Five years ago it felt like the world had momentarily stopped spinning. The nightly Covid bulletins aside, everything seemed preternaturally silent. Planes stayed on the ground. Traffic halted. And without the usual din of everday life (and later the weekly clap for carers) we began to notice sounds that had always been there but were drowned out by human activity.
I don’t miss the pandemic. But I do miss properly listening to nature. So it gave me great pleasure to dig out this symphony of sounds I recorded in my back garden during lockdown.