BBC Studios Natural History Unit
YouTube and major platforms
Advertisement
鈥淲HEN I was a child, I got chased by a warthog.鈥� With this unlikely holiday story from Botswana, co-host Rutendo Shackleton begins Safari, the first episode of a new season of the BBC Earth Podcast, an exploration of the natural world for those who may not be quite as confident navigating it.
A creation of the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, it is a conversational, slickly produced podcast that seeks to engage more than it informs. Yet it does both effectively, prompting the listener to take a closer look at whatever nature is near them.
Safari invites city folk to view their immediate surroundings with the same curiosity and wonder with which they might look for lions, leopards, rhinos elephants and African buffalo in South Africa.
Zoologist Shackleton shares hosting with New York-based scientist Sebastian Echeverri in this magazine-style podcast, which is aimed at people whose worlds might not extend far beyond the city limits.
If Echeverri鈥檚 US enthusiasm grates a little at first to an English ear, it does prove quite infectious. Equally infectious is , somewhat undersold as a 鈥渘ature Instagrammer鈥�, who gives listeners a friendly, knowledgeable tour of the temperate rainforest on the Isle of Bute in Scotland, UK.
From the full-bodied sound design to Lapwing鈥檚 evocative descriptions of all she sees, smells and hears, you feel you are there with her 鈥� encouraged, by her example, to pay attention to your closest patch of green, even if it is just outside your office.
