:00:36. > :00:41.land would, -- to Landward. I will be looking at a plan to save the
:00:41. > :00:47.Scottish wildcat. Here is what else is coming up: The secret weapon in
:00:48. > :00:52.the battle against a dangerous and invasive plant. At the moment we
:00:52. > :00:58.just spray. This is much more sustainable.
:00:58. > :01:05.The hard manual labourer of 19th-century female farmworkers.
:01:05. > :01:12.male final World Cup -- and male farmworker would have to bring along
:01:12. > :01:18.a female worker. And we meet one of three final amateur weather
:01:18. > :01:25.forecasters. The power of the storm. I remember seeing objects fly
:01:25. > :01:29.through the air. The Scottish wildcat is seriously
:01:29. > :01:33.endangered. The cats are so elusive no one knows how many are left in
:01:33. > :01:38.the wild. Their genetic purity is also under threat because of
:01:38. > :01:47.interbreeding with MS dig and feral cats. So what does the future hold
:01:47. > :01:51.for the Scottish wildcat eMac? In the world of conservation, all
:01:51. > :01:54.interested parties have been getting together around a table recently to
:01:54. > :02:04.formulate an emergency action plan and they all agree that identifying
:02:04. > :02:06.a pure Scottish wildcat is key to that plan. I am here with Dr Andrew
:02:06. > :02:11.Kitchener from the National Museums of Scotland who for the past 25
:02:11. > :02:15.years has been working on wildcat conservation and specialises in
:02:15. > :02:21.identification. What are the problems with identification for
:02:21. > :02:24.Scottish wildcat? It should be straightforward but for the last 100
:02:24. > :02:32.years or more, while cats have been hybridising with domestic cats and
:02:32. > :02:36.then those crosses have been back mating with domestic cats. And Haug
:02:36. > :02:46.is that get in the way with conservation? There are very few
:02:46. > :02:48.
:02:48. > :02:51.wildcat left and they are being hybridised out of existence. If we
:02:51. > :02:53.look at this very nice wildcat skin from about 1931, you will see that
:02:53. > :02:56.there stripes on the back of the neck here. It is like someone has
:02:56. > :02:59.taken their fingers and wiggle them and spread at the markings. There
:02:59. > :03:03.are two very distinct shoulder stripes and this dorsal stripe
:03:03. > :03:12.running down to the root of the tail. And it never actually goes on
:03:12. > :03:16.to detail. But with the domestic cats, the/ art much straighter. --
:03:16. > :03:22.the stripes are much straighter, and the dorsal stripe carries on to the
:03:22. > :03:29.tail. Can we tell wildcat is purely from the markings? Some of the
:03:29. > :03:33.hybrids closely resemble the pure wildcat so it is better to use
:03:33. > :03:37.genetic testing. What was your role in the setting up of the genetic
:03:37. > :03:45.test? I am collaborating with Paul O'Donoghue at Chester and I found
:03:45. > :03:51.the best wildcats and we took skin samples and Paul has extracted the
:03:51. > :03:55.DNA. And that will be key in identifying the pure species?
:03:55. > :04:00.it will underpin most of the conservation action we can do.
:04:00. > :04:05.Unless you can identify what wildcat is, the rest will be meaningless.
:04:05. > :04:08.I have come all the way to the Aird nam Muchan peninsula in the Western
:04:08. > :04:12.Highlands to meet Paul O'Donoghue from the University of Chester, the
:04:12. > :04:20.man who has just completed this highly anticipated genetic test. And
:04:20. > :04:25.we are out to trap wildcats. So is this what we are looking for?
:04:25. > :04:31.this is one of our camera traps. It has been here for four months. We
:04:31. > :04:37.know there is a really good cat in this area. Why are we trapping
:04:37. > :04:41.cats? The challenge is on to find the last few remaining wildcats. We
:04:41. > :04:45.know there are some in this area. We have the camera traps out to give as
:04:45. > :04:54.a guide as to where the cats may be and we follow that up with live
:04:54. > :04:59.trapping. Do you reckon here?This spot here. It is almost a natural
:04:59. > :05:02.runway there. It is nice and secluded. The cat should feel
:05:02. > :05:08.secure. We need to bed this trap in here. We clear away some of the
:05:08. > :05:13.brush. Get the trap in. The challenge is to make this look as
:05:13. > :05:19.naturalistic as possible. How did you go about developing the test?
:05:19. > :05:22.Rumack week collected the best museum reference samples of Scottish
:05:22. > :05:26.wildcat and screened tens of thousands of genetic markers across
:05:26. > :05:34.the whole genome and we selected the markers only ever found in Scottish
:05:34. > :05:42.wildcats and never in domestic cats. Why specifically Aird nam
:05:42. > :05:49.Muchan, then? Loom that it is effectively a mainland -- it is
:05:49. > :05:59.effectively an island. We can create a haven. What you do with the cats
:05:59. > :06:00.
:06:00. > :06:09.you trap? If it is a hybrid it will be neutered and returned. It is --
:06:09. > :06:16.if it is a pure wildcat we will monitor it. Will this work alongside
:06:16. > :06:26.other measures? Unless a conservation activity eels directly
:06:26. > :06:26.
:06:26. > :06:29.with stopping hybridisation, it is not useful. -- deals directly.
:06:29. > :06:35.There are lots of initiatives to save the Scottish wildcat, from
:06:35. > :06:39.captive breeding programmes to public awareness campaigns to
:06:39. > :06:46.neutering domestic tomcats. There is even an offer to clone the animal
:06:46. > :06:48.from the people who cloned Dolly the Sheep. All these efforts could help
:06:49. > :06:53.save the iconic animal from extinction but the first thing we
:06:53. > :06:57.have to do is establish what is and isn't a wildcat. Now that test is
:06:57. > :07:07.available it is time to act fast for the Scottish wildcat disappears
:07:07. > :07:07.
:07:07. > :07:12.forever. As a nation, we are upset with the
:07:13. > :07:17.weather. Some more so than others. Over the next three weeks BBC
:07:17. > :07:27.Scotland weather presenter Judith Ralston will be meeting three
:07:27. > :07:35.
:07:35. > :07:39.amateur meteorologists to find out I am here in Lennoxtown just to the
:07:39. > :07:49.north of Glasgow to meet 30-year-old Mark Vogan who was inspired by the
:07:49. > :07:59.
:07:59. > :08:04.great storm of 1987. He runs his own inviting me. It is a pleasure.What
:08:04. > :08:11.was it about that storm of 1987 that inspired you to become passionate
:08:11. > :08:15.about whether? I was four years of age so I was still quite young but
:08:15. > :08:19.it stands firmly in my mind, the sheer power of the storm itself. I
:08:19. > :08:25.remember looking out of the window and seeing hadn't objects flying
:08:25. > :08:30.through the air. There was just some sort of a seed form there that
:08:30. > :08:35.developed my interest, my passion for the weather today. How do you
:08:35. > :08:39.actually do your forecasting work? There is a whole bunch of different
:08:39. > :08:42.websites to look at the different computer models. I read the models
:08:42. > :08:49.to try to understand what the weather is going to do further down
:08:49. > :08:54.the road. These models are taken from all over the world. There are
:08:54. > :09:00.about 30-odd different computer models updated several times a day.
:09:00. > :09:07.I have developed a website which I look at, your everyday weather, but
:09:07. > :09:16.I also look at the week ahead, ten days out, even a month ahead.
:09:16. > :09:26.long do you spend each day forecasting? Probably about six
:09:26. > :09:30.hours! You are still married?Yes! As a challenge, we have decided to
:09:30. > :09:35.do is forecast separately and then compare forecasts. The 19th of April
:09:35. > :09:41.is the day we have set, tomorrow. Here is my forecast. High pressure
:09:41. > :09:45.is building in nicely across Scotland. In Glasgow, a cold start
:09:45. > :09:53.initially but then lighter wind than we have seen. The spells of sunshine
:09:53. > :09:56.and highs of around about 10 Celsius. My forecast is that we will
:09:56. > :10:03.see an improving picture over the course of this week. High pressure
:10:03. > :10:08.will build in. That means Glasgow and the West of Scotland will enjoy
:10:08. > :10:13.some good spells of sunshine. Temperatures in the low teens.
:10:13. > :10:21.have the answers. So the bare-bones of it are, basically, a dry, sunny
:10:21. > :10:26.start. On the whole staying dry. We saw a general temperature of around
:10:26. > :10:33.about 10 Celsius with a spike to 12 Celsius. I went for low teens but I
:10:33. > :10:36.suppose a spike of 12 degrees is not too bad. It is good. So next week I
:10:36. > :10:43.will be in Dundee, meeting a professor of bioinformatics who
:10:43. > :10:48.keeps records of the weather in the area.
:10:48. > :10:54.Still to come: Nick celebrates plans as part of the year of natural
:10:54. > :11:02.Scotland. Making people aware of the wonderful flora that this country
:11:02. > :11:08.has to offer is what this project is all about. And the 19th-century
:11:08. > :11:11.female farm slaves. They would be out there in the turnip fields. At
:11:11. > :11:17.harvest time they would be out stooking corn. So they have easy
:11:17. > :11:21.lives. Giant hogweed is a major problem on
:11:21. > :11:26.our riverbanks. The harmful plant spreads aggressively and its sap can
:11:26. > :11:33.lead to painful burns on the skin and even blindness. Now a pilot
:11:33. > :11:38.project on the River Deveron is using sheep to tackle the problem.
:11:39. > :11:46.This is giant hogweed, a non-native ornamental plant introduced into
:11:46. > :11:49.gardens across Britain in the 19th century. Since then, it has
:11:49. > :11:53.colonised unmanaged land across the country but it is especially
:11:53. > :12:01.successful alongside riverbanks and watercourses like here, on the River
:12:01. > :12:10.Deveron. We have a juvenile hogweed plant
:12:10. > :12:16.here that has come through this spring. These are the remnants of
:12:17. > :12:25.the monsters? Yes, that one is about nine foot. What is the problem with
:12:26. > :12:32.it? It out -competes native biodiversity. It over shades the
:12:32. > :12:36.river and when it dies back it leaves the river is open. Giant
:12:36. > :12:41.hogweed is a phototoxic plant. The sap reacts with sunlight and causes
:12:41. > :12:48.nasty gesturing to skin and if it gets into contact with the eyes, it
:12:48. > :12:55.can cause blindness. It was hell. I got burned across my hand and my
:12:55. > :13:01.forehead and for at least four a fortnight I got this dreadful
:13:01. > :13:05.itching which have to be controlled with a steroid cream. But I was
:13:05. > :13:11.literally unable to sleep for a fortnight. We have heard of children
:13:11. > :13:17.running into the mature plants and of actually going into anaphylactic
:13:17. > :13:26.shock. So it can be very nasty. just a few months - time these plans
:13:26. > :13:31.will turn into monsters and this place will be turning into a jungle.
:13:31. > :13:35.It is illegal to plant or to cause giant hogweed to grow. But getting
:13:35. > :13:45.rid of it is not easy. For years, weedkiller has been the main
:13:45. > :14:06.
:14:06. > :14:10.the arsenal. It is time to unleash weapons of maaaass destruction. The
:14:10. > :14:15.lack faced sheep can eat the hogweed. The question is, do they
:14:15. > :14:19.have a taste for it? Studies showed it can take a year for them to
:14:19. > :14:26.acclimatise to it. The blackface sheep, because of the pigment in
:14:26. > :14:32.their skin, was very rarely, if not at all affected. Why would the
:14:32. > :14:36.pigmentation make a difference? the darker skin, the sap reacts with
:14:36. > :14:46.light and it has just shown that in these trials they are less likely to
:14:46. > :14:47.
:14:47. > :14:53.be affected. We have been spraying hogweed for ten or 11 years. Some
:14:53. > :14:58.areas are improving. But then we are also finding areas cropping up we
:14:58. > :15:04.did not know about. The seeds can be dormant for 20 years-plus. At the
:15:04. > :15:14.moment we just spray and spray. This is a much more sustainable thing, if
:15:14. > :15:22.
:15:22. > :15:27.you see on the programme or a story to share, send us an e-mail. The
:15:27. > :15:37.weather here is very, very changeable but what about the
:15:37. > :15:42.
:15:42. > :15:51.prospects for this weekend and look at Spring 2013 here in
:15:51. > :15:57.Scotland. It was a cold one, the joint eighth coldest on record.
:15:57. > :16:03.Probably most notably, it was very trying. -- very dry. That could
:16:03. > :16:08.cause issues over the next few months. There is a weather front
:16:08. > :16:13.slowly making its way from West to East so the skies will cloud over
:16:13. > :16:19.and they will be some out pics of rain. By mid-afternoon, it is a case
:16:19. > :16:26.of sunshine and showers. Most of those showers, not too heavy.
:16:26. > :16:31.Slightly cloudier in the North, up towards Caithness and certainly
:16:31. > :16:37.across the northern half of the Hebrides. If you are hillwalking or
:16:37. > :16:47.climbing, starting off fairly cloudy but improving later on. Across
:16:47. > :16:55.towards the eastern ranges, a reversal of fortunes. It is a
:16:55. > :17:00.westerly for three to four and the inshore waters, moderate visibility.
:17:00. > :17:09.Smooth seas and good visibility. Up towards Shetland, it is also a force
:17:09. > :17:12.for. Good visibility for you as well. Rest of the afternoon into the
:17:12. > :17:19.evening, we tend to lose the showers, some late evening
:17:19. > :17:25.sunshine, but it could cloud over later on. Temperatures overnight
:17:25. > :17:28.into Sunday morning, between around five and seven Celsius. The King at
:17:28. > :17:35.Sunday, we start to see a change, high-pressure beginning to build
:17:35. > :17:43.from the south-west. On Sunday means reasonably settled, a mixture of
:17:43. > :17:49.clouds and some brighter skies here and there. Taking a look ahead
:17:49. > :17:55.towards next week, keeping our eyes on that high building its way in
:17:55. > :17:58.from the south-west, Monday is likely to be a transition day. Some
:17:58. > :18:04.good spells of sunshine for Southern and Eastern parts of the country but
:18:04. > :18:08.in the West, cloudier skies with outbreaks of rain, but fading. On
:18:08. > :18:17.Tuesday, the high pressure is overhead, so settled conditions,
:18:17. > :18:23.hardly a breath of wind and feeling really quite warm. With digital
:18:23. > :18:25.temperatures -- we could see the temperatures into the 20s. By
:18:25. > :18:35.Wednesday, a hint of a breakdown with something coming in off the
:18:35. > :18:47.
:18:47. > :18:52.North Sea. Fine in the West, highs Scotland. Early in the year we
:18:52. > :18:56.featured our top five iconic wild animals. Over the next four years
:18:56. > :19:03.Nick is going to be finding out about some of our great plant life.
:19:03. > :19:08.-- our next four weeks. The Royal botanic Gardens in Edinburgh are
:19:08. > :19:12.justifiably famous for their collection of rare and exotic plants
:19:12. > :19:22.from around the world. They also have a range of plants from closer
:19:22. > :19:28.
:19:28. > :19:36.plants -- native flowers? This time of year, the primroses, you can't
:19:36. > :19:41.get better than that. If we look around us in this area, there is a
:19:41. > :19:47.very natural feel to it. Did that happen by chance, or has a lot of
:19:48. > :19:49.effort gone into it? There has been a fair bit of effort, I think it is
:19:49. > :19:56.harder to maintain unnatural environment within the botanic
:19:56. > :20:02.Garden, looking after some of our more intensively cultivated areas.
:20:02. > :20:05.Is there a danger we might lose some of our native species? I think there
:20:05. > :20:09.is a very real danger, when you look at some of the new pests and
:20:09. > :20:19.diseases affect thing things like ash and Scots pine, who knows what
:20:19. > :20:19.
:20:19. > :20:23.the next ten or 15 years will hold? Inspired by the big five wildlife
:20:23. > :20:27.project which we featured earlier in the series, the Royal botanic
:20:27. > :20:34.Gardens Edinburgh has started its own search for Scotland's top five
:20:34. > :20:37.plants. The whole idea is to generate an interest in our native
:20:37. > :20:43.flora. Without the plants they wouldn't be any animals so we are
:20:43. > :20:47.keen to ensure there is a top five client list as well. The boffins
:20:47. > :20:51.here have come up with a shortlist of 13 native species they deem
:20:51. > :21:01.worthy of the big five. With voting already underway, here is the
:21:01. > :21:09.
:21:09. > :21:14.witch Elmer is at number 12. At number 11, the waterlily. Number ten
:21:14. > :21:20.is the dog rose. At number nine, the poppy. The spear thistle is at
:21:20. > :21:25.number eight. We have a shrub at number seven, the Goss. Heather is
:21:26. > :21:31.at number six. The elegant silver birch is in the five. Number four is
:21:31. > :21:37.the Roman, otherwise known as the margin ash. Number three is the
:21:37. > :21:46.Bluebell. At number two we have the Scottish primrose. Scott -- topping
:21:46. > :21:50.the chart is the mighty Scots pine. How do the public vote? They go onto
:21:50. > :21:53.our website, they can choose from any of the 13 plants identified, or
:21:53. > :22:01.if they want, make their own choice they have applied especially
:22:01. > :22:05.important to them. Making people aware of the wonderful Florida's
:22:05. > :22:09.country has to offer is what this project is all about. What better
:22:09. > :22:17.way to celebrate the year of natural Scotland? Personally I be voting for
:22:17. > :22:25.this. Next year -- week I will be learning about urbanism and finding
:22:25. > :22:30.out how some medicine can be hard to swallow. -- herbalism.
:22:30. > :22:34.It is hard to imagine now but in the late 19th-century female farmworkers
:22:34. > :22:39.were treated as for more than slaves. A male farmworker, or hind,
:22:39. > :22:42.living in a farm, was found by his conditions of employment to provide
:22:42. > :22:49.a female Bob Walker whose work was considered as payment for the
:22:49. > :22:54.cottage. Through the agricultural improvement
:22:55. > :22:59.years of the 1700, farming developed into labour intensive industry
:22:59. > :23:03.providing work for thousands. For the days of tractors and
:23:03. > :23:08.mechanisation, farms defend -- depended on horses and a large
:23:08. > :23:13.labour force. While the big farms of the north-east had a system which
:23:13. > :23:20.housed single male farmworkers, in the south and east, they had the
:23:20. > :23:27.bondage system. -- the Bondager system, where half the work force
:23:27. > :23:34.were women. The system meant that a male worker had to bring with him
:23:34. > :23:39.and female. That labour, provided by the woman, would secure the home for
:23:39. > :23:45.the family for approximately one year. Who were the women, were they
:23:45. > :23:51.family members? Most of the time, if possible, they were. If he wasn't
:23:51. > :23:54.able to provide a family member he could go outside the family.
:23:54. > :24:00.downside was if the hind, the Plowman, was a young man with tiny
:24:00. > :24:06.children, the farmer still wanted his Bondager and he had to get
:24:06. > :24:11.behind out to higher and she had to be housed with his family. That was
:24:11. > :24:15.a problem because the cottages were tiny. So potentially had one room, a
:24:15. > :24:23.man, his wife, children and another woman living in the house. That's
:24:24. > :24:27.right. The system was present in the border counties. Southeast and
:24:27. > :24:35.Scotland -- Central Scotland and Northumbria. The term Bondager meant
:24:35. > :24:38.the bond made between the farmer and male farmworker. The term Bondager
:24:38. > :24:44.gives you the impression that they were there against their will, they
:24:44. > :24:48.had to work against their will. that the case? Not really, they were
:24:48. > :24:51.hired as any worker would be hired, to work in fields. They were
:24:52. > :24:59.sometimes called fieldworkers. They would be out there in the turnip
:24:59. > :25:05.fields, at harvest time they would be out, and they would be busy at a
:25:05. > :25:08.time. They would have a busy life. To carry out the hard physical
:25:08. > :25:15.labour, they had to wear practical clothing and they had a very
:25:15. > :25:19.distinctive outfit as models here. Just explain what they wore. They
:25:19. > :25:27.wore this wonderful straw hats, lacquered black, and they decorated
:25:27. > :25:29.it with this wonderful rushing around the crown. They wore a wimple
:25:29. > :25:35.underneath the hat so if it was cold, they could wrap themselves up
:25:35. > :25:43.a little bit. If it was dusty, they could cover their mouth as well.
:25:43. > :25:46.course we have these boots. Good, strong boots. It was very much a
:25:46. > :25:54.uniform for work, because they wore fashionable clothes on their Sunday
:25:54. > :25:58.outings. As early as the 1830s, the bondage system was seen by many as a
:25:58. > :26:06.unfeminine and degrading to female workers. There was considerable
:26:06. > :26:10.unrest among labourers and heated debate throughout the countryside.
:26:10. > :26:14.Its demise was brought about in part because there were growing concerns
:26:14. > :26:22.about the number of children, basically, who were going into
:26:22. > :26:26.family homes that were not relatives. There was a suggestion
:26:26. > :26:31.that there was some impropriety will stop the Church of Scotland and the
:26:31. > :26:36.Highland Society got very concerned about it. What you have to bear in
:26:36. > :26:43.mind is that some of the young girls who were going into service, 13 or
:26:43. > :26:47.14 years of age, they were very vulnerable. By the late 19th-century
:26:47. > :26:52.farm workers across Scotland were trying to create a union and
:26:52. > :27:01.eventually, in 1913, the Scottish farm servants union was created. As
:27:01. > :27:06.a result, wages were improved and the Bondager system was ended.
:27:06. > :27:10.system itself was brought to an end before the term Bondager was brought
:27:10. > :27:16.to an end, so women would still refer to themselves as Bondagers but
:27:16. > :27:20.they were being employed by the farm. They have been called the
:27:20. > :27:23.forgotten workers, they are slightly forgotten about. Possibly in part
:27:23. > :27:28.because it was very specific to certain areas of Scotland and the
:27:28. > :27:32.North East of England. And possibly it is like itinerant workers, they
:27:32. > :27:37.don't get a huge amount of attention either. It is a tendency with women
:27:37. > :27:47.in history, working-class women, it tends be thought that their history
:27:47. > :27:56.
:27:56. > :28:01.Bondagers. That is almost it. Coming up next week. Ravens and their
:28:01. > :28:09.threat to young livestock. This is only one lamb, there have been
:28:09. > :28:15.several others. An award-winning wildlife photographer. We have a