Wading cows and a passing cuckoo – the lakes and woodland of Chatsworth

Full Episode description

Mid-afternoon. June hot. An overgrown track on the Chatsworth Estate, close to the peaceful lakes above the house, between meadows and dense woodland. An abundance of fresh hoof marks. A route used not by people, but by livestock changing fields. Hedgerows scent the quiet air with pollen. Cow parsley, moist nettles, something like aniseed. Nobody is around, so we leave the microphones behind to record, on the trunk of a tree facing straight into the sound vista. 

Through the tall trees, beneath the loudly singing birds, come the echoes of cows. Knee deep and wading. Splashing and wallowing in the cool shallows. 

With us gone the true sound of the woodland is revealed. An infinite humming, of bees and countless tinier insects. It can, if we let it, grate with modern taste, but it is a key barometer of life. Humming is a sound-measure of biodiversity, and the louder it is, the healthier the ecosystem. This is a well place. 

The birds and the insects and the wallowing cows are, with the woodland and the lake, basking in the summer heat. And then, at nine minutes, the thing we never thought could happen… 

A magic spell. A sonorous rocking call. 
A simple pair of musical notes, that flow through the air with a special kind of wistful purity.
A cuckoo. All-too fleeting. But a cuckoo. Flying.