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Landward - Season 21 Episode 7
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00:02The Swallows are back, the Ospreys have landed.
00:06It's a perfect time to step outdoors.
00:08Welcome to Lambert.
00:31Hello from the Cairngorms National Park.
00:35As the last of the hillsnow melts, nature is bursting out all around.
00:40And with the increase in temperature, more of us are heading into the great outdoors.
00:45And with that brings an increased risk of wildfires.
00:49Later, I'll be finding out what's been done to protect these precious habitats.
00:54But first, here's what else is coming up.
00:58And in the Firth of Forth, first seabirding breeding season.
01:02There's lots of fights, they all want to nest at the best ledges.
01:06It's like a soap opera.
01:08I meet the team protecting the Cairngorms from wildfire.
01:13Something as simple as a discarded cigarette butt or a small spark from a fire can have a catastrophic impact
01:19now.
01:19And high fashion in the Highlands.
01:23The legacy of the fabulous Francis Farquharson.
01:30First up, late nights and early mornings are something sheep farmers are well used to.
01:36And Cammy is no different.
01:40Let's join him now on his Ayrshire farm with some new arrivals.
01:48We are right in the midst of lambing here at the farm.
01:51And it's an exciting time for us.
01:58So this little ewe lamb is just 38 minutes old.
02:02In fact, she's still a little bit damp.
02:03And her mother is one of just 1200 sheep.
02:06We're lambing this spring.
02:09And it's a marathon, not a sprint.
02:11We're about halfway through just now.
02:12These girls are just kicking off.
02:14And if they produce lambs that look something like this,
02:17there's going to be a lot more of them next year.
02:18There you go.
02:20We'll put you back mum.
02:20Come on.
02:27This is my second year of lambing at my own farm.
02:30And I'm ringing the changes.
02:33While most of my 1200 ewes are crossbreeds,
02:36this year I've invested in 100 purebred cheviots.
02:40So why the cheviot?
02:41Well, why no?
02:43Look at them.
02:44They're a beautiful animal.
02:46Fantastic strong bodies.
02:47Heavy bone.
02:49Lovely cocky lugs.
02:50And they produce you some beautiful lambs.
02:52We're hoping to get a nice purebred ram
02:55that we can maybe take on to a sale later down the line.
02:57But the ones that don't make the grade
02:58are fantastic meat animals that can then go on into the food chain.
03:02What's not to love?
03:04Now the cheviot is actually a hard day hill breed.
03:06So you might be wondering,
03:08why are you lambing them inside?
03:09Well, we've only got 14 acres here.
03:11So although we do lamb a few sheep out the back door,
03:15most of them need to come into the shed to lamb.
03:17That way we can keep a close eye on them.
03:20Because sometimes you need a wee bit of extra help.
03:24It looks like she's pinched this lamb
03:26off one of the other girls in the pen that's lambing.
03:29So this girl hasn't actually lambed yet.
03:33Gentle pull.
03:34There you come.
03:35What were you waiting for?
03:35Here we come.
03:37A wee contraction or two.
03:38And out she comes.
03:41Nice big lamb there.
03:43Give a kick.
03:44Give him a wee slap just to get the heart started.
03:47A wee head shake.
03:48That's what you like to see.
03:52And lambing sheep isn't the only thing we've been busy with recently.
03:56We've also had this exciting new arrival.
04:00Come on Jules.
04:01Here you come.
04:02Come on.
04:03Here we go.
04:06So this is Jules.
04:08Or wee Jules as we've been calling her.
04:10And she's her very first pedigree jersey heifer calf.
04:14She's a female.
04:15So we'll be keeping her.
04:16And we'll be milking her.
04:18She was born just five days ago.
04:22We've had her mother Connie since December.
04:25She's a family dairy cow.
04:27We keep her milk for ourselves.
04:32She's a pedigree jersey.
04:34She's actually a really good one.
04:35And she's going to be our show animal this summer.
04:38You're going to see her at the Royal Helen Show.
04:39So stay tuned and watch out for Connie later in the series.
04:43Look at this.
04:46While Jules stretches her legs.
04:50It's time to visit one of my rented fields.
04:56I need to check on some of my sheep that have already lambed.
04:59We don't have that many acres at home.
05:03So lots of our ground.
05:04It involves a little bit of a drive.
05:06But I've got some cracking lamb to corn in March that I'm going to show you.
05:15Here they are.
