RADIO : The owl, the copycat and other diverting creatures

Oh what is that sound that so thrills the ear? Somewhere, along this ancient hedgerow, swooping low over the young corn in the light of the full moon, could there be an owl hunting? No, sorry, actually it's Chris Sperring, hooter extraordinary. But you could have fooled me. And, hang on a moment, he's also managed to fool the nocturnal hunters of The Living World (R4) with his owly impersonations. Here they come now ...

Who'd have thought that the yelp of a cat on the tiles would draw the inquisitive response of a fierce little owl, as a distant church clock struck midnight? Or that the melancholy long withdrawing howl of a factory- siren would have the same effect on its long-eared cousin? Least likely of all, that the peremptory hiss of an Italian coffee-machine would attract the interest of a barn owl? In fact, Sperring was a bit dubious about this last one himself, as it leaves him, he said, with exhausted front teeth and lips in need of a re-tread. But it worked, and, for miles around the Severn estuary, owls closed in on this avian Rory Bremner, suspicious that he might have designs on their territories, their mates, or their vole-suppers. Accompanying him, Lionel Kelleway could only marvel - but I bet he went away to practise in his bathroom.

Other sounds to thrill the ear this week came from Manchester and the Music Live festival, much of which was broadcast on Radio 3. Saturday night's concert set two versions of Carmina Burana against each other; one was medieval and anonymous, the second a more familiar arrangement by Carl Orff. They were well matched.

The early one featured some of those instruments that remind you of minor skin-complaints, the gittern for example, or the oud. Introducing all this, Philip Pickett told us to expect the words to be in vulgar Latin and something that sounded like macaronic, but he didn't say what they meant, beyond the suggestion that they were very rude. In style and spirit, despite the seven centuries between them, they were strikingly similar and although I'd have preferred a live interval drink in the Bridgewater Hall to the revolting talk about cannibalism, Unspeakable Rites, which R3 chose to bridge the gap, the concert worked well. The very live audience roared their approval like a Proms crowd.

The next day Brian Kay's Sunday Morning entertained Manchester's cafe society to breakfast and the papers, while the Nemo Brass Quintet gave a magnificent display of virtuosity, culminating in a set of hilarious variations on God Save the Queen so dyspeptic as to be verging on treason.

Now to other things. I thought She Knows You Know (R4) would be funny, but in fact it was bitterly sad, as Jean Ferguson, in an impressive tour de force, performed her own play about the sad descent of the comic actress Hylda Baker into the Alzheimer's she had spent most of her life dreading.

But, by mere serendipity, for the rest of the week there's been a lot to laugh at. Vice or Virtue (R4), on the subject of manners, had the supremely confident Ann Leslie enquiring of Drusilla Beyfus what she should have done when, as she was discussing a weighty subject, live, on Any Questions, Sir Nicholas Fairbairn began systematically groping her. And Mediumwave (R4), often so solemn as to be pompous, proffered a collection of one- liners from a court in Massachusetts. These were all the better for having been uttered in deadly earnest. "How many times have you committed suicide?" was one question; "Did the defendant kill you?" was another and, my favourite, "Were you shot in the fracas?" drew the response: "No, I was shot between the fracas and the navel."

Ian Peacock gave a bravura performance from the Armando Iannucci school of radio surrealism on the Bank Holiday, when he went in search of Nothing (R4). It was full of glorious nonsense and silly advertising jingles - nothing acts faster than Anadin, so it's speedy then, and it apparently tastes like toothpaste, as nothing is like Colgate (this reminded me of a line from a poem by Peter Porter, quoted in Michael Rosen's Best Words (R3): "Sweet are the uses of advertising"). There were contributions from a Renaissance lecturer, who expatiated cheerfully on the subject of naught and naughty being almost indistinguishable, and a quantum physicist who said that even a vacuum is populated by pairs of particles being constantly created - cue a lunatic conversation with a Hoover salesman. I liked the wild irrelevance of a solemn R3-type voice providing a bogus trail for a programme in which a doctor, a psychiatrist and a fishmonger discuss the ethical implications of undertaking a gentleman's excuse-me with an otter. It could happen ...

And finally, yesterday, came a celebration of radio's most delightful character, the much-lamented Willie Rushton. Five of his old mates gathered in a pub for Willie's Wake (R4). Wisely, the emphasis was not on their sadness at his death, but on the many facets of his comic talent. Tim Rice remembered an occasion when Willie watched as he spilt red wine on his dapper new white dinner-jacket: "I always dress to match the food," was Willy's solemn advice. And Richard Ingrams described the pleasures of the Rushton cartoon - one had a policeman gravely addressing a couple of elderly gays occupying the same sleeping bag on a pavement. The caption read: "Adults you are, consenting you may be, but I would question the privacy of Lowndes Square." What a hoot he was.