Heaton Park has a fascinating musical heritage that includes concerts from Oasis and The Stone Roses and also a “Gramaphone King” performance in 1909 that attracted 40,000 people!

For the cool cats, Mancunian faves Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds on Friday 7^th June and James on Saturday 15^th June, and for the party animals it’s the Parklife Festival on Saturday 8^th and Sunday 9^th June with Eric Prydz, Chase And Status, Andy C, The Streets, Ricardo Villalobos, Solomun, Major Lazer Soundsystem and Honey Dijon getting the crowds dancing!

However, where the party is really at is the Manchester Festival Of Nature on Saturday 29^th June, the biggest celebration of nature that Manchester has ever seen, where you can join in a Guinness World Record Attempt for the number of people dressed as bees and take a wildlife safari around this urban jungle habitat, learning how to identify some real high flying birds!

All this got me thinking about the connection between nature and music, and how much nature has provided inspiration to musicians.

I’m sure the “Gramaphone King” would have been moved upon first hearing Vaughan Williams “The Lark Ascending”, a beautiful piece of classical music about the display flight of the Skylark, released in 1914 and 100 years later, in 2014, it was voted the nation’s favourite on Classic FM – and how we need the population of this bird to start rising! Pink Floyd “Grantchester Meadows” has a singing Skylark throughout the tune, and “Skylarking” is a word that is used in reggae music and is also the name of an epic trance tune.

A fun game to play, especially in festival season, is thinking of bands that have got their names, album/song titles and lyrics from nature.

In the Manchester area we have Doves, The Chameleons, Blossoms, The Seahorses; The Verve sang about chasing the butterfly and geese migration, Elbow sang about a whirling murmuration of “Starlings”, whilst Happy Mondays’ buzz-man Bez is known for his love of bees and The High Flying Birds new tune has the lyric “Nature is dancing”.

Further afield, of course, there are The Beatles, The Eagles, Seal and The House Martins; seabirds fly in with A Flock Of Seagulls, The Guillemots and Fleetwood Mac “Albatross”, and who can forget “Pretty Flamingo”, “Rockin’ Robin” and “The Funky Gibbon” ?!

Looking at the cooler side of my music collection there is King Bee, Urban Nature, Urban Jungle, Owl City “Honey And The Bee”, Innocence “Natural Thing”, Ramsey and Fen “Love Bug” and Underwolves “Bird Song”.

The RSPB recently released a track called “Let Nature Sing”, the first time a recording of birdsong has made it into the pop charts!

Birdsong in music is a favourite of chill-out artists and anyone who has got in from a rave in the early hours of the morning, or who likes to listen to Café del Mar whilst perusing the Sunday papers has probably heard birdsong fluttering in amongst the ambient beats.

In Manchester, the most famous musical birdcall is the 808 State sample of the call of the Loon in the classic “Pacific State”.

This summer nature and music combine to make a festival vibe, so make sure you take a walk on the wild side to Heaton Park, Saturday 29^th June for the Manchester Festival of Nature, guaranteed to be the most buzzing festival you’ve ever been to!