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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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| A close up of a Wren in nesting in a bird box.Ìý (c) Â鶹ԼÅÄ |
THE MILL IN WINTER
Lionel Kelleway visits a dear old friend, botanist Ray Woods, in his home in Wales for this edition of the LIVING WORLD. The house was once a water mill, and the stream which turned the wheel still tumbles down the side of the house.
Ray often compares life in his ivy covered, sunken home as very much like living in an ancient Oak – and you can understand why, when he and Lionel explore the house for signs of wildlife, and discover woodworm, spiders, beetles and fungi which you might just as easily find living on or around the old oaks in Ray’s garden.
Their quest begins in the garden – where the oak is riddled with tiny holes. Here in the wild woodworm, the larvae (or grubs) of wood-boring beetles, do little harm but in Ray’s house, they are the cause of wobbly chairs as the grubs bore their way though the wooden legs! The larvae are able to feed on wood owing to the presence of a fungus in their guts which helps digest the wood and release nutrients to the woodworm, as well as detoxifying unpalatable tannins in the wood. The woodworm do little harm to the house timbers, as fortunately for Ray his home was built using very thick timbers of hard heart wood, and the woodworm make little headway into such strong wood. They prefer soft wood.
The wildlife outside, moves inside, on logs (as in the case of spiders and beetles) or in the fur of his dogs and cat (as in the case of fleas), or, like the cockroaches, under the flaps of cardboard packing boxes. Ray has the dubious honour of hosting an incredible diversity of cockroaches which he’s discovered over the years as a result, he thinks, of importing them into his home in cardboard boxes he’s brought back from the corner shops and supermarkets!
Moving indoors, Ray and Lionel explore down the back of the kitchen sink for silver fish. Not a real fish of course but a very primitive insect which never grew wings. Once common in many of the old damp Welsh cottages, these are much less common today, but Lionel has a fondness for these creatures, recalling how he used to watch them scuttle across the bathroom floor at night when he was a child.
Ray also produces a Daddy-Long-Legs Spider which he explains may well take up residence in his Welsh cottage – as the spiders’ distribution spreads further north as a result of global warming as it likes mild winters. These spiders have very long legs and are formidable hunters, with a clever technique to outwit their predators – they make themselves invisible by rapidly shaking when hanging in their webs so creating a motion blurr. Because of their slim frame, they appear to disappear!
All this, and the tale of giant tapeworm, a wood rotting fungus and a glass of home-made sloe gin to see in the New Year! |
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RELATED LINKS
Â鶹ԼÅÄ Science & Nature
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