Wildlife science, heard in the field.
Off Track is an ABC nature program built from place, sound, and patient scientific curiosity. Its stories range from Antarctic blue whale acoustics to urban powerful owls, moss in concrete heat, long-bonded lizards, and giant burrowing cockroaches.
PRESS PLAY
Off Track is an outdoor wildlife and environmental science show shaped by sound, movement, and close attention. It does not treat nature as scenery. It listens for it. Episodes follow scientists onto ships, into suburbs, through scrub, and down toward the small life underfoot. Antarctic blue whales are located by their own calls, with acoustics replacing the usual visual survey. Urban powerful owls are tracked near Melbourne, where owl vomit can become evidence. Moss is examined as a tough city survivor, drying out and greening again while raising questions about pollution and resilience. The show is equally comfortable with grandeur and oddity. A woolly flying squirrel can become a story about cliffs, glaciers, rarity, and conservation. A giant burrowing cockroach can become maternal, architectural, and unexpectedly beautiful. A sleepy lizard study becomes a portrait of long-term animal relationships, infection, memory, and the grief left by a scientist's death. Off Track often finds its force in that turn: a creature first seems strange, then the science reveals a whole social or ecological world around it. The pacing is adventurous but intimate. Field recordings and listener-submitted sounds give the show a tactile quality, so places arrive through calls, weather, footsteps, hums, and human reactions. The science is accessible without being flattened. Researchers explain animal behavior, acoustics, ecology, and survival strategies in ordinary language, while the narration keeps the emotional stakes in view. The tone can be playful, especially around mimicry, cockroaches, and other misunderstood life. It can also become solemn when extinction, habitat loss, illness, or environmental damage enters the frame. Off Track is best for listeners who want to feel transported without leaving scientific ground. It offers wonder, but it earns that wonder through careful listening.
Made for: For listeners who like nature stories with real field texture, scientific explanation, and emotional range. It especially suits people drawn to wildlife behavior, conservation, unusual species, and immersive audio.
What sets it apart: Off Track stands out through its outdoor soundscape: whale hums, bird calls, listener recordings, and field conversations carry the science. It makes overlooked creatures feel specific, consequential, and alive without sanding away complexity.
Off Track, with Ann Jones, is an Australian radio show and podcast which combines the relaxing sounds of nature with awesome stories of wildlife and environmental science, all recorded in the outdoors.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Off Track turns close observation, field sound and patient questioning into lucid stories about animal behaviour, ecology and conservation.
Off Track begins with an animal in a particular place, then follows the questions its behaviour raises. Anne Jones lets field sound establish scale and atmosphere before bringing researchers into the conversation, making scientific method feel connected to observation rather…
Blue whale hums, avalanche country, and lizards with relationship trouble: your indoor life never stood a chance.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Off Track closes by turning bird mimicry into a fresh science trail.
Off Track ends by pointing listeners toward What the Duck, Anne Jones's new ABC nature podcast, and the fit feels natural. The show keeps the same pull toward scientists, sound, and the odd edges of nature, with Duck the Ripper setting the tone through bird mimicry, Ripper's…
Blue whale song, Antarctic blizzards, and the patience it takes to find both.
Off Track takes the listener into the Southern Ocean with scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division and their New Zealand counterparts, using underwater acoustics to follow Antarctic blue whales by song.
A slow lizard story that becomes a clear-eyed tribute and a grounded piece of ecology.
This Off Track hour moves from the sleepy lizard, also known as the bobtail goanna, stumpy tail, shingleback, or pinecone lizard, into a careful look at social connection, tick load, and long-term pairing.
A gliding squirrel becomes a guide to a remote mountain world.
Off Track sends Anne Jones into far north Pakistan, where the woolly flying squirrel opens onto a remote high-altitude world shaped by Nanga Parbat, sheer cliffs, glaciers, and the winter search through Paradise Valley.
Steven Novella and a rotating panel dissect weekly science news and debunk pseudoscience claims.
Peter Zala says the squirrel was rediscovered after 70 years and came back in a bag for $40.
This episode explores the surprising world of mosses, their resilience in cities, and their potential to clean air pollution.
Off Track closes with Anne Jones introducing What the Duck, an ABC Science podcast built around nature recording, birds, and odd animal behavior.
Frida Hayworth’s speech exercises unexpectedly became a call-and-response with a male motorbike frog.
Off Track's Anne Jones revisits a 2015 Antarctic voyage on the Tangaroa that used underwater listening devices to record Antarctic blue whales and other low-frequency species.
Off Track revisits Professor Michael Bull's 35-year sleepy lizard study at Bundy Boar near Burra, South Australia, after his unexpected death.
Off Track host Anne Jones revisits the 12 October 1973 sinking of the 320-tonne Blythe Star, which was carrying superphosphate and keg beer to King Island.
A wildlife ecologist searches for powerful owls in Melbourne's outskirts, discussing their behavior and habitat.
This episode explores the misunderstood world of cockroaches, focusing on the giant burrowing cockroach and its ecological importance.
An exploration of mosses in urban environments and their potential to clean air pollution, featuring an interview with a PhD researcher.