Nature's Archive Podcast

What Podcasts do I Listen To?

I’m a bit of a podcast addict. My normal daily routine is to wake up around 5 AM, workout, and listen to something interesting while I workout. This gives me about 10 hours of solid listening time each week.

So what do I listen to? Here’s a list of my go-to nature and ecology podcasts. Of course, I just launched my own Nature’s Archive podcast – so why am I pointing you to other shows? Well, I want to provide you with the best content, and I think all of these are great adjuncts to what I produce. I hope you enjoy them!

My Favorite Nature Podcasts

• The American Birding Podcast – A great resource for North American birders, produced by the American Birding Association. Each episode has a brief review of rare birds seen in the region, and usually a medium-depth topical interview or discussion. Be sure to listen through the end for more bird puns than you can handle.
• Urban Wildlife Podcast – If it can be found in a city, this podcast covers it. Ranging from nighttime moths to mice to nighthawks to the controversial subject of cats, you can learn about it here.
• The Wild – KUOW in Seattle creates this highly polished podcast, hosted by Chris Morgan. Every episode I’ve listened to has been worth the time. Every episode.
• In Defense of Plants – Plants are everything, says this podcast. And it is true. They are the foundation of energy supply for the planet. They are odd, beautiful, tiny, huge, and every other adjective you can think of. Host Matt interviews a variety of experts across an amazing array of specialties – always a treat to listen to.
• Future Ecologies – Future Ecologies integrates superb audio and content, digging deep into subjects, and integrating not just the complex ecological story, but also how it relates to current society and traditional Native American societies.

Some Other Great Listens

• RadioLab – WNYC produced RadioLab is not a nature podcast, but it seems like about 10-20% of the time, they dig deep into a natural history topic. RadioLab is highly produced and always great content. I subscribe and listen to most episodes, even if they are not nature oriented
• BirdNote – BirdNote podcasts are daily 2 minute natural history reviews of some aspect of birds or their environments. If you can’t fit this in your schedule, you aren’t even trying.
• Projects for Wildife – Host Alicia Amerson interviews many interesting conservationists, and also talks about how to manage projects relating to wildlife.

And Even More Podcasts

There just isn’t enough time in the week to listen to everything I’d like to. But on occasion, I do give a listen to these ones as well.

• Every Little Thing – Every Little Thing attempts to answer fun yet difficult questions from listeners. Like RadioLab, only a small number of episodes are natural history related, but they are good ones, such as “How Squirrels Track Their Nuts”, “Ants: Tiny Brains, Full Hearts”, “Spiders: How Many Can There Be?”, “Fruit Flies: Seriously, Where Do They Come From”, and many more (look for the Flamingo and Banana Slug episodes, too!).
• Herpetological Highlights – If Herps are your thing, they get DEEP.
• The Field Guides – A monthly podcast covering a wide array of topics.

And This is the Tip of the Iceberg

Being a naturalist is just one aspect of my life. I’m a husband, parent, engineer, people manager, fan of stoic philosophy, type A “continual improvement” mindset, fitness addict, and generally just love to learn. That’s probably all outside the scope of Nature’s Archive, but please leave feedback if you’d like to hear more about any of these topics.

And as usual, here’s a recent nature photo to share – right from my backyard!