Scotland Outdoors

Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart with stories from the great outdoors

Helen Needham visits the Physic Garden at the RBGE with Catherine Conway-Payne

Mark is in Hazlehead Park in Aberdeen hearing how the team from Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels is working to remove the grey squirrel population from the city. In June 2021 fire destroyed the replica Iron Age Crannog on Loch Tay. In the years since, the Scottish Crannog Centre has moved location to the other side of the loch and the team has been working to create a new replica Iron Age village....

Helen Needham with archive recordings from Charlie Allan

Mark Stephen hears tales of bothying including some very special cookery

Mark uncovers tales from the secret howff bothy in the Cairngorms. Mark and Rachel explore the dark skies in the hills above Braemar and Rachel finds out the lengths farmers go to to decorate their tractors for a festive run through the streets of Inverurie

The twin brothers behind the music project Kinbrae were commissioned to make a soundscape of an unusual building at Crail Airfield in Fife as part of the East Neuk Festival in 2023. The building was called a cinasium - a cross between a cinema and a gym. This was the social hub for the airfield when it was still active during World War Two. Andy and Mike Truscott used field recordings and created...

Mark visits Alex Brewster at his farm near Pitlochry. Ten years ago, Alex changed his approach to farming to a more regenerative one, conserving and rehabilitating the soil. He shows Mark the impact that change has made to his land and explains how it all happened. Lake District climber Anna Taylor became the first woman to complete the 'classic rock' challenge all under her own steam. She tells R...

Helen Needham speaks with writer Louise Kenward about the anthology 'Moving Mountains'

Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart with stories from the great outdoors

Mark Stephen meets Christian Stolte of the Wee Scottish Cider Company

Rachel is on Deeside where a rare and elusive ant which hadn’t been spotted in the area for over 70 years has been rediscovered in large numbers. She hears from the man who found it. And Rachel also chats to Dr Jenni Stockan, an insect ecologist at the James Hutton Institute who confirmed the ant discovery. She explains the process of identifying insects. We hear an excerpt from this week’s Scotla...

Mark Stephen visits the family hut of Peter and Graham MacQueen in Argyll

Earlier this week Mark went along to Agriscot, a farm business event held at Ingliston just outside Edinburgh. He spoke to Bob Carruth from NFU Scotland about who attends and what the topics were up for debate. Green woodworking involves making things out of unseasoned or unprocessed wood using only hand tools. It’s a method which appears to be growing in popularity as Rachel found out when she me...

Helen Needham visits James Reid of Tap O' Noth Farm to hear about his approach to farming

Rachel tries her hand at angling with the Dee Damsels. The group was set up by Tara Spiers to support women who were keen to learn more about fly fishing. Mark returns to the Greenmyres Eco Bothy run by the Huntly Development Trust. He gets an update on the work they’ve done on the site so far including walking and cycling trails plus hears about their plans for the future. Stretching nearly 80 mi...

Rachel Stewart meets some of those trying to encourage more women to take up angling on the River Dee in Aberdeenshire.

On this week’s Scotland Outdoors podcast Mark finds out about a project called Light is a Right – How to Winter Well. Glasgow University researchers have been looking into different things that might help us cope with the long, dark winter days. They explain to Mark what’s been involved in their research. Rachel is in Ayrshire meeting the Wednesday Weekday Volunteers who are always happy to roll t...

Mark Stephen finds out how to winter well over the next few months. He meets a group of academics from Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities looking into the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder and discovers what can be done to improve winter depression

Mark visits Deeside Willow to hear all about how to grow this versatile plant and its many uses. He also tries his hand at some willow sculpting. The Future Forest Company has transformed a former sheep farm in Ayrshire with the help of some rather interesting pigs. Rachel went to visit the Brodoclea site to hear about the organisation’s aims and what role their Mangalica pigs have played. Dr Kat...

Mark hears about how Atlantic salmon will soon be able to access parts of the River Dee for the first time in a century following the removal of Garlogie Dam. Linda visits the Clyde Valley to hear about how a group of enthusiasts are reviving the orchards that once dominated the area. Rachel heads into the hills of the Inshriach National Nature Reserve in the Cairngorms to hear about a major new s...

Rachel Stewart presents Scotland Outdoors

Helen visits a mobile laboratory in St Andrews as it travels around various European coastlines to explore coastal habitats and collect samples from the soil, water and air to assess things like pollution. Mark chats to John Fletcher, the first person to set up a commercial deer farm in Scotland back in the 1970s. As well as being a farmer, John is a vet and an author and he tells Mark what it was...

Helen Needham meets Graeme Warren and others during a dig in Glen Dee

Out of Doors celebrates 100 years of BBC Aberdeen. This week we have a special programme looking back at what life was like in rural communities in 1923, how people enjoyed the outdoors and the early forms of conservation. We’re joined by author and broadcaster Graham Stewart who tells us about the origins of broadcasting in Aberdeen. Paula Williams from the National Library of Scotland tells us a...