Join Melissa, two years on from the original broadcasts, for a bonus episode recorded live at Green Man Festival in Wales. She’ll be on stage talking to Marchelle Farrell about nature writing, the Stubborn Light podcast, and her new nature app, Encounter. Listen ..read more

Making a nature podcast is harder than you think… Note: Contains bad words and loud noises ..read more

Join Melissa for the last time on a longer walk than usual, taking in some familiar landmarks from earlier in the series. It’s a damp and misty autumn afternoon and the air smells of wet leaves and woodsmoke. Writer and broadcaster Horatio Clare is walking along Hardcastle Crags in West Yorkshire; his beautiful book The Light In The Dark: A Winter Journal is out now. ‘Try To Praise The Mutilated ..read more

Join Melissa in her cosy cottage as wind and rain lash down outside. The autumn migration is underway, and billions of birds are on the move; indoors, it’s time to light the fire. Writer and geographer Annie O’Garra Worsley joins us from the Highlands of Scotland; she’s working on a book about all the “geo bobbins” of her beloved home, due out next year. ‘A Landscape’ is by Rebecca Tamás ..read more

Join Melissa as she cycles to an abandoned World War II airbase and explores the old runways. A sharp breeze is plucking acorns from the trees, and skylarks are feeding in the brown stubble fields. Ginny Battson joins us from Westhope Wood in North Herefordshire; she wrote about rivers for The Wildlife Trusts’ Spring and Autumn anthologies. ‘Into The Hour’ is by Elizabeth Jennings ..read more

Join Melissa and Scout as they walk down towards the village at sunset. The shadows of oaks stretch long over the stubble fields, the evening star comes out and pheasants fuss and cluck themselves to bed. Paraic O’Donnell joins us from Co. Wexford; he’s the author of two novels: The Maker of Swans and The House on Vesper Sands. ‘Poem in which a small dog looks into the sun’ is by Jane Commane ..read more

Join Melissa as the sun rises on a crisp, cool autumn day; there are deer and hares in the dawn fields, and robins sing wistfully from the hedgerows. Our guest this week is the writer and naturalist Stephen Moss; his new book The Swallow: A Biography is published next month by Square Peg. The poem is ‘Fox Miles’ by Helen Mort, whose novel Black Car Burning is out now ..read more

Join Melissa as she walks Scout through the grounds of a stately home. The weather’s wet and it’s starting to feel like autumn; there are sloes in the hedgerows, and the first horse chestnut leaves are on the ground. James Rebanks’ beautiful new book is English Pastoral: An Inheritance; he joins us from Matterdale in Cumbria. David Morley reads ‘Cockade’, from his new collection, Fury ..read more

Join Melissa as she gets lost in a tangled wood on the edge of the village. It’s windy, and a robin sings from the understorey, while toadstools are sprouting underfoot. Helen Macdonald joins us from her Suffolk garden; her essay collection, Vesper Flights, is about to be published. ‘Pied Beauty’ is read by the poet Liz Berry. Please support indie retailers and order books from them online ..read more

Join Melissa as she scrambles down from her perch in an ancient oak and walks to a five-acre meadow managed for wildlife. Potatoes are being harvested, and buzzards wheel on thermals high overhead. Corin Harrison joins us from Space 2 Grow, a community garden in Farnham, Surrey. ‘Sometimes’ is read by BBC award-winning voiceover actor Helen Ayres. All the music from the podcast is now available to ..read more