Episode 4

Over twelve months, this is the story of Cockshutt Wood in Shropshire, representative of all the small woods in our landscape and the sanctuary they provide. In episode four, it's August and the heat of the summer makes work impossible.

From January through to December, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons in exquisite prose, as the cuckoo flits through the green shade in the silence and the wind of winter. He explores from the roots of the oak to its tips, under the black, spicy leaf mould of the woodland floor and up into the mysterious canopy.

It's a unique account of the animals that inhabit this refuge - the fox, the pheasant, the wood mouse and the tawny owl, among others - with the stories of their births, lives and deaths threaded through the book.

Read by Greg Wise
Produced by David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.