Discovering Nature’s Hidden Conversations with Amy Martin

Wild Ideas Worth Living

REI Co-op

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4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Award-winning journalist Amy Martin has spent years tuning into nature’s hidden soundtrack. As the host and creator of Threshold, she explores the intricate ways life communicates beyond human perception. In its latest season, Hark, Amy uncovers how species from birds to dolphins—and even turtles—use sound to share information we’re only beginning to understand. Thanks to breakthroughs in acoustic research, these conversations are finally coming into focus.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Every time we step outside, there's a cacophony of noise.
0:09.0	If you're in the city, you'll probably hear cars, sirens, and dogs barking.
0:14.0	When you're out in nature, the soundtrack softens, but there's still plenty to hear if you tune in,
0:20.0	a chorus of birdsong or the
0:21.6	chittering of squirrels. Beneath these layers of noise is an abundance of sounds that humans
0:26.7	can't detect, from ants marching toward their colony to the creaking of new growth on a plant.
0:34.9	Think about a flower. You have this beautiful, bright thing trying to attract pollinators.
0:41.8	That flower is also an ear, and it is listening for the pollinators in some cases.
0:48.5	So certain kinds of flowers, when a bee is buzzing closer, they start to sweeten up the nectar that they produce so that
0:56.1	when that bee lands and takes a sip of their nectar, they're going to hang out longer and
1:00.1	they're going to come back and they're going to tell their bee buddies like, hey, over here,
1:03.1	this is a really good flower.
1:06.9	Award-winning journalist Amy Martin is obsessed with nature soundtrack.
1:11.6	She's the host and creator of the Environmental Documentary Podcast Threshold.
1:16.4	In the latest season, titled Hark, Amy discovered that it isn't just flowers who are listening.
1:22.7	All sorts of species like birds, dolphins and turtles, communicate using sounds that humans often can't hear,
1:30.5	much less decipher. But with advances in acoustic research, we're getting closer and closer to
1:36.0	understanding what it all means. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living,
1:42.0	an REI Co-Op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-Op MasterCard.
1:50.6	Amy Martin, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
1:53.9	I love that you're in Missoula half the time and then Sweden.
1:57.8	Yeah, yeah.
	...

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