Podcasts about Cairngorms National Park

Let's go on a Highland Safari in the Cairngorms National Park and spend time exploring the Snow Roads! ‘The Birds and the Trees' is a story about a scenic road trip through the Cairngorms, Scottish "wilderness" and what's left of it...This is a newly remastered version of a Wild for Scotland classic,  but even if you have heard to this story before, it's worth listening again!The story featured newly done soundscapes, and afterwards, you'll hear brand-new tips for wildlife watching in Scotland.*** Remastering stories is supported by the members of the Wild for Scotland Social Club

Ryan & Nadia find themselves, once again, asking the question "who is releasing these animals?" as they take a look at the recent news story of 9 feral pigs wondering freely around the Cairngorms National Park just a few miles away from where the illegally released lynx were found just 5 weeks ago. Nadia then follows up with some inspiring news of a new piece of legislation passed in New Zealand that could pave the way for nature protection in other countries. Show notes: Find all the links to news here: Pigs in Scotland / Taranaki Mounga Support us: If you'd like to say "cheers" to the Into The Wild team & help support us with running costs, you can make a one off donation or sign up for a monthly tip on www.ko-fi.com/intothewildpod Chat with us: We're on Instagram & BlueSky or you can chuck us an email at intothewildpod@mail.com. To follow the hosts of the show, Ryan & Nadia, follow them at @mrryanjdalton & @buteblackbird 

Nerds welcome to our first of many! It's our new weekly show, Nature News. Each week Ryan & Nadia will unpack some recent stories or events from around the world that impact the natural world. This week its the wildfires in LA that has been dominating the news. With lives lost & homes destroyed, the symptoms of the climate crisis are being felt hard in this US city. Jumping back to the UK & 4 cats have been all the talk in the nature community due to some lynx being illegally released in Scotland's Cairngorms National Park. Read more on the LA fires & Scotland's Lynx If you'd like to say "cheers" to the Into The Wild team & help support the show, then you can do so on www.ko-fi.com/intothewildpod To follow the hosts of the show, Ryan & Nadia, follow them at @mrryanjdalton & @buteblackbird 

The weather has certainly been a big talking point for a lot of us this week. And it's also the theme of a new exhibition at the McManus Art Gallery and Museum in Dundee. Rachel went to take a look at A Weather Eye along with curator Kirsty Matheson.We hear from Paul Hetherington of charity Buglife about the impact the mild weather before Christmas, and now the very cold weather, is having on our bees. Sadly, it's not great news.A second pair of lynx has been captured after being found near Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park. Two other lynx, released illegally, were caught in the same area on Thursday. We get the latest from BBC Scotland's Environment, Energy & Rural Affairs Correspondent Kevin Keane.Huntly Nordic and Outdoor Centre in Aberdeenshire is Britain's only purpose-built all-weather facility for cross-country skiing and roller skiing. And since there was a bit of snow on the ground, Mark went along to try his hand at cross-country skiing.We speak live to Donald MacRae, vice chair of Scottish Mountain Rescue about the conditions the teams across the country have been facing so far this year. We also hear advice on heading to the hills at this time of year and how prepared you need to be.Staying in the hills, the Glenmore Visitor Centre and Café near Loch Morlich has had a bit of a facelift in recent weeks. It's now owned by the community, who have big plans for the centre. Rachel went along for a visit to hear about what they've done so far, and what's yet to come.The wintry weather prompted Mark to think about the extreme winter weather of the recent past, including low temperatures in Braemar of -27.2 degrees Celsius.Photographer and Landward presenter Shahbaz Majeed has a new book out which explores Scotland's landscapes from a slightly different perspective. Recently, Rachel caught up with Shahbaz in his home city of Dundee for the Scotland Outdoors podcast. He told Rachel the story of how a rather unexpected request led to him making a name for himself behind the lens.And when Mark visited the Huntly Nordic and Outdoor Centre, he couldn't say no when he was offered the chance to go tubing. The simple pastime of sliding down a hill in an inflatable ring is pretty popular at the centre with kids and big kids too!

Lynx to Scotland, a three-charity partnership working to restore lynx to the Scottish Highlands, welcomes the humane capture of two lynx illegally released in the Cairngorms National Park. Photo credit -> scotlandbigpicture.com Peter Cairns, Executive Director of SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, one of the charities involved, said: "It's excellent news that experts from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) were able to humanely trap the lynx so rapidly, and that the lynx are safe. Lynx could return to Scotland "The Lynx to Scotland Project is working to secure the return of Lynx to the Scottish Highlands, but irresponsible and illegal releases such as this are simply counter-productive." The native Eurasian lynx was made extinct in Scotland through hunting and habitat loss more than 500 years ago. Lynx are 'keystone species' which play a vital role in maintaining healthy living systems, and biodiversity is negatively affected by their absence. Lynx are shy and elusive woodland hunters and pose no danger to people. They have successfully returned to European countries such as Germany, France and Switzerland. Research suggests the Highlands has the habitat to sustainably support around 400 lynx. "The Lynx to Scotland project is working towards a carefully planned reintroduction of lynx that respects the views of farmers and other stakeholders - so that Scotland would once again benefit from having lynx in the natural environment," said Steve Micklewright, Chief Executive of Trees for Life. "Scotland is one of a handful of European countries still lacking a large terrestrial mammal predator. If we are serious about tackling the nature and climate emergencies, we need lynx back. A lynx reintroduction would require Scottish Government approval, with habitat assessments and full public consultation." Scotland has more woodland deer than any other European country, and the absence of predators such as lynx leaves the country's forests diminished and overgrazed by too many deer. By preying on roe deer - their preferred prey - and invasive sika deer, lynx could reduce browsing pressure on regenerating woodlands, helping to expand and enrich the country's forests. Lynx would be high-profile ambassadors for nature recovery, attracting valuable tourism revenue for rural communities. Currently, a cross-sector range of stakeholders are engaging in discussions about the possibility of a responsibly managed and fully resourced legal reintroduction of lynx. There is growing public and political support for a managed lynx reintroduction with polls showing widespread backing. In April 2023, lynx reintroduction was discussed in the Scottish Parliament for the first time. The Lynx to Scotland partners are SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, Trees for Life and The Lifescape Project. For more information, see www.scotlandbigpicture.com/lynx-to-scotland. See more breaking stories here. More about Irish Tech News Irish Tech News are Ireland's No. 1 Online Tech Publication and often Ireland's No.1 Tech Podcast too. You can find hundreds of fantastic previous episodes and subscribe using whatever platform you like via our Anchor.fm page here: https://anchor.fm/irish-tech-news If you'd like to be featured in an upcoming Podcast email us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie now to discuss. Irish Tech News have a range of services available to help promote your business. Why not drop us a line at Info@IrishTechNews.ie now to find out more about how we can help you reach our audience. You can also find and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

