Blog - Podcast: Golden Grenades

YOLOBirder is back with a brand new Golden Grenades episode with the fantastic artist, writer and all round nature lover Kerrie Gardner.

Kerrie is a nature inspired artist and writer living in Devon who likes to dabble in a variety of crafts. Before becoming self employed she worked as an ecologist and prior to that was an environmental educator with the Dorset Wildlife Trust. She contributed to the BTO’s Red Sixty Seven book and has written for Penguin, discussing the loss of biodiversity in the UK over the past 70 years.

Kerrie talks to Kit about her five favourite birds, particularly those that look like foliage, and why she has a tendency to load dead animals into her wheelbarrow!

YOLOBirder’s special guest on the increasingly infrequent Golden Grenades podcast is Kwesia, AKA City Girl in Nature.

Kwesia is from South East London, and her experience of the outdoors growing up was playing football on the streets with dustbins for goalposts. She developed a secret interest in nature documentaries, and did not expect that a visit to her youth club from the British Exploring Society would change her life…

Now Kwesia is on a quest, through her “nature connection activism”, to share her story with other young people to help them experience the benefits of the wild world too.

Please donate to Kwesia’s crowdfunder here:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/city-girl-in-nature

After a bit of a hiatus, Golden Grenades is back! Joining YOLOBirder this time is ornithologist, Jamie Dunning. Jamie is working on his PHD at Imperial College on the social lives of House Sparrows, has discovered that Puffins’ bills fluoresce and has an amateur project on the go on Twite in England. Some of us are interested in birds, but Jamie has taken it to the next level!

Contains the birds that led to the creation of the Muppets, birds that go to the pub and the bird that keeps Jamie awake at night!

In this episode of Golden Grenades nature writer Nicola Chester discusses her work and recently published memoir, On Gallows Down. Why do people keep giving her dead things in a Bag For Life? Which bird would she like to rename the Spangle Speaker? And which species did she use to spook armed American servicemen? Have a listen to find out!

Actor, writer and director Mackenzie Crook discusses his love of birds, Detectorists and Worzel Gummidge and the bird he would most like to peck out one of his eyes!

For the final episode of the second series, YOLOBirder is joined by his Golden Grenades partner-in-crime Will Rose for a bit of last day of term, bring-a-toy-in, do-no-work tomfoolery.

Includes unacceptable bird tattoos, coot skills and Will flips the table on Kit making him reveal the five species of bird he would choose to survive the environmental apocalypse.

YOLOBirder’s fellow apocalypse survivor this week is Jonny Fisk, lifelong wildlife enthusiast and for the past five years has lived and worked as an Estate Worker/Assistant Warden at Spurn Bird Observatory.

Contains unexpected migration, bird serial killers, sky burials and a pointless game of Pointless!

This week’s guest on Golden Grenades is Dr. Alex Bond, senior curator in charge of birds at the Natural History Museum. Alex describes his work looking after the historically and culturally important specimens in his care and talks about his extensive work as a conservation biologist with a focus on the marine environment and island biology.

Contains the bird Alex described as “one pound balls of hate” and the one that sounds like “a northern granny when you tell them you have met a nice boy”!

This week YOLOBirder is joined by naturalist and self-proclaimed nature nerd Lucy Lapwing. Lucy started blogging about wildlife on her Instagram during a period of illness in 2015, and aims to communicate the weird and the beautiful aspects of our natural world in a funny and inclusive way. She works for the RSPB in Communication, Fundraising and Community Engagement and has ongoing bird song series on YouTube and BBC Radio 3. She has successfully spread the nerdy word on a number of [platforms recently including BBC Earth and Springwatch’s Instagram, and the Self Isolating Bird Club.

In this episode Lucy celebrates the ‘little brown jobs’ and the often overlooked female birds of a species.

This week YOLOBirder is joined by the best selling nature writer and international tour guide Dominic Couzens, who discusses his lifelong love of birds and the five species that mean the most to him. From his first published article on gull identification to his latest book, Save Our Species: Endangered Animals and How You Can Save Them, Dominic talks about his fascination for bird behaviour and telling others about the amazing things birds do. We even chat about his appearance on Harry Hill’s TV Burp!