, the haunting calls of wolves in North America, and the songs of birds that may never be heard again.More than sixty countries. Tens of thousands of hours behind a microphone.Yet there is one sound that has followed me everywhere.The bee.It has become something of a running joke with me. No

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2:43

[PREVIEW] Stossel creek from 2000

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/07/19

This series of recordings was made at the same location, on the same day and at the same time each year, from 2000 to 2017.Each segment is 30 seconds long, allowing you to hear the gradual decline of the soundscape over time. When I began recording here, Pacific chorus frogs were abundant, forming a rich natural chorus. As the years pass, their voices diminish, and in some years they disappear altogether.At the same time, human noise steadily increases. Aircraft become more frequent overhead, and

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2:12

[PREVIEW] The Daintree

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/07/05

The first time I stepped into the Daintree Rainforest, I was completely blown away.Even getting there felt like an adventure. The road beyond the river was little more than a rough track, so an off road vehicle was essential. To reach the rainforest, you first crossed the Daintree River on a tiny cable ferry, leaving the modern world behind and entering one of the oldest living ecosystems on Earth.We rented a small cabin for a few days, but I hardly spent any time inside it. Every spare moment was

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5:12

Slimbridge

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/07/04

Some places live in your imagination long before you ever set foot there.For me, one of those places was Slimbridge.As a young boy, I sat glued to the television watching Sir Peter Scott and dreaming of the vast flocks of geese and swans that gathered on the wetlands beside the River Severn. Even through the TV speaker, I could sense there was something magical about the sounds of that place.At the age of 21, I finally made the journey. It exceeded every expectation I had carried since childhood and

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6:32

Frogs of Australia: Voices from the Rainforest

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/07/03

Some of the most beautiful sounds I have recorded in Australia have come from frogs.At night, after heavy rain, the forest changes completely. The darkness fills with calls from hidden lives: the Green-lipped Frog calling from the rainforest canopy, Fletcher’s Frog buried in the wet leaf litter, the Sphagnum Frog hidden deep in mossy mountain bogs, and Lesueur’s Frog calling beside clear rocky streams.These are not just frog calls. They are signals of rain, clean water, healthy forests and fragile

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6:05

Buffalo springs

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/06/22

Some recordings stay with you for a lifetime.I traveled from the Kenyan coast at Mombasa to Buffalo Springs, a remarkable reserve in the shadow of Mount Kenya. Before sunrise, sitting quietly outside a rooftop tent, I listened as the landscape slowly came to life.A mysterious dove called constantly across the reserve, White-browed Sparrow joined the chorus, and hidden beneath it all were the voices of frogs adding their own layer to the dawn soundscape.For me, these moments are about far more than

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1:49

[PREVIEW] Tawny frogmouth

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/06/15

Most people think it's an owl.It isn't.The first time I heard a Tawny Frogmouth was deep in Australia's Daintree Rainforest. Its haunting call rolled through the darkness like a distant engine, and when I finally found it, I was staring at what looked like a broken branch.Then it blinked.For this week's Patreon story, I share the remarkable tale of one of Australia's most extraordinary birds, a master of camouflage that can disappear in plain sight and has evolved one of the most unique hunting

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2:03

[PREVIEW] When tranquility is broken

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/05/26

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2:02

[PREVIEW] The Pheasant.

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/05/17

There’s a bird in Scotland that never truly belonged there, yet somehow became part of the soul of the landscape.The Pheasant.Originally from Asia, introduced into the UK for one reason only… to be shot for sport.I lived for five years in Blair Atholl in the Scottish Highlands, where wealthy shooting parties would arrive every September 12th for the start of pheasant season. Men in tweed jackets with Labradors by their side blasting these extraordinary birds from the sky. I’ve always hated the term

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1:59

[PREVIEW] Plastic and Midway

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/04/27

Over a million seabirds. Albatross chicks scattered across the sand. Dolphins offshore. Monk seals resting on the beaches. One of the most alive places I have ever experienced.Those albatross chicks weren’t just being fed fish by their parents. They were being fed plastic. Bottle tops, lighters, fragments of our lives. Carried across the ocean and delivered to one of the most remote places on Earth. Their stomachs full, but starving.That’s the thing about pollution. It doesn’t respect distance. It

