The roads less travelled that take you to places that matter. The adventures that gather you up and sweep you away. The blend of the wild and the artistic that makes Scotland what it is. We'd love for you to join us.
Live from ScotlandCarrbridge Cloudy in the Cairngorms, and the sun sets at 16:09.Watch Scotland live→
Due this weekWWT CaerlaverockWhooper swans, big wild swans with lemon-yellow bills, are flying in to Caerlaverock and the Loch of Strathbeg for the winter about now.
StarsDunnottar CastleA clear, dark night is forecast over Dunnottar Castle.
On todayShetlandSpitfire Girls is happening now in Lerwick.
NewsOrkneyThe Pickaquoy Centre in Kirkwall is due to open its new mountain bike trails at the end of October or the start of November.
WildlifeEaster RossAn atlantic salmon was seen near Loch Fleet, Golspie, on Saturday.
The Daily
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A free morning email to see what’s on this week, catch up on what’s happening in Scotland and find somewhere new to go.
Hidden Scotland
The places worth the journey, and the help to get there.
Did you know
Scotland's national animal is the unicorn, and on the old Scottish royal arms two crowned unicorns hold up the shield, bound in golden chains.
The oldest surviving version of the arms with unicorns is a weather-worn carving above the gateway of Rothesay Castle, on the Isle of Bute, made no later than the reign of Robert III, which ended in 1406. In about 1484 James III went further and issued gold coins called the unicorn and the half-unicorn. The chain is usually read as a sign of royal strength: the unicorn was thought too wild for anyone to tame, and only a Scottish king was strong enough to hold it. You can still spot unicorns across the country, from the top of the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh to the gate of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
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WildlifeThis week
Seen 7 times · Argyll and ButeOtter
Seen 6 times · StrathmorePink-footed goose
Seen 5 timesDipper
Seen 5 timesRed squirrel
Seen 4 times · East LothianGannet
Seen 4 times · RenfrewshireBarnacle goose
Seen 4 timesCommon seal
Seen 3 times · DumfriesRed kite
Seen 3 times · AppinPine marten
Seen twice · Argyll and Bute CouncilWhooper swan
Seen twice · StornowayGrey seal
Seen twice · HighlandBadger
Seen twice · EdinburghRed grouse
Seen oncePtarmigan
Seen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagle
Seen once · Highland CouncilWhite-tailed eagle
Seen once · HighlandOrca
Seen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whale
Seen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmon
Seen onceMountain hare
Seen onceRed deer
Seen 7 times · Argyll and ButeOtterSeen 6 times · StrathmorePink-footed gooseSeen 5 timesDipperSeen 5 timesRed squirrelSeen 4 times · East LothianGannetSeen 4 times · RenfrewshireBarnacle gooseSeen 4 timesCommon sealSeen 3 times · DumfriesRed kiteSeen 3 times · AppinPine martenSeen twice · Argyll and Bute CouncilWhooper swanSeen twice · StornowayGrey sealSeen twice · HighlandBadgerSeen twice · EdinburghRed grouseSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagleSeen once · Highland CouncilWhite-tailed eagleSeen once · HighlandOrcaSeen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whaleSeen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmonSeen onceMountain hareSeen onceRed deerThe wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.
Scotland's otters live along the sea coast as well as the rivers, and on the west coast and the islands they are often seen in the kelp at low tide, and this week the otter was the animal reported most often in Scotland: 7 sightings, the latest in Argyll and Bute. These are the animals people have reported most in the last seven days, the most seen first. Every sighting is logged with a photograph or a recording on iNaturalist, the wildlife recording site, and each card opens them on its map.
Where to see wildlife in Scotland
A large decorated pot about 5,000 years old is being pieced together from sherds found at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney.Loch Ness, in the Highlands near Inverness, holds more water than all the lakes of England and Wales put together.Perthshire WildlifeThe flight between Westray and Papa Westray, two of the Orkney islands, is the world's shortest scheduled flight, timed at two minutes including taxiing.The New Shetlander, the magazine of Shetland prose and poetry first printed in 1947, is back after three years away.Whooper swans, big wild swans with lemon-yellow bills, are flying in to Caerlaverock and the Loch of Strathbeg for the winter about now.Kat Hill, a historian turned writer on the Isle of Skye, found the idea for her book 'Bothy' in the visitor book of a bothy beside Loch Etive.A clear