Off Track

Whip it good [Earworms from Planet Earth xii]

24 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Whipbirds are a favourite in the Aussie bush – secretive little fellows with flat top haircuts and a cutting call.  This episode is chokka-block f...

Echidna indigestion and other eating tails [Re-issue]

17 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

Magical and misunderstood sea snakes [Re-issue]

10 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

When Jamie fell in love with the mountains [Re-issue]

03 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Intimate aliens [Re-issue]

27 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

Hobart Airport lets sleeping echidnas lie [Re-issue]

20 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

Seagrass [Re-issue]

13 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

Flora fatale, the plants with a thirst for blood [Re-issue]

06 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

Ravenous star-shaped mouths

28 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

Sea urchin solo in a coral reef choir [re-issue]

21 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

And your bug can sing

14 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The underwater sounds in this creek near Brisbane are like an eclectic jam session.  There are sweet beetles (that sing), lonely bugs (on percussion...

Grandmother tree, the fire and me

07 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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

Yackandandah's angel of the bush [UPDATE]

31 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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,...

The burning bush is talking

24 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 b...

The bilby, the moon and the Birriliburu Rangers

17 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Where giants nest

10 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Gone fish — pygmy perch pushed too far

03 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Cockies wheelie love bin day

27 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Barbara York Main — Australia's spider woman

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 Ba...

Earworms from planet earth XI

13 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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...

This is Mark

07 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Virtual reality, second nature

29 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Trapped in the dry

22 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Karajarri calling

15 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 th...

Amphibian hullabaloo and other frog noises

08 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 o...

Big cats in the bush [RE-ISSUE]

01 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 dat...

Tiny crayfish out of water

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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.

The unlikely tale of the Murchison meteorite

18 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Off Track family news

14 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Plovers unmasked

11 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Magpie behaviour is not black and white

04 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

[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 ...

Saving the Ocean, part 4 [re-issue]

27 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 Tra...

Saving the Ocean part 3 [re-issue]

20 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lindsay Smith has been tagging seabirds in the deep waters off Wollongong for over thirty years. Commercial fishing practice can have a devastating i...

Saving the Ocean, part 2 [re-issue]

13 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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. ...

Saving the Ocean, part 1 [re-issue]

06 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 prog...

Where giants nest - nature soundscape

31 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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. ...

Where giants nest

30 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Cockies wheelie love bin day

23 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

The exceptional Nuyts Archipelago

16 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Earworms From Planet Earth X

09 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 bu...

Listen for Tigers

02 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Golf is freedom and frustration [re-issue]

26 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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]

Earworms from Planet Earth IX

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

The curse of the plastic nurdle

12 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Earworm Extra - lyrebird audiotape

08 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Lyrebirds - lyrebird equality now!

05 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Earworm Extra - Listener Lyrebirds

30 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 audiotap...

Lyrebirds - Lyre, lyre, dancefloors on fire

28 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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.'

Earworm Extra - a morning in a valley

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Earworm Extra - lyrebird flute song

23 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 lyre...

Lyrebirds - Repeat after me

21 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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.'

PRESENTING: How Deadly with Ann Jones

17 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There's some new nature-nerdery going on over on the ABC Science YouTube Channel and it features Off Track's Ann Jones. http://bit.ly/howdeadly

Go, Dog, Go! [re-issue]

14 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Are these the happiest hounds in Australia? We think so, and that's why we're playing this one from the Off Track archive.

Off Track presents - Branch Out

08 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you need a brain to be able to sense the world around you, or to remember or learn?

Talking frogs, thinking plants

07 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It's a very noisy world out in Australian nature, and sometimes all you need to do is stop and listen (to this).

Moaning birds, vegetarian rodents and the moon man

31 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Muttonbird Island in NSW is a place of majesty. It's just that the majesty crash lands in the moonlight and sounds like a squeezy toy.

Barbara York Main - Australia's spider woman

24 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The reserve at North Bungulla is quiet all day until the winds of the evening make the trees creak in the falling light. The winds bring the news tha...

Water finds a way

17 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

All around us and within, water is an intimate, essential part of our lives. What would we do if water lost her way?

When Water Lost Her Way

15 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to the audio book version of the Australian Children's book 'When Water Lost Her Way' by Meg Humphrys.

A sense of time

10 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Does a second feel the same for a fly, a bird, or a swordfish, as it does for me? From the BBC World Service, immerse yourself in the world of animal...

Owl with attitude

04 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A powerful avian predator is making do in Melbourne's suburbs. For now.

Professor Waterhouse's wonderful plant [re-issue]

26 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Peter Waterhouse and the wonder plant Nicotiana benthamiana.

Earworms from Planet Earth VIII

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Angry sheep or randy frog? Motorbike or koala rev? Indigestion or monkey? Get the headphones out for another set of wild sounds sent in by Off Track ...

