Unlocking Landscapes

Stornoway's Oli Steadman on his 30-mile woodland walk in south London

Welcome to the Unlocking Landscapes podcast with me, Daniel Greenwood!

Oli Steadman is a founding member of the indie folk pop band Stornoway. Inspired by their music’s deep connection to biodiversity conservation, he has been obsessed for some years with the quest to #FreeTheBatteryHuman, by connecting people to the great outdoors.

This is the mission behind all of the band’s songs (most of which reference specific wild habitats), and behind Oli‘s fundraising hike taking place next month in aid of the Fourth Reserve Foundation who are doing a fantastic job of maintaining Buckthorne Cutting as a nature reserve. It is part of what was once the Great North Wood, a vital part of London’s commercial and folkloric history.

Here are the links to everything we cover in the conversation.

• Walking 48km (30 miles) around the historic Great North Wood 
• Fundraiser for Buckthorne Cutting
• Fourth Reserve Foundation
• Conservation Conversations - Oli’s podcast
• Mischief Acts (the Great North Wood novel) by Zoe Gilbert
• Woodland inspiration with Zoe Gilbert - my recording with Zoe in 2022
• The Great North Wood project podcast with Chantelle Lindsay and Sam Bentley-Toon
• Stornoway performing for stranded Eurostar passengers 
• Stornoway on YouTube
• Stornoway’s Linktree
• Stornoway's upcoming concert at the Royal Albert Hall in late March
• Unlocking Landscapes podcast website

Thanks for listening!

September fungi walk: boletes

In mid-September 2025 I went for a fungi walk in an area of ancient woodland in the western reaches of the High Weald National Landscape.

I had to search but found some interesting mushrooms. Here's what I found:

• Deer shield
• Slime mould (slime mould's memory)
• Birch polypore
• Birch bolete
• Hairy curtain crust
• Splitgill fungus
• Shaggy scalycap
• Cep/porcini/pennybun (Boletus edulis)

If you want to see more of my fungi photography I publish every Friday in the autumn on Fungi Friday

Thanks for listening.

Summer fungi walk (with Bambi)

In mid-July 2025 I went for a short walk around part of the Sussex Weald, an area of ancient woodland in south-east England to see if any mushrooms had popped up. We've experienced one of the driest springs on record and the warmest June for England, as well as three heatwaves already! Me and mushrooms don't need three heatwaves, thanks.

Mushrooms need rain, warmth and moisture to thrive, and after a downpour earlier in the day I thought it might be worth having a look. Here's what happened:

• At the beginning you can hear my water bottle in my bag and a great spotted woodpecker 'kicking'
• I began in the presence of Bambi, or a fallow deer
• It was one of the driest springs on record in the UK
• Fungi need water to allow the mycelium to produce the fruiting body (mushroom)
• The first fungus I found was a very dry community of turkeytail
• Summer is a time to look for boletes and russulas
• The main fungus I found was a Ganoderma bracket
• Here's the video of the spore cloud I filmed nearby

You can see more of my fungi blogs on Fungi Friday

Support my work here if you like :)

Is ivy good or bad for trees?

On Good Friday 2025 I went for an evening walk in the Weald of West Sussex, an area of ancient woodland 30 miles to the south of London.

Is ivy (Hedera helix) bad for trees? Is it a parasite? Does it suck the blood of trees? Does ivy get framed for tree murder?

I worked in woodland management for 10 years and I learned a thing or two in that time.

It's complicated, but there's a lot of misinformation. Info covered here:

• What ivy looks like
• The ecology of ivy
• Managing ivy on trees
• Myths and misinformation about ivy
• When people commit crimes against ivy(!)
• Wildlife supported by ivy

This episode was recorded experimentally on my phone to see how that works - sorry for the odd bip and bop of the microphone peaking.

Further reading: I posted this blog about ivy back in 2013 - Why do people hate ivy?

You can support this podcast by buying me a camomile tea via my Ko-fi page.

Thanks for listening.

Unlocking Landscapes returns in 2025

Hi everyone, it's spring 2025 and I'm bringing my podcast Unlocking Landscapes back!

This is an informal episode where I talk about some of the recordings I'm hoping to do this year.

Thanks for listening!

Links:

• Support me via Ko-fi
• My blog
• Past episodes

Walking to Lough Conn with Seán Lysaght

In September 2022 I had the privilege of walking through the woods of Enniscoe House in Co. Mayo, Ireland, to the shore of Lough Conn with Seán Lysaght. Seán is a poet and author who has taught me a great deal (through his books and poems) about the nature, landscape and heritage of County Mayo.

We cover a lot of ground and experience all the weathers, with Seán reading one of his poems at the close of the episode. It ends in dramatic fashion, with the rain sweeping in off Lough Conn and making further recording impossible.

You can see more of Seán's work here and see the outline of the episode below. I hope you enjoy!

Recorded on 7th September 2022 at Enniscoe House and Lough Conn

• Woodpeckers arriving in Ireland
• Identify wych elm’s bristly leaves
• Elm trees in Mayo
• 2022 a good year for beech mast
• How vital ivy can be in woodlands
• Ivy is not a parasite
• Beech trees in Ireland, a planted tree of demesnes
• ‘The Big House’ landscape and differences with England
• Definitions of rainforest
• Tutsan and hypericums
• Personal memories of chiffchaff in Kerry, other warblers
• Moving from eradication to control with rhododendron
• Coniferous plantations in Mayo
• The appearance of ‘bog scrub’
• Wild Nephin - Seán’s 2020 book about National Park formerly known as Ballycroy
• New Leaf - Sean’s latest poetry book
• Wild Nephin
• Ballina bookshop: Pangur Bán 
  
