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THE LIVING WORLD
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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The Living WorldÌýis a gentle weekend natural history programme, presented by Lionel Kelleway, which aims to broadcast the best, most intimate encounters with British wildlife.
nhuradio@bbc.co.uk |
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LISTEN AGAIN Ìý25min |
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PRESENTER |
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"The Living World is the next best thing to being there. Our contributors are skilled naturalists who are able to reveal those fascinating facts about animals and plants that you don't always find in books. It's like having a personal guided tour of the countryside, without needing to leave the house."
Lionel Kelleway
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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| Lionel Kelleway with Alison Blackwell on the hunt for midges... |
The Highland Midge
Lionel Kelleway visits the shores of Loch Laggan in the company of Dr Alison Blackwell of Edinburgh University to discover what the latest research has revealed about the lives of these tiny pests.
The highland midge, Culicoides impunctatus , is common to many areas of the UK , but it is in the Scottish highlands where it has achieved notoriety.
It has been estimated that as much as 20% of the 65 working days through the summer are lost each year to forestry workers; and that 48.5% of visitors to the highlands, according to one report, said that they had been put off from visiting the same area at the same time of year again - all because of the midge.
Midges are not new to Scotland - they have been found in 75 million year old amber and have, more recently, been described in literature detailing Bonnie Prince Charlie's encounters with 'mitches' whilst hiding in the hills after the Battle of Culloden.
The Scottish midge problem has been studied in detail since the establishment of Edinburgh 's Midge Control Unit in 1952.
The midge can often appear in numbers that are quite mind-boggling. One study revealed 500,000 in an area of just two square metres, and midge traps commonly collect two or three million over just a few nights. Yet this success is in an area where the environment is relatively inhospitable - with weather often fluctuating daily between cold and wet, to hot and dry.
A key factor in the success of the midge in an environment where blood meals might be few and far between, is the fact that the females lay their first batch of eggs without requiring a bloodmeal.
The main hosts, and sufferers of the midge, are not people at all - but cattle and deer - and the movements and health of deer in summer months is thought to be a direct result of midge activity. Fortunately, in the UK the midge is little more than an irritating menace.
In warmer climates, the midge is to livestock what the mosquito is to people - responsible for the spread of a number of serious diseases. However the midge does have some ecological importance - the larvae are useful decomposers in the soil, acting like mini earthworms in soil ecology.
On close inspection, the midge is a fascinating insect - with a range of behaviours related to mating and courtship; and a highly sensitive olfactory system that allows it to home in on the chemicals released in sweat and breathing from a host.
This knowledge has provided the basis for a range of midge traps on the market that are also enabling valuable data to be collected about midge activity. A midge forecast is now available to help people plan their summer activities in the highlands.
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