15 April 2009

On Wednesday, 15 April, Sean Street pays tribute to one of the most legendary of all Natural History sound recordists, Ludwig Koch. Koch created the first multi-media publications in a series of "Song Books", containing text, photographs and recordings in one volume. "Song of Wild Birds" first appeared in the 1930s, and went through a number of editions. Koch's distinctive German accent made him a familiar voice on BBC radio post-war, and the subject of an affectionate parody by Peter Sellers. For the programme, to be broadcast at 9.00pm on 15 April on BBC Radio 4, Sean gets to examine Koch's disc recording equipment, now housed in a store at the Science Museum, London. "I remember listening to him as a child", says Sean. "My particular memory is of a haunting recording by Koch of Atlantic Grey Seals in a cave on the Island of Skomer. He described their cries as 'ghost sounds from the underworld...the longer I listened the more certain I became that the age-old stories of mermaids had come true.'"