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2:49

[PREVIEW] Rain symphony

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/04/11

There’s something about rain that most people miss.To many, it’s an inconvenience… something to escape from.To me, it’s music.Rain creates its own orchestra, each surface a different instrument. I’ve recorded it all over the world… in rainforests where the canopy turns it into layered percussion, in temperate forests where it softens into a gentle hush, on metal roofs where it becomes sharp and urgent, and across lakes and oceans where it melts into something almost hypnotic.And then there are palm

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6:47

Grasshopper warbler

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/03/31

There are moments in life that quietly reshape you.Not with noise or drama… but with something subtle. Unexpected.For me, one of those moments came just outside the suburbs of Birmingham.I had travelled out toward the border of Wales searching for something I had only read about. A bird I had never heard before.The grasshopper warbler.When I finally heard it, I didn’t believe it.It wasn’t birdsong. Not in any way I understood at the time.It was a reel. A continuous mechanical trill, like an insect

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3:03

[PREVIEW] Eagles

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/03/26

I’ve always loved eagles.Not just admired them… loved them.The first time I saw one was in Scotland in 1978, over Glencoe. A golden eagle riding the thermals above Rannoch Moor. It wasn’t flying… it was owning the sky. That moment never left me.Since then I’ve been lucky enough to record them across the world — from the reintroduced white-tailed eagles on the Isle of Rum, to bald eagles in North America, and even the extraordinary harpy eagle deep in the forests of Costa Rica.There are around 60

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1:27

[PREVIEW] Missing!

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/03/23

There was a time when you couldn’t look at the sky without hearing it.Not one bird… but manyI remember lying on my back in a field as a boy, watching skylarks climb higher and higher until they disappeared from sight… but never from sound. The air itself was alive. A chorus with no beginning and no end.Today, that chorus is fading.In my lifetime, we’ve lost billions of birds. Not in some distant place… but here. Around us. Quietly. Gradually. Almost without notice.And that’s the most frightening

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1:51

[PREVIEW] Sound as a barometer

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/03/20

I have spent a lifetime listening.Not just hearing… but truly listening to the voice of the Earth.Because sound tells us things that our eyes cannot.A forest can still look whole…A river can still appear to flow…A landscape can seem untouched…But the truth is in the silence.The dipper no longer on the stream.The frogs missing from the marsh at dusk.The birds that once filled the forest… now gone.I have stood in places that looked alive… but sounded empty.And that is when you realise… something is

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2:26

[PREVIEW] When is a bird not a bird

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/03/12

I recently had an email questioning a bird I logged on Cornell’s eBird.The reviewer suggested the call I recorded was a Magnolia Warbler rather than the Red eyed Vireo I had listed. He explained that Magnolia Warblers can give a whiny call that sounds very similar to a vireo and also pointed out that Red eyed Vireos usually do not arrive in our coastal hammock habitat until late March.It was a thoughtful message and I appreciated it. Good science improves when people question observations.The

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43:19

A Life in Sound

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/03/10

This is Martyn Stewart… with a life in sound from The Listening Planet.Recently I returned to England. Home. The place where everything began.But this time the journey was different.Someone had recommended me for an honour… an OBE. The Order of the British Empire. When I first heard the words, I honestly could not take it in. I kept thinking there must be some mistake. Awards like that are for extraordinary people, not a lad from a Birmingham council estate who spent his life wandering through woods

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9:48

Geophony: The Earth speaking

The Listener Podcast ·

2026/03/03

Birds are not the only musicians in Earth’s orchestra.Amphibians, insects, mammals and marine life all play their part. But there is another section that moves me just as deeply.The sound of the planet itself.Wind. Rain. Ocean. Thunder.Geophony.I have recorded hurricanes named Andrew, Milton, Hellen and Dorian. Each one had its own personality. Its own voice. Standing in hurricane force winds is not something most people would call relaxing… but there is something humbling about hearing the raw

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