Gone fish - pygmy perch pushed too far

12 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The tiny Yarra pygmy perch, with golden sheen and teardrop eye, has been pushed to extinction in the Murray Darling Basin. Now, all hopes for its ret...

The bilby, the moon and the Birriliburu Rangers

05 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Ninety one years in the desert

29 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Absalom has died at the age of 91. From parrot poacher to painter, Absalom was a renaissance bushie with a story or two to tell.

Teenage quolls are V-I-SQUEE

22 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a momentous night for this teenage eastern quoll – she’s leaving home.

Off Track presents Queer Out Here

15 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A crowd sourced audio zine that celebrates the world outside walls from the perspective of LGBQTIA+ people from all over the world.

Off Track presents HumaNature

08 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Not quite tame, not quite wild.

Off Track presents Outside/In

01 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It turns out, some forests love fire.

The Chase 3 — Tracks across time

22 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A team races against time and the elements to save 95-million-year-old dinosaur footprints in the Aussie outback.

The Chase 3 — Trouble in paradise

16 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rats and mosquitoes threaten a fragile ecosystem on an isolated Tahitian atoll — but now scientists are trialling new techniques to rid the islands...

The Chase 2 — Back from the dead

08 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Obsessives, dumpy birds and disapproving academics: the saga of the night parrot.

The Chase — Eye in the sky

01 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do you catch the shadow of a moon? You need a telescope with wings. Join the flight of a lifetime on SOFIA, the airborne observatory.

Eight legged wonder of the world

26 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Spiders can be beautiful, timid, fluffy and even give up their lives for the sake of their children. [repeat]

The sperm whale's clicking tale

19 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Next to nothing was known about sperm whales in the Southern Ocean. That is, until the Australian Antarctic Division started listening to their click...

Cockatoo wail, fledge or fail

05 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The wailing calls of the red-tailed black cockatoos that live in Australia's South East are being used to help change the future for the failing spec...

Flora fatale, the plants with a thirst for blood

29 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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

Magical and misunderstood sea snakes

22 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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

Australian Christmas a hodgepodge of traditions

15 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the lead up to Christmas, many Australians decorate their outdoor space AND bring a little bit of nature indoors. But many have not really conside...

Tiny floof with a sweet tooth

08 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

With a taste for the nectar of Australian flowers, the Western Pygmy Possum is the sweetest little thing you'll hear about today.

Pipis and prejudice

01 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Tensions in the small town grow, and 'piss off pipi hunters' is written across a public toilet wall. And all the while, under the sand at the beach, ...

Earworms from Planet Earth VII

24 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Sounds from around Australia featuring the Peron’s Tree Frog, Cat Birds, Mystery birds and boobooks. 

Penguins Little by name, but not by nature

17 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Off Track explores the Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor) colony on Bowen Island in NSW. [Repeat]

Hit the frog and toad

10 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

It was thought that cane toads couldn't survive, and certainly couldn't breed as far south as Sydney. That thought was spectacularly wrong. [repeat]

He's been through the desert

03 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

His business card says 'desert walker' and he's not afraid of death.

The bitter taste of the monarch butterfly

27 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Native to North America, it was an extraordinary string of luck including a gold rush, cyclones, the rise of ornamental gardening that led to the nat...

The butterfly and its goldilocks ant

20 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The survival of one of the rarest butterflies in the world is entirely reliant on a ant.

Earworms from Planet Earth VI

13 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Can you hear the buzz of a bee? The trill of a whistler? Spring has arrived in Australia, and this is what it sounds like.

Born to be wild

09 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

After growing up in captivity, three young birds take their first free flight.

The northern hopping-mouse builds its own house

06 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If Kevin McLeod did a series called Furry Mammal Grand Designs, the northern hopping mouse would have to be the star of the first episode.

Echidna indigestion and other eating tails

29 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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

Earworms from planet earth V

22 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The sounds of wild Australia recorded by the audience and identified by a panel of experts.

Dining with Killer Whales

15 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The water turns red and smells of fish. It's the blood of the prey of a pod of Orcas. This episode of Off Track has been selected from the archives f...

The women who were determined to walk

08 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1920s, wearing ankle length skirts and carrying heavy packs, the Melbourne Women's Walking Club set out to explore dense areas of Victoria's b...

Yackandandah's angel of the bush

01 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Glenda Elliott has spent her life caring for injured, sick and orphaned Australian wildlife and then once rehabilitated, releasing them back into the...

Into the Mallee

25 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Award winning radio Producer Mike Ladd takes a drive into the Mallee to discover its magic.

Magical and misunderstood sea snakes

18 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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

The spawning of reef conservation

11 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

One small public notice stating the intention to mine Ellison Reef was the seed from which the 'Save the Barrier Reef' campaign was spawned. To celeb...

Hi-vis Nudibranch named

04 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

It is covered in flamboyantly coloured sausages, it’s a hermaphrodite, breathes through its skin, goes through metamorphoses AND this new species h...