Best of Natural History Radio

In this week's programme we report from India where John Aitchison revels in the sight of two tigers, who magnificent though they are, are now in effect in an island population, separated from the farmland that surrounds the Bandhavgarh National Park by an electric fence. Lion biologist Craig Packer from the University of Minnesota will be speaking to Monty about his observations in Tanzania where upward of 100 people a year are being killed by lions raiding villages. And David Macdonald, Professor of Wildlife Conservation at Oxford University, will be exploring this area of conflict with Monty in the Shared Planet studio.

The focus is towns and cities in this week's programme, with a report from North America about their largest Swallow, the Purple Martin. Purple Martins are totally dependent on human habitation east of the Rockies for nest sites. West of the mountain range they largely nest in their ancestral way using abandoned woodpecker cavities. As we clear land to build the world's towns and cities what is the impact on the natural world and are there ideas to embrace wildlife in built environment planning? Monty speaks with leading environmentalist Chris Baines and Kate Henderson, the Chief Executive of the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA).

How much is a honey bee worth? Can you put a price tag on a mountain? Monty Don explores the value of nature. Some believe the only way to preserve nature is to show that it can pay its way in a world driven by money, others disagree saying nature is too precious to be left to the whim of markets. This week there is a report from St. Andrews in Scotland where Trai Anfield discusses the value of estuaries to both nature conversation and human activity, plus there is discussion in the studio with author Tony Juniper and Dr Bill Adams from the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge.

In this week’s programme we have a report from Northern Kenya about the Grevy's Zebra, the world’s most stripy Zebra and a species in decline for many different reasons, all of which appear to be attributed with human activity. Monty interviews one of the authors of a recent paper “Can a Collapse of Civilisation be Avoided?”, Professor Paul Ehrlich from Stanford University. Also Dr Joe Smith from The Open University, an expert in environment and the media, explores how the media should keep up with such apocalyptic headlines.

A giant hamster in Alsace provides Monty with a puzzling dilemma, how do we decide what to conserve? With so many pressures on so many creatures and habitats how to decide where to put our energy and money is difficult. Monty Don expores the issues, do we save the creatures that appeal to us or those that are most useful? Is a beetle better to save than a hamster?

Monty Don presents Shared Planet, the series that looks at the crunch point between human population and the natural world. In this programme Howard Stableford reports from Conneticut on the complex decline of the once very ubiquitous Chimney Swift, a story Monty Don believes is the paradigm for the series. The wider issues of human population and nature are explored in the studio with Lord May, past president of The Royal Society and from Vienna, Professor Wolfgang Lutz, a specialist in human population dynamics. Produced by Mary Colwell

In traditional Chinese culture the mandarin duck is believed to bring lifelong fidelity to couples and frequently used as symbols for wedding presents or in Chinese art. Formerly abundant in their native Far East, numbers of mandarin ducks have declined due to habitat destruction (mainly logging) and over-hunting. For this Living World, presenter Chris Sperring travels to the river Dart in Devon where starting underneath the busy A38 trunk road he meets up with naturalist John Walters who has been studying a winter roost of mandarin ducks here. In mid-winter up to 100 birds can roost here but in early spring they are beginning to pair up and disperse along the river Dart. Leaving this noisy suburban area, Chris and John then head off up the river to search for pairs of these wonderful tree ducks in the Devonian landscape.

For many the emergence of the daffodil is the real, true harbinger of spring. That flash of yellow across the countryside breathes vitality into a previously grey and dormant winter landscape. There are around 26,000 species of daffodil in the World, however Britain is home to a special collection of true wild daffodils; smaller and less showy than the more usual cultivated stock, but superbly adapted to survive in our cold wet climate. For Living World, presenter Chris Sperring joins botanist Ray Woods in search of one such daffodil, the Tenby daffodil, the National emblem of Wales. This daffodil is unique in that it is found nowhere else on the Planet except around Tenby and southwest Wales. Most often associated with places of habitation, its origins and history are now lost in history, but by the 1800's this species was abundant in hedgerow and field.

May 5th is International Dawn Chorus day and to celebrate this worldwide event presenter Trai Anfield heads to the Coombes Valley near Leek in Staffordshire to experience the emulsion of sound of a dawn chorus there. Well before dawn, for this special Living World, Trai Anfield meets up with Jarrod Sneyd from the RSPB. Here standing in oak woodland their sense of anticipation rises as with the first shimmers of light breaking the eastern horizon, the first pipings of the thrush family begin to break the silence. Slowly and imperceptibly more birds and different species join the awakening woods, the warblers, flycatchers and redstarts are then followed by the seed eaters until, soon after sunrise, the wood is alive with nature's choral sound. Can there be any better way to celebrate the arrival of spring.

One of Britain's scarcest birds is also one of its most beautiful. The flame-coloured golden pheasant is a riot of red, orange and bronze and is native to Chinese forests. The birds are popular around the world as ornamental species and over the years have been introduced on country estates. Brett Westwood joins Paul Stancliffe of the British Trust for Ornithology in search of wild golden pheasants in the conifer woods of Norfolk. Here, in spite of their bright colours, they are very elusive and behave much as they do in their native China, skulking in dense undergrowth and glimpsed only as they dash across rides. As numbers in China are in decline, do our UK pheasants have an international importance? They prefer to run rather than fly and call loudly at dusk in spring, so this visit is the best chance that Paul and Brett have to see one - a bird that's one of the toughest challenges that the countryside can offer.

Paul Evans explores the human self after discovering that only one in ten cells in our bodies is human; the rest are microbial cells. So, if we're not all human, what are we? Produced by Sarah Blunt

Ep 3 of 3. In the third and last programme in the series, ecologist Matthew Oates, like Thomas, ends his journey in Somerset.

Ep 2 of 3. In the second programme in the series, ecologist Matthew Oates celebrates the centenary of naturalist and poet Edward Thomas’s iconic cycle ride from South London to Somerset over Easter 1913.

Ep 1 of 3. Edward Thomas (1878-1917) was arguably the most accomplished and profound writer of English rural prose, with a unique poetic-prose style. Over Easter 1913, Thomas set off on a cycle ride of personal self-discovery across Southern England. This journey was published in 1914 in his book "In Pursuit of Spring" and it remains a poignant reminder of one of our greatest countryside writers, who just a few years later would die on the battlefields of World War One. Throughout the series of three programmes, naturalist Matthew Oates pursues his own personal homage to Thomas by following in the literacy cycle tracks of the Edwardian writer one hundred years before. Academic and travel writer Robert MacFarlane, an admirer of Thomas himself, will read passages from Thomas's work which illustrate the man within. Presented by Matthew Oates. Produced by Andrew Dawes.

Ep 3 of 3. In Episode Three, Erica explores how insect technology can solve human design problems.