What The Duck?!

WTF NATURE. I give up.
||A Message from Dr Ann - the What the Duck?! host and general dork.||
I don't really give up. The recording I took for the latest season of Nature Sounds by Ann Jones was a ripper (in terms of wombat farts).
This bit  got edited out of the longer soundscape over there, because, it was determined, that a wombat walking in and scratching its butt ON THE MICROPHONES in the middle of a meditation soundscape would harsh the high of the listener.
So. What the Duck?! subscribers.
Enjoy. A wombat scratching its butt on my very VERY expensive recorder.
RECORDING: Ann Jones
MASTERING ENGINEER: Isabella Tropiano

In fact, most dinosaurs never got the chance to stop and smell a flower... and it was all because of bad timing. Sad face.
The meteor that killed all the dinosaurs (rude) actually kicked off flower supremacy on planet earth. 
Flowering plants are only about 135 million years old, yet they’re the most bio-diverse plants on the planet. Without them, no birds, no bees. Again, sad face. 
So where did flowers come from? And how did they end up being top bud? 
 FEATURING:
 Mario Vallejo-Marin - Professor in Evolutionary Ecology, Uppsala University, Sweden.
Professor Michelle Waycott - Chief Botanist at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens State Herbarium / Professor in Systematic Biology, Adelaide University.
Morris Lake - Author, Australian Rainforest Woods.
Gareth Prosser - Professional Voice Over Artist whose wife roped him in. 
PRODUCTION:
Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer
Sarah Prosser, Producer
Mastering Engineer: Tegan Nicholls
This episode of What the Duck was produced on the land of the Wadawurrung people. 
Find more episodes of the ABC podcast, What the Duck?! with the always curious Dr Ann Jones exploring the mysteries of nature on ABC Listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll learn more about the weird and unusual aspects of our natural world in a quirky, fun way with easy to understand science.

It was a perfect night. But this duck had other ideas.
The scene: A perfect, wonderful, windless night at a wetland.
You couldn't ask for better conditions. The sun sets and the insects hum and eventually you hear a boobook and it's lovely… except one very loud duck keeps on yelling periodically the whole way through.
It's like the thing KNEW I was recording. It goes on for hours.
Anyway, I've got a passion project at the ABC.
A podcast called Nature Sounds by Ann Jones.
It's all these looooong form sounds scapes. The idea is that you can use them to relax, or go to sleep, or drown out your colleagues or whatever.
You can find it on the ABC listen app or any other podcast app. I promise this screaming duck didn't make the cut. 
RECORDING: Ann Jones
MASTERING ENGINEER: Isabella Tropiano

This flower takes needy to a whole new level! 
It was almost extinct. That was, until 2015, when a woman called Julie took it upon herself to make sure we didn’t lose the species altogether, and as it happened (baby) Ann Jones went along with a microphone. 
Now, it’s 10 years on, and Ann is older, greyer and more closely resembles a bearded orchid. But, given she hasn’t been made redundant yet, we can revisit the forest to ask – was all that effort worth it? Did the orchids survive? 
Featuring:
Julie Radford, Threatened species ecologist in Central Victoria
Production:
Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer
Sarah Prosser, Producer
Mastering Engineer: Tegan Nicholls
This episode of What the Duck was produced on the land of the Wadawarrung people. 
Find more episodes of the ABC podcast, What the Duck?! with the always curious Dr Ann Jones exploring the mysteries of nature on ABC Listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll learn more about the weird and unusual aspects of our natural world in a quirky, fun way with easy to understand science.

You probably have a daddy-long-legs in your house right now.
But when is having a weird housemate in the corner ACTUALLY a good thing? Dr Ann Jones investigates.
Featuring:
Dr Samantha Nixon, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Dr Lizzy Lowe, Invertebrates Australia.
Thanks also to Dr Bernhard Huber, Arachnid Curator at Museum Koenig for helping us get the facts right.
Production:
Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer.
Petria Ladgrove, Producer.
Additional mastering: Hamish Camilleri.
This episode of What the Duck?! was originally broadcast in 2023 and was produced on the land of the Wadawarrung and Kaurna people.
Find more episodes of the ABC podcast, What the Duck?! with the always curious Dr Ann Jones exploring the mysteries of nature on ABC Listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll learn more about the weird and unusual aspects of our natural world in a quirky, fun way with easy to understand science.