This is where my obsession with the fastest bird on the planet all started! For a while, we were shown a weekly BBC educational programme at school called Look and Read which included a serialised drama section. And the storyline that made a 9-year-old me sit bolt upright on the hall parquet floor and stare wide-eyed at the big telly on wheels was called Sky Hunter. Sky Hunter was brilliant… Source

For the second year running Kit and Will are out on location for a very special episode. We were invited by Gareth Jones of Gloucestershire Raptor Monitoring Group to join him for a weekend of ringing one of the best birds in the UK. But which bird?? Contains severed limbs, bad whistling, bonus churring and… the “king of the forest”! Will’s What Bird Is That? animated bird guide can be found… Source

In this episode, Kit is joined by Emily Joáchim, a freelance conservationist and writer. Emily has been obsessed with wildlife, particularly raptors and owls since childhood and, after completing her zoology degree, worked for various conservation organisations before spending 4 years studying the breeding ecology of the Little Owl for her PHD. She has worked with long-term nest box monitoring… Source

In this episode Kit is joined by ATM, a street artist who paints urban walls with birds threatened with extinction. He has a lifelong love of nature, having grown up surrounded by birds in an abundance which is now a distant memory. He has a particular connection to their songs, calls and the wild spaces they inhabit. His giant wildlife murals fill walls across London to Bristol and on to Poland… Source

After a rather long hiatus, Golden Grenades is back! In this episode Kit is joined by Graham Appleton. Graham started birdwatching and ringing when at school in Birmingham and became heavily involve in the Wash Wader Research Group as a teenager. After a first career as a maths teacher and deputy headmaster, Graham worked for the BTO from 1997 to 2013, initially as a fundraiser and latterly as… Source

Kit's guest on Golden Grenades for this episode is Josie George. Josie is a writer and visual artist based in the West Midlands. She is the author of her highly acclaimed book A STILL LIFE, a memoir about life as a chronically ill mother with a big heart and wide-open eyes. She is a regular writer for The Guardian Country Diary and her own blog bimblings, sharing a different view of nature from her urban neighbourhood, often from her mobility scooter. Josie spends her days finding doorways...

In a break from your usual programming, Kit and his pal Will Rose are on location! In Part 2 of our Northumbrian odyssey, we pick up where we left off and Tom Cadwallender shows us around his local patch. Then we head into the hills to meet up with secretary of the Rare Breeding Birds Panel, Mark Eaton and hopefully a plethora of red-listed bird species. May contain a man casually chucking a baby bird!      

In a break from your usual programming, Kit is on location! He's bought a roaming microphone, mounted it to a stick and is taking his old mucker Will Rose around Northumberland to show him the local wildlife. En route we chat to some local legends of the bird world, wear nets on our heads and learn that Puffins are mingers. Featuring; Heather Devey and Cain Scrimgeour of Wild Intrigue and the Godfather of Roseate Terns, Tom Cadwallender. May contain Peregrines.

In this Golden Grenades bonus/extra episode Kit talks to writer and conductor Lev Parikian about his new book, Taking Flight.

This episode of Golden Grenades features Arjan Dwarshuis, a professional bird guide, writer, and motivational speaker, who also holds the current Guinness Book World Record for observing the largest number of bird species in a single year. In 2016, he launched his global “Big Year” and ultimately observed 6852 of the world’s roughly 10,900 bird species, setting a record that stands to this day. His yearlong adventure raised nearly 50,000 Euros for the BirdLife's Preventing Extinctions...

Kit is joined by naturalist and conservationist Nick Acheson for a chat about his new book, The Meaning of Geese, published on Thursday 9th February 2023 by Chelsea Green Publishing. Buy it here: https://chelseagreen.co.uk/book/the-meaning-of-geese/

YOLOBirder's guest on Golden Grenades in this new episode is actor and sometimes director Samuel West. He’s played Hamlet and Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Jeffrey Skilling in Enron in the West End and the voice of Pongo in Disney’s 101 Dalmations II.  His television work includes Slow Horses, The Crown, Small Axe, Mr Selfridge and  his films include Darkest Hour, Suffragette, Van Helsing and Howards End.  He plays Siegfried Farnon in the new TV adaptation of All Creatures...

YOLOBirder's guest on the podcast this time is  North Shields born singer/songwriter Aaron Duff, who works both solo and with his full band under the name Hector Gannet. Aaron talks about his five favourite birds, the five species that he would protect above all others when the environmental apocalypse arrives. We chat about how he started in music, his connection to the natural world, and the birds he would include in an all-bird band! Birds that mean home, the bird that "writes all his own...

YOLObirder's guest in the post-environmental apocalyptic wasteland is Dr Brian Briggs, a conservationist and musician on a lifelong quest to tune into the natural world.  Brian is both a manager of an internationally important nature reserve, and the singer/songwriter for the band Stornoway. Stornoway were the first unsigned band to appear on Later… With Jools Holland and have subsequently toured worldwide and enjoyed main stage appearances at festivals including Glastonbury, Latitude and...

YOLOBirder is back with a brand new Golden Grenades episode with the fantastic artist, writer and all round nature lover Kerrie Gardner. Kerrie is a nature inspired artist and writer living in Devon who likes to dabble in a variety of crafts. Before becoming self employed she worked as an ecologist and prior to that was an environmental educator with the Dorset Wildlife Trust. She contributed to the BTO's Red Sixty Seven book and has written for Penguin, discussing the loss of biodiversity...

YOLOBirder's special guest on the increasingly infrequent Golden Grenades podcast is Kwesia, AKA City Girl in Nature. Kwesia is from South East London, and her experience of the outdoors growing up was playing football on the streets with dustbins for goalposts. She developed a secret interest in nature documentaries, and did not expect that a visit to her youth club from the British Exploring Society would change her life... Now Kwesia is on a quest, through her "nature connection...

After a bit of a hiatus, Golden Grenades is back! Joining YOLOBirder this time is ornithologist, Jamie Dunning. Jamie is working on his PHD at Imperial College on the social lives of House Sparrows, has discovered that Puffins' bills fluoresce and has an amateur project on the go on Twite in England. Some of us are interested in birds, but Jamie has taken it to the next level! Contains the birds that led to the creation of the Muppets, birds that go to the pub and the bird that keeps Jamie...

In this episode of Golden Grenades nature writer Nicola Chester discusses her work and recently published memoir, On Gallows Down. Why do people keep giving her dead things in a Bag For Life? Which bird would she like to rename the Spangle Speaker? And which species did she use to spook armed American servicemen? Have a listen to find out!

In this episode of Golden Grenades nature writer Nicola Chester discusses her work and recently published memoir, 'On Gallows Down'. Why do people keep giving her dead things in a Bag For Life? Which bird would she like to rename the Spangle Speaker? And which species did she use to spook armed American servicemen? Have a listen to find out!

Actor, writer and director Mackenzie Crook discusses his love of birds, Detectorists & Worzel Gummidge and the bird he would most like to peck out one of his eyes!

YOLOBirder’s fellow apocalypse survivor this week is Jonny Fisk, lifelong wildlife enthusiast and for the past 5 years has lived and worked as an Estate Worker/Assistant Warden at Spurn Bird Observatory.  Contains unexpected migration, bird serial killers, sky burials and a pointless game of Pointless! https://www.spurnbirdobservatory.co.uk/ https://www.spurnmigfest.com/ Twitter: @jonnie_fisk