Episode description

Writer and poet Susan Richardson invites us to a seal pupping beach on the Pembrokeshire coast; a world that has inspired tales of shape-shifting selkie folk and mermaids.

We stand above a cove. The air is filled with the haunting cries of the grey seals below us, and a soap opera of their lives unfolds. Through the human-sounding calls of the pups, the grunts and splashes of the bull seals as they are looking to mate again, and the sea birds and lapping water, we're immersed in the sonic world of one of the most remarkable coastlines of Britain. Susan considers the mythical stories around the creatures through poetry and her own observations, the ways their lives have intertwined with human ones, and the ecological threats they face in reality.

Produced by Cathy Robinson for BBC Cymru Wales