Exploring the ‘Tree Amble’ Podcast

NHSN Student Naturalist, Aimee Shovlar, shares a fascinating natural history podcast – perfect for quiet moments this festive period

The Tree Amble podcast is a series of interviews hosted by Pete Leeson, who works with the Woodland Trust in Cumbria to plant trees. The interviewees are people Pete has worked with over his 30 years with the Woodland Trust, from farmers to ecologists, demonstrating the importance of everyone working together to better the nature around us. Most of the interviews are based in Cumbria but a couple are dotted around in other areas such as Essex, Kent, and Lancaster.

In season one, episode seven, Pete speaks to the author of Wild Fell Lee Schofield at RSPB Haweswater, a mixture of ancient woodland and temperate rainforest. While the interview takes place, you can hear Lee and Pete walk around the woodland with birds singing and Pete describes a few scenes, transporting the listener into the forest with them. Throughout this podcast, the conversation jumps from the relationship of Hazel Gloves Fungus & Glue Crust Fungus to creating a balance between farming and conservation and the importance of beavers. If you would like to hear more from Lee Schofield, check out the talk he delivered at NHSN via our YouTube channel.

Pete is now on his second season of this podcast, with his latest episode being episode six, where he finds himself back in Cumbria with an ecologist named Mike counting frogspawn. You can listen to the podcast in all places you can listen to podcasts, I personally use the Castbox app but it’s also available on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.

Aimee Shovlar
Student Naturalist

Aimee is a Zoology student at the University of Cumbria. She is currently working at NHSN as a Student Naturalist.

She also runs a Hedgehog society at her university which is focused on making the campus Hedgehog friendly.