How flight works, with Simon Barnes

From his home in the remote Great Bear Rainforest, First Nations hereditary chief Mike Willie runs wildlife tours that go much further than showing visitors what animals live in British Columbia. Through his Indigenous-owned and operated wildlife travel businesses, Mike uses tourism as a vehicle to share the stories of the lands that he and his ancestors have looked after, and that have looked after them, for more than 14,000 years. Canada is still undergoing a process of truth and reconciliation relating to the country’s treatment of its Indigenous people, and Mike talks about the raw issues related to this history, as well as celebrating the cultures that have seen First Nations people live in harmony with nature for countless generations. You can find out more about Mike's work by visiting seawolfadventures.ca Photo: Mike Willie To get in touch with the Wild Lives team, you can email us at [email protected] And to get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: discoverwildlife.com Subscribe to BBC Wildlife magazine and save 20% on the shop price. Pay just £25.99 every 6 issues and receive free UK delivery direct to your door. Order now at ourmediashop.com/bbc-wildlife-magazine-POD20 BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The deep sea is one of our final frontiers – along with deep space – and in this episode we talk with Dr Jeffrey Marlow, an American microbiologist who studies the smallest lifeforms that live in its most inhospitable places. Jeffrey wears many hats – as well as being a scientist and deep-sea explorer, he’s an advisor to the United Nations and works with NASA on robotic missions to Mars. He talked about what it’s like to explore the deep sea in the modern age, and how the microbes that live at the deepest parts of the oceans may hold the clues to the search for life on other planets. His latest book, The Dark Frontier: Unlocking the Secrets of the Deep Sea, is published in the UK by Faber & Faber. Photo: Ana Pantelic To get in touch with the Wild Lives team, you can email us at [email protected] And to get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: https://www.discoverwildlife.com Subscribe to BBC Wildlife magazine and save 20% on the shop price. Pay just £25.99 every 6 issues and receive free UK delivery direct to your door. Order now at ourmediashop.com/bbc-wildlife-magazine-POD20 BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of Britain’s most-loved writers, Simon Barnes has been obsessed by flight for as long as he can remember. He talks about where this love of flight came from, and reflects on how human cultural history is littered with the dream of flight, from Daedalus and Icarus to Leonardo Da Vinci and Arthur Dent, the hero of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. His latest book, How To Fly: taking wing with birds, bats, insects and humans, is published in the UK by Bloomsbury. For more of Simon’s books, head to https://simonbarnesauthor.co.uk/ where you will also find his very enjoyable blog. Photo: Simon Barnes To get in touch with the Wild Lives team, you can email us at [email protected] And to get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: https://www.discoverwildlife.com Subscribe to BBC Wildlife magazine and save 20% on the shop price. Pay just £25.99 every 6 issues and receive free UK delivery direct to your door. Order now at ourmediashop.com/bbc-wildlife-magazine-POD20 BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr Rosa Vásquez Espinoza’s work with stingless bees in the Peruvian Amazon led to them becoming the first insect anywhere in the world to be protected by legal rights. Born in Peru, Rosa is a chemical biologist, and a descendent of Andean and Amazonian people, who passed their knowledge of natural healing down to her. As well as combining her scientific and Indigenous understanding of nature, Rosa is a conservationist, and a science communicator and storyteller who shares her passion for the natural world with audiences around the world. Her latest book is The Spirit of the Rainforest: How Indigenous Wisdom and Scientific Curiosity Reconnects Us to the Natural World. You can follow her work at rosavespinoza.com and her work with Studio Blue Green at studiobluegreen.org Watch the giant baby armadillo clip here: https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/baby-giant-armadillo-camera-trap-amazon Photo: Miryan Delgado To get in touch with the Wild Lives team, you can email us at [email protected] And to get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: https://www.discoverwildlife.com Subscribe to BBC Wildlife magazine and save 20% on the shop price. Pay just £25.99 every 6 issues and receive free UK delivery direct to your door. Order now at ourmediashop.com/bbc-wildlife-magazine-POD20 BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wild Lives, the podcast from the team at BBC Wildlife Magazine is back for Season 2! Hosted by BBC Wildlife editor Paul McGuinness, Wild Lives returns with more incredible stories from the people who work and live on the frontlines of the natural world. We speak with Peruvian chemical biologist and conservationist Dr Rosa Vasquez Espinoza, about combining science with her ancestral knowledge of indigenous Amazonian and Andean healing. We also hear from deep sea explorer Jeffrey Marlow about how his studies of the microbes that live at the depths of our oceans is helping in the search for life on other planets. And we head to British Columbia to meet First Nations hereditary chief Mike Willie, who shows us how indigenous-run tourism in Canada supports nature and local communities. Also this series we’ll be discovering how flight evolved 2 or possibly 3 times; we’ll meet the sea rangers changing the landscape of our oceans, we’ll go birding in the Amazon and we’ll find out how wildlife tourism and conservation go hand in hand in east Africa. Episode 1 releases on Friday 16th October. Follow the feed now so you never miss an episode. See you there! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wildlife cameraman and presenter Hamza Yassin became a household name in the UK when he won Strictly Come Dancing in 2022. Born in Sudan, Hamza moved to the UK as a child, and is one of the best-loved natural history filmmakers on our screens, whether that be in front or behind the lens. Hamza loves to share his passion for the natural world through his storytelling, which is often aimed at children, but is increasingly finding an adult audience. We chat with Hamza about how children sometimes lose that passion for nature, and how important it is to share our love of nature. Hamza is heading out on tour in the UK, with dates around the country. Tickets for Hamza's debut tour ‘Hamza Yassin – My Life Behind the Lens’, which runs until May 30, are available to buy from nothird.co.uk Photo: Hamza Yassin And to get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: https://www.discoverwildlife.com BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What emotions have you felt when you’re in the natural world? We hear a lot about how nature calms us, gives us joy and hope, but what about other feelings, such as grief, anger or shame? In this episode, we talk with self-confessed nature nerd Lucy Lapwing, who explores these complex emotional responses to nature in her new book, Love Is A Toad (Blink Publishing, March 2026). Our conversation explored many subjects, including how nature writing helped Lucy fight cancer in her early 20s, and how gazing into the eyes of a slug made her head swim. You can follow Lucy’s adventures on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/lucy_lapwing/ Photo: Lucy Lapwing And to get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: ⁠https://www.discoverwildlife.com/ BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What are crabs – and what are they for? What can they teach us about ecosystems? And what exactly have they got to do with the 1926 general strike? These questions – and more – are all answered by the brilliantly informative and irreverent Crab Museum in Margate, Kent. Opened in 2021 by brothers Ned and Bertie Suesat-Williams and their friend Chase Coley, it's a witty celebration of crustaceans that also has serious things to say about biodiversity, climate change and politics. Ned and Bertie are hugely enthusiastic advocates for both the museum and the wider natural world, as we discovered when we caught up with them for this far-reaching chat. So far-reaching, in fact, that we even get on to the evolution of bums (but you'll have to stay to the end for that). You can find out more about the Crab Museum at ⁠crabmuseum.org⁠, and you can follow the museum's team on Instagram at ⁠instagram.com/crabmuseum/⁠ Photo: Sam Bush To get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: https://www.discoverwildlife.com/ BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was presented by Oliver Hurley, hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ever since he was shot in the back by bandits in a Guatemalan forest, Stuart Butchart has been exploring the natural world in a wheelchair, which is every bit as hard as it sounds. But Stuart’s positive approach is inspiring. Today, Stuart is chief scientist at BirdLife International, the world's largest partnership of nature conservation organisations, where he heads up a team that, among other things, identifies bird species around the world most in danger of extinction. We chat with Stuart about his love of nature, the accident that changed his life, and the obstacles that limit access to natural spaces for wheelchair users – and how to improve that situation. You can find out more about the work Stuart and his team do by visiting: ⁠https://www.birdlife.org/⁠ Photo: Annelisa Grigg And to get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: ⁠https://www.discoverwildlife.com/⁠ BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you think you’ve ever been to the middle of nowhere, think again. In this episode, we take a journey deep into the Amazon rainforest, to one of the most remote parts of the jungle where we met Indigenous wildlife guide, Alejandro Aguilar. This conversation took place on board a boat in Peru, and along the way we learn what it’s like to have been born and raised in the jungle. We follow Alejandro’s incredible life story, which saw him leave his village as a small child and become part of a government project in Lima, eventually returning to the Amazon as an adult. Alejandro has an extraordinary understanding of and connection with nature, and what we can learn from him is hard to put a value on. Oh, and just for good measure, he has a very amusing story about a group of Germans in the jungle. But that’s for later. If you enjoyed this episode, you can read more of Paul’s adventures on the Aqua Nera at ⁠https://www.discoverwildlife.com/holidays-days-out/south-america/amazon-wildlife-river-cruise⁠ You can find out more about Amazon river tours on the Aqua Nera at ⁠aquaexpeditions.com⁠ and on travel in Peru by visiting ⁠peru.travel⁠ Photo: Paul McGuinness And to get more great content from BBC Wildlife, visit our website: ⁠https://www.discoverwildlife.com⁠ BBC Wildlife is the world’s longest-running and most popular nature magazine. This episode was hosted by Paul McGuinness and produced by Lewis Dobbs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices