Between the Ears Folgen

In early summer, as darkness descends, Berlin resonates with the sound of nightingales. You can hear their haunting, ever-changing songs in parks, woodlands and gardens across the city. From Kreuzberg to Treptower, Tempelhof to Hasenheide, Berlin has become a refuge for one of the most celebrated and mythologised birds on earth.The city is the summer home for over one and a half thousand nesting pairs. Nobody’s quite sure why nightingales have adopted the city so enthusiastically. Maybe it’s Berlin’s enlightened policy towards park management which leaves areas of untended scrub and dense bushes providing ground-nesting nightingales with perfect cover. Whatever the reason, this blossoming of nightingales means that their song has become the soundtrack to countless moments in Berlin’s residents’ lives: lovers listening to the nightingale’s melody in the depths of the night; a childhood memory of illness soothed by hearing the song – and the German name Nachtigall – for the first time; and a visit to one of the few architectural remnants of Germania, Hitler’s megalomaniacal plan for a new city on the site of Berlin.This programme gathers memories of the nightingale’s lingering, multi-faceted song and the sounds of city evenings to create an audio portrait of Berlin, its people and the bird to whom it’s given refuge. We hear too from a group of musicians who seek out nightingales in the city’s parks to play alongside them. They describe feeling their way into the nightingale’s song, the call-and-response between bird and human and the sense of each listening to the other. Some even describe themselves as nightingales: they’ve travelled from far countries to make music in Berlin.The programme is made in collaboration with Berlin Museum of Natural History’s Forschungsfall Nachtigall project that asks members of the public to record nightingales and send in their recordings – along with stories and memories of the bird which has become a symbol of the city. With the voices of Sarah Darwin, Korhan Erel, Gaby Hartel, Volker Lankow, Christopher and Erika Lehmpfuhl, Charlotte Neidhardt, Philip Oltermann, Sascha Penshorn, Tina Roeske, David Rothenberg and Cymin Samawatie.Featuring music from David Rothenberg’s 'Nightingale Cities' project and 'Berlin Bülbül by David Rothenberg and Korhan Erel. Location recordings in Berlin by Martyna Poznańska and Monika Dorniak.Producer: Jeremy GrangePhotograph courtesy of Kim Mortega

Maria Margaronis surrenders to the life of the hive to explore the ancient folk customs around the telling the bees.The lives of bees and humans have been linked ever since the first hominid tasted a wild hive’s honey. Neither domesticated nor fully wild, honey bees are key to our survival, a barometer of our relationship with nature. Without them, we’d have no fruit, no nuts and seeds, and eventually, no food. No bees; no songbirds. Silent woods.For centuries, we’ve projected stories and beliefs onto these strange, familiar creatures, seeing them as messengers between this world and the next. In this Covid-wracked year, Maria Margaronis explores the old customs of “telling the bees” about a death or significant event, lest they grow angry and leave us. She enters the sonic world of the hive to hear what the bees might be telling us in the company of wise bee guides like Toxteth’s Rastafarian Barry Chang, Mississippi's Ali Pinion, Lithuania's Paulius Chockevicius and young beekeeper Zhivko Todorov in London’s busy Finsbury Park. Others tell us and their bees their significant news. Follow bee tellers and bee callers on a seasonal journey from summer through winter into spring, tuning in to to the hum of the hive and the buzz of the universe.Recorded binaurally.Producer: Mark Burman Additional bee recordings: Mark Ferguson

Bogs have always captured the human imagination, inspiring both fear and fiction. Between the Ears wades into this treacherous netherworld in a search for the lost and found.These liminal spaces have a unique and troubling consistency: neither absolutely water, nor absolutely earth, but a potentially dangerous mix between the two.Writers have long been fascinated by the dangerous pull of the bog but also by the secrets that lay buried the peat, from 'The Slough of Despond' in John Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' to Seamus Heaney's 'Bog Poems'Producer Neil McCarthy and author and former rock climber Jim Perrin attempt to cross a bog called Waun-y-Griafolen in Snowdonia. A living entity, the bog erases paths over time and the duo's navigation becomes as uncertain as the ground beneath them. As they make their way, and as the days fades, they are accompanied by the reflections of Hetta Howes ('Transformative Waters'), Karin Sanders ('Bodies in the Bog'), and artist Mark Daniels who also finds he's strayed from the path.They squelch their way, hoping to understand the bog's contradictory nature before getting swallowed up.Featuring the poem 'Bog Queen' by Seamus HeaneyOriginal composition and sound design by Phil Channell Produced by Neil McCarthy