• Lough Conn and views of Nephin
• Flowers found on the shores of Lough Conn
• Bog myrtle’s use as bath oil and its folklore in Ireland
• How wildlife is faring in Nephin’s conifer plantation
• Future management of lodgepole pine and sitka spruce
• Mayo’s dry summer of 2022
• Irish views of natural landscapes
• The role of bogs in preventing climate breakdown
• Bogs as ‘wastelands’
• Cutting turf in peatlands - sustainable practices versus mechanised extraction
• Herons crossing Lough Conn
• Seán’s hopes of seeing a newly-introduced sea eagle on Lough Conn
• Reintroduction of sea eagles, progress in Kerry, West Cork and Co. Clare, and the Shannon

 

Links:

• Seán's author profile: https://gallerypress.com/authors/g-to-l/sean-lysaght/ 
• Buying Seán's books in the UK: https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/sean+lysaght
• Wild Nephin: https://www.mayobooks.ie/Wild-Nephin-Lysaght
• Enniscoe House: https://www.northmayogenealogy.com/enniscoe-house

Watching ravens in the Ox Mountains, County Mayo 🇮🇪

It's January 2023 and my podcast, Unlocking Landscapes, is 2 years old! Thanks to everyone who has contributed and supported so far.

I do this podcast at my own costs so if you want to support it (it costs a basic £100 annually to host my Podbean account) you can 'buy me a coffee/camomile' here: https://ko-fi.com/djgwild

I haven't posted for a while, mainly for professional and technical reasons. The biggest issue is that I needed to upgrade my ailing desktop PC, which I have now done. It's in much better shape now, so no more IT excuses but hopefully more podcasts.

In September I spent a week in Mayo in Ireland and recorded two podcasts. One is an early evening walk in the Ox Mountains, encountering rickety gates and performing ravens. The second one (still to come) is a walk with Seán Lysaght, which I can't wait to share with you. I've been a big fan of Seán's writing for over a decade, so it was a massive honour to spend an afternoon walking with him. More on that one soon!

In the Ox Mountains I go for a walk, describing the surrounding landscape, capturing two ravens (acoustically) as they fly close by from where the breed in the hills. I also talk a bit about issues with cottages which aren't connected to mains water, amongst many other things.

Here are the reference points:

• The Ox Mountains
• Mayo Dark Skies Park
• The Irish famine
• Irish History Podcast
• American mink
• Fires in Mayo
• Ravens
• Nephin
• Ash dieback disease
• Sphagnum moss
• Croagh Patrick

Thanks for listening!

Woodland inspiration with Zoe Gilbert in the Weald of Kent

Unlocking Landscapes is back! In May 2022 I met with author Zoe Gilbert in Ham Street Woods National Nature Reserve on the Kent/Sussex border. Zoe is an award winning writer and she sounds very much at home in the woods. It was a real pleasure to spend the day with her and I'm very grateful for her time.

In March 2022 Zoe published her latest book, Mischief Acts (you can buy it here). The book is inspired by an historic wooded landscape in south London known as the Great North Wood. It's been covered in a couple of other podcasts for Unlocking Landscape so please see the links below. I love the book and as someone who knows parts of the landscape she has focused on, I can say for sure that she has nailed it!

In this episode we cover a lot of ground:

 

• What inspires Zoe to visit woods and write fiction inspired by them
• Public access to woodlands in the pandemic
• The complications around public perceptions of woodlands
• Mischief in the woods and National Parks
• 'Pics or it didn't happen': The importance not being observed all the time (social media)
• Contiguousness of woodland
• Bison being reintroduced to English woods
• The future of woodlands
• Prioritising the conservation of woodlands in a time of extremes
• The importance of local landscapes

 

Links to things we mentioned for more info:

• Mischief Acts by Zoe Gilbert
• Folk (Zoe's first book)
• Zoe's website
• Chris Schuler: The Wood that Built London (based on GNW)
  
• Dulwich Society
  
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Angela Carter
• Ham Street Woods NNR
• Song thrush
• Blackcap
• Sweet chestnut coppice
• Hornbeam
  
• Epping Forest
• Dungeness
• Kings Wood
• The Overstory - Richard Powers
• Antisocial behaviour in lockdown
• Reintroduction of bison to England

Looking for cuckoos in the Sussex Weald | birdsong walk

In May 2021 I walked 8 miles into the Sussex Weald to see if I could hear a cuckoo. The weather was fine and there were loads of birds out, many of them in full song. This is an episode best listened to through headphones so you can hear the birdsong, the wind through the trees and the buzzing of bees in the woodland landscape of the High Weald. It's an immersive episode with a guided walk feel, focusing on listening to the surrounding landscape.

Birds identified here include:

• Goldcrest
• Chiffchaff
• Blackcap
• Willow warbler
• Garden warbler
• Blackbird
• Crow
• Buzzard
• Blue tit
• Coal tit
• Great tit

Please support this podcast by 'buying me a coffee' on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/djgwild

Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy the episode.

Relevant podcasts: octopus beech in the Sussex Weald

Being a Bee Doctor with Dr. Beth Nicholls

After a month off this summer, Unlocking Landscapes is back and this time it's outside, with a guest!

In August I met up with Dr. Beth Nicholls at Bedelands Local Nature Reserve in West Sussex. Beth is a researcher on the subject of pollinating insects, with a key focus on bees. She works at the University of Sussex.

We talk about:

• what inspired Beth to become a "bee doctor"
• the hairiness of bees (but not wasps)
• educating people about the importance of all pollinators
• issues around honeybees (and Asian hornets) in the UK
• why wasps are important, how bee-washing is employed by the corporate world
• and the need to change how pesticides are used in the UK

Thanks for tuning in and I hope you enjoy the episode.

 

Links:

Beth on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BethBees

Beth's research at the University of Sussex (SE England): https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/labs/nicholls-lab/research