Episode description

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 litter-pick has literally been a lifesaver for Mike.

In this week’s Scotland Outdoors podcast, Mark meets Martin Kennedy, chairman of the National Farmers Union of Scotland. In this excerpt, Martin discusses river management and laments the lack of dredging and what he sees as the negative side effects.

In response to Martin, we chat live to hydromorphologist Dr Stephen Addy from the James Hutton Institute. He tells us what his role involves and why our approach to river management has changed over the years.

A little earlier this week, Inverurie in Aberdeenshire attempted to stage the biggest snowball fight in Scotland. Rachel was in the thick of the action as the snowballs were flying between the two teams.

Before Christmas we asked you to send in your ornithological queries for friend of the programme and North East Bird Recorder, Ian Broadbent to answer. This week, Mark and Rachel met up with Ian at the Inchgarth Reservoir to put his knowledge to the test and see if he come up with all the answers!

And in a week where the North East has been blanketed in snow, Mark heads out to muse about his love-hate relationship with the white stuff.