1 Extracts from our CDs - below.

2 Time transformation - slowed-down birdsong revealing hidden detail.

3 Messiaen's birds - recordings of the species behind the Catalogue d'Oiseaux.

4 Blackbirds - a feature on this superb garden singer.

Monthly feature - changes with the seasons.

Nightingale & tawny owls (614k) from track 1 of birdsong in Britain. Recorded after midnight on the edge of a scots pine wood in East Anglia, U.K. Nightingales sing during the day too, but at night they have the stage pretty much to themselves - apart from owls

Skylark song (260k) from track 3 of songbirds. Recorded at dawn in the New Forest, U.K. in thick mist. Well known for their hovering songflight, they also sing from a perch occasionally, as this bird.

Woodland chorus (463k) from track 2 of woodland soundscapes. Recorded about an hour after dawn in an oak wood in Northumberland, UK in May. With blackbirds, great spotted woodpecker, blue tit, wren, chaffinch, pheasant and woodpigeon. This is just after the first wave of the dawn chorus has passed.

Redstart song (306k) from track 5 of woodland soundscapes. Recorded in scattered birch woods on the Morayshire moors in the early morning. Redstarts like overmature trees for nesting. With willow warbler song.

Lapwing display (265k) from track 1 of moorland soundscapes. Recorded in the Cairngorm foothills, UK. Maybe half a dozen birds performing in the air over a ploughed field in the darkness before dawn. This was mid-April, the temperature was below freezing and the earth was rock-solid. The heavy wingbeats are part of the performance.

Golden plover calls (285k) in flight from track 5 of moorland soundscapes. Recorded in Sutherland, UK, not far from Cape Wrath the north-west extremity of the Scottish mainland. There was a group of about a dozen birds nearby, newly arrived on their breeding grounds. My mics were set up under a rocky knoll which a wheatear was using as a songpost. In a break from the wheatear song, one of the golden plover started flighting round the knoll, calling and singing occasionally. Listen for the swish of the wings.

Mute swans over water (441k) from track 12 of sea-shore soundscapes. Recorded by the water's edge in a sandy bay in Northumberland, UK. This bay has very gently shelving sand and several reefs of whinstone outcrop sheltering it from the open sea. I was recording the gentle running wavelets at low tide when a pair of mute swans flew overhead.

Two bitterns sounding off (434k) from track 1 of wetland soundscapes. Recorded around 3.30am in Lancashire, UK in May. The previous night these two males had been further apart and on different sides of the causeway through the reedbeds. Then on this night they had come much closer together for the battle of the bass systems: it appeared that the louder bird (the second in the sequence) was actually further off.

Frog chorus (257k) from track 5 of wetland soundscapes. Recorded in Northumberland, UK in March at the remnants of a pond surrounded by parkland.

Evening drizzle (196k) from track 11 of water music. Recorded in a remnant of the old caledonian pine forest in the Scottish highlands, with a snatch of robin song.

Wind-blown gate (227k) from track 14 of wind music. Recorded near Cape Wrath in Sutherland, UK. A brand new aluminium gate beside the brand new fast road cutting through the primeval gneiss landscape, where the old single track road had meandered with passing places.