Scotland Outdoors

Mark and Rachel are joined by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Professor Catherine Heymans who can tell us what’s actually happening to earth to make the days so short.Mark finds out whether our garden birds are impacted by the short days, and he also visits the Nature Scot Forvie National Nature Reserve where despite the dark and cold, new life is arriving as seal pups are being born.While we’re experiencing our shortest day, Antarctica will be marking their Summer Solstice. Rachel chats to Maggie Coll, a wildlife monitor with the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust who manage Port Lockroy. She tells us what conditions are like there and tips to cope with 24-hour daylight.Joining us in the car park is Professor of Human Geography at University of Edinburgh, Hayden Lorimer. We chat to Hayden about the different ways people have marked the winter solstice throughout time. And we also discuss the best ways to cope with the short days and lack of light.Our Scotland Outdoors podcast this week features the last instalment of our Kidnapped series. We hear an excerpt as Mark nears the end of his journey along the Stevenson Way.And Rachel meets storyteller Jackie Ross at the East Aquhorthies Stone Circle near Inverurie to hear some tales of the winter solstice and some superstitions linked to this time of year.

Mark Stephen follows the route from Balquhidder to Corstorphine in Edinburgh

Mark meets builder and artist Becky Little whose work is being displayed as part of an exhibition called A Fragile Correspondence at the V&A in Dundee. Her work involves using soil from different areas in Orkney made into cubes.A WWF Scotland scheme which is aiming to create seagrass meadows and restore oysters to the Forth has reached a major milestone. Rachel visits the Restoration Forth project to hear about what they’ve achieved so far and what their plans are for the future.Mark is in The McManus: Dundee's Art Gallery and Museum where there’s currently an exhibition all about the Dundee Naturalists’ Society which is marking its 150th anniversary this year. Mark met up with some of the members to hear about the group’s history and what they get up to now.Listeners have been getting in touch with Out of Doors to tell us they aren’t seeing the usual numbers of garden birds at their bird feeders and tables. Mark met up with Ian Broadbent, North-East Scotland recorder for the Scottish Ornithologists' Club, to chat about whether numbers of garden visitors are down, and what might be the cause. They also speak about what we can do to help encourage birds and get them through the winter.We’re joined live by Dr Julie Oswald from the University of St Andrews who has developed a groundbreaking tool that uses machine learning to identify dolphin species based on their calls. We hear some examples of what dolphins sound like and find out why identifying them is important.It’s the time of year to coorie down and listen to some folktales and we have just the thing with two tales from our recent trip to Islay, an island full of myths and legends.There’s a new eye-catching steel sculpture in Callendar Park in Falkirk. It’s been created by artist Caspar J Wilson and is a memorial to those who experienced loss in the Covid pandemic. Rachel met Caspar and heard how he spoke to hundreds of people in the local community before creating the sculpture.And our Scotland Outdoors podcast this week features Helen Needham looking through some audio gems from BBC Scotland's archive including an Orkney Hurricane, Sightings of the Loch Ness Monster in the 1930's and Terrifying Sounds from the Hamilton Mausoleum which is what we hear an excerpt of.

Helen Needham presents some audio gems from BBC Scotland's archive