Encounters Podcast

Listen to the mantra of pure misery, the theme song of exasperation as Richard Nelson lands in the Gates of the Arctic National Park to do a story on what some call the Alaska State bird: the mosquito. Learn how Koyukon Indian people have managed to survive among these creatures and what they eat when there is no human flesh.

Many people have mixed emotions about black bears - we fear them but they fascinate us. On this episode of Encounters, Richard Nelson meanders a salmon spawning river in Alaska to experience mostly fascination of these special creatures.

Travel to Southeast Alaska for the exciting and unusual adventure of being up close to a pod of killer whales. Leave your field glasses at home, but bring your ears to hear for yourself what makes these marine mammals so fascinating.

Hear the ice smash to the sides of the U.S. Icebreaker The Healy as host Elizabeth Arnold gets a front row seat to Arctic science in the Bering Sea. Paying attention to what is happening with the small plant life that live below the ice could tell us a great deal about how climate change will impact the rest of the Bering Sea and the rich fisheries that depend on life there.

Listen to the buzz and whirl of one of the most amazing little packages in nature - the hummingbird. Richard Nelson captures these little hummers in some great acrobatics as he watches them during a stop over in Southeast Alaska.

Duck for cover as you witness the incredible migration of hundreds of thousands of shorebirds heading north to their breeding grounds. Richard Nelson goes to the Copper River Delta to witness one of the most spectacular bird migrations in North America. See you there!.

Find out why porcupine love is a little prickly when you go for a walk in the woods with Encounters host Richard Nelson and a porcupine.

Award winning reporter Jeb Sharp is in eastern Quebec during the pupping season of the Harp Seals. Made famous by the hunt for their pelts that became the emblem of environmental conflict, scientists are now concerned how these critters will fare when there is less sea ice!

Hear glaciers calve right before your very ears as Richard Nelson paddles unsettlingly close to one of mother nature's most thrilling actions in Glacier Bay National Park See you there!

Head up to the Pribilof Islands and out in the Bering Sea with this week's host Elizabeth Arnold as she reports on a new way of looking at one of the world's richest areas for sea life. Climb up steep cliffs to watch arctic fox and sea birds and head down to the beaches to hear sea lions as she talks with scientists about a comprehensive scientific approach called patch dynamics that aims to help us understand how changing climate might impact this special place. See you there!

Though the ground is still covered with snow it is Spring in the North Country. Host Richard Nelson watches a tiny Dipper as it makes its way around a stream that is cold with the melting snow. See you there!

The sky blackens with short tail shearwaters as Richard Nelson sits off the coast of a Tasmanian island to watch in amazement at the homecoming journey that these amazing birds make half way around the world each year. It is a journey that connects Australia with the Northland. See you there!

Believed to have one of the most beautiful songs in the animal kingdom, the Lyrebird takes flight on this episode of Encounters. See you there!

Head out to the rugged island of Tasmania to a grassy meadow on a sunny day to observe one of the areas's most famous creatures - the wombat. Find out about this unusual marsupial's love ritual and watch these quiet creatures graze. See you there!

Encounters heads out to see and hear parrots in the wilds of Australia.Watch them fly and hear them sing. See you there!