Rachel Stewart meets Susi Briggs, the newly appointed Scots Scriever. The National Library of Scotland revealed that Susi would be the Galloway Scots Scriever in November 2023. Susi is a poet, author, storyteller, musician and podcaster with a passion for the Scots language. In her new role, she will be tasked with creating original written work in Scots. Rachel visited her in Gatehouse of Fleet to find out how her local landscape and love of nature has inspired her creative work over the years....
Feb 14, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you added up all the land currently forming playgrounds and playing fields around Scotland’s schools, it would be roughly the same size as Dundee. Most of that is tarmac or grass cut short for sports but as Helen Needham discovered when she visited Levenmouth High School in Buckhaven in Fife, it’s possible for schools to use some of their land in a different way to improve biodiversity and benefit learning and wellbeing. Two rare needlework samplers thought to have been embroidered by Robert ...
Feb 10, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark visits Aviemore Bikes to hear about a scheme encouraging locals to take up the use of an e-bike free of charge. He hears who has been using them and why. This week’s Scotland’s Outdoors podcast features cellist Jessica Kerr telling Helen Needham about her project ‘Stories of People and Trees’. She’s been gathering stories relating to trees and has commissioned some new music inspired by them. We hear an excerpt where they admire the trees in Maxwell Park in Glasgow. Back in lockdown in 2020...
Feb 03, 2024•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Helen Needham hears about some special trees from musician Jessica Kerr
Jan 31, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rachel ventures into the sea caves at East Wemyss in Fife to hear about how coastal erosion is threatening the Pictish carvings on their walls. Last summer, the Saving Wildcats project released 19 cats in the Cairngorms as part of efforts to prevent the species becoming extinct. Mark visits the Highland Wildlife Park where the next kittens that will be released have been bred, to hear about how the project is going. We’ve all heard of wine tasting but have you ever thought of giving honey tastin...
Jan 27, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rachel meets Dr Gino Jabbar from Simply Honey in Edinburgh. He is a honey producer and sommelier and runs classes introducing people to the art of honey tasting. He believes that honey is a "taste of the landscape" and there are marked differences in the taste of the product depending on the season and location of the bees. He invites Rachel to sample different products and explains how different plants and trees influence the taste.
Jan 24, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Perthshire is known for its big trees and stunning countryside, and it is also home to a large number of artists. Rachel hears about the Perthshire Creative Trail which has been established to encourage people to explore the great outdoors while soaking up some art at the same time. She meets one of the organisers and an artist involved. Mark meets Mike Scotland, the founder of Community cleanUP. The Aberdeen-based group organises litter-picks to clean up the city. But as Mark hears, starting to...
Jan 20, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark and Martin discuss the various issues facing farmers in Scotland including river management, beavers, new entrants, the future of agricultural support and why farming is the best job in the world.
Jan 17, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart with stories from the great outdoors
Jan 13, 2024•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Helen Needham visits the Physic Garden at the RBGE with Catherine Conway-Payne
Jan 10, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Rachel went to see their progress and explore the new site. The Memorial Chapel in Arbroath’s Wester...
Jan 06, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Helen Needham with archive recordings from Charlie Allan
Jan 03, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Stephen hears tales of bothying including some very special cookery
Dec 27, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Dec 23, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 their own sounds, without using samples, to replicate the audio that would have been heard during th...
Dec 20, 2023•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Rachel about how she cycled between the routes on the challenge and more about her climbing career. T...
Dec 16, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Helen Needham speaks with writer Louise Kenward about the anthology 'Moving Mountains'
Dec 13, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart with stories from the great outdoors
Dec 09, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Stephen meets Christian Stolte of the Wee Scottish Cider Company
Dec 06, 2023•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Scotland Outdoors podcast which features author Peter MacQueen. Peter’s family have a hut in Argyll but to...
Dec 02, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Stephen visits the family hut of Peter and Graham MacQueen in Argyll
Nov 29, 2023•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 met green woodworker Aaron Sterritt near Forres. Helen Needham visits James Reid of Tap O' Noth Farm t...
Nov 25, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Helen Needham visits James Reid of Tap O' Noth Farm to hear about his approach to farming
Nov 22, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 miles from Fort William to Inverness, the Great Glen Way is one of Scotland’s most popular walking rou...
Nov 18, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rachel Stewart meets some of those trying to encourage more women to take up angling on the River Dee in Aberdeenshire.
Nov 15, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 their sleeves up and get to work at the Gailes Marsh Nature Reserve near Irvine. Wildlife photographe...
Nov 11, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Nov 08, 2023•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Jones is director of the charity Action to Protect Rural Scotland. For the last few months she’s bee...
Nov 04, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 study which has recently been published looking at the relationship between controlling deer numbers ...
Oct 28, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rachel Stewart presents Scotland Outdoors
Oct 25, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