Grab your hot chocolate (or mulled wine!) and get into the festive spirit with our Christmas special as we meet some reindeer, talk Christmas trees and explore a small but mighty wood with huge value for nature in the snowy Cairngorms National Park. We discover fascinating reindeer facts with Tilly and friends at The Cairngorm Reindeer Centre, and step into a winter wonderland at nearby Glencharnoch Wood with site manager Ross. We learn what makes a good Christmas tree, how the wood is helping to recover the old Caledonian pine forest of Scotland, why the site is so important to the community and which wildlife thrive here. You can also find out which tree can effectively clone itself, and is so tasty to insects that it developed the ability to shake them off! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.  Adam: Well, today I'm in the Cairngorms in Scotland. In Scottish Gaelic, the area is called – I'm going to give this a go - Am Monadh Ruadh. Apologies for my pronunciation there, but we are in the midst of a mountain range in the Highlands, of Scotland obviously. Generally we're about 1,000 metres high here but the higher peaks I'm told get to about 1,300 metres odd, which is going on for, I don't know, 4,500 foot or so. So this is a very dramatic landscape. We have rocky outcrops, boulders, steep cliffs. It's home to bird species such as the dotterel, snow bunting, the curlew and red grouse, as well as mammals such as mountain hare. But the reason of course we are here this Christmas is because it is also home to Britain's only herd, I think, of reindeer. Now, the reindeer herder is Tilly. She is the expert here and I've been braving, I am braving the snow and icy winds to be introduced to her and the herd. And from there after that, we're going to take a drive to what I'm told is an amazing wooded landscape of Caledonian pine to talk all things pine, and of course, all things Christmas trees. But first of all, let's meet Tilly, who looks after the reindeer.  Adam: OK, we are recording.  Tilly: That's good. OK. I'd better not say anything naughty then.  Adam: I'll cut out any naughtiness, that's fine.  Tilly: This is a bit of a rustly bag. It's more rustly than normal but never mind.  Adam: What do the reindeer actually eat?  Tilly: Well, so. We're now up in their natural habitat and we're looking across a nice heathery hillside with sedges as well. You can just see them poking through the snow and they'll pick away at the old heather of the year and the sedges.  Adam: Right.  Tilly: But we manage the herd and we like to feed them. So what I've got in my bag is some food for them, which they love.  Adam: Right. And what's in your Santa sack of food now?   Tilly: Oh, that's a secret.   Adam: Oh, you can't tell me. Oh, God.  Tilly: No, no. I can tell you. So it's a cereal mix and there is something similar to what you would feed sheep. Bit of barley, bit of sheep mix.  Adam: That's awesome. So not mince pies and carrots? That's only reserved for Christmas Eve. That's probably not very good for them, I would have thought.  Tilly: Yeah, no, I hate to say this, but reindeer don't actually eat carrots.  Adam: Oh right okay, well, that's good to know.  Tilly: But if ever children bring carrots for them, I never turn them away because we're very good at making carrot soup and carrot cake.  Adam: Santa's helpers get the carrots.  Tilly: And I'm absolutely certain that Santa eats all the mince pies, so all good. So anyway, come on through here. We're going now into a 1000-acre enclosure. It just hooks on there, that's perfect, it goes right across. We could actually once we get close to these visitors are coming off from a hill visit this morning. So you'll be pleased to hear that I am the boss. I'm Mrs. boss man and I've been with the reindeer for 43 years. Now, their lifespan is sort of 12 to 15 years, so I've gone through many generations. I've known many lovely reindeer and there's always a favourite and you would have seen some real characters there today. And you couldn't see them in better conditions. Anyway, do get yourself down and warm yourselves up. Oh, you've done very well to bring a little one like that today.  Walker: He did pretty well until now!  Tilly: You've done extremely well. Of course they have. He's got very red, a bit like Rudolph. The thing is there's just that wind, and it's the wind that drops the temperature, that chill factor.  Adam: Yeah. So where are we going, Tilly?  Tilly: So we're heading out towards what we call Silver Mount. They're not in here all year. Different times of year, sometimes they're all free range, some of them are free ranging, some are in here.  Adam: When you speak about free range, literally they can go anywhere?  Tilly: Yes they can.  Adam: And they come back because they know where the food is?  Tilly: Yes they do. They know where the food is, they sort of know where the home is, but they do wander out onto the high ground as well, more in the summertime.   Adam: Right. And is that, I mean Scotland has different rules. There's a right to roam sort of rule here. Does that apply to reindeer? Is that the issue?  Tilly: That is a moot point.  Adam: Oh, really? We've hardly started and I've got into trouble.   Tilly: No. Well, we lease 6000 acres, right? So we lease everything out to the skyline.  Adam: So that's an extraordinary range for them.  Tilly: It is an extraordinary range, but they know no bounds. I have to say reindeer sometimes do just pop over the boundary.  Adam: And that causes problems with the neighbours?  Tilly: Well, some like it, some aren't so keen. And we herd them as well, so we can herd them home. And we herd them by calling them.  Adam: I was going to say, do you have a skidoo, or?  Tilly: No, no. Absolutely no vehicular access on the hill. It's all by Shanks's pony, everywhere.  Adam: Really. So you walk, and then you just ring a bell to herd them, or what do you do?  Tilly: And you ‘loooooow, come on now!' and they come to us.  Adam: Right. And so what was the call again?  Tilly: ‘Looow, come on now!'  Adam: Come on now, is that it? OK, very good. OK, I now move.  Tilly: Yes. But hopefully they won't all come rushing from over there.  Adam: I was going to say, yes, we've now called out the reindeer.  Tilly: We've just joined a cow and calf here, who have just come down to the gate, and you can see just for yourself, they're completely benign. They're so docile and quiet. There's no sort of kicking or pushing or anything. They're very, very gentle creatures.  Adam: And is that because they've been acclimatised because tourists come, or would that be their natural behaviour?  Tilly: It is their natural behaviour, bearing in mind that reindeer have been domesticated for thousands of years. We're not looking at a wild animal here that's got tame. We're looking at a domesticated animal.  Adam: Right.  Tilly: It's probably more used to people than some of the reindeer up in the Arctic. So we have domestication embedded in their genetics.  Adam: So what we're saying is, genetically, they're actually more docile. It's not because this particular reindeer is used to us. But originally then, if one goes back far enough, they were wilder?  Tilly: Yes so, it's a really interesting process of domestication of reindeer, which happened in the Old World, so Russia, Scandinavia, inner Mongolia, outer Mongolia. And that is reindeer and many, many reindeer in these Arctic areas, are domesticated. They're not wild.  Adam: And that started happening, do we have an idea when?  Tilly: Probably about 10,000 years ago. But if you go to the New World, to Alaska and North Canada, exactly the same animal is called a caribou. Caribou are never domesticated. The indigenous people of these areas never embraced the herding and enclosing of reindeer, which was caribou, whereas in the Old World it became very, very important to the men, the people's survival.  Adam: And then the caribou, do they have a different character?   Tilly: Yes, they're wilder. And it's a little bit difficult to show today – you see quite strong colour variation in reindeer, which you don't see in caribou, and colour variation is man's influence on selecting for colour. So you'd get very light coloured ones, you'd get white ones in reindeer, you'd get very dark ones, but in caribou they're all the same, brownie-grey colour. Yeah, they felt that the white reindeer were important in the herd for whatever reasons, Germanic reasons or whatever. Interestingly, the Sámi - and I'm not sure if there could be a white one up in the herd here at the moment - describe them as lazy reindeer, the white ones.  Adam: Why?  Tilly: Well, I didn't know why until I worked out why white reindeer are often deaf. So they sleep, they don't get up when everybody else gets up and moves, and this white reindeer doesn't realise that the herd has left them. So they're not all deaf, but certain white ones are.  Adam: Very important question, obvious but I didn't ask it to begin with because I'm a fool. Why are reindeer connected to Christmas?  Tilly: Well, that's a really good question, because actually they think it stems from a poet called Clement C Moore, who wrote a poem in America, he had Scandinavian Germanic connections, called The Night Before Christmas, where Donder, Blitzen, Cupid, Comet, fly through the air with Saint Nick in the sleigh, the little Santa.  Adam: Yeah.  Tilly: But, so that really set the scene of eight reindeer and the sleigh, and that was based on the Norwegian God Odin, who had eight legs and strode through the sky with these eight legs and eight reindeer. Then we have Rudolph, who turns up, but he doesn't turn up until the time of prohibition in America.  Adam: So Rudolph isn't in the original poem?  Tilly: Absolutely not. Rudolph is an impostor.  Adam: I didn't know that!  Tilly: He, so he, it was a marketing exercise for a department store during alcohol prohibition. And it was Rudolph with his red nose, and his red nose is because of alcohol.  Adam: Because he drank too much? So was it in favour of alcohol or was it going ‘what terrible thing happens to you when you drink'?  Tilly: I'm not terribly sure. But anyway, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was the song, so that adds to it. And then along comes Coca-Cola who used a red and white Santa to promote Coca-Cola at Christmas time. So the red and white Santa is Coca-Cola.  Adam: Right. And the red-nose reindeer is from alcohol and reindeer comes from an actual American poem, of which Rudolph wasn't part of anyway. That's all simple to understand then!  Tilly: Exactly. Perfect.  Adam: Well, we're moving up to some of the more exposed slopes. Tilly has gone ahead. I'm just going to catch up back with her, and ask how she started as one of UK's first reindeer herders. Well, certainly, one of our few reindeer experts.  Tilly: I came up to volunteer and I met the keeper who was looking after the reindeer for Dr Lindgren, who was the lady who brought them in with her husband, Mr Utsi, and he was quite good looking.   Adam: Is this a revelation you wish to make to them?  Tilly: And the reindeer were endearing, and the mountains were superb, and so I married the keeper.  Adam: Right, you did marry him! I thought you were telling me about another man other than your husband.  Tilly: So I married Alan. We married in 1983 and I've been here ever since.  Adam: And so the purpose of having reindeer here originally was what?  Tilly: Ah, good question. Mr Utsi came here and was very taken by the landscape and the environment, the habitat, because it was so similar to his own home country of north Sweden. And he begged the question where are the reindeer? Why are there not reindeer here? And it was on that notion that he and his wife, Dr Lindgren, devoted the latter half of their lives to bringing reindeer back to Scotland.  Adam: So that's interesting. So, it raises the difference of ecological or sort of natural question, of whether these are indigenous animals.  Tilly: Yes. So it's an interesting idea. Certainly, the habitat's available for them and they live in their natural environment. But when they became extinct, or not extinct, but when they weren't in Scotland, some people say as recently as 600 years ago and some people say as long as 2,000 years ago. If it's 2,000 years ago, they're described as a past native.  Adam: So OK, I didn't realise that, but is there any debate around whether they were originally - whatever originally is –  Tilly: They were definitely here.  Adam: So they are native? They're not sort of imported, they have died out and been brought back here.  Tilly: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, they were reintroduced, but how, what that time span is, some people say sooner than later, and Mr Utsi certainly identified this as a very suitable spot for them.  Adam: Any idea why they might have died out? Do we know?  Tilly: Probably a bit of climate change and also probably hunting. Very easy animal to hunt. Are you OK with this chitter chatter going on?  Adam: Yes, it's all good, and a bit of, do you call it mooing?   Tilly: Oh no, the reindeer aren't making any noise, they're clicking.  Adam: Someone was mooing!  Tilly : I think it was the people.  Adam: I thought it was the reindeer making that noise.   Tilly: Not at all. They're very silent.   Adam: They'd have left this podcast thinking reindeer moo.  Tilly: They would have. Exactly. No, they are really, really silent animals.  Adam: There's a very large reindeer there coming down the road.  Tilly: Oh, that's OK, that's Akubra, he'll do nothing to you at all. He's an absolute genuine reindeer. He's lovely. But he listened to the clicking as they walk. You can't hear it because of your headphones.  Adam: OK, so I guess later on I'll put a microphone on a reindeer. That will be a first. One other thing I always imagined when you saw a set of antlers on a sort of grand Scottish mansion, I thought, oh well, they've killed that the reindeer. And actually, that's not true, is it? They fall off.  Tilly: They do. You're absolutely right. Having it depends how you see the antlers. If the antlers are still on a skull, that animal has been killed and there's nothing wrong with that. There is a, you know, the animals need to be controlled. But you're also right. Antlers are lost every year and regrown again, so they cast their antlers and they regrow their antlers. So in a reindeer's life, if a reindeer is 10 years old, he will have just grown his 11th set of antlers.  Adam: And the purpose of antlers is fighting? I'm a big girl, I'm a big boy, whatever.   Tilly: Yeah, mainly for fighting, a weapon. So for the big breeding males, it's for claiming harem for females, so in the breeding season. And those big breeding bulls will actually lose their antlers around about now, their antlers will fall off and then they won't regrow their antlers until next spring, right? The females, little females like this, keep those boney antlers all winter and they use them for competing for food, so they can jab another reindeer and push it off and they can get into the food as a result.   Adam: The other thing I can notice about some of them, but not the reindeer in front of us, but I think the one walking away, although this looks very bony, the other one has sort of felt on it, and what looks like blood. So what's going on there?  Tilly: Yes. So they are the velvet antlers on the Christmas reindeer that have finished growing, but they don't lose the velvet properly and there is still potentially blood in the bone, as it were.  Adam: So there's this sort of capillary underneath the felt.  Tilly: Yes, exactly, because the antler's a really interesting appendage because it grows from the tip. It doesn't grow from the base, so the blood supply has to go all the way to the tip to grow. And the velvet skin carries that blood supply.  Adam: Right. I see. So now the reindeer in front of us has no velvet so that can't grow.  Tilly: And no blood supply. Exactly. And the only way she can grow, get more antlers or bigger antlers, is to lose the whole thing and grow it again next year. Yes.  Adam: So any other serious facts we should note, to inform ourselves about reindeer?  Tilly: Oh, lots of serious facts. So they're the only deer species where the males and the females grow antlers. Every other deer species, it's only the males that grow the antlers. They are the only deer species that's been domesticated by man. All the other species of deer, we're talking about 40 different species, are all truly wild animals. They can survive in the coldest parts of the world, so in the middle of Siberia, the temperature can go down to -72 and reindeer are still living there quite happily.  Adam: It's cold today, but it's probably -2 or something.  Tilly: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Man cannot live in the Arctic without an animal to live by, and it's reindeer that he lives by. Man would never have gone into these areas. Obviously now they're all digging up, you know, getting the oil and the gas and everything. But indigenous man can only survive in these areas if he has reindeer as his farm animal of the north, so they're really important to the indigenous people of the north.  Adam: And in that sort of role, then, you can clearly eat reindeer. Then what else does it provide us?  Tilly: Absolutely. So it provides with meat. There are indigenous people that milk them in season. They have these tremendous coats that are used for covering tents and for people's, you know, clothing. And the antlers? Not now, but the antlers would have been used as tools in the past.  Adam: And have you ever had reindeer milk?  Tilly: I have tried, yes, we have milked the odd reindeer for one reason or another. It's very rich, very rich.  Adam: You have! Rich, is that good or quite fatty? Is it drinkable?  Tilly: That's good. Yeah, it's totally drinkable. Totally nice.  Adam: Yeah, I think yaks or a drink made from yaks, which was disgusting, I found in Mongolia, but I really found it difficult. It wasn't my thing.  Tilly: But it wasn't the fermented one, was it? Because in Mongolia they're into fermented mare's milk.   Adam: That might be what I had.  Tilly: And that is revolting.   Adam: Yes, OK, that's maybe what I had. How unusual is reindeer milk then?  Tilly: Yeah. It's got a very high fat content. They produce very little milk, because if you had a great big swinging under in in freezing conditions, you'd have ice cream, you wouldn't have milk.  Adam: The other thing I noticed that we haven't talked about is their hooves which look quite large and they look, I mean just from a distance, quite mobile.  Tilly: Yes. They are very, very, very flexible animals and their feet, their hooves are very big. Of course, for snow. Walking on the snow, spreading the weight, but also great shovels for digging. So they dig. You know, if you're in two feet, three feet of snow in north Sweden, you've got to get to the food underneath and to get to it, they need to dig. So they're great diggers.  Adam: And your life now here. It's quite a change from where you grew up, I appreciate.  Tilly: Certain years, a very rural life I had then. I have an equally country-wise life now. I will go to my grave with reindeer. They are my complete nutter passion. They are the most wonderful animals to be amongst, they put a smile on your face. They live in a beautiful area. They're just, they're just lovely animals and they give me a lot of pleasure. Yeah, yeah.  Adam: Fantastic. And if people are in the Cairngorms and want to have their own trip to see the reindeer, they call the what?  Tilly: They call the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre. You could do it on the website, you can ring us up and they need to dress up. I'm sure you appreciate you, are your feet cold yet?  Adam: No, look, I stopped off and bought extra thermals on my way.  Tilly: Very good.  Adam: Well, thank you very much. It's been a real treat, thank you very much.  Tilly: Brilliant. Oh, well, thank you for coming.  Adam: Well, I'm afraid I'm having to leave the reindeer behind because we're now heading to a little lower ground to see what I'm told is an amazing forest of Caledonian pine. And to learn a bit more about the trees and their relative, the other pine, which we all know as the Christmas tree. And we're off to meet a guy who looks after the Glencharnoch Wood in Carrbridge, near the River Spey and Dulnain. And now, despite it, it's a quite a small forest, I think. But despite that, it's quite well known for being really important, really big on biodiversity. And it's home to a number of species including, but not just them, but including the red squirrel and the crested tit.  Ross: My name's Ross Watson. I'm the site manager for North Scotland for the Woodland Trust.  Adam: Brilliant. Ross, we have come on an extraordinary day. It has snowed. It looks picturesque, chocolate box, shortbread box maybe, type stuff, so fantastic. So just tell me where we are.  Ross: Well, we're in Glencharnoch wood. It's a wood that the Woodland Trust owns and it's part of a series of little woodlands on the back of Carrbridge between Carrbridge and the railway. And the Woodland Trust has had it for a number of years. It's a little site, only 36 acres, but it's a pine wood site and a really important pine wood site at that, in that it's a small part of much bigger Caledonian forests.  Adam: OK. Well, I want to talk to you about pine wood, because I think it just sort of gets dismissed – ‘oh this pine wood, not important, not interesting'. Apart from Christmas, perhaps, when suddenly it becomes really important, but I want to unpack all of that with you, but just explain to you we're going to go on a little walk. Hopefully you know where you're going. Good. All right, so just explain a bit about where we're going, give me a sense of the pattern of where we're going.  Ross: Absolutely. We're going to take a circular walk around the woodlands. The woodlands here, it's all about community. Everything we do here is around that tree. We're going to walk through a piece of land that's owned by the local authority and then go through our own land and onto privately owned land and then come back to our own land. And it really shows the connectivity of all these different habitats, all the different landowners. But really the path network is there for the community that's here and they are involved in practice as well.  Adam: So. Pine wood. Yeah, it sort of gets bunched all together, and especially the Scots pine I hear a lot about. But there are there are big, big differences and varieties are there? Tell me a bit about them.  Ross: The Scots pine we are walking through are really special species. That's the only native conifer in the UK, right? And that's why they're so special here. Really these Scots pine provide their own habitat all of their own. They're incredibly threatened. As a habitat in Scotland, we've got just a number of Caledonian pine inventory sites. We've got ancient woodlands, designated sites.  Adam: Sorry, just to stop you - Caledonian pine, Scots pine, interchangeable words?  Ross: Yeah, good point. The Great Wood of Caledon was the reference of the name of the forest that was here, the old, the original boreal forest that gradually reduced in size. Partly through climate change as the country became cooler and wetter, but also through human intervention through felling, fires, grazing, all that kind of thing. So now we tend to talk about Scots pine and Cally pine which can be fairly interchangeable, but the Cally pine tends to be the bigger, grander kind of granny pines, these really lovely old things you see in some of the landscapes.  Adam: But that's sort of just the way people use the word. Technically, they're the same thing, but we refer to the Caledonian pine as the big grand ones, and it comes from… so I just want to make sure I understood what you said. The word Caledonian pine then comes from a Caledonian, a forest called Caledonia?   Ross: Yeah, the Great Wood of Caledon.   Adam: Isn't that a brilliant name? So mystical and it sort of talks of Tolkien and other worlds. Wow, wow. OK. So we have the great Scots pine, the Caledonian pine. If people have a general thing in their mind about pine trees, what is special about Caledonian pine? How that distinguishes from pines in other parts of the world.  Ross: Well, Scots pine, as we're walking through this woodland, just now as you look up the trunks of the trees, as you look up the bark tends to go from a kind of grey-brown to a real kind of russety red, like a red squirrel colour. And that's a lot of the red squirrel camouflage comes from that, that rusty colour. So they're skittering around these treetops and they can be jumping around and they're nice and camouflaged because of that colour. So is that redness that you really see? But what we can see in here, a lot of these trees are very even age, it has been quite heavily thinned in the past, but then you come across a tree like this that's got a very deep crown. So you see there's live branches more than halfway down that tree, whereas there's a lot of these other trees -  Adam: Yes, I was going to say it's weird that they've got no foliage until very high.  Ross: Yeah, so this tree here, and foresters may call this a wolf tree, a tree that has occupied a space and it's just sat there and doesn't allow anything around it.   Adam: It's called a wolf tree?  Ross: Some people would refer to it as a wolf tree. What we would refer to that is it's a deep crown tree, not very imaginatively named, but a deep crown tree is really important here because of capercaillie. Now, capercaillie, you imagine a capercaillie's a big bird, a turkey-sized bird, almost waist height, a male capercaillie. And in the winter it will walk out across these branches and it will nibble away at some of the needles, and it will sit there and it will rely on that during deep snow for shelter, security, food. So without these deep crown trees, there isn't anywhere for them to go. So if you imagine a plantation, a very dense pine that are much denser than this and they don't have the chance for any deep crown trees. Then the opportunity for capercaillie here is much reduced.  Adam: Right. So there's sort of, I mean, look the elephant in the room. Well, it's Christmas around the corner. People have Christmas trees. Sort of most people know anything about pine, it's because they have it in their house at Christmas. That's not a Scots pine.  Ross: No, your traditional Christmas tree is a Nordmann fir. A fir tree tends to hold onto needles a little longer than a pine tree. And if you look after the pine, it will retain its needles, but quite often the pine trees will grow slightly too quickly, so it'll be a bit bare as a Christmas tree, whereas a fir tree is kind of hairy enough to be a good Christmas tree.  Adam: Right. And do we have, do we have them planted in the UK as well? I mean just for commercial cropping?  Ross: Yes, as a Christmas tree.  Adam: Right. So the other thing, look, we're in a really lovely forest at the moment. We're the only ones here. But Scotland, the iconic pictures of Scotland, are bare, bare mountains, aren't they? They're not wooded, and yet I've always read that that's not how it used to be. It used to be a wooded part of the country. Why did it lose so much of its woodland?  Ross: Well, it's looking back to, what, centuries ago as the climate became cooler and wetter, the tree line reduced in height. But more recently in the 1800s the Cultural Revolution created huge periods of felling where they needed this timber for industrialization. Trees from the woodlands near here were cut down, they were floated down to the river Spey and then out to Spey Bay and the Moray coast. They were used for underground water piping for ship's masts. Because these trees are, as you can feel today it's a cold place to be, they've grown very slowly. So because they're nice and straight as we can see, they are, the rings are very close together, so they're very sturdy. They're an ideal timber source. But then we start to look at deer numbers increasing and sheep numbers increasing. The more mouths on the hill meant that once you cut these trees down, it was much harder for the trees to come away again. And really, that's the landscape we're in now really. And when we're talking about those very large, deep crowned trees on open hillsides, these kind of granny pines are so picturesque, and really a lot of these trees, there was no timber value in them because they were already so crooked and they were left, and this is almost a remnant that's showcasing the old forest that once was standing there.  Adam: A lot of times, site managers, they're trying to keep things steady in a way, I suppose. Just trying to maintain what's going, keep that going, that's hard enough. Is that the job here or do you have bigger plans? Are there, you know, times are changing?  Ross: Well, this is one of eight woodlands I look after across the north of Scotland. Whenever we're doing anything, no matter what the scale of it, it's not just how do we keep the site going and kind of steady. It's about when we are doing work, how do we add value to that to make it better for the people that are living here? And how do we use that to continue to showcase these sites as the shop window for the Woodland Trust?  Adam: And is the idea here to try and remove the non-Scots pine, so you'd have a pure Scots pine forest?  Ross: Well, the Woodland Trust works on a on a threat basis really. So any tree is better than no tree, right? But if you have got a lot of spruce regeneration that's threatening this ancient wood then we need to begin to remove that. And that's been the case here.  Adam: Sorry I'm pausing because there's a lovely spaniel who I can see wants me to throw a stick, but I won't throw the stick. Very cool dog. There we are. Sorry, we were saying yes, so any tree is better than no tree. But are the other trees a threat then or not?  Ross: Well, the Norway spruce here has been seeding regeneration into the woodland areas and over the last few years we've cleared a lot of that and in some of these nice young spruce, we've been able to provide to the community for Christmas trees, which has been really handy. But all of that is gone now and we're left with this core of, of mature Norway spruce, that a number of them have started to snap so are becoming a safety issue for members of the public using footpaths next to it. But also there's an opportunity there where before that timber dies, we can extract it and it can be useful for the community.  Adam: And you'd replace it with Scots pines.  Ross: No, we're going to replace it predominantly with hazel and aspen. Because one of the slight concerns in having a single species stand, like we have here, where it's all Scots pine, is that there's only one species for the likes of red squirrels or the crossbills. And on a day like today we might hear crossbows coming over. There's only one species here for them, whereas if we're planting hazel, which is under-represented species here, that provides a different food for red squirrels in a different part of the woodland. And aspen is one of the most biodiverse species that we would have in this part of the world. And there are very, very few aspen.  Adam: When you say it's the most biodiverse species, you mean it attracts biodiversity?  Ross: Absolutely yes. In terms of the lower plant assemblage that's on there specifically and insects. And aspen, their Latin name is Populus tremula and the tremula comes from the oval shape on the leaf. Just in the slightest breeze, it's adapted that to try and shake off the insect burden because the leaves are so palatable for insects.  Adam: So the shape of the leaf in wind -  Ross: The shape of this stock of the leaf is oval.  Adam: And that helps shift any insects.   Ross: Yeah, yeah.   Adam: It's interesting because aspen, in my ignorance, I associate with aspen in America, but it's a native UK tree.  Ross: It is, yeah. And it will be one of the first colonisers after the Ice Age. That's, an aspen will have, the seed will have blown down as the ice is receding. But some of the aspen that are here now will be some of the oldest trees that exist in the UK and aspen generally now grows rhizomatously, so you'll see the roots through the forest and all of the suckers will pop out. And the aspen that we can see in the woodland today, they could have been here for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, and they've just, as the clone has marched through the landscape, it's just it's moved and colonised these different areas. They're fascinating trees. So when you look at some of the images in North America, you might see entire hillsides of aspen and that could all be the same tree essentially, they're amazing organisms.  Adam: That's amazing. So it's sort of cloning really.   Ross: Yeah, absolutely.  Adam: That's amazing. And also I can see right on the Scots pine behind you, beautiful lichen, which is just a real sign of the air quality here, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't grow and it's just often further south. We do see lichen, obviously, but often I see a bit. This is everywhere. It's a real sign this is good land.  Ross: Absolutely, yeah.  Adam: Good land, good air. Wonderful. Well, I'm going to take another shot of our colleague down below. Hello. Wearing a lovely red hat, almost looks like Santa. And then we'll move on. So we're going uphill a bit, you might just hear the snow crunching under my boots. So this is amazing. A wolf peeking out from the woods, which adds to the fairy tale quality of all of this forest walk. This is not a real wolf. This is carved in wood. It looks really beautiful and it's covered in snow at the moment, which maybe is why I didn't spot it at first. So what's the story here?  Ross: Well, the story here is that Carrbridge hosts the Scottish chainsaw carving competition every year at the end of August, and there are chainsaw artists coming from all over the world to compete here to do some incredibly elaborate carvings. They do benches and three-to-four-metre statues and it's absolutely incredible.   Adam: This is very delicate that I'm surprised this would be done with a chainsaw.  Ross: Yeah, it's a very specialist skill as you can see, and people have to be very artistic. You have to be very good with the saw, but also the bar of the saw is a specialist carving tool. But then they also can use all sorts of other implements to try and refine the artwork itself. And this is just one part of that much larger chainsaw carving trail that's in Carrbridge that really commemorates this annual event.  Adam: Amazing. Well, we'll leave the wolf. It's got even a little dark nose. Amazing. A little dog, a real dog this time. Well, yes, just to prove it. We've just seen some reindeer. Obviously they're a type of deer. Are they as much of a problem as the normal red deer that we know about? So what's your view on them?  Ross: Well, red deer, the numbers are extremely high in some places and in the Cairngorms, they're generally much better managed. But in other places where there just isn't that, that integration or the objectives are yet to be aligned with protected areas, the numbers in those places need to come down, but recognising that there are different objectives, there are different landowners who want to do different things with land. So in recognising and respecting those objectives, but generally, ideal numbers need to come down and they need to come down a lot in order for trees and woodland to recover.  Adam: But that's deer in general, just because it's Christmas, I just have reindeer on the mind. You don't see many reindeer here. Or any reindeer here?  Ross: No, you see them up in the Cairngorms, right?   Adam: Right. Another pitstop. I see some lichen with some snow on it. I should turn them into Christmas cards. I won't, but that's what I should do. So if there was a sort of a final thought you wanted people to take away about this forest or about Caledonian pines you're trying to protect and grow here, what might that be?  Ross: Well, for this woodland, and as I say, it's only 36 acres in size, it's a fairly small wood. But it's not to discount that, and we talk about the hundreds of ants nests, the crossbills, the crested tits, it's woodlands like this can punch way above their weight. But also woodlands like this connected together provide a much larger, integrated robust habitat. And it's just thinking along these lines that this, this woodland, although it has the A9 on one side, it's got roads on two other sides, it's got a forest adventure park there and to the other side, it feels like a woodland that could be squeezed, but it can also feel like a woodland that is a part of this much larger landscape and contributing to that. And I suppose in part it depends on how you view that, yeah. But the woodland is connected to its woodlands round about, so it's definitely playing its part and part of that recovery of the old Caledonian pine forest of Scotland, as small as it is.  Adam: It's been a real treat for you to guide us through it on such a special snowy Christmas-y day. So thank you very much indeed.   Ross: No problem.   Adam: Well, it's been a fantastic day. Which leaves me just say from the land of reindeer and Caledonian pine, can I wish you a very happy, peaceful and joyous Christmas and New Year? And I do hope that wherever you are, you are able to share the joy of this season and that you'll join us in the New Year for lots more podcasts and tree adventures. Until then, from all of us in the Woodland Trust podcast team, to all of you, can we wish you a happy Christmas and a great New Year and of course, happy wanderings.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you. 

'A Coorie Winter' is a story about getting cosy (or 'coorie') in the great outdoors during the Scottish winter months. We're heading to the Cairngorms National Park and the Moray Coast for stops in Aviemore, Tomintoul and Findhorn.In each location, we're trying another coorie winter activity, from hiking with reindeer on the Cairngorm plateau to sweating in a wood-fired sauna with sea views and star gazing at the Cairngorms Dark Sky Park. Things don't always go as planned, but that's part of any winter adventure to Scotland...Visit our website to find the full show notes incl. the transcript and links to places I mention in this episode.Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Birch Grove Cabin. Book now at birchgrovecabin.co.uk and quote “Wild for Scotland” to get 10% off your stay from December to February 2024. Coming to Scotland? Start planning your trip to Scotland with my FREE Trip Planning Checklist. Get it here! Browse my Scotland itineraries for your next trip.Help us spread the word about Wild for Scotland! If you hear something you like in this episode, take a screenshot and share what you like about it on your Instagram stories. And tag us @wildforscotland so we can say thank you!Join our email list for weekly resources and glimpses behind the scenes.Follow us on Instagram @wildforscotlandAlso check out my Scotland blog Watch Me See!

An initiative has been launched in the Cairngorms National Park to save and restore one of Scotland's most important yet endangered native tree species. The new partnership between Trees for Life and the Cairngorms National Park Authority, working with Cairngorms Aspen Group, aims to map, expand, and connect aspen - an essential but now rare feature of the Caledonian forest. Aspen provides a habitat for a wide range of rare fungi, lichens, mosses, and moths - but although once common, it has now largely disappeared from Scotland's landscapes. Experts believe aspen has suffered more from deforestation than any other native tree in Scotland. The new Cairngorms Aspen Network is bringing together experts, enthusiasts, and land managers to take action to identify and then restore aspen-rich habitats, and so boost wildlife and threatened species. It will also raise awareness about the importance of aspen. A healthy, functional aspen network will help build resilience against climate change and biodiversity loss, says the Network. "The new Aspen network will offer much-needed hope for tackling nature and climate emergencies by developing a restored, better-connected, and healthier aspen network. By working together, we can improve the future of our aspen woodlands and the life they bring with them," said Niamh Byrne, Aspen Project Officer at rewilding charity Trees for Life. Aspen has been hit especially hard by deforestation and overgrazing, largely because it rarely flowers or sets seeds in Scotland, for reasons that remain unclear. This means once it is lost from an area, aspen is unlikely to return on its own. The tree's survival is threatened in the Highlands, where it now often only regenerates on rocky slopes or cliffs, out of the reach of grazing animals. Such small fragmented stands - sometimes a handful of old trees growing off the same root system - are geographically isolated and cannot provide a proper habitat for the many species that depend on them. Fragmentation of native woodlands also reduces aspen's chances of reproduction, while new growth by suckers from a parent plant is often grazed before it can flourish. Characterised by shimmering foliage in summer and leaves that turn a stunning golden yellow in the autumn, and able to grow at elevations of up to 550 metres, aspen is extremely important for many reasons. Aspen grows fast and dies young - meaning it efficiently locks away carbon. Aspen's high rate of leaf fall and production of deadwood enriches soils, which creates optimum conditions for other plants and trees. Over 60 insect species are known to feed on aspen foliage in Scotland. Young aspen shoots provide food for caterpillars of the rare dark-bordered beauty moth, while the endangered aspen hoverfly favours aspen deadwood. The tree is also highly valued by beavers. Sarah Henshall, Head of Conservation for the Cairngorms National Park Authority, said: "Aspen is a priority species in Cairngorms National Park and a hugely important resource for rare and threatened wildlife. Aspen also makes a significant contribution towards healthy and resilient nature networks in the National Park." The project's first stage, being carried out by Trees for Life, is mapping the location, condition, and health of the Cairngorms National Park's existing aspen, alongside key plants and animals that depend on the tree. This mapping will help identify key sites and management priorities, including growing and planting plans for creating a thriving new network of aspen, and will create a blueprint for an effective approach to aspen conservation that could be rolled out across Scotland. As the project develops, it is hoped there will also be scope for local volunteers to get involved, including by gaining hands-on rewilding experience and receiving training for carrying out aspen surveys. Trees for Life has been working to restore aspen to the Highlands since 1991, including by growing and planting thousands of young aspen tre...

We journey across Europe with James Shooter, host of the rewild podcast. From inspirational community led rewilding projects, to the trial and tribulations of road tripping, sit back and enjoy his story-telling skills. On that theme, we end the episode with a discussion about the role of communications and collaboration in the rewilding movement.Your Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/Chloe Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloe-constable-24155821b/Website: https://www.grangeproject.co.ukGrange Project Contact & Social Media:Email: hello@grangeproject.co.ukInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/grange.project/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/grangeprojectYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GrangeProjectLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/Grange Project Partnership Document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HNUjLB-bWDTgv4AJoYG7uUoAWEBE9q28/view?usp=drive_linkOur Guest:James Shooter is a nature photographer, filmmaker and podcaster currently based in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland. He's fully immersed in the world of rewilding, the large-scale restoration of nature, and finding ways to communicate positive environmental stories through a variety of different media.For the last 10 years he has worked at Scottish rewilding charity, SCOTLAND: The Big Picture as a visual content creator and guide. Throughout 2023 & 2024 he was travelling across the continent, teaming up with Rewilding Europe, to produce The Rewild Podcast - immersive discussions with an army of passionate people fighting back for nature.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-shooter-b1920256/?originalSubdomain=ukWebsite: https://www.jamesshooter.com/Podcast: https://rewildingeurope.com/the-rewild-podcast/Resources:3D Artist Karen: https://therubycube.com/Grange Project Partnership Document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HNUjLB-bWDTgv4AJoYG7uUoAWEBE9q28/view?usp=drive_linkListen out...

SCOTTISH BORDERS – PART 2 So many people who rush to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland miss the amazing beauty of the Lowlands, and the Borders area of Scotland in particular. This Podcast takes up where we left off in Part 1 and we start at the incredible Jedburgh abbey with a walk around the town to see the Old Castle jail before heading off to Mary Queen of Scott's house where you'll hear of her ill health after visiting her lover, Bothwell. Then we'll drive to another lovely ruin at Melrose and I'll let you know a little more about the lives of the monks who lived in these places to give you an insight into Monastic life. And what does Melrose Abbey have to do with the heart of our greatest king,  Robert the Bruce? We'll also look at the towns of Selkirk and Galashiels that have so much to offer and we will then head over to have a look at Abbotsford House, the home of Sir Walter Scott the most celebrated Scottish author of his generation. Before we end, I'll tell you about the Border Reivers, renegades and outlaws, who controlled the Border area for hundreds of year. You will also hear from previous Guests, the Wood family, and an incredible chance meeting with a close relative they never knew existed. This will have quite an effect on you. You will also hear from another of my guests, the celebrated American author Mary Anne Edwards, who writes the Detective series ‘Charlie McClung' and it was apt that we finished our tour at Abbotsford House where Mary Ann could study Sir Walter Scott, our own celebrated author. You can find her 'Charlie McClung' series of books on Amazon.

Blair Castle is one of many castles in Scotland.In fact there are so many castles that you may not be sure which ones are worth visiting and which ones are not.My personal opinion is Blair Castle is worthy of some time.This lovely castle is located in the village of Blair Atholl and sits just within Cairngorms National Park.There is a lot of intriguing history — including some Queen Victoria stories, beautiful pieces of furniture and gorgeous plaster ceilings that wowed me.Plus it has a magnificent garden that you'll want to wander through.Tune in as we explore Blair Castle in Perthshire, Scotland.Want to chat more about this marvelous castle in Scotland?Email me at Lynne@WanderYourWay.com.In this episode:0:57: Intro3:57: Placing Blair Castle on the map5:05: History9:50: Lineage12:49: Notable locations & overall impressions16:28: Tea Room18:25: Dining Room20:16: Whisky Room22:14: Drawing Room23:15: Banvie Suite26:21: Bagpipes28:30: The Garden31:24: Tips37:16: Final thoughts40:08: Wrapping it upImportant links:Blair Castle20 Reasons Why You Need to Visit the Charming Town of Pitlochry ScotlandCulzean Castle • ScotlandStirling and Doune Castles • ScotlandWander Your Way AdventuresSupport the showThanks to Callisa Mickle who edits the audio.Follow Wander Your Way:InstagramFacebookPinterest

There are a plethora of destinations in Scotland that are amazing.From Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye.From Glasgow to the Shetland Islands.And so many places around and in between.So in this episode I want to offer up some of my personal favorite places to travel in Scotland.A couple are well known while there are a few spots that are a bit off the main tourist track.So tune in to learn about some of my favorite destinations in Scotland and why I think you should visit them.Want to chat more about Scotland?Send me an email at lynne@wanderyourway.com.In this episode:1:17: Intro and story5:28: Northwest Area of Scotland11:58: Isle of Harris16:03: Kilmartin Glen21:00: St. Andrews24:54: The Road to the Isles31:12: Dunnottar Castle34:55: Cairngorms National Park39:45: Bonus: Glencoe42:56: Wrapping it upImportant links: Northwest Scotland Why the Awesome Isle of Lewis and Harris Needs To Be on Your Scottish ItineraryWhy You Need to Visit the Amazing Lochinver ScotlandScottish Road Trip Review7 Reasons Why You Should Explore the Amazing Kilmartin Glen ScotlandKilmartin Glen10 Amazing Things You Need to Do in Beautiful St Andrews ScotlandExploring St Andrews • Scotland with Bo FraserOne of the Best Scenic Drives in Scotland: Braemar to Grantown-on-Spey via TomintoulVisit ScotlandDunnottar CastleWander Your Way AdventuresSupport the Show.Thanks to Callisa Mickle who edits the audio.Follow Wander Your Way:InstagramFacebookPinterest

Is the rise in global wild fires unstoppable? Helen Czerski and Tom Heap discuss the terrifying march of the flames and search for fresh answers. They're joined by John Vaillant, author of the award-wining exploration of Canada's Fort McMurray disaster, 'Fire Weather' and by Dr Stacey New from the Met Office.Tom and Helen take a look at the ways in which indigenous knowledge is being applied to fire prevention in California and visit the Blodgett Research Forest where experts study the best ways to make America's threatened forests more resilient.They're also joined by Grant Moir of the Cairngorms National Park to discuss new by-laws banning campfires in the area. Do we need to restrict our freedom in the wilderness to protect it for the future? Producer: Alasdair Cross

We are in East Lothian with Patricia Stephen, founder of Phantassie Organic Produce. They head out to the fields during pumpkin planting and chat about the growth in organic food and farming over recent years.Friday 12th July was the launch of this year's Big Butterfly Count organised by the charity Butterfly Conservation. Mark met Apithanny Bourne, their East Scotland branch chair, at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to find out more about the count and see if they could spot the elusive Holly Blue.In this week's Scotland Outdoors podcast, Helen Needham is in rural Wales with musician Owen Shiers. Owen lives in a housing cooperative in Ceredigion which was formerly a sheep farm and is now a woodland. He explained how that process had happened and they chat about the concept of rewilding.A year ago, Mark headed out on a trip with Hans Unkles, co-owner of Scotland's first ever electric, solar-powered fishing vessel. A couple of weeks ago, Mark and Rachel caught up with Hans to hear how the first year of the boat has gone and if anyone has been inspired to follow in his footsteps.The Pine Hoverfly is one of the rarest species in Scotland. It used to thrive in Pine woodlands across the country but is now confined to just a small area of the Cairngorms. Rachel visits the Highland Wildlife Park near Kingussie where the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland are working on a breeding programme. Dr Helen Taylor told her about the project which has involved releasing thousands of eggs and larvae into the Cairngorms National Park in an attempt to save the species from extinction.Farmer turned comedian Jim Smith has become pretty well known across Scotland over the last few years, especially in farming circles. He's appeared at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, on TV and radio and now he has his own BBC Radio 4 series- Me and the Farmer. Jim chats to us live about his journey from cattle to comedy.Two years ago, journalist Paul English encountered a team of archaeologists exploring a patch of land in Govan in Glasgow. The team, from the University of Glasgow, were taking part in a research project to uncover what they could of the one remaining site of the Glasgow Garden Festival of 1988. Paul recently went back to catch up with the team and see what treasures they'd uncovered.While on the outskirts of Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago, Mark bumped into a man on a strange looking electric bike. It turned out to be Jim Gayes who is working with the charity Sustrans on mapping the off-road National Cycle Network. He explained more about how the bike system works and why the mapping is important.

Jenny Sime, business development manager for Cairngorms National Park, talks to James Shillinglaw of Insider Travel Report about how your clients can experience the natural side of Scotland, the rolling hills, forests and mountains of the Highlands during a visit to the national park. It was all part of a VisitScotland fam trip we experienced earlier this year that covered much of Scotland. For more information, www.visitcairngorms.com  or www.visitscotland.com. If interested, the original video of this podcast can be found on the Insider Travel Report Youtube channel or by searching for the podcast's title on Youtube.

Political Scandals in the Scottish Government, attempted fraud and an escaped Macaque monkey in the Highlands makes up todays letter from Scotland in this May edition. But it is not all monkey business, there are serious issues and you will hear of  Donald Trump's office replying to Exclusive Scottish Visits' suggestion to ease the importation of Haggis to America. Unique Scotland still awaits a response from President Biden. You will hear about the tiny Scottish island that ordered more easter eggs than the whole population and is it possible that Dunvegan castle that has stood on it's rocky precipice on the Isle of Skye for over 800 years is starting to fall into the sea? And from Monsters to Water Beasts, why is Scotland producing so many. And, you will hear how NASA is being approached to help in the search for Nessie. All this and much more.

Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary and to our interview for the topic. Caroline and I dive deep into the all things fight scenes and how to better your writing of them.  In today's chat here are some of the things we covered:What defines a fighting scene?The kinds of fighting scenes.The language of fighting scenes.Caroline's take on all things fighting scenes. About Caroline:Caroline Logan is a writer of Young Adult Fantasy. She is currently working on her Scottish fantasy series: The Four Treasures. The Stone of Destiny, The Cauldron of Life and The Sword of Light are out now, with the final book - The Spear of Life out now.Caroline is a high school biology teacher who lives in the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, with her husband and dogs, Ranger and Scout. Before moving there, she lived and worked in Spain, Tenerife, Sri Lanka and other places in Scotland. She graduated from The University of Glasgow with a bachelor's degree in Marine and Freshwater Biology. In her spare time she tries to swim, ski and paddleboard, though she is happiest with a good book and a cup of tea.You can find her here: Website, Twitter, InstagramYou can buy her books from here: Amazon, Cranachan PublishingTell me what did you take away from this week's lesson? I'd love to knowAlso, I would really appreciate it if you took the time to rate and review the podcast it helps people find our community and gets the podcast out into the world a little more.Want exclusive behind the scenes and early access to episodes join up to the mailing list over here.If you're looking for a cheerleader for your writing, then head on over to https://dreamingfullyawake.com/work-with-me/ and let's have a chat about how we can work together to get your writing on track. 

In colder winters than we are currently experiencing in Vermont, small streams wear thick layers of ice. In the winter of 1997 I attempted to sample some streams year round. I was thwarted by ice so thick that a felling axe made little impression. But spring-fed streams with an endless supply of water at a constant temperature shrug off any ice that may form. These unique flowing-water habitats lack the minute bits of organic material that feed insects in other streams. And so many species simply cant live in springs, freeing up those habitats for spring water specialists found nowhere else. The art for this episode is a photo of the Well of Dee, the source of Scotland's River Dee. The river emerges from the ground as a large spring in Cairngorms National Park and flows west to the North Sea at Aberdeen. The art is from Wikimedia Commons and full details are here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Well_of_Dee_-_Source_of_River_Dee_-_geograph.org.uk_-_229032.jpg

For our final episode of 2023 we are getting a bit festive and are speaking to Ollie Mackay at Rothiemurchus Estate. Rothiemurchus is a special and beautiful place in the Highlands of Scotland, at the heart of the Cairngorms National Park. Ollie is the Head Ranger on the estate and we chat about all the estate's natural capital assets and his role. We learn about the range of activities and habitats the estate hosts including livestock, farming, beavers and tourism, alongside the pressures and opportunities this creates. Rothiemurchus is the custodian of one of the finest remnants of the Caledonian forest, a natural woodland dominated by Scots Pine that is managed sustainably for nature conservation, recreation, woodland grazing and timber production. Management of the forest has created an opportunity for environmentally friendly Christmas trees, with profits going back in to the upkeep of paths and projects on the estate. Host Rachel Smillie, Producer Iain Boyd, Executive Producer Kerry Hammond, Editor Ross Mackenzie. Related FAS resources:   FAS Sounds | Helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory ServiceBiodiversity | Helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory Service (fas.scot)Rewilding | Helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory Service (fas.scot)Living Alongside Beavers | Information helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory Service (fas.scot) Other Related Resources: Home - Cairngorms National Park AuthorityWelcome to Rothiemurchus — RothiemurchusRothiemurchus Scots Pine Christmas Trees — Rothiemurchus

For our final episode of 2023 we are getting a bit festive and are speaking to Ollie Mackay at Rothiemurchus Estate. Rothiemurchus is a special and beautiful place in the Highlands of Scotland, at the heart of the Cairngorms National Park. Ollie is the Head Ranger on the estate and we chat about all the estate's natural capital assets and his role. We learn about the range of activities and habitats the estate hosts including livestock, farming, beavers and tourism, alongside the pressures and opportunities this creates. Rothiemurchus is the custodian of one of the finest remnants of the Caledonian forest, a natural woodland dominated by Scots Pine that is managed sustainably for nature conservation, recreation, woodland grazing and timber production. Management of the forest has created an opportunity for environmentally friendly Christmas trees, with profits going back in to the upkeep of paths and projects on the estate. Host Rachel Smillie, Producer Iain Boyd, Executive Producer Kerry Hammond, Editor Ross Mackenzie. Related FAS resources:   FAS Sounds | Helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory ServiceBiodiversity | Helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory Service (fas.scot)Rewilding | Helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory Service (fas.scot)Living Alongside Beavers | Information helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory Service (fas.scot) Other Related Resources: Home - Cairngorms National Park AuthorityWelcome to Rothiemurchus — RothiemurchusRothiemurchus Scots Pine Christmas Trees — Rothiemurchus

MPs launch an inquiry to find out if young people are failing to get the skills needed to work in rural jobs. All week we're looking at training and education in land-based careers. Rural Skills Scotland offers apprenticeships and qualifications to help get people who are unemployed or live in towns and cities back to work. We visit a training session in Fife. Can upland farms cut their environmental impacts and still stay in business? That's what trials in the Scottish Highlands are aiming to find out. The Cairngorms National Park has backed a study to see how emissions can be cut, and biodiversity boosted, while farms still stay in the black. We visit one farm taking part in the study. Coracle fishing may be in danger of dying out, because of river pollution, according to South West Wales fishers. It's a tradition that dates back centuries, using a small, rounded, lightweight boat, but fishermen say it's at risk because of a lack of fish. Presenter = Anna Hill Producer = Rebecca Rooney

Braemar is a wee village in Scotland.It sits in the heart of Cairngorms National Park. And it's charming as hell!Plus it is surrounded by a stunning landscape of hills, lots of trees and 2 rivers — the River Dee and the River Clunie.Queen Victoria made this village and the surroundings popular.And I can see why.It's spectacular.So tune in to find out about this town and its surroundings.I bet you'll be adding it to your Scotland itinerary.Want to chat more about Braemar?Send me a note at Lynne@WanderYourWay.com.In this episode:0:04: Life update5:40: Placing Braemar on the map7:22: The Braemar Gathering & Highland Games8:55: Castles12:53: Outdoor activities15:17: Wrapping it upImportant links:Balmoral CastleBraemar CastleBraemar GatheringFife Arms HotelVisit BraemarExploring the Scottish Highlands  with Bo Fraser (Part 1)Support the showThanks to Callisa Mickle who edits the audio.Follow Wander Your Way:InstagramFacebookPinterest

The Cairngorms National Park has inspired writing by Merryn Glover, whose books include The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd. Writer and artist Amanda Thomson's book Belonging is on the longlist for the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for nature writing. As the BBC Proms broadcasts a concert from Perth, they talk to Radio 3's Kate Molleson about place and capturing Scottish nature in their work. Producer Ruth Watts You can find out more about Amanda Thomson at https://passingplace.com/home.html You can find out more about Merryn Glover at https://merrynglover.com/ This is part of a series of conversations about writing and place recorded for BBC Proms around the UK in summer 2023. You can find more conversations about writing and about nature and green thinking on the website for BBC Radio 3's arts and ideas programme Free Thinking.

'That Magical Feeling' is a story about the good, the bad and the ugly sides of solo travelling. But how do you overcome the overwhelm of being responsible for ALL the decisions, and step into the power of adventuring on your own? Let's find out together shall we?I'm taking you on a trip from the dreamy streets of Edinburgh to the remote mountain peaks of the Cairngorms National Park and on to the Capital of the Highlands - Inverness. Together we'll travel by train and bus, walk and hike, stay in beautiful hostels and make decisions - one at a time.Visit our website to find the full show notes incl. the transcript and tips for your own solo trip to Scotland.This episode is sponsored by Hostelling Scotland, a not-for-profit charity with over 60 youth and affiliate hostels all over Scotland.Useful blog post: Why Scotland is a perfect destination for female solo travelFind out how to support our show and unlock bonus content.You might also like the Scottish Digest podcast.Help us spread the word about Wild for Scotland! Share your favourite moment of this episode on social media or share the episode with a friend. Join our email list for weekly resources and glimpses behind the scenes.Follow us on Instagram @wildforscotlandAlso check out my Scotland blog Watch Me See!

Communities in the Scottish Highlands are facing a housing crisis so bad, it's been described as a clearance for the 21st century. According to the Convenor of the Highland Council, Bill Lobban, “the species most under threat in the Cairngorms National Park isn't the Capercaillie but the young family trying to find a home”. Ironically one key cause of the problem is also what brings most into the local economy – tourism. Across the region the growth of the tourism and hospitality industry is driving the demand for 2nd homes and many houses are now used for short-term holiday lets, with the result that very little accommodation remains for locals searching for somewhere to live, what does remain is usually unaffordable or unsuitable. The knock-on effect is that businesses across the Highlands are struggling to find staff and even when they manage to find them, they often lose them because there's no rental accommodation locally. A sector which has been particularly hard hit is hospitality where low wages exacerbate the issue with the result that hotels and restaurants find themselves in the unenviable position of having plenty of customers but not enough staff to serve them. Often, the only way many businesses can secure staff is if they provide accommodation but that's not always suitable for long term employees and skilled staff who might have young families plus not all businesses can afford to buy or manage housing for their staff. It's not just the hospitality sector either which is suffering, the salmon farming industry is being hit hard too and its not just low paid workers, all professions are being priced out of the housing market by too many people chasing too few properties. In Rental Health: All Work No Homes Pennie Stuart heads first to the northwest Highland village of Ullapool to hear how the business community is responding to the unintended consequences of the tourism boom while further south in Aviemore, in the heart of the Cairngorms national park, she hears about the radical solutions being proposed to bring staff, homes and tourism back into some kind of balance. Produced by Dan Holland Presented by Pennie Stuart

Welcome to this bonus episode of The Travel Diaries podcast, where we are going to be talking about some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring national parks here in the UK. We're joined by friend of the podcast, former guest on Season 3, Juliet Kinsman, who is the Sustainability Editor of Conde Nast Traveller magazine, the author of The Green Edit: Easy Tips for the Eco-Friendly Traveller and an aficionado of the national parks of the UK. Today's episode is brought to you in partnership with BMW and National Park UK's Recharge in Nature Project, an initiative to support nature restoration, biodiversity, wellbeing as well as access - the project is enhancing the electric vehicle charging infrastructure around our national parks to make it that bit easier to use an electric car when exploring. Often they are so vast, so remote and so rural that if you're driving an electric car you might be anxious about when you'd next able to charge it. From the soaring mountains and serene lakes of the Lake District National Park to the rugged moorlands and rolling hills of the Cairngorms National Park and the wild horses of the New Forest, by uncovering Juliet's national parks travel diaries we'll not only take a closer look at what makes these parks so special, we'll also explore how we can ensure their protection for generations to come.So grab your your binoculars, your walking boots, and your sense of adventure, and let's get started as we delve into the National Parks of the UK! Destination Recap: Lake District National Park, EnglandSnowdonia National Park, WalesNew Forest National Park, EnglandThe Pig Hotel, Hampshire, EnglandLimewood, Hampshire, EnglandChewton Glen, Hampshire, EnglandCairngorms National Park, ScotlandSaorsa 1875 Hotel, ScotlandSouth Downs National Park, West SussexPetworth, West SussexArundel, West Sussex,Swanbourne Lake, Arundel, west SussexWildhive, Callow Hall, DerbyshireLoch Lomond National Park, Scotland To discover more about the Recharge in Nature Project, visit bmw.co.uk/NationalParks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the essential skills and mindset needed to stay safe whilst moving through the mountains, from winter walking, to tackling treacherous climbs on ice and mixed terrain, Glenmore Lodge Chief Instructor, Heather Morning, and Mountain Guide Stu McAleese, are unrivalled in their experience of Scottish winter. Situated in the Cairngorms National Park, Glenmore Lodge has provided to mountain skills training, and opportunities to gain qualifications, for over seventy years.

As supermarkets ration salad, one tomato grower tells us what that what the sector really needs is government help to invest in hi-tech greenhouses. Flavourfresh near Stockport produce tomatoes under glass. They have their own power plant, selling energy to the grid. They use the excess heat to warm the glasshouses and the carbon dioxide to help plants grow bigger. However, large modern greenhouses like theirs cost millions. Producer Andy Roe says the sector needs help to finance state-of-the art sites like theirs, then he says they'd be able to grow more for the British market. The Defra secretary, Therese Coffey, has been addressing farmers at the NFU annual conference in Birmingham. She said the ELMS budget did not need to be increased to help farmers meet government environmental targets, and she also said that the challenges faced by pig and poultry producers did not equate to market failure and so she would not be using new powers under the Agriculture Act to intervene. Re-introductions of animals and birds usually feature high-profile species like beavers or wild cats, but there are others like the pine hoverfly - a small, elusive and very rare insect, whose habitat is among Scots Pine trees. The last population in Britain is in the Cairngorms National Park - and that's where conservationists from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland are involved in a breeding programme which has been releasing pine hoverflies back into the wild for the past two years. Presenter: Caz Graham Producer: Rebecca Rooney

How do you pick from the hundreds of platforms out there? What questions might you ask to refine your options? If you're looking for a learning platform, then you've got quite the decision to make! Not only is the market huge and complicated, but it can also be an expensive purchase. Help is at hand this week in The Mind Tools L&D Podcast. Ross G and Gemma are joined by EdTech Consultant Stella Lee, an expert in navigating the decision process. We explore: ·       key questions to answer before you go shopping ·       “red flags” to look out for ·       the role of AI in learning platforms. Stella's LMS selection toolkit is free for anyone to download here: https://paradoxlearning.com/resources/   She's also shared two of her articles “How to future proof your edtech investment” https://trainingindustry.com/magazine/winter-2023/how-to-future-proof-your-edtech-investment/ “The role of ethics in edtech” https://www.easygenerator.com/en/blog/podcast/stella-lee-edtech-ethics-podcast/ In ‘What I Learned This Week', Ross spoke about how OpenAI made ChatGPT less sexist, racist and violent than it would be otherwise. You can read about it in this Time article: https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/ Gemma talked about the Cairngorms National Park. Facts and figures (and some beautiful photography) can be discovered here: https://cairngorms.co.uk/discover-explore/facts-figures/ For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  And, this week, we're giving a special shout out to our Learning Performance Benchmark. Not sure how your L&D function is performing? Find out now, for free: https://mindtoolsbusiness.com/solutions/learning-performance-benchmark Connect with our speakers    If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter: ·       Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT ·       Owen Ferguson - @OwenFerguson (or https://mastodon.scot/@owenferguson) ·       Stella Lee - @stellal   Stella can also be found through other channels via her website: https://paradoxlearning.com/  

Jacqui Cooper (Host: Love Travel Scotland) and Yvette MacDonald (Host: Love Travel Scotland) speaks about the pyramids of Scotland, nestled in the stunning landscape of the #Cairngorms National Park, just south of #Balmoral #Castle. All 11 Balmoral #cairns, including #Prince #Albert's Pyramid are only accessible by foot. Please email us with questions you have about Scotland and how we can support your travels. Contact Jacqui at jcoopertravels@gmail.com Contact Yvette at yhelps@remax-scotland.net To join the Love Travel Scotland group on Facebook visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/lovetravelscotland To enjoy the upcoming Scottish edition of The Bitcoin Cinderella be sure to visit www.bitcoincinderella.com to obtain your own copy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jacqui-cooper/message

It's no secret that the farmer population in Europe and many other places has been diminishing and growing older for a long time now. There are however still lots of younger folks who are interested in becoming farmers, but are struggling to get their foot in the door. Barriers to entry such as high land prices, high startup and infrastructure costs, lack of loan options, bureaucratic difficulties in inheritance, and a steep learning curve if you don't already have experience farming are holding a lot of us back. Despite these challenges there are some incredible stories of new farmers who are finding success and fulfillment on the land. They're often the ones pioneering new business models and best practices in ecological management.  That's why I reached out to Lynn Cassells, who along with her partner Sandra Baer own and operate Lynbreck Croft, an award winning farm in northwest Scotland. Lynbreck Croft is a 150 acre mixed land holding of everything from fields and woodlands, to hill ground and bog located in the Cairngorms National Park with the land ranging from 320m to 450m above sea level.  Like many new farmers, Lynbreck has a unique origin story. Lynn and Sandra first met while working as rangers for the National Trust in the UK and soon realized that they shared a dream of living closer to the land. They bought Lynbreck Croft back in March 2016 – which they describe as 150 acres of pure Scottishness – with no experience in farming but a huge passion for nature and the outdoors. They now raise heritage breeds of cattle and pigs, grow produce and have become a model farm in their region for ecological production practices. Lynn and Sandra also wrote an inspiring book all about their journey of moving onto the land and how they've developed their idea of the farmers they want to be and their involvement in their new community which you can find through Chelsea Green books.  In this discussion I speak with Lynn about the initial challenges they faced in finding land and learning to make a living from it. We talk about the steep learning curve and the resources they turned to to make it manageable. Lynn also tells me about the unique challenges they have in the notoriously harsh climate of northwestern Scotland and how they've made choices on the farm to mitigate these difficulties.  This discussion is full of insightful advice and learnings from a unique journey from two farming newcomers who've demonstrated that you can build a farm business from scratch in modern times. Be sure to listen to the end when Lynn gives valuable advice for other people who dream of starting their farm without any previous experience.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.lynbreckcroft.co.uk/  https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/our-wild-farming-life/ https://www.instagram.com/lynbreck_croft/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRJrQZN4-Boka2m88TKB-1w https://www.facebook.com/lynbreckcroft/

Lynn Cassells and Sandra Baer met while working as rangers for the National Trust and soon realised that they shared a dream to live closer to the land.  They bought Lynbreck Croft at the edge of the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland in March 2016  - 150 acres of pure Scottishness - with no experience farming but a huge passion for nature and the outdoors.  Now, they raise their own animals and sell the produce, grow their own fruit and vegetables, and are as self-sufficient as they can be, alongside producing food for their local community and hosting educational tours and running courses. Hailed as Best Crofting Newcomers in 2018, they were given the Food and Farming Award by the RSPB in Nature of Scotland Awards in 2019 and were nominated for Nature Champions of the Decade as part of teh Nature of Scotland 10th anniversary. They have appeared in the series This Farming Life on BBC2 and have written the book, 'Our Wild Farming Life', linked below. Lynn and Sandra were newcomers to farming and to regenerative concepts, but in the past 6 years, as they have faced success and (some) failures and learned from both, they have seen regenerative farming becoming a far more widely held concept.  In this heart-felt episode, we begin by exploring the writing process, and how Lynn, a new writer, came to write such a fluent book.  From there, we delve deeply into the practicalities of farming in a relatively inhospitable landscape, but also explore the spiritual nature of land-connection, the ways we can give the animals with which we share our lives the fullest capacity to be all that they can be, so that we can become all that we can be: so that we can feel safe, and held in connection to the land and the tribes of the more than human world that surround us. Lynbreck Croft: https://www.lynbreckcroft.co.ukLynbreck on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lynbreckcroft/Our Wild Farming Life: book: https://chelseagreen.co.uk/book/our-wild-farming-life/

Welcome to ReZOO: The Zoo Review Podcast! Today Jack and Jodi are talking about a zoo close to both of their hearts, the Highland Wildlife Park! Found in the Cairngorms National Park, this wonderful collection is home to some of the most incredible mountain-based species from across the globe. This includes...

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.ukEpisode 2#07 gets to know none other than multi-talented photojournalist David Lintern. Based in Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park, David is an outdoor writer and photographer of high reputation. You've likely seen his images and read his words across many different magazines and websites that focus on Britain's hills, mountains and rivers. So, who better to spend an hour with discussing the challenges and rewards of this environment we all love so much?Having just released his latest book, “Thunder Road: Voices from the Cape Wrath Trail”, David's keen to describe the landscapes and people discovered along the most famous hiking route in Scotland's epic north-west, as well as to discuss what he's trying to achieve in documenting these unique subjects. He also shares the fascinating story of how a person ends up living the life of an environmental journalist in the Scottish Highlands - a dream job, perhaps, but one which brings plenty of insecurity with its limitless freedoms. From London-based cinema projectionist, to “scruffy musician”, to founder of a children's charity, David's journey has taken him from a deeply urban life to one spent amongst the wildest of places. There's even time to discuss a fateful two-month hike of the Pyrenees and a formative winter mountaineering trip across the Ben Alder range with some deeply eerie details…Visit www.davidlintern.com to find out more about David's work, and make sure to catch up with him on Instagram too: @davidjlinternListen, enjoy, tell your friends, subscribe to the podcast if you get and chance, and thank UKHillwalking.com for their kind support of this series![episode recorded on 26/05/22]00:00 - Introduction03:23 - Welcome, “a photographer and writer focusing on human-powered travel, landscape and the environment”, discussing the book “Thunder Road: Voices from the Cape Wrath Trail”06:53 - Most definitely not “striding forth under self-imposed adversity”, more details of the Cape Wrath experience13:28 - War games off the Scottish coast17:33 - “Vanishing Point” photography project, the struggles of being a freelancer during the COVID pandemic, “lots of freedom, but lots of insecurity”20:13 - Enjoying “the wrestle” of writing, details of an outdoor media career, “esoteric ramblings”27:38 - “We were all feeling pretty experimental in COVID, weren't we?”28:33 - Coming to the outdoors relatively late, discovering the mountains as an adult. A former life as a London-based cinema projectionist, youth music worker, sound engineer, and university lecturer… seeing “literally thousands of films at the National Film Theatre”33:23 - Becoming a community music leader, setting up the Soundmix charity (http://www.soundmix.org.uk/who-we-are/), working with the refugee council and “unaccompanied minors”, “what can a scruffy musician do?”35:23 - An “early mid-life crisis” expressed by walking across the Pyrenees in a two-month charity trip, starting to work with the John Muir Trust38:10 - A passion for cinema, music and soundtracks, performing background music for TV programmes, an interest in analogue machinery 40:13 - Creating electronic music and dub via Projector Records: “to call it a record label would suggest that it actually functioned… it was basically a group of friends that lived in a house in the mid-90s”42:51 - Some heartfelt words about a love of the outdoors and life in Kingussie, “when you live here you realise that they're called the grey hills and the red hills for a reason… it's a special place”49:39 - “The bit that's important to me is allowing other people to speak… really I'm the least interesting bit of the equation”. 53:03 - Enriching your life through experiences in the “heavens”. How can we bring those transformative experiences back down to our everyday lives.54:23 - Greatest mountain memory… a long winter mountaineering weekend in the Ben Alder range, the Lancet Edge, eerie sounds, unsettling footsteps, a golden eagle.59:23 - All the time, money, freedom… what would you do? A simple answer… and a more complicated one: fixing the gap between recreational hill people, and those that live and work on the land, conservation and shooting estates (“we have big environmental decisions to make as a society… and we're not able to have those conversations”)

Situated in the Scottish Highlands, the Cairngorms National Park is a vast, living, changing landscape, formed not just by the crushing glaciers of the past, but also by the lives of the people who live and work in the area. Cameron Angus Mackay takes you to meet some of those people in this new four-part series. For audio links and show notes, go to: www.thebiglight.com/cairngormscharacters

Helen Mark travels to the rolling hills of Aberdeenshire, home of the Cairngorms National Park. Popular with walkers, hikers, nature-lovers and 'munro-baggers' alike, these hills are undoubtedly a beautiful place to visit. But you can ditch your hiking boots for this episode of Open Country, because Helen's exploring in a different way: from the back of a husky-pulled sled! At the reins is Wattie McDonald, husky-lover, musher, and a veteran of the extraordinary 'Iditarod': the gruelling thousand-mile sled-race across the frozen wastes of Alaska. With his team of sixteen dogs, Wattie navigated treacherous frozen lakes, snow-covered forests, and his own exhaustion to make it across Alaska in one piece: one of very few Scots ever to do so. Back in his home country, the trails are a little shorter and a lot less snowy, but Wattie's up for the challenge nevertheless. As long as his dogs are happy, so is he. But the real stars of the show are the dogs themselves: Siberian Huskies - a whole kennel-full of them. Krash, Krazy, sweet uncle Kaspar, the veteran one-eyed Keely, and the Pandemic Pups, Kovid and Korona. They're a cuddly bunch, always up for a head-scratch or a tummy-rub, but more than anything these working dogs simply love to run. With their help, Helen speeds through the landscape. Here's hoping the brakes work! Produced by Emily Knight

Welcome to our third podcast series. I've taken a while to get myself in gear for this one and that is mainly to my own pressurising and sometimes paralysing standards and expectations – I'm sure we can all relate to that at times! I'm really pleased that the first full episode of this series (episode 2) can be Ben Page. Ben was one of our trainers in 2020 and in 2021 he released his book; Healing Trees, a pocket guide to Forest Bathing, so hope on over to episode 2 and have a listen! More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practise of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Cath and Highland Quietlife can be found on www.highlandquietlife.co.uk and guides within the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. Moose can be found in BC, on Vancouver Island www.sitkaforestimmersion.com  

For this episode we had the chance to chat with Ben Page. Ben was one of our trainers in LA in 2020 as myself and Moose began our journey to become Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and among many things he is now, also a published author. 2021 saw the release of his book, ‘Healing Trees; a pocket guide to forest bathing.' Ben's book is beautiful and comforting. Delivered in short, easy to read chunks, it is an easy read not because it is simple, but because it just flows and tricks you into reading more than you intended. His text flows in and out of dreamy illustrations and weaves its way into your soul – all done in a relaxing green shade of text! As Ben points out, this is not a book that you are checking how much more there is to read as you go along, you can just read it and enjoy. Fun fact - Ben loves cats and due to lockdowns, now knows most of the cats in his neighbourhood…. one of the unexpected facts we learnt about Ben during this recording! There is a little bit of interference during the recording, not too bad, but I feel I should acknowledge it, I think three time zones and my wonky Highland internet was too much for our platform! There is also one or two naughty words – sorry, they don't normally get past the trees, but they did this time. You can find more information about Ben at www.integralforestbathing.com More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practise of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Cath and Highland Quietlife can be found on www.highlandquietlife.co.uk and guides within the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. Moose can be found in BC, on Vancouver Island www.sitkaforestimmersion.com

Rewild the land and yourself by farming in harmony with nature and leaning into regenerative practices that create habitat connectivity. Our guest today, Lynn Cassells, alongside her partner Sandra Baer, owners of Lynbreck Croft, had a shared dream of living closer to the land. And while the pair never meant to be farmers, they found themselves called to the task of stewarding a 150 acre croft in the Highlands of Scotland in 2016. Seized by a vision of farming in collaboration with nature, rather than against it,  they began their mission of creating a place that honored not only their desire to grow their own food, but also the needs of the land and the animals, all working and thriving in a collaborative community.  The whole story of how they unexpectedly became farmers and created a viable and sustainable working farm using their own combination of regenerative and rewilding practices is soon to be available in their upcoming book “Our Wild Farming Life: Adventures on a Scottish Highland Croft”.   Lynn's message - looking back doesn't have to mean going back. Let the land do the leading and don't be afraid to rewild yourself along the way.  Listen to the episode onhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-good-dirt/id1492217846 ( Apple Podcasts),https://open.spotify.com/show/2lpelAmHPGbMVdOOpxhxTo ( Spotify),https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-good-dirt-981565 ( Podchaser),https://podtail.com/en/podcast/the-good-dirt/ ( Podtail), or on your favorite podcast platform. Topics Covered: Regenerative Farming  Croft - A small agricultural unit and form of land use/ legal entity unique to Scotland: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/housing/finding-a-place-to-live1/crofting-s/#h-what-is-a-croft (source) via citzensadvice.org.uk  Rewilding - taking a piece of land and allowing it become self-willed; taking people out of the equation; reintroducing native species; restoration on a wild scale  Resources Mentioned:  Pre-Order https://lady-farmer.com/collections/books/products/our-wild-farming-life (Our Wild Farming Life: Adventures on a Scottish Highland Croft by Sandra Baer and Lynn Cassells ) https://bookshop.org/a/4727/9781681373713 (Wilding: Returning Nature to our Farm by Isabella Tree)   https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002p91 (BBC - This Farming Life) Season 3  https://www.lynbreckcroft.co.uk/courses/ (Lynbreck Croft Courses - “How to Farm” ) The National Trust  Cairngorms National Park  Knepp Castle  https://bookshop.org/a/4727/9780963810922 (“You Can Farm” by Joel Salatin ) Guest Info Connect with Lynn https://www.lynbreckcroft.co.uk/ (Lynbreck Croft) Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/lynbreck_croft/?hl=en (@lynbreck_croft) Follow Us: https://lady-farmer.com/blogs/the-good-dirt-podcast (Our Website) @weareladyfarmer on https://www.instagram.com/thegooddirtph/ (Instagram) Original music by John Kingsley @jkingsley1026 Statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not to be considered as medical or nutritional advice. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and should not be considered above the advice of your physician. Consult a medical professional when making dietary or lifestyle decisions that could affect your health and well being.

In the Scottish Highlands at this time of the year you'll find 150 reindeer roaming the Cairngorms National Park, and rather a lot of visitors coming to see them. These beautiful creatures are the only free-ranging herd of reindeer in the UK and they are looked after by Tilly Smith who went to spend the summer working there back in 1981... and she never left! Antonia Quirke went to meet Tilly, her daughter Fiona and some of the reindeer they look after. Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Reporter: Antonia Quirke Producer: June Christie (Photo: Tilly Smith with reindeer. Credit: Cairngorm Reindeer Herd and photographer John Paul)

In the Scottish Highlands at this time of the year you'll find 150 reindeer roaming the Cairngorms National Park, and rather a lot of visitors coming to see them. These beautiful creatures are the only free-ranging herd of reindeer in the UK and they are looked after by Tilly Smith who went to spend the summer working there back in 1981... and she never left! Antonia Quirke went to meet Tilly, her daughter Fiona and some of the reindeer they look after. Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Reporter: Antonia Quirke Producer: June Christie (Photo: Tilly Smith with reindeer. Credit: Cairngorm Reindeer Herd and photographer John Paul)

'Wild Isle' is a story about a day trip to the Isle of Mull - from wild-landscapes to wild-life, the island is showing off its "untamed side".We start with a hike in the hills of south Mull, discovering the plants of the bog, swimming in a mountain loch and exploring the corries of the coast. Then, we're hitting the road and make our way along the scenic route from Pennyghael to Salen.But the real stars of this episode are the animals we see along the way - from eagles to otters, from Highland coos to herons. You're in for a safari!After the story, I'll tell how my top tips to visit the Isle of Mull for yourself and make the most of it.Are you ready? Great – let's travel to Scotland!Visit our website to find the full show notes incl. our top tips for a trip to the Cairngorms National Park.This episode is brought to you by Go Ape.Book now at www.goape.co.uk and use the code WILDSCOT to receive 10% all four Scottish Go Ape sites - Aberfoyle, Peebles, Aberdeen, Dalkeith (Edinburgh).See full T&Cs on wildforscotland.comLinksJoin the Wild for Scotland email list here.Subscribe here to join the waitlist for my Ready-Made Itinerary, launching soon!Plan your trip with my Isle of Mull travel guide.Go off the beaten path to the Ross of Mull.Book a guided hike with Tony McLean.Access the transcript of this episode on wildforscotland.comSupport this show on Patreon and unlock bonus episodes.CreditsWritten and hosted by Kathi Kamleitner. Produced and edited by Fran Turauskis. Cover Art illustrated by Lizzie Vaughan-Knight. All original music composed by Bruce Wallace. Additional music and sound effects from Zapsplat and Pond5. Support my show on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

'The Birds and the Trees' is a story about a scenic road trip through the Cairngorms National Park. But it is also a story about Scottish wilderness - or rather what's left of it.We're driving down the Snow Roads scenic route, from the jaw-dropping drama of the Levht Road to the lush glens of the Royal Deeside and the high Munros in the heart of the Cairngorms.After getting a taste of this landscape from the roadside, we visit Mat Lodge Estate and go for a walk through one of the Scots pine regeneration areas managed by the National Trust for Scotland.After the story, I'll tell how my top tips to make the most of your drive down the Snow Roads and things to do on the Cairngorms National Park.Are you ready? Great – let's travel to Scotland!Visit our website to find the full show notes incl. our top tips for a trip to the Cairngorms National Park.This episode is brought to you by Go Ape.Book now at www.goape.co.uk and use the code WILDSCOT to receive 10% all four Scottish Go Ape sites - Aberfoyle, Peebles, Aberdeen, Dalkeith (Edinburgh).See full T&Cs on wildforscotland.comLinksJoin the Wild for Scotland email list here.Subscribe here to join the waitlist for my Ready-Made Itinerary, launching soon!Plan your trip with my Cairngorms travel guide.Get Andrew Painting's book Regeneration: Rescue of a Wild Land.Learn more about the conservation work at Mar Lodge Estate.Minimise your impact with my responsible travel tips.Access the transcript of this episode on wildforscotland.comSupport this show on Patreon and unlock bonus episodes.CreditsWritten and hosted by Kathi Kamleitner. Produced and edited by Fran Turauskis. Cover Art illustrated by Lizzie Vaughan-Knight. All original music composed by Bruce Wallace. Additional music and sound effects from Zapsplat and Pond5.Bird sounds sourced via RSPB: Northern Wheatear, Willow Warbler, Meadow Pipit, European Stonechat. Support my show on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This beautiful idyllic little village nestled in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, is definitely one for the must see list. As always though this village does have it's share of the strange and unusual. All of which seem to centred around the water would you believe?

In this episode I am joined by Andrew Brown of the Scottish architecture studio Brown and Brown, that he co-founded with his wife just over 10 years ago. We discuss their most recent project, Lower Tullochgrue.The project is an extension and refurbishment of an historic house in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, with amazing views over the Spey Valley. The existing house is set on an outcrop and they have extended it with a black box that cantilevers out over the sloping landscape to create a covered area for the clients 1960's Ford Falcon.In the interview we talk about the stunning location, I find out how the builder had a local dis-used quarry re-opened so that they could use stone that matched the original house and how Andrew tells me how Donald Trump's book ‘the art of the deal' has been used to create a secret door handle to a concealed downstairs toilet.At the end of the episode, I ask Andrew the three questions I ask all my podcast guests;– what really annoys him about his home?– what house has he visited that has really inspired him?– and, if he could choose anyone to design him a new house, who would he choose?I hope you enjoy listening!

The singer, songwriter and artist Jenny Sturgeon has made her home on Shetland, a group of wild and wonderful islands in the North Atlantic. We climb up to the Sumburgh Head Lighthouse where Jenny – who has a PhD in seabird ecology – points out fulmars, kittywakes and a puffin on the vertiginous cliffs. Her latest album “The Living Mountain” was inspired by the classic book about the Cairngorms by Nan Shepherd.   As we head across a strip of sand (or tombolo) to St Ninian's Isle, Jenny reflects on finding inspiration for her music in nature and tells how her guitar was specially created from materials found in the Cairngorms National Park. She performs songs from “The Living Mountain” album as well as a new composition written in lockdown and a tribute to her friend who is a scrap metal sculptor. Join us for an atmospheric trip to a magical place. --- Access exclusive films of Jenny performing along our walk, along with over 100 other performances from dozens of artists, by signing up to Folk On Foot On Film: https://www.folkonfoot.com/watch We rely entirely on support from our listeners to make Folk on Foot. So please consider becoming a patron. You'll make a small monthly contribution and get great rewards. Find out more at www.patreon.com/folkonfoot. Sign up for our newsletter at www.folkonfoot.com Follow us on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram: @folkonfoot

The Cairngorms National Park is the Scotlands largest National Park, and we've got everything you need to know about exploring smokey blue mountains! Get planning and hiking tips, learn about the wildlife, and discover some royally incredible activities inside this one-of-a-kind National Park. Guest expert: Julie from @clanwander Don't miss an episode - subscribe to the podcast to get the newest episodes! Follow National Park Trippers on Instagram Join our private Facebook community And read more on our Cairngorms National Park Guide --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/maureen-hochdorf/support

From the shores of Loch Lomond to the battlefield of Culloden. From the Munros of Cairngorms National Park to the distilleries along the River Spey. From the mountains and valley of Glencoe to the castles along the River Dee.And that's just the tip of the iceberg!This episode on the Central Highlands of Scotland is jam-packed with so many destinations and sites that you will be adding more places to your Scottish bucket list. I certainly have!Bo Fraser, a Blue Badge guide with the Scottish Tourist Guides Association, returns as our guest. And she is going to offer up more incredible information on destinations in her home country.We'll cover Scotland's lake district, the stunning Glencoe, the under-visited Royal Deeside, the city of Aberdeen, Cairngorms National Park, ancient Kilmartin Glen, Rannoch Moor, historic Culloden, Speyside (whisky distilleries) and so much more.Seriously, there is so much in this episode!Bo, a St Andrews native, knows so much about her home country. So you are going to learn a lot about the Highlands of Scotland.Want to chat more about the Scottish Highlands?Just send an email to lynne@wanderyourway.com to chat more about this amazing destination in Scotland. And if you have a question, and I don't know the answer, I'll just ask Bo!In this episode:3:56 Placing the Scottish Highlands on the map5:58 Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park / Scotland's Lake District12:09 Inveraray15:50 Kilmartin Glen19:14 Oban21:12 Glencoe29:30 Balquidder / Rob Roy Country31:51 Loch Tay and Loch Earn32:40 Driving in the Highlands34:48 Pitlochry & Blair Atholl37:17 Queen's View38:31 Rannoch Moor43:20 Newtonmore45:05 Cairngorms National Park 48:25 Munros in Scotland51:44 Royal Deeside & Balmoral Castle58:05 Aberdeen1:00:05 Dunnottar Castle1:02:20 River Spey / Speyside Whisky Distilleries1:11:15 Ballindalloch Castle1:12:18 Cawdor Castle1:14:25 Culloden1:18:10 Moray Coast 1:19:48 InvernessImportant links:Scotland Your WayLoch Lomond & the TrossachsLoch KatrineInveraray CastleKilmartin GlenGlencoeBlair AthollRannoch MoorNewtonmoreCairngorms National ParkRoyal DeesideAberdeenDunnottar CastleSpeyside and Moray CoastCullodenCawdor CastleInvernessWhy I've Fallen Head Over Heels in Love with Scotland

Do you ever have that overwhelming urge to stop and appreciate the wonder of the place you live or location you are in? Sometimes it's too easy to forget and be busy rushing from A to B; we all need that reminder to just stop and see and breathe for a moment. During this shorter episode, Cath holes up in the greenhouse before a visit from the Tawny Owls as the sunsets behind the trees and we chat all about remembering to say thank you and appreciate nature around us. More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practise of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Find me at https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk/

This podcast recording was an experience for many reasons; Cath sits with the sunrise in the Cairngorms, Scotland and Moose sits by a campfire and under a full moon on Vancouver Island, Canada. A sunrise gives us the chance to wake up with the day and everything around us; a time of quiet reflection; story telling with friends; meeting new friends and in some cases being invaded by a couple of polite Clydesdale Horses! Anyway, tune in, enjoy and next time you get the chance, get up for the sunrise and welcome the day. More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. You can book onto a guided sunrise or full moon session this year here https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk/calendar Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practice of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Find me at https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk/

One of my first words was 'dog' and it was certainly one of my most used words (probably is now truth be told). I think there has always been at least one dog in my life since I was 8 years old, the first being a little Westie called Pip who was the dog I had always asked for. Currently, there are three in our family home, all rescue Greyhounds; Newt, Edie and Clover and we foster for an awesome rescue called GAGAH (Give a Greyhound a Home). Nadine Mazzola has written a wonderful and award winning booking called 'Forest Bathing with your dog' and so we started to explore just how different it is if you let your dog be your forest guide! Moose and I both have sighthound / lurchery type hounds and so life can be excitable at the best of times. Moose heads out with Leia and I have newly adopted Clover as my guide...... it is very similar to Forest Bathing with children....... More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practice of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Find me at https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk/

"Being told by the universe and humanity to stay put is an opportunity to explore our surroundings...….it's OK to just go and sit for 10 minutes and just listen to what's around you." - said by two wise Nature and Forest Therapy guides! It's true though eh! It's only this past year I've learnt and permitted myself to just sit and take time out, even if only for 15 minutes. Yes, if people compliment me on this skill, I leap to the defense to justify why I have sat for a period of time and done nothing... sound familiar huh?! More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practise of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Find me at https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk/

I like to look for the good things and positive outcomes in life, but... it's been a funny old 12 months huh? I'm not going to say the C word or the P word (you can go figure those out yourself), but I am going to acknowledge that sometimes it's been hard to find the positive! However, remotely guided Forest Bathing sessions - who knew these could be a thing!? I resisted guiding remotely for a while but eventually gave it a go and could see the power that still emitted from the forest and surrounding nature and could hear and witness the effects participants experienced. Here, we chat with Pete about how he found the remote session he attended compared with in person sessions. What we did discover is he needs supervision else he gets lost in the woods..... More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practise of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Find me at https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk/  

Are you as weary of staring at video calls as we are? It would seem we certainly both reached our limit on the same day and headed into nature to reconnect and switch off, forming, without realising it, a threshold into the 'more than human world'...... however our ways were quite different! We also touch on how you can find that connect with nature if you are an urban dweller and the joys of forest bathing with your dog!   More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practise of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Find me at https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk/

A year on from starting our journey as Nature and Forest Therapy Guides, this week we touch on our fears, group acceptance and feeling safe in the dark.   More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practice of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. My co-podcaster and fellow guide is 'Moose', or Michelle and she can be found on Vancouver Island, BC. Find me at https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk/ Follow me at https://www.facebook.com/highlandquietlife and https://www.instagram.com/highland.quietlife

Hot chocolate, chocolate brownies and snow...... welcome to family Forest Bathing! After recent guest Pete coined the phrase 'treespeed', this and our future podcasts will focus on our nature connection and 'what are we noticing?' - a fundamental element to any Forest Bathing session. Cath tried out family sessions in the Scottish snow, tackled iced up footpaths and mountain bikers and the Moose had the most magical deer / prisms / water droplets experience ever!!   More About Highland Quietlife Nature heals...sitting, sharing space with nature, admiring beauty or simply playing amongst it...nature is awesome. Welcome to the world of ‘Forest Bathing'. Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku is the practise of immersing yourself in nature; ‘bathing' in the awesome goodness that trees release into the atmosphere; reaping the benefits from magic little things called ‘phytoncides' and receiving mental calmness from the fractal patterns, vibrant shades of green and calming blues around us – what better place to do this than the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland.   Find me at https://www.highlandquietlife.co.uk Follow me at https://www.facebook.com/highlandquietlife and https://www.instagram.com/highland.quietlife    

This episode with guest Cairngorms National Park ranger & wildlife guide Duncan Macdonald is the second in our series on how to thrive this coming Covid winter. We know winter can be tough at the best of times, let alone during a global pandemic, but mindset is everything. Suzy has rounded up a gaggle of inspirational winter-lovers and Duncan will definitely help you get into a big, juicy mindset with his poetic descriptions of winter and all the opportunities it holds. He's also full of practical tips for wildlife spotting, and supporting, during these tough winter months, as well as suggestions for how to get the best out of a night walk and - at the same time - using winter to let go of the need to control; something we could all benefit from in these out-of-control Covid times. 

This week we take another look at The Rural Report with a specific focus on our new Forestry Investment Team, which launched in April 2020. The team includes Andrew Bronwin, who is an external consultant to our Private Office. Andrew's firm, Bronwin Andrew & Co also has an association with Knight Frank.We hear from Andrew Bronwin, alongside our Head of Rural Research, Andrew Shirley; and David Hetherington, Ecology Advisor at Cairngorms National Park - who was also a contributor to our Rural Report.Intelligence Talks, is a podcast from the Research Team at Knight Frank. Every Monday and Friday we'll be bringing you the latest insights on property market trends and forecasts, along with expert analysis from industry leaders.This podcast breaks down the news and delves into the intelligence behind the headlines. Follow us on social media here:Instagram - @knightfrankTwitter - @knightfrankLinkedIn - @Knight Frank Host: Anna Ward - @annaroxelanaProducer: Rebecca Hills - @beckihills1Editor: Pulama KaufmanAny questions? Get in touch via Rebecca.hills@knightfrank.com. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week's podcast guest is Alice Goodridge, founder of Swim Wild UK and the Scottish Winter Swimming Championships, ice miler, channel swimmer, artist, illustrator and now with a wild swim inspired clothing range. She is an intensely interesting guest, with so many strings to her bow, all fuelled by her passion for wild swimming. Her company Swim Wild, like everything else, had to close during lockdown, but here is an update on what is now possible as lockdown in Scotland eases. "SwimWild is back! It may not have been the start to the summer that I had planned but I have been working hard behind the scenes to ensure that we can get back up and running for the latter part of the season, albeit in a reduced capacity. We have drawn up appropriate risk assessments which closely follow Scottish Government guidelines to ensure we are being safe, sensible and honest with ourselves and our swimmers. SwimWild has achieved Visit Scotland's "Good to Go Badge", meaning we are prepared as best as possible to start 1-to-1 coaching and private guided adventures from mid-July and small group coaching/adventures again from the start of August. Availability is a bit limited over the summer as I reschedule courses from the Spring and can only operate with limited group sizes, but I will do my best to accommodate everyone. Please do get in touch if you are interested in open water coaching at Loch Morlich, or would like to join me for a guided swim adventure in the Cairngorms National Park." Go to swimwilduk.com for more Photos by Euan Cherry

This Podcast takes you on a tour from St Andrews to Inverness through some of the most picturesque towns in Scotland. It is the second part of a tour trilogy that will see you travel all the way from Edinburgh to Inverness and back, calling into some of the most iconic places of Scotland. You will be standing on the most famous bridge in the world before leaving St Andrews and, photos taken, you will head north across the Tay Bridge through Dundee up to the beautiful Cathedral town of Dunkeld before heading north again into the Cairngorms National Park. You will arrive in Inverness and, after a evening relaxing, you will visit the famous battlefield of Culloden and also a 4000 year old site that gave Diana Gabaldon her inspiration for the Outlander series.

Huge thanks to Hamish Napier! Check out his Bandcamp Page! We listened to tracks from The River, and The Woods Album. https://hamishnapier.bandcamp.com/ Open up with a clip of me playing a Pibroch I wrote for Grand Portage on the side of the road in the Cairngorms National Park. Then I play a tune from James Aird’s collection “The Braes of Angus”. Then three glorious tracks from Hamish Napier: From the River: The May Fly Woods: The Tree of Life/Lightning Woods: The Highest Willows And Conclude with my playing “Michael McDonald’s Jig” in Carnasserie Castle in Kilmartin Glen. In the future when the world opens back up I desperately hope I get to revisit our hike in the Cairngorms up to Corrie Fee: https://www.nature.scot/enjoying-outdoors/scotlands-national-nature-reserves/corrie-fee-national-nature-reserve And also spend another night at Rosebank House (not Rose Cottage as I say in the audio) in Blairgowrie: https://www.rosebank-blairgowrie.co.uk/en-US/homepage

Ghillie delves into the Scottish larder, from salmon to venison and foods foraged from around her remote Scottish home - rowan berries and wood sorrel - and marries them with flavours collected from her travels around the world. As a lover of spices, she has imaginatively paired her delicious dishes with whisky for an imaginative taste and sensation journey. Ghillie has written over 40 books and opens her remote cottage in the middle of Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands to visitors who experience her glorious food in sumptuous, rustic surroundings and more than a dram or two of whisky. www.ghilliebasan.com (http://www.ghilliebasan.com/) @ghilliebasan @Radio_Gorgeous @cookbookfest #Food #RadioGorgeous #Whisky  

Thank you for listening to the Leaders, Innovators and Big Ideas podcast, supported by Rainforest Alberta.  The podcast that highlights those people who are contributing to and/or supporting the innovation ecosystem in Alberta.   Taylor Jensen is a recent graduate from Mount Royal University where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology, along with a double minor in History and International Business. Her passion for environmental sustainability has taken her to Scotland where she studied sustainability practices in Cairngorms National Park. Through her studies at Mount Royal University, Taylor developed an interest in Social Innovation and human centred design. Taylor was recently selected as a member of the Student Changemakers Network where she plans to continue her research into the impacts of climate change on food sustainability. Cynthia Navarrete has a Master's Degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Calgary. Her experience as an environmental consultant in Canada and Peru exposed her to the contamination produced by the textile industry. In order to reduce the industry's negative environmental impact, she founded Jacaranda, a company that produces eco-friendly clothing made of natural fibers from cotton and alpaca. The company is in the process of Fair Trade certification. The knitted garments are made by a community of knitters in rural Peru. Please be sure to share this episode with everyone you know. If you are interested in being either a host, a guest, or a sponsor of the show, please reach out.  We are published in Google Podcasts and the iTunes store for Apple Podcasts.  We would be grateful if you could give us a rating as it helps spread the word about the show. Episode Summary:Cynthia Navarrete, owner and CEO of Jacaranda, talks about her journey from Environmental Engineer to startup business owner.  After seeing the impact that the textile industry had on the environment, Cynthia was inspired to create a line of eco-friendly yoga wear that focused on environmental sustainability and fair trade practices. Quotes: "The entrepreneurship community in Calgary and Alberta is amazing and supportive"  "It’s like a roller-coaster" – on starting Jacaranda  "We need to be a fair-trade town and we are working towards that" Credits... This Episode Sponsored By: Capturing Legacies Inc. Graphic Design: Mackenzie Bedford Episode Music: Tony Del Degan Creator & Producer: Al Del Degan 

This episode comes to you from the beautiful mountains, valleys and glens of the Cairngorms National Park. Neil is joined by Vicky Coy, a geologist who explains the formation of this amazing landscape. We also meet photographer, David Russell, who teaches us why this area is such a joy for wildlife photography.

In this episode we meet some of the people working hard to protect nature in the Cairngorms National Park. Tom Prescott (Butterfly Conservation), Matthew Hawkins (CNPA) and James Silvey (RSPB) talk to Gabrielle Flinn about their involvement in the Rare Invertebrates in the Cairngorms project and why they are dedicating their careers to saving the natural world. This project is being part-financed by the Scottish Government and the European Community LEADER 2014-2020 programme. You can find us on facebook and on twitter to learn more. Facebook: www.facebook.com/RareInvertebrates/ Twitter: twitter.com/RareInverts6 Thank you to Tom Prescott (Butterfly Conservation, Matthew Hawkins (Cairngorms National Park Authority) and James Silvey (RSPB Scotland). Presented, Recorded and Edited by Gabrielle Flinn. Music by StrangerEight (freesound.com) Forest Sounds by Inchadney (freesound.com)

Here’s a challenge for YOU: please listen to this episode this weekend, or before midday on Tuesday 4th December. A little departure today for Of Mountains and Minds. Coming at you is a Christmas charity special talking to a few fascinating people about a chunky challenge we’re all taking on this Saturday 1st December – Cairngorms to Capital. Just a few runners and cyclists from the charity I work for, Link Community Development, hope to complete a mid-winter self-powered relay from the Cairngorms National Park back to Edinburgh. The first leg will consist of a 34 ish mile run from Aviemore to Blair Atholl, along the Lairig Ghru and Glen Tilt trails, and cyclists will start at Blair Atholl and cycle 85+ miles back to Edinburgh, on the back of Storm Diana. Why? Quite apart from our love of category two kicks, the challenge is is to raise awareness and funds for our girls’ education project in rural Ethiopia, helping 44,000 girls access a secondary education for the first time and make their own choices in life. It’s part of The Christmas Challenge crowdfunder, through which donations will be doubled for one week only, from midday on 27th November to midday on 4th December. Every £ donated to our project online during the week is doubled by major donor funds we’ve got in place. So what’s in this random little episode? First, I talk to Fiona Osborne, the sister of our amazing communications maestro at Link, Lyndsey Alexander. Fiona is a medic who has spent time in Africa working with children and is generously taking on quite a bit of the cycling on Saturday. Next, the lovely Duncan McArthur; he is supporting the run section and interviews me for a change! I also chat to Link’s International Programme Director Dr Samantha Ross, fresh off a plane from Ethiopia, about her many years living and working in Africa, contracting malaria and her own cycle plans this weekend. Enjoy and if you share any episode, please make it this one before Tuesday along with the donation link: https://secure.thebiggive.org.uk/donation/to/64842/30269

Adam Rutherford speaks to Dr Tamsin Edwards, a lecturer in Physical Geography at Kings College London and a lead author for the latest IPCC report. Dr Edwards describes what happens in the making of the report, including the summarising of the wealth of scientific literature available into an understandable document for the policy makers. Cairngorms National Park in Scotland is part of an ambitious project to restore the habitat to its former natural state. Four organisations have joined together as the 'Cairngorms Connect’ project – Scottish Natural Heritage, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Wildland Limited and Forest Enterprise Scotland. Graeme Prest of Forest Enterprise Scotland explains how the project team will start to restore the habitat. The grass pea is a resilient and highly nutritious legume but it contains varying level of toxins. Marnie Chesterton visits the John Innes Centre in Norwich to meet the researchers working on making the grass pea less poisonous, which could aid food security, particularly in sub-Saharan. The Sun is technically a G-type main sequence star, which means it’s a giant continuous nuclear fusion reaction plasma, spewing out extremely dangerous matter and energy in every direction, and when it hits the Earth, this can cause all sorts of problems. Adam visits the Science Museum in London to meet Harry Cliff, a physicist and curator of a new exhibition: ‘The Sun: Living With Our Star’, which explores our relationship with the closest star to earth. Adam also finds out from Professor Chris Scott of Reading University about a citizen science project called Protect our Planet from Solar Storms.

This is 50 Reasons to Visit Britain, on today’s show we zoom in on the Scottish Highlands for the first time with Cairngorms National Park, Caitlin claims both the royal family and a famous pirate as her relatives, Joe beams with excitement over everyday occurrences in the world, and much more!   Here is more information on some of the things we discussed: Caitlin chats with Nathalie from Poplars Guest House Tour for the Reason: 10 Day Scottish Treasures & Gems Caitlin CARES (Cute Animal Reaction Excitement Segment): Caitlin awes over this furry creature covered in snow!

A musical walk around the Cairngorms National Park with the self-taught composer, Alexander Chapman-Campbell. Alexander's latest album is inspired by a 650km pilgrimage through Norway in the summer of 2015. He had intended to have a break from composition but, en route and completely by chance, Alexander came across pianos in the farmhouses he stayed in, and the churches he visited. So began the instinctive process of creating an album, 'Journey to Nidaros' (Nidaros is the Cathedral in Trondheim, where his trek ended.) He recounts this adventure to Clare, as they walk in the Cairngorms National Park, a place that reminds him very much of Norway. Their walk is a five mile circular route around the Glen Tanar estate, near Aboyne, a village on the edge of the highlands, just 26 miles west of Aberdeen. Producer: Karen Gregor.

History, natural beauty, and adventure come together in Andrew's Ten Favorite Scottish Destinations. You won't find this list in any guide book! In part 2, journey with us to Stirling, home of the Wallace Monument and an amazing castle experience. Then it's on to the charm of St. Andrews and the thrill of Aviemore, gateway to Cairngorms National Park. We conclude with a trip to the tip of the British mainland, John o' Groats, and a visit to the Isle of Skye in Scotland's western isles. Plus, discover Scotland's role in shaping the Commonwealth Games, and hear some great music from Saor Patrol, Skerryvore, Emily Smith, and more!

Take a walk though any landscape in Scotland, and there's a story to be uncovered - of human lives, and the impact we've had on the land around us. Join Iain Stewart as he walks through some of Scotland's most intriguing landscapes, guided by people who live and work in them, to uncover tales of how we have exploited, celebrated and enjoyed Scotland's forests, hills, lochs, glens and shores. In this programme, Earth, Iain visits Glen Lui, in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park. As he walks up the glen towards the mountains, he learns that the area has long been a playground for visitors - and how that recreational history still shapes the glen today.

Jonathan Maitland profiles Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the coalition government and Liberal Democrat who will wield the axe as the UK enters a new age of austerity. Alexander emerged from a background in communications and a short career as a politician --he was first elected to a Highlands seat in 2005 --to become Treasury Chief Secretary. It is a post that many commentators say makes Danny Alexander the third most powerful man in government, after the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ahead of his own boss the Deputy Prime Minister. So how did a man whose last job outside of politics was to run communications for the Cairngorms National Park get so far so fast? And how will he fare once the cuts he is overseeing begin to take hold? Jonathan Maitland talks to his family, his friends and political commentators about the MP from Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey.