Episode 5 Blethering Scots

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One of the Scots words I love to use is "clarty" and that means

when you're covered in mud, and as a zoologist, I'm out in the field

a lot hunting for animals and bugs and you get covered in mud.

When that happens, your hands get clarty, you sometimes have

to give them a "dicht" which means a wipe on your trousers or your jacket.

It's such an expressive word.

Look at that, there's loads of them here. Look at that. Fantastic.

I'm going to have a wee keek at these bugs.

You can tell it's a beetle larva

because it's got three pairs of legs at the front.

George McGavin is a man with a passion for creepy-crawlies

and it leads him to some pretty unusual places.

Very often when you're hunting for animals,

especially if they're insects, you have to get into a tight space.

And that usually means getting dirty, or clarty,

so I usually come home covered in mud!

But that's the only place you can find really interesting things.

I think there's something lurking behind here.

I'm going to give that a prise off. Oh, look at that, that's interesting.

Now, something's been eating up here hidden away here

and all this is falling down. So those little...

Oh!

HE SPITS DIRT FROM HIS MOUTH

Yes, very clarty.

I'm often asked why I find animals and plants interesting.

Obviously there's history and music and art and stuff

but if you take that away,

if you take everything away, what have you got left?

And the answer is animals and plants, the natural world.

So I find it much more interesting.

And in the right place at the right time, they can be extraordinary.

This is just...breathtaking.

These are just some of the amazing insects of Borneo.

It's a huge cicada.

RASPING NOISE

The whole of the abdomen is hollow.

RASPING CONTINUES Hear that?

That probably one of the ones that wakes us up in the morning.

Look at that, that's a beauty. That's an absolute beauty.

Back in Britain in early spring,

insects are a little harder to come across,

and thankfully a lot smaller.

An average eight-year-old child could find out something new

about the world of insects in their back garden if they just looked.

If I had a billion pounds I would buy every kid a hand lens like this

because you can see things happening on the ground, in soil,

in bits of dead wood, that you just wouldn't believe were happening.

'There are so many words that are just brilliant when you're outside.

'Like, you know, if you're a stream, in mud,

'you're hae'in a guddle, or if you're just out for a walk, you'd say

'"I'm just away for a birl around this wood."

'Just a walk, basically. A look, a keek.

'And just all these words that I recall from being a small boy.'

The first spring day like today when a few folks are in their shorts

and you say to yourself, "Look at his legs, they're awfully peely-wally".

You know, "They're very pale."

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd