Off Track

A simple flowerpot making a difference to biodiversity in Sydney's harbour.

If you get bitten by a snake in the middle of the bush don't do what this bloke did

Is it ok to squabble over watermelon?

Banteng are an introduced species in Arnhem Land, but in their home range, they are in danger of complete extinction. So, what to do?

The underwater sounds in this creek near Brisbane are like an eclectic jam session.

Over the course of the week, three pairs of shoes bite the dust, soles detached from uppers in the 45 degree heat, one microphone's glue melts and there are about a billion bush flies drinking from sweaty backs. But despite the heat, Karajarri country has a draw towards it stronger than the pull of the sun.

Are you about to get murdered, or is it just a gang gang saying hello?

What sounds like a hiccup, but is actually a lusty mating call for a lothario without a lover?

Ancient creatures hide on Tasmania's secret reefs.

On a coral reef, everyone works to keep the city from crumbling.

To accompany ABC TV's Wild Australia: After the Fires, here is a minute of nature sound.

But do they really say 'bonk' or is it 'tonk',’ and does a foreign accent make a frog sexy?

Imagine spending your whole life searching for the elusive, perfect fiery opal. And then, one day, you realise you're holding — literally in the palm of your sweaty hand — a glittering prize of a gem that burns with a secret that could unlock the history of the Australian continent. Welcome to the crazy world of opal mining at Lightning Ridge, NSW, where prospector Mike Poben is facing a choice that will change his life forever.

Lynne Malcolm lost half a lung, and it was *probably* as a result of a radio story about birds.

Unwittingly shipped almost 3000km across the continent in a hand of bananas, this small frog is going to need help getting home.

Ever heard a sound echoing through the forest and thought, "well crikey, that's gotta be a dinosaur"?

Dragon by name, seaweed by nature

You find yourself awake in the middle of the night and there is a willy wagtail singing to the moon. Are you loosing your mind, or does this bird occasionally turn into a were-willy?

More quollity drama for your ears.

His name is George and he's a bit of a legend.

A pioneering experiment to rid New Zealand of its pest problem.

The Philippines is a reef fish biodiversity hotspot, but it's a delicate balance between livelihoods and sustainability in some fishing communities.

How do you protect Vietnam's pristine forests from the fast-expanding road and dam projects?

Take a look back at some Australian conservation efforts, from tiny reserves to landscape-scale restoration.

Ever wondered how they get those gorgeous shots of nocturnal animals on the TV?

When the icebreaker runs aground and leaves you stranded in Antarctica, what's a scientist to do?

After years of discussions with scientists, a composer writes a symphony for the sea. He calls it ex Oceano.

Where endangered wildlife watches you showering with a bucket in the Antarctic wind.

Where elephant seals smell like feathers and petrels sound like dragons.

Kevin Budden was only a young bloke when he left Sydney for North Queensland with one goal in mind: to find a coastal taipan and bring it back alive.

Just when you thought it might be safe to get back out into nature, it gets you where you least expect it: your nipples.

Just when you thought it might be safe to get back out into nature, there’s a bite from a huge, unknown carnivore and a leech on your eyeball. This is the second instalment of Incident Reports with communiques back to base about the worst (ie: best) fieldwork fails.

Let’s not get too romantic about nature. There’s plenty of times when you end up covered in mud, at the end of your tether and on the receiving end of a love bite from a vampire bat. Hear scientists report back about their worst (ie: best) fieldwork fails.

After 35 years, some of the same sleepy lizards are still alive, still with the same lizard partner. This episode was first broadcast in 2017, but has been updated with news of the new sleepy lizard scientists.

Gliding over a glacier in the Himalayas is a metre long squirrel with a smallish head, silky fur and a fluffy tail - but it's hardly ever been seen alive. Originally aired in 2017, we've got an update on the squirrel story!

It's as if this ship has invisible cat's whiskers extending off her hull - pricked and at the ready, they sense the weather and temperature and map the course ahead.

If you get bitten by a snake in the middle of the bush don't do what this bloke did

No music, no voices, just the sound of a stream and frogs calling on a still, cool night in regional Victoria.

No music, no voices, just the sound of the Roebuck Bay mudflats near Broome, WA. Hear breeze across the water, crabs and mudskippers flipping and flopping, and a tide that slowly comes in.

No music, no voices, just the sing of the forest coming to life early one morning near Canberra.

No music, no voices, just the sound of a valley halfway up a Tasmanian Mountain. This soundscape is full of birds and breeze echoing backwards and forwards across a reservoir.

Right now, more than ever, it’s important to stay in touch with nature.

Is it ok to squabble over watermelon?

Right now, finding joy in nature is just the ticket.

A piece of pumice floats across the ocean like a school bus picking up young organisms – tiny planktonic corals, some barnacles, maybe a crab, an oyster, perhaps a nudibranch.

Every evening at homes in Northern Australia, a tiny yip yip yip can be heard. And, on the other end of the spectrum, a boop boop boop can be heard in more arid zones. This week is a adventure into the big and small sounds of Australia.

Banteng are an introduced species in Arnhem Land, but in their home range, they are in danger of complete extinction. So, what to do?

If you are here in the Off Track feed, then, we're thinking you're probably a person who is engaged with the natural world. So, it follows that you might be interested in this series from RN Presenter Richard Aedy called 'Hot Mess.'

Whipbirds are a favourite in the Aussie bush – secretive little fellows with flat top haircuts and a cutting call.  This episode is chokka-block full of whippy (and other) recordings sent in from the audience members of Off Track.

It’s a bat eat mouse, lizard eat possum, wallaby eat bird world out there. Animals are always eating weird stuff.

These curious coral reef inhabitants have evolved some remarkable adaptations to thrive in the underwater realm.

Distinguished Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick has been crawling across lawns for more than 70 years, it's just that this one is on the top of a mountain and is full of plants from the cretaceous.

Robert Adlard says that parasites are intimate aliens, and that our dislike for them stems from their ability to surprise us with their closeness.

Despite all the noise of planes coming and going, the echidnas at Hobart airport are digging in to hibernate.

Understanding the power of seagrass in a research laboratory 18m under the sea.

With an aggressive mass-murder-then-compost strategy, these tiny plants are the most heinous of herbs.

Sea urchins are making a meal of south-eastern Australia’s rocky reefs and kelp forests. Can they be stopped?

Under the sea it isn’t all relaxing whale noise. The sound of the reef creatures is actually more like a percussive static with some grinding teeth on rock thrown in.

The underwater sounds in this creek near Brisbane are like an eclectic jam session.  There are sweet beetles (that sing), lonely bugs (on percussion), fishy grunters (think Jay-Z) and a punk-rocking rakali that just trashes the joint. This musical soundscape is the PhD homeland of eco-acoustician Emilia Decker.

Vanessa thought 'it's ok, the people are safe... It's ok, the house is safe...' But nothing prepared her for returning home.

Glenda Elliott can't say no to an animal in need - she wants to save them all. A few years back when fire ripped through Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter, she and the animals hid in a mineshaft. This show aired in 2018 and we've been back in touch with Glenda for an update following the bushfires of 2019-20.

Just before the fire hit, the trees' leaves turned red and fell to the ground, and it left Adrian wondering - did they know they were just about to burn?

A bilby dreaming story guides a mother with a sick child to an outback town. Decades later, the child returns to repay the favour and look after the bilby. For RN Summer we're bringing you Off Track highlights from 2019.

Albatross expert Dr Jaimie Cleeland listens to the gurgles and bellows of albatross as they nest on a tiny Atlantic island called Gough. For RN Summer we're bringing you Off Track highlights from 2019.

The tiny Yarra pygmy perch has been pushed to extinction in the Murray Darling Basin. Now, all hopes for its return are focussed on a couple of farm dams. For RN Summer we're bringing you Off Track highlights from 2019.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos are opening wheelie bins and turning trash into treasure. For RN Summer we're bringing you Off Track highlights from 2019.

She studied the world's oldest spider and championed their home at a time when both the environment and women were given no fighting chance — Dr Barbara Anne York Main OAM. For RN Summer we're bringing you Off Track highlights from 2019.

Birds sing at a mining camp, cicadas grind the gears of locals and mysterious sounds are identified. Listen to the sounds of Australia as recorded by the Off Track audience.

This is Mark: a life-size, custom-made inflatable whale. And he needs to be saved.

Off Track presents the new ABC podcast 'GOOD GAME: how games play us' attempting to answer a BIG question: There's nothing like taking a walk out and about in nature — or is there?

What happens to the animals of the Kimberley when the big wet just doesn't arrive?

Over the course of the week, three pairs of shoes bite the dust, soles detached from uppers in the 45 degree heat, one microphone's glue melts and there are about a billion bush flies drinking from sweaty backs. But despite the heat, Karajarri country has a draw towards it stronger than the pull of the sun.

Frogs don't just croak, they moan and groan, sing, whine, whizz and sound like dripping taps and this is an episode of pure adoration for the calls of Australia's frogs.

Rumours of pumas and leopards roaming the Australian bush have been around for more than a century. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence but to date no definitive proof. Join in the search for a mythical cat in this re-issue of a classic Off Track.

It's only as big as a tea bag, plays dead if you pick it up, and landowners don't even know they have an endangered animal in their backyard.

It startled the cows, intrigued the locals and excited scientists around the world. Fifty years on, the Murchison meteorite still defines a town and yields new discoveries every year.

The Off Track family is growing and we want you to know about it. Meet our little sister podcast - Noisy by Nature.

The masked lapwing terrifies humans with daring aerial attacks, which are actually displays of its pure parental love.

[RE-ISSUE] The phrase 'mate for life' might seem romantic, but the reality of such a relationship for the long-lived Australian Magpie involves turf wars, sex on the side and the possibility of a step-parent bringing up your kids if you get too aggro.

What can science do to preserve marine life and help it develop in harmony with our own human development? This program is a re-issue from the Off Track archives while Ann takes a short break.

Lindsay Smith has been tagging seabirds in the deep waters off Wollongong for over thirty years. Commercial fishing practice can have a devastating impact on seabird populations. But science is figuring out how to best mitigate the damage. This program is a re-issue from the Off Track archives while Ann takes a short break.

Shark fishing holds a special place in Kiribati culture. But a growth in the market for shark fins in Asia changed the traditional fishing practice. This program is a re-issue from the Off Track archives while Ann takes a short break.

Few places on earth are as exposed to the ocean as Kiribati; a chain of 32 islands spread across 3.5 million square km in the East Pacific. This program is a re-issue from the Off Track archives while Ann takes a short break.

Sink into the sounds of Gough Island, where the Albatross gurgle, the petrels moan and the skuas chatter. No human voices, all Off Track soundscape.

Albatross expert Dr Jaimie Cleeland listens to the gurgles and bellows of albatross as they nest on a tiny Atlantic island called Gough.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos are opening wheelie bins and turning trash into treasure.

St Peter Island in South Australia's Nuyts Archipelago is home to sea eagles, short-tailed shearwaters, stick-nest rats and brush-tailed bettongs – and also some particularly venomous black tiger snakes.

A magpie calls to the rising sun, a fat green frog sings in a water tank and an endangered lemur moans about its family. Ann Jones takes you and a bunch of experts on an ear-tour.

No one ever forgets the time that they first heard a tiger.

In any given day on the golf course, there are people in ecstasy, and people in agony. Sometimes it's the same person. [From the Off Track archive]

Stressed? Got the sniffles? Need a nap? Got a fussy baby? Just. Over. It? You won’t realise how much you needed to hear nature until you’ve heard this set of wild sounds sent in by Off Track listeners from around the globe.

Fiona Pepper follows the path of a tiny grain of plastic - a nurdle - as it travels on ocean currents from South Africa to land on a 'pristine' beach in West Australia.

Want to live another five minutes in the Off Track lyrebird world? Well, listen to this.

You might think you know the story of the lyrebird. Think again. Female lyrebirds could be rock stars in their own right.

From the hundreds of sounds sent into Off Track, we've selected all the Lyrebird recordings. An earworm extra for the series 'Sex, lyres and audiotape.'

You might think you know the story of the lyrebird. Think again. And then listen to this ear-bending series called 'Sex, lyres and audiotape.'

An earworm extra for the series 'Sex, lyres and audiotape.' Listen to the sound of dawn in peak mating season for superb lyrebirds

The story goes that a local lyrebird copied a young boy who played the flute, but regardless of its provenance, Carol Probets' recording of this lyrebird flute song is astounding.

You might think you know the story of the lyrebird. Think again. And then listen to this ear-bending series called 'Sex, lyres and audiotape.'