05:17What a turn in the weather as well.
05:19So let's get them fed.
05:21And you can get a look at them.
05:24Once the weather warms up and the grass gets growing,
05:27they'll be able to sort themselves out.
05:29But until then, they'll need a wee top up from me.
05:33As I've said many times before, this is my favourite job.
05:37Every other time of year, the sheep run away from you.
05:39When you're feeding them after lambing, they'll come for a closer look.
05:43And by the end of the month, I should have all my lambs outdoors and on grass.
05:48But until then, there's the small matter of lambing to finish.
05:55While Cammy deals with the new arrivals on his farm,
05:58it's the height of the breeding season for our seabird colonies.
06:02Anne's on her way to the Isle of May to find out how extreme weather has impacted one particular species.
06:12Five miles off the coast of Fyfe, where the river Forth meets the sea,
06:16sits the Isle of May National Nature Reserve.
06:22This island is absolutely buzzing just now.
06:26There are around 80,000 pairs of breeding seabirds here to raise their young,
06:31making it one of the biggest bird colonies in Scotland.
06:37It's not the easiest place to make home.
06:40Sitting at the mouth of the estuary, the island faces the full brunt of easterly storms,
06:45whipping in off the North Sea.
06:48Quite calm today, but it's quite an exposed island.
06:52It is. That's one of the sort of downsides in a sense of being a seabird,
06:56is that you're facing a lot of quite tough conditions.
07:00Professor Francis Daunt is from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
07:06He's collecting information on the seabirds as part of a study that began in 1973.
07:12We've been studying the seabirds here for over 50 years,
07:15and the reason we're here is to understand how good their breeding seasons are.
07:20Puffin, we're actually expecting the first egg in the next day or two.
07:24Other species like shags have already laid some eggs.
07:28And Francis is particularly interested in the shag colony on the Isle of May.
07:33You can see that they can build quite big, elaborate nests.
07:37And they're entirely marine, so they have to go out to sea to find fish.
07:41And then they'll spend time just drying off their wings.
07:45They have this unusual plumage, which means they're not entirely waterproof.
07:50Francis' research has shown that the shag colony has undergone a massive decline over the last 30 years,
07:57from 2,000 pears down to 200.
08:01Rising sea temperatures have led to a crash in the main food source, sand eels.
08:06But it's also due to the weather.
08:09How did the species fare after last winter?
08:12We had another tough winter for the shags because in January, February,
08:16there was about five weeks of really tough weather conditions.
08:20And a lot of birds died.
08:22And this was just two years after a really bad winter.
08:26So they've had two of the last three years have been really tough for them.
08:31But it's not just the effect of the weather on the birds themselves.
08:34It's the impact it has on their relationships.
08:38Divorce is a word we're all familiar with, of course.
08:41In seabirds, what we mean is if both individuals that bred together last year,
08:47again here this year, but don't pair together, but pair with the other birds,
08:52we call that divorce.
08:53Whereas if they reunite and pair again together, we call that being faithful.
08:58And most seabirds have very high faithfulness.
09:01So the vast majority of pairs will breed together year after year after year.
09:06But shags unusually actually have quite a low faithfulness.
09:09It's only about 50% of pairs will reunite.
09:12And so, for example, these two nests in front of us,
09:15I know that last year the two of the birds were nesting together.
09:20They've now divorced and are nesting with two different birds.
09:24It's like a soap opera.
09:25Yes, it is.
09:26It's a very busy time.
09:28There's lots of fights.
09:29They all want to nest at the best ledges.
09:31Though we actually have more unfaithful or divorced pairs in this gully this year
09:36than faithful pairs.
09:38Looks to be quite high divorce rates.
09:41And Francis has found that, surprisingly,
09:43the weather has a big impact on the number of divorces
09:47and, consequently, the shag birth rate.
09:50That divorce rate is particularly high after they've had a difficult winter.
09:55And we're trying to understand why that is.
09:58And it seems to be related to the scheduling of return to the breeding colonies.
10:04And it may be that, in bad conditions,
10:06they start returning at different times
10:08and they don't find their normal mates
10:10and then start new relationships with others.
10:14And that's not necessarily a positive result for them
10:17because we find that divorce pairs generally are less successful
10:21and they don't rear as many chicks.
10:24And, of course, that's essential for the future wellbeing of the population.
10:27When the Seabird Study on the Isle of May started 50 years ago,
10:32climate change wasn't a factor on the scientists' radar.
10:36But it's something Francis and his colleagues are taking account of now.
10:40And if there's more storms in the future, that isn't going to be very good news for our shag populations
10:46because they are so vulnerable to that.
10:49And we need to keep studying them to understand what effect the future climate is going to have on them.
11:01Last year, a vast area of the Cairngorms National Park and beyond was destroyed by wildfire.
11:08It was the biggest ever recorded in the UK
11:11and prompted authorities to take action.
11:14And as visitors arrive here to take in the beautiful surroundings,
11:17I'm off to find out what's changed.
11:25In its wake, the landscape was transformed.
11:29Habitats were lost, the air thick with smoke
11:32and life, both visible and hidden, was caught in its path.
11:38It consumed 10,000 hectares of land,
11:42leaving behind a scar that will take decades to heal.
11:46In response to the incident, on the 1st of April this year,
11:51a new bylaw came into force, banning campfires or barbecues
11:55within the National Park until the end of September.
12:01Charlotte Robertson and Georgia Soane are two of the 20 park rangers
12:06who are getting the message out.
12:09We're interested to know if you've heard about the new fire bylaw that's come in this year.
12:12Yes, we have, yes.
12:13Yeah, yeah. What do you think about it?
12:15Oh, definitely.
12:17Definitely, especially after the fire at the Dava last year.
12:21Here's a little leaflet and it just describes about the new fire bylaw
12:24so you can find all the information you need in there
12:27and it's got a few pictures in as well. There you go.
12:30What do you see?
12:32So far, Charlotte has found most visitors just as receptive.
12:37To be honest, we've actually had mostly positive views.
12:41A lot of the reasons the bylaw came in was from locals, communities saying that they wanted a change.
12:48So the start of it has been really positive.
12:51But, you know, we might get a bit of pushback potentially from some.
12:55But if they do, the rangers now have the power to enforce the rules,
13:00with a £500 fine as a last resort.
13:04The enforcement is a great tool for us now.
13:06So if we did come across a situation, you know, we have that backup for ourselves,
13:11then we can enforce it.
13:13But, you know, we don't want to have to use that.
13:15We want to get people to do the right thing themselves.
13:18The climate's changing.
13:19We're getting much drier springs and summers, a lot less rainfall.
13:22You know, we want to protect this area and something as simple as a discarded cigarette butt
13:27or a small spark from a fire can have a catastrophic impact now.
13:31So we really just want to protect this place and let people enjoy it as much as they can.
13:40While Charlotte and Georgia are trying to stop the sparks that might ignite a blaze,
13:47elsewhere, farmers are trying to reduce the fuel load.
13:54Malcolm Smith is Agricultural Advisor for the Cairngorms National Park.
14:00He farms with his sons, Callum and Hamish, at Ochernack, near Granthins Bay.
14:09The family use these cattle to graze down the vegetation that could feed a wildfire.
14:16So this is the bit where the cattle are going to be going out on.
14:19Last year, when we grazed it for the first time, possibly properly in about five years.
14:25So this area was really overgrown in rank vegetation.
14:29And when we got the cows out on the hill, it was amazing the transformation.
14:35All that brown grass there got grazed down, trampled down.
14:39And by the cows trampling it down or grazing, the fresh green grass that came up
14:44has just stopped all that risk of fire spreading.
14:48With a much higher moisture content, Malcolm is selecting precise areas to encourage the new grass.
14:56To keep cows in the right place, they are fitted with special collars.
15:00Their movements are controlled by emitting warning sounds and mild electrical pulses, creating virtual fences.
15:09All of these white lines are boundary fences that the boys have drawn on.
15:13And then they're moving them around these boundaries.
15:16The virtual boundaries can concentrate the cattle in a smaller area and make it easy to preserve sensitive sites.
15:24We have, like, archaeological features on the hill.
15:27We can exclude them and protect them from any damage from the stock.
15:31And just how technically minded are you then?
15:33Eh, I can show you it.
15:35But your boys are in both of them?
15:37It's Hamish and Callum that have been working the app, yeah.
15:44It's a team effort then, and everyone will need to do their bit.
15:48With wildfire season well underway, extreme warnings have been issued and several blazes have already broken out across the country.
15:58The advice is to be cautious, and if you do spot a large outdoor fire, report it immediately.
16:06Just one small spark can do a huge amount of damage.
16:17Now, Anne's continuing her trip on the Isle of May.
16:21She's taking the opportunity to visit a building with a very special family connection.
16:28I've been to a few lighthouses during my time on Landward.
16:32Ardnamurchan, Islay, and the Butt of Lewis, and it's always memorable.
16:37Just be careful on this ladder now.
16:40Oh, wow, look at that view, my goodness.
16:44And when a trip to the Isle of May came up, I knew I had to be the one to
16:49do it.
16:51This particular lighthouse means a lot to me.
16:55My grandfather was a lighthouse keeper on the island, and my mother actually spent the first few years of her
17:01life here too.
17:02This is my first time visiting, so to say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement.
17:10Callum McLeod, my grandad, was from Lewis.
17:13He joined the Northern Lighthouse Board in 1953 when he was only 22, and this lighthouse was his very first
17:22posting.
17:26My grandad was an assistant lighthouse keeper working alongside the principal keeper.
17:32They were responsible for everything, the light, the fog horns, and they took it in turns to keep watch through
17:39the night in the lightroom.
17:45It's hard for me to believe that every day my grandad would have seen exactly the same view before making
17:52his way up to the top of these steps.
17:56The light that he shone from here would have offered safe passage for ships coming in and out of the
18:02Firth of Four.
18:05Most people think lighthouse keeping was a lonely life, but not here.
18:10A handful of people lived alongside him on the island, including his wife, my gran, Seanack.
18:16She was just 20 years old.
18:19In 1953, the island's population was about to grow by one because my grandparents had a baby on the way.
18:28My mother, Joan, was born in October of that year on the mainland in Fife.
18:34When she was just a few weeks old, she made her very first journey across to the Isle of May,
18:39and it caused quite the sensation in the papers.
18:44My grandmother says here, it was a pretty terrifying trip.
18:49We wedged the baby's cot into the wheelhouse.
18:51I crouched on the open deck.
18:53As the waves crashed over, I got more and more frightened for the baby.
18:58No wonder, it's quite an exposed stretch of water there.
19:02Can you imagine something like this happening today?
19:04Gran then goes on to say, I needn't have worried.
19:07She slept placidly the whole time.
19:11My grandfather laughed as he told the reporter that the whole population, seven, turned out to welcome Joan.
19:20Over the coming months, district nurses, doctors and supplies were ferried across by local skippers like Willie Hughes.
19:28In this other newspaper article, I told you she was a sensation.
19:32It says, nowadays, however, grizzle haired Willie is earning for himself the titles of nappy king and milk run boy.
19:40But Willie doesn't mind.
19:43My mum clearly softening these hardened fishermen.
19:46It's pretty funny.
19:51I'm in awe at the bravery of my grandparents to bring up a child here.
19:56But as Islanders, my gran often spoke of having a baby here being the most natural thing in the world.
20:04Being here today has made me think too about how on earth my grandfather would have felt waiting for his
20:10young wife and brand new baby to come here for the first time when she was just weeks old.
20:15It must have been terrifying, but also very exciting.
20:22The family left the Isle of May and the lighthouse to return to Lewis when my mother was only three
20:28years old.
20:29But those first few years of her life must have been extraordinary.
20:34A world she would leave before she could ever remember it.
20:38I think one of the reporters in the articles summed it up perfectly when she spoke of Mam leaving the
20:44island.
20:45She said the lighthouse baby will have to learn that there are more than seven people in the world and
20:51other noises other than fog horns, the wind and the sea.
21:00When you think of fabulous high end fashion, you don't often think of the Scottish countryside.
21:06But now guest presenter Rachel Bell is following in the footsteps of one stylish Highland lady who left her mark
21:13on the other side of the Cairngorms.
21:18The village of Bromar on Royal Deeside is probably best known for one thing, the annual Bromar gathering.
21:30For decades the gathering has put this village on the map, as did one of its regular attendees.
21:37The wife of the Laird of Invercalls and a fashionista who brought flair and some very well known faces to
21:44the village.
21:49I am a regular visitor to Bromar and the name Frances Fackerson has kept cropping up, leaving me intrigued.
21:57Like me, she was a journalist. Like me, she was very much in love with this corner of the Cairngorms.
22:04So who was she really? Let's go find out.
22:10One person who knows all there is to know about Frances is her biographer.
22:15A bit of a warm up, isn't it? It's so cold outside today.
22:19Caroline Young.
22:20I'm so excited to talk to you about Frances Fackerson.
22:23Who was she and how did she end up here in Bromar?
22:26She's from Seattle. She arrived in Europe in about 1925 and she visited Rome and London and Paris.
22:33And she worked as the editor of Harper's Bazaar, the British edition of the magazine.
22:40And in the 1940s, she met Captain Fackerson.
22:43So Alwyn had just inherited Invercalls estate and they met during the war.
22:48And they came up here in 1949 when they got married.
22:55Bromar was a far cry from the fashion houses of London and Europe.
23:00But Frances fully embraced life in her new Highland home.
23:04She was a larger than life character, very enthusiastic.
23:08She expressed herself through fashion and clothing.
23:10So she wore a lot of tartan, the Fargason tartan, of course, and mohair bonnets and lots of tweed.
23:16So very much wearing the textiles of the region.
23:20But Frances's flamboyant nature raised a few eyebrows with locals.
23:24I don't think they'd ever met anyone quite like her before.
23:28She had very much a sort of can-do attitude.
23:30I think sometimes that could be quite sort of confronting.
23:34But, you know, she was very determined. She got things done.
23:38She certainly did.
23:40Introducing bold ideas and a new look to this Victorian village.
23:47So what did Frances bring to Bromar?
23:51She really brought her American energy, her experience as a fashion editor, her passion for design and craft.
23:58And injected it into what was a very sleepy village in the Highlands.
24:02And she opened several businesses.
24:05What kind of businesses were they?
24:06So she firstly opened a gallery where she sold artisan products, textiles, wood carvings, silverware.
24:15She had her speciality shop, which was here as well.
24:18She also had a gents clothing store for kilts and sporens and all that kind of wear.
24:25So, yeah, she really brought life to the village.
24:29Frances didn't just bring retail business.
24:32She also set her sights on bringing culture to Bromar.
24:35She wanted to create something that rivaled the Edinburgh Festival, but for the Highlands.
24:41She founded a festival in 1952, which brought musicians and artists and writers and actors to the area.
24:49This was in the post-war years, wasn't it, where areas like this were really struggling?
24:54Absolutely, yeah.
24:55So after the war, the whole country was struggling.
24:57You know, rationing was still in place.
24:59And the Highlands particularly, the land had not been looked after during the war, so there was a lot of
25:03work to do.
25:04And she just came in like a whirlwind and really injected that enthusiasm into the village.
25:15Frances revived the fortunes of Bromar, but her real passion was the landscape.
25:20It's easy to see why she loved this place, isn't it?
25:23Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely beautiful.
25:25Yeah.
25:30She fell in love with her husband and she fell in love with the land.
25:34So she really felt a strong connection to the beautiful scenery.
25:38I think it also shares a similarity to the Pacific Northwest where she grew up.
25:42So I think she really felt entwined with the landscape and wanted to look after it.
25:47And when you look at Bromar today and walk around the village, do you think that the impact she had
25:52can still be seen?
25:53Oh, definitely, yeah. I think, yeah, what she was doing was really quite groundbreaking.
25:56You see touches of her design and her taste at Bromar Castle and, you know, you can still see the
26:03traces of her business in the village.
26:05So, yeah, I think her spirit is still there.
26:12Frances Fackerson travelled all over the world, but it was here she called home.
26:18She once said she never wanted to go anywhere else.
26:21For 42 years, swarthed in her beloved Fackerson tartan, she brought her own unique style and energy to this corner
26:30of the Cairngorms.
26:35And that brings us to the end of another sun-kissed episode of Landward.
26:40What's coming up next time? Let me tell you.
26:45We let the cows out for summer.
26:48Look at that!
26:49Like Scottish Grand National.
26:51It is!
26:56Forty years on, Cammy meets the inventive farmer who led the field.
27:01And every job you leave finished.
27:03And if you do it right, you know, you'll be passed back.
27:06And Liana's hot on the trail of a rare Arctic visitor.
27:11Hiya, is the rainforest anywhere about here?
27:18Please join us for that and much, much more if you can.
27:21In the meantime, from all the Landward teams around the country, and especially from me here at Loch Garton,
27:26thank you so much for your company.
27:28Bye for now.
27:29Have a great time with China.
27:30Bye!
27:30Leave us good.
27:43You look good.
27:44Until next time.
27:44Standing back.
27:58You have been answering all questions.
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