4 APR 2024 · Welcome Home Everybody! In this episode Rob and I have invited our group of young people from Sidestrand School to Sheringham Park. A regular venue for us, we make the education centre at the park our base for today’s adventures. On this trip we’re hoping to be able to watch, listen to and learn more about the bird life of the park, particularly those that visit the feeders at the education centre. We also hoped to take a walk through the park’s extensive pine woodland and do some communal listening activities….at least as long as the taps of this wet spring remain off! Links https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/norfolk/sheringham-park

31 JAN 2024 · Welcome home everybody! In this episode Rob and I lead our Sidestrand School group on a walk along the shingle and sand dunes of Blakeney Point, a spit of land on the North Norfolk Coast that is incrementally lost to the sea as it rolls out for 4 miles. The point is a national nature reserve currently managed by the National Trust, and it gives protection for Blakeney Harbour and the surrounding salt marshes, which in turn provide habitats for a vast array of resident and migratory wildlife. The point is known internationally for spectacular displays of summer breeding Terns and also for its winter breeding colony of grey seals, which make up roughly 30% of the world’s total population, and giving birth this season to almost 5000 pups. After a mile or so of labouring along the shingle we came across a small group of 8 to 10 adult seals. we didn’t want to get too close and instead decided to watch them through scopes and binoculars, and listen using parabolic and shotgun microphones. In the end we weren’t able to make good audio recordings of the seals, partly because their calling can be infrequent and muffled by the roaring sea, but also because the thrill of seeing them spawned an almost constant excited chatter amongst our human troop. This didn’t mean the trip wasn’t worthwhile though. The effort of walking on shingle, the fun and challenge of being in a wild environment, and the positivity garnered from getting out of school, hanging out with your friends and experiencing something totally new gave the trip its meaning. LINKS NT Blakeney Point - https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/norfolk/blakeney-national-nature-reserve Where to see Seals in Norfolk - https://www.visitnorfolk.co.uk/post/where-to-see-the-seals-in-norfolk

4 DEC 2023 · Welcome home everybody, and welcome to The HomeSounds Show! In this episode, Rob and I are looking for mushrooms, not only because of their incredible variety and fascinating history as possibly the first life forms on planet earth, but also because of the potential, made possible by bio-sonification, of hearing them. Following our previous experiments in this inspiring area of environmental listening, we wander the Great Wood at Felbrigg with a beginners hope of finding fungi that we can tune into. If you'd like to keep listening visit http://www.homesounds.org where you can find all previous episodes of the HomeSounds show, as well as many more opportunities to actively listen and numerous ways to support, and get involved, with the HomeSounds project. Alternatively you look for the 'Riverlands' show on Poppyland Radio, which broadcasts live sounds from Woodland in Felbrigg and the Silvergate Stream in Blickling every Wednesday evening at 10pm. Links - https://hii-mag.com/article/the-next-chart-topper-how-bio-sonification-turns-fungi-and-plants-into-our-musical-collaborators - https://electricityforprogress.com/biodata-sonification/ - https://www.media.mit.edu/galvactivator/faq.html - https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/norfolk/felbrigg-hall-gardens-and-estate

6 NOV 2023 · Welcome to The HomeSounds Show! In this episode, the second of two parts, Martin continues his interview with acoustician and naturalist Michael Stocker. Drawing inspiration from Michael's wonderfully free-ranging and rich book, Hear Where We Are, the conversation, and accompanying audio extracts, explore the myriad themes within Michaels book and relate these to the experiences of the HomeSounds project. The book examines how humans and other hearing animals use sound to establish relationships with their surroundings. It does this by examining sound in incredible scientific detail and mixing this with stories of everyday human experience and emotion. As well as enriching our understanding of sound, the book is inspired by a desire to shed light on seemingly illogical and self-destructive human behaviour, so often unconsciously and profoundly influenced by sound. With an extensive background advising on and designing sound environments for clients including the National Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., George Lucas's 'Skywalker Ranch', the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, Mexico City's children's musuem 'El Museo Papalote', and numerous Hollywood sound and film studios, Michael is now the director of Ocean Conservation Research, an organisation seeking to understand the impacts of human generated noise on marine life, a theme touched on in both our conversation, and the sound extracts selected by Michael and I. LINKS http://homesounds.org https://ocr.org/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hear-Where-We-Are-Ecology/dp/1461472849

5 NOV 2023 · Welcome to The HomeSounds Show! In this episode, the first of two parts, Martin interviews acoustician and naturalist Michael Stocker. Drawing inspiration from Michael's wonderfully free-ranging and rich book, Hear Where We Are, the conversation, and accompanying audio extracts, explore the myriad themes within Michaels book and relate these to the experiences of the HomeSounds project. The book examines how humans and other hearing animals use sound to establish relationships with their surroundings. It does this by examining sound in incredible scientific detail and mixing this with stories of everyday human experience and emotion. As well as enriching our understanding of sound, the book is inspired by a desire to shed light on seemingly illogical and self-destructive human behaviour, so often unconsciously and profoundly influenced by sound. With an extensive background advising on and designing sound environments for clients including the National Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., George Lucas's 'Skywalker Ranch', the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, Mexico City's children's musuem 'El Museo Papalote', and numerous Hollywood sound and film studios, Michael is now the director of Ocean Conservation Research, an organisation seeking to understand the impacts of human generated noise on marine life, a theme touched on in both our conversation, and the sound extracts selected by Michael and I. LINKS http://homesounds.org https://ocr.org/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hear-Where-We-Are-Ecology/dp/1461472849

2 NOV 2023 · Introduction Welcome home everybody, and welcome to The HomeSounds Show. In this episode, recorded in the late summer of 2020, Rob and I visit a section of Weybourne Heath on the North Norfolk Coast here in the UK, in search of a bird the song of which is matched only by its appearance and character in exciting the imagination. An African migrant, the crepuscular Nightjar, and its breathless churring song, sits comfortably in the unscientific category of magical nature. If you'd like to keep listening visit http://www.homesounds.org where you can find all previous episodes of the HomeSounds show, as well as many more opportunities to actively listen and numerous ways to support, and get involved, with the HomeSounds project. Alternatively you look for the 'Riverlands' show on Poppyland Radio, which broadcasts live sounds from Woodland in Felbrigg and the Silvergate Stream in Blickling every Wednesday evening at 10pm. Links http://www.homesounds.org https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/norfolk/sheringham-park https://homesounds.bandcamp.com/track/weybourne-heath-13th-july-2020

5 OCT 2023 · Welcome to episode 8 of The HomeSounds Show! The HomeSounds project began working with the National Trust in the autumn of 2022 through its Riverlands project and has installed two live-streaming microphones at their Felbrigg and Blickling Estates. Running Alongside these installations are a series of educational activities encouraging people to become more active in their environmental listening. In today's episode we are joined at Sheringham Park by staff and young people from Norwich City College's MINT employment project. This project focuses on getting young people aged between 16 and 25yrs into sustainable paid employment. The aim of the today's walk was to give the group some experience of working as a ranger at the National Trust, as well as to to get them actively listening to the environment, and learning about the habitat and wildlife of the park. With the help of current ranger Hannah Blades, the group took part in some Rhodie bashing, a colloquial term for managing the Rhodedenron plants that whilst a major attraction of the park, are also invasive and damaging to its bio-diversity. Throughout the day we tried to capture something of the sounds of the working life of the park. We also introduced the group to bio-sonification, a tool for translating the electrical currents created by organisms, in this case Rhodedendron, into sound. Everyone was wondering what the plants were going to say... Welcome home everybody! LINKS https://www.instagram.com/spad_electronics/?hl=en https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/norfolk/sheringham-park https://www.ccn.ac.uk/mint/ Image Credit: National Trust

20 SEP 2023 · Welcome to episode 7 of The HomeSounds Show! The HomeSounds project began working with the National Trust in the autumn of 2022 through its Riverlands project and has installed two live-streaming microphones at their Felbrigg and Blickling Estates. Running Alongside these installations are a series of educational activities encouraging people to become more active in their environmental listening. In these sessions we play listening games, explore on foot, learn about the wildlife of the area, and tune in to their acoustic habitats through listening and audio field recording. For todays episode we visit Incleborough Hill on the North Norfolk Coast, where a small group of us traversed the rises and falls of the Cromer ridge. Military jets training in the clear coastal skies made sound recording pretty difficult, but we found some temporary havens amongst the din. We also discuss the habitat management of the area, share tales of the shrieking pits, and see the Devils own Guts strewn wildly across the gorse bushes. Welcome home everybody! LINKS https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/our-cause/nature-climate/nature-conservation/riverlands-how-we-keep-our-rivers-flowing https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-in-norfolk/commons/incleborough-hill

20 SEP 2023 · Welcome to episode 6 of The HomeSounds Show! The HomeSounds project began working with the National Trust in the autumn of 2022 through its Riverlands project and has installed two live-streaming microphones at their Felbrigg and Blickling Estates. Running Alongside these installations are a series of educational activities encouraging people to become more active in their environmental listening. The first of these is working with a small group of young people from Sidestrand School here in North Norfolk. In these sessions we play listening games, explore on foot, learn about the wildlife of the area, and tune in to their acoustic habitats through listening and audio field recording. This show is the second of two parts in which we visit Felbrigg Hall. In part 1 we listened for recently arriving migrant birds. In particular the Chiff Chaff and Blackcap. For this episode, part 2, we learn about some work taking place at Felbrigg to improve the Scarrowbeck Stream that flows through the estate . This work intends to create new habitats for wildlife by restoring the streams natural flow. We talk with Ursula from the Norfolk Rivers Trust who explains why and how they are doing this project. We explore the acoustic habitat by dropping hydrophones into newly created ponds and walk along the stream investigating the creatures and plants that populate the water and stream bank. Welcome home everybody! LINKS https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/our-cause/nature-climate/nature-conservation/riverlands-how-we-keep-our-rivers-flowing https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/norfolk/felbrigg-hall-gardens-and-estate https://norfolkriverstrust.org

20 SEP 2023 · Welcome to episode 5 of The HomeSounds Show! The HomeSounds project began working with the National Trust in the autumn of 2022 through its Riverlands project and has installed two live-streaming microphones at their Felbrigg and Blickling Estates. Running Alongside these installations are a series of educational activities encouraging people to become more active in their environmental listening. The first of these is working with a small group of young people from Sidestrand School here in North Norfolk. In these sessions we play listening games, explore on foot, learn about the wildlife of the area, and tune in to their acoustic habitats through listening and audio field recording. This show is the first of two parts in which we visit Felbrigg Hall. In part 1 we are listening for the recently arriving migrant birds; the Chiff Chaff and Blackcap. In part 2 we learn about some work taking place at Felbrigg to improve the Scarrowbeck Stream that flows through the estate . This work intends to create new habitats for wildlife by restoring the streams natural flow. Welcome home everybody! LINKS https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/our-cause/nature-climate/nature-conservation/riverlands-how-we-keep-our-rivers-flowing https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/norfolk/felbrigg-hall-gardens-and-estate https://norfolkriverstrust.org