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Top 10 Nature Track Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Nature Track episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Nature Track for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Nature Track episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
An hour before dawn in arid WA
Nature Track
08/23/22 • -1 min
No music. No human voices. Just the sound of a frog chorus and a pre-dawn rain shower in arid Western Australia, recorded on location by the ABC's Dr Ann Jones.
Get in a car in Perth and drive 4 hours northeast to sit beside a pool of water as the frogs call and rain rolls in. It's an hour before dawn.
This soundscape was recorded on Badimaya country on Charles Darwin Reserve which is owned by Bush Heritage Australia. I was there to film an amazing tree called the sandalwood for 'Australia's Favourite Tree' on ABC TV. The reserve is on the edge of the Southwest Botanical Province, which has more plant biodiversity that a tropical forest, and also the arid Eremean areas. And because it's on the borderlands, there are so many plants, animals, birds, and in this recording in particular amphibians to love.
00:00:00 The first thing that you hear is the Western Toadlets — Pseudophryne occidentalis. At least, this is the best guess without a DNA sample. You see, this area is in the overlap between two different types of toadlets which sound EXTREMELY similar.
They're not toads, they're toadlets, and very happy with the amount of water around by the sound of it.
Listening notes from Ann Jones:
00:02:40 The first of many microbat flybys in this recording. You can hear the echolocation clicks as the bats zoom past searching for food. That is, you'll hear them unless you are a little bit older, or have some hearing impairment at the higher frequencies, then you'll not be able to hear the bats, which sit at about 11500khz and above.
00:07:05 To be honest, I'm not sure who this bird is, but my gut feeling tells me they're disturbed a bit by something rather than the true start of the dawn chorus. The clicking, sort of tapping sound is soft rain hitting the microphones.
00:09:00 No wonder the frogs are calling. Here comes the rain.
00:49:30 Who dipped into the water? Or perhaps crapped into the water from above?
01:05:10 If you're a person lucky enough to still hear those high frequencies, you can hear the hunting buzz here as the bat zeros in on a flying insect to eat.
01:07:00 A couple of insects, or maybe just one joins in the chorus. There's one sound that constantly jiggles, and one that pulses. It is perhaps a cricket and or a cicada.
01:14:20 is this the real start of the dawn chorus from the birds? Or perhaps just a rustling in the pre-dawn.
01:34:50 A smattering of rain drops. Do the toadlets sound happier or is it just me?
01:52:40 A willy wagtail announces its time to get up and start the true bird chorus of the morning. There's also a spiny-cheeked honeyeater in there.
Thanks to Dr Elliot Leach and Dr Jodi Rowley for helping me confirm what I was hearing.
Life in a forest of giants
Nature Track
08/16/22 • -1 min
No music, no voices. Just the sound of the mountain ash forest, recorded by the ABC's Dr Ann Jones.
The mountain ash is the tallest flowering plant in the world, a eucalypt that can reach 90m in height. And beneath its arbour is an incredible array of wildlife, including an incredible chorus of birds.
I recorded this while filming 'Australia's Favourite Tree' for ABC TV near Marysville in Victoria.
It was a cold, misty morning on Taungurong Country and among the first sounds that can be heard in this recording is a male lyrebird practising some of his repertoire – both mimicry and his own sounds.
00:01:51 The lyrebird is imitating a black cockie here.
00:03:42 this lazer sort of sound is the lyrebird's own sounds.
00:06:25 The lyrebird makes both the male and female components of the whip bird call!
00:06:55 Heeeeere comes a parrot, screaming as it goes.
00:07:20 Pied Currawongs call to each other in the distance.
00:23:00 A fly fly-by!
00:35:10 Actual yellow tailed black-cockatoos incoming!
00:36:40 This incredibly sharp-sounding call is the pilot bird, a small brownish bird of the understorey. So-called because it sometimes 'pilots' the lyrebird, taking advantage of the lyrebirds superior digging skills to grab invertebrate prey uncovered.
00:56:40 Tune your ear to higher frequencies to hear a wonderful insect calling in pulses.
01:02:40 We've got some sulphur-crested cockatoo begging happening here. Consistent nagging like a toddler at the top of a tree.
01:30:50 A pair of real whipbirds make an appearance here, with a two-part duet consisting of build and whip, and then an answering 'chew chew.'
01:34:20 The wing beats of a bird in flight.
01:56:30 Among the smaller birds, perhaps scrubwrens and thornbills, and definitely a grey fantail and a pilotbird, you can hear the black-cockies take flight and call to each other, the pied currawong.
Calm, flowing creek with night-time frog calls
Nature Track
07/19/21 • 178 min
No music, no voices, just the sound of a gentle stream and frogs calling on a still, cool night in regional Victoria.
Moonlight floods the landscape of Wadawurrung country. Big, old candlebarks stand still and silent and a creek flows through a shallow valley. Grasses grow up to the waist, except where kangaroos have been nibbling them! And within the sedges by the creek lurk frogs who revel in the still night, the cold air and the perfect opportunity to sing for a mate.
It's hard to hear many of the other sounds above the water flowing and the frogs, but there are actually many creatures in this recording if you've got very good ears and time to listen hard.
Listening notes from Ann Jones:
01:50 Common eastern froglet with a "creaky-creaky-creaky" call. Don't let the name fool you — these are tiny frogs, with a maximum size of 3cm. The best way to see them is to wait until night and use a torch to try and see tiny little eyes on the edge of the water. They will appear in almost any habitat really, they're not too picky and will probably breed at any time of year also.
24:00 The brown tree frogs are calling. These are medium frogs – that means they'll only get up to about 4.5cm. It's a pretty common little frog throughout the south-eastern part of the mainland – and will be heard in natural areas, farms and even in town! They'll call at basically any time of year.
25:42 A female powerful owl is calling in the distance. This is Australia's largest owl, and the female's call is ringing out across her territory.
38:48 A female fox is calling in a characteristic scream/cough, though it's very faint with all the rowdy frogs. She's advertising her presence to other foxes, and who knows if she got a response. She did set distant dogs off barking though! These dogs bark on and off throughout this whole recording. Their voices really carry – I think they were well over a kilometre away. You can just hear their lower tones floating underneath the close water and frog sound.
44:27 A possum in a tree being rowdy as it cullumps through the branches.
51:20 Sugar gliders are nearby, chirping out their little barks. And also.... if you listen closely, you can hear a launch, silence while she glides, and a landing. To be fair though, this could be a ringtail in the tree, as shortly after the noises, a ringtail starts calling. Possibly more likely to be a ringtail, they're more clumsy.
52:05 The ringtail sounds like an extremely high-frequency horse's whinny. They almost sound like insects. They have a prehensile tail, meaning they use it to grip branches, or to carry things, like bunches of leaves back to their hollows. The ringtails in Victoria are, I think, much cuter than the ringtails further north. Gauntlet thrown.
1:34:45 I think this sharp, strong insect sound is possibly a katydid.
2:12:40 You can hear the scolding, throat-clearing calls of the brush-tailed possums. There are several through this recording and they also move through trees, in a very characteristically noisy way throughout the soundscape. If you hear rustling, it's likely a possum looting a tree.
2:38:10 This is one of those breaks, where all the frogs just decide, through some cue, to stop calling all at once in an area. Then, one will start up — and it all kicks off again.
The storm front
Nature Track
09/13/22 • -1 min
No music, no human voices. Just the sound of an epic summer storm rolling on through the evening.
I recorded this at my home. It had been a hot day, and in the late afternoon there was a crack of thunder. I walked out, set the recorder near the woodpile and recorded into the night.
In this recording you can hear rain falling, hitting the earth and also hitting the microphones. And you can hear lots and lots of thunder.
At first, the afternoon and evening chorus continues, but as the storm intensifies, just the cockies scream. Then, as darkness falls, insects take up the lulls between thunder and rain.
Mix Engineer: Isabella Tropiano.
This program is produced on the land of the Wathawurung people.
Sounds like camping
Nature Track
09/05/22 • -1 min
No music, no human voices, just the sound of night falling over bushland near Narrabri, recorded by the ABC's Ann Jones. It sounds like camping.
Narrabri is in North West NSW, in an incredibly fertile farming area. And yep, you guessed it, where it's fertile, it means you won't get much bushland left intact.
This bushland is a patch on the Llara Farm which is used by the University of Sydney for research. I was lucky enough to travel there to film a program about technology and nature for 'Catalyst' on ABC TV.
This recording differs a little from some of the others I've made for Nature Track. For example, there is no way that I can completely remove the distant sound of highway movement, of the endless trucks ferrying agricultural products towards the city.
But this is an incredibly endearing mix of the insect chorus for me. It sounds like camping.
A chorus of ravens in the distance, along with cockies going to sleep, and some sounds I cannot identify kick off this most relaxing soundscape yet.
Listening notes from Ann Jones:
00:00:45 I have no idea what this insect is, but I love it.
00:10:20 I think this is actually a boobook – they make this sound when they're close to another boobook, rather than calling across a distance.
00:30:35 One of the many sounds produced by foxes. They have a really wide vocabulary and can sound human-like, bird-like and just plain scary in the night.
00:41:00 A bat circles past on its nightly food run echo-locating for both navigation and prey detection.
00:46:30 A sneaky dog. I can't tell you how much time I spend pulling dogs out of nature recordings. They're almost ubiquitous in Australian landscapes
00:58:40 I can hear a frog here, that's sounds a bit like a ruler twanged against a school desk. I think it might be a spotted marsh frog – Limnodynastes tasmaniensis.
01:12:00 A distant boobook, the smallest owl in Australia, along with some fox calls and bat flybys.
01:21:00 The terrifying scream of a barn owl. Yes, they look magnificent. Sound terror-ific too.
Mix Engineer: Isabella Tropiano.
This program is produced on the land of the Wathawurung people.
Quiet shoreline at sunset
Nature Track
08/29/22 • -1 min
No music. No voices. Just the sound of a quiet ocean inlet in the early evening, recorded by the ABC's Dr Ann Jones. This shoreline is home to many wallabies; will they make any sound?
This was recorded over the summer of 2021/22 as I was spending time on Phillip Island / Millowl in Victoria, filming for 'Meet the Penguins' on ABC TV. I put the recorder out at Rhyll Inlet as the sun is setting. It's been a hot day and the cicadas are calling. Rhyll Inlet is a mixture of saltmarsh, mudflats, mangroves and some scrubby bits too. Slightly uphill, away from the water, there are grassy areas where wallabies abound. This is where the recording is taken.
Listening notes from Ann Jones:
00:00:39 Lower toned repeating call given in a short burst is the white-eared honeyeater. This bird is striking. It's somewhere between green and yellow, with a black face and a blob of white right behind its eye.
00:02:20 This is still that same honeyeater.
00:02:35 Eastern rosellas – gorgeous birds and I can just imagine their tails fanning and shaking as they speak with each other.
00:03:40 The kookaburras are joining the chorus – announcing to one and all how strong they are as a family, and how well defended their territory is.
00:06:08 MAGPIES! This chorus gets better and better.
00:07:38 The gorgeous clear flute-like quality gives this away as a grey shrike thrush. Followed closely by a masked lapwing. Phillip Island is a hot spot for masked lapwings, which like to rest on the ground. So, the fox-free island means they have good numbers.
00:09:02 The red wattlebird sounds as if it's the shutter mechanism on a giant, broken camera.
00:10:50 The first incursion of a cape barren goose into the recording.
00:18:12 This is a wallaby moving, they sometimes thump down with surprising force.
00:18:40 ...and there it goes.
00:21:45 The GST is really giving a fantastic performance.
00:22:06 It wouldn't surprise me if this is a swamp wallaby snapping a stick to eat. They're voracious.
00:25:40 The masked lapwing (maybe known to you as a kid as the spur-winged plover) goes past screaming.
00:26:05 This is a grey butcherbird and it makes me doubt some of my grey shrike thrush IDs from earlier – they both can sing as if playing an enchanted flute.
00:39:12 You can hear the fantails beak clacking as it calls, and flies about. It sounds like tiny little knuckles being cracked in rapid succession.
Mix Engineer: Isabella Tropiano.
This program is produced on the land of the Wathawurung people.
Dawn chorus in the mountains
Nature Track
07/20/21 • 90 min
No music, no voices, just the sound of a valley halfway up a Tasmanian mountain. This soundscape is full of birds and breeze echoing backwards and forwards across a reservoir. Kunyani is swirled with mist and the city of Hobart spreads below, in miniature, on a still, early morning.
We’re halfway up the mountain, at the Hobart Waterworks Reserve where two huge reservoirs store water for use by the populace below. The deep valley where the reservoirs are situated means there is an echoey, dream-like quality to all the sound. You can hear a unique mix of forest and water birds at this place every single morning.
There were tawny frogmouths coming as I trudged up the hill, and as I was sitting listening to the day unfold a scarlet robin danced on the edge of the bush — feeding, patrolling and, just maybe, calling for the microphone.
Listening notes from Ann Jones:
06:06 A fan-tailed cuckoo calls, making a trilling, descending whistle, quavering slightly as it goes. This cuckoo is a parasitic breeder, sneakily laying its eggs into another bird's nest. The fan-tailed cuckoo in particular targets tiny birds, like scrubwrens, to bring up its offspring.
07:10 Kookaburras are not native to Tasmania, but were introduced in the early 20th century and are established.
12:51 The ploinking call is probably part of the call repertoire of the grey shrikethrush.
13:38 A single call of a green rosella. This bird is only found in Tasmania and is Australia’s largest rosella.
14:10 The repetitive notes of the striated pardalote, calling in almost perfectly timed beats.
19:52 The deep oooom of a bronzewing pigeon calling from the bushland. Often heard, rarely seen!
23:15 The kelp gulls, normally associated with the seaside, love to visit the reservoir. You can hear their calls echoing over the water and around the hills. They look like a big, beefy seagull with a black cape on, a bright yellow beak with a spot of red lipstick.
25:10 The footsteps of a jogger running past the microphone.
37:14 European blackbirds are singing throughout much of this recording. Released into Australia and well established in the colder areas, these songsters fill the air with a distinctive song. Think the beginning of Blackbird by The Beatles — it is, literally, a blackbird recording. Here they’re interspersed with native Australian birds, but it’s the one that sounds like an old man whistling an unknown tune.
38:20 Listen for the flight calls of the green rosellas.
40:10 Behind the grey shrikethrush and the blackbird, there are tiny chirps and a sequence of extremely high-pitched twitters, like a sea shanty sung in super-fast motion. This is the grey fantail, who will be flitting and flying through the dappled sunlight catching insects on the wing.
41:07 This slightly grumpy sounding quack is probably a pacific black duck.
49:32 The grey shrikethrush sings with clarity and force, and all across Australia its call varies slightly.
55:30 The kookaburras are still solidifying the boundaries of their territories and their relationships by singing choruses across the other side of the reservoir.
56:36 A coot doing its harmonic squawk.
1:15:34 The alarm call of the blackbird, who has momentarily stopped singing to warn of danger.
1:24:18 You can hear a masked lapwing become upset and take off, calling and swirling in the air.
1:28:34 A short interlude from distant ravens. These are forest ravens, the only sort that can be found in Tasmania.
1:29:15 A duck is chattering away in the background. I think it’s a wood duck! Quack!
Where there is water
Nature Track
09/20/22 • -1 min
No music. No voices. Just the sound of a creek bed in outback Australia.
In the Murchison district in Western Australia you're surrounded by low lying ranges where rocks have been found that are 4.4 billion years old — they're almost as ancient as the planet itself.
Among the crests and dips of Wajarri country is a creek bed on Boolardy Station. Not flowing, but water is still there. And the places where there is water in this arid environment – well, it's a mecca for birdlife.
Listen for: chiming wedgebills, lots of flies and other insects, rainbow bee-eaters, crested bellbirds, babblers and diamond doves among many many more.
Mix Engineer: Isabella Tropiano.
This program is produced on the land of the Wathawurung people.
The Soundtrack of Australia
Nature Track
08/14/23 • 33 min
In 1977, we sent a Golden Record of the sounds of Earth into space with NASA's Voyager probes.
This 'cosmic' calling card inspired the program team to make this - a golden record of Australian sounds.
It varies from Nature Track - there are human made sounds and there are human voices, these soundscapes are layered sounds from all over Australia - they're not natural soundscapes.
To create the soundscape for our vinyl record - our teams recorded over 200 bespoke sounds - many of which have been arranged into the final composition. Sounds were gathered from as far as the Perth Canyon (20km west coast of Rottnest Island) and as remote as Warramunga in the Northern Territory.
Ann's listening notes:
01:00 The beach, above and under the water. 03:00 Pygmy Blue whale song06:00 Catching a ferry in Sydney07:20 A plane, there:s always a plane. 08:30 Catching a train09:00 Can you hear Tom Thum, the beat boxer here? Also you can hear street sounds from Newtown in Sydney. 10:10 A snippet of a conversation that has a swear word in it. 10:30 Iconic Australian pedestrian crossing with the sounds of the city. 11:40 Cicadas buzz, a lyrebird sings the taps are Kristian Benton searching for trees to fell to make a yidaki.16:00 Natural Sounds are often marred by the sounds of leaf blowers, whipper snippers and other machinery. 21:15 Car on a country road with cow and cockies. a typical Australian scene.22:30 The Orange Agricultural Show - announcements, motorbikes, chickens, shearing and whip cracking. 24:30 A wood chopping competition. 25:30 Driving on a dirt road - hear the dusty texture and the corrugations.27:15 Warramunga Seismic and Infrasound Research Station - one of the quietest places on earth.31:15 Wild cockatiels calling.
RECORDINGS: Nick Peterson, Leo Sullivan, Peter Lenaerts, Sarah Henty, Dr Capri JoliffeSOUND DESIGN: Peter LenaertsSERIES PRODUCER: Elle GibbonsEXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Penny Palmer
Heavy rain and desert thunder
Nature Track
08/16/21 • 60 min
No music, no talking, just the sound of a rain storm in the desert.
Wiluna is a town on the Traditional lands of the Martu people in Western Australia. It’s on gorgeous arid country, about 960km east of Perth. After days of dry heat in excess of 40, it was late afternoon when a huge storm rolled in. Nowhere has storms like the desert, where the hot air rises off the ground to meet the clouds with huge rumbles and rolls that expand across the whole horizon. The rain continued on and off all night and into the next day when I got up in the morning to smell the wet sands and concrete of the town. Each burst of rain was greeted by bird song throughout the sunrise, and as the human occupants of the town slowly woke up.
Listening notes from Ann Jones:
04:28 Here comes the rain on the tin roof. The galahs scatter, calling. 5:10 A bonded pair of mudlarks (tiwily-tiwilypa), sometimes called peewees or magpie larks. sing a duet together.
10:50 The pied butcherbirds (kararaputa) sing through the rainfall — a repetitive, slightly melancholy melody, and occasionally their diagnostic cackling call that almost sounds like yelling "missing you!" at the end of a quick phone call.
14:30 This repetitive chirping call is a honeyeater, but which sort? Perhaps a yellow-throated miner (piiny-piinypa)? Comment below if you know!
16:24 White-plumed honeyeater (Inatjara) calls sound a little bit like a slide whistle.
20:40 This is probably the alarm call of the white-plumed honeyeater, letting its colleagues know of a danger or annoyance.
21:28 The mudlarks stay in touch and reinforce their relationship by repeating their duet throughout the day.
26:40 Little corellas start to fly and call in tremulous, quaver-y voices. It also sounds as if there is at least one young one with them begging for food, making a monotonous raspy grinding call from a tree.
28:30 Cutting through above all the other birds is the tiny black-and-white willie wagtail (tjitirttjitirt). This call is diagnostic of the willie, and it will make it through the day and night. Listen also for the scolding chika-chika-chika call that the willie will make occasionally, probably to stay in touch with its family members in this context. You can also here two variations on the mudlark duets in this sequence, along with the little corellas.
37:16 There are two possibilities for this corvid call – a torresian crow or a little crow (not tiny ones, that is their species name: little crow).
37:40 The willie wagtail is back!
41:30 The birds all seem to be responding to the rain, or perhaps a change in pressure associated with the rain? There are so many calls from the different species here.
42:20 The incomparable sound of rain on a tin roof.
48:38 The crows are at it again!
47:00 You can occasionally hear a deeper click as water drops actually hit my microphone through this section, the drops were so big they were bouncing up off the ground and up onto the little box I’d put my recorder on under a shelter. My microphone covers were absolutely saturated after I finished this recording.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Nature Track have?
Nature Track currently has 17 episodes available.
What topics does Nature Track cover?
The podcast is about Places & Travel, Society & Culture, Natural Sciences, Podcasts and Science.
What is the most popular episode on Nature Track?
The episode title 'Where there is water' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Nature Track?
The average episode length on Nature Track is 94 minutes.
How often are episodes of Nature Track released?
Episodes of Nature Track are typically released every 6 days.
When was the first episode of Nature Track?
The first episode of Nature Track was released on Jul 19, 2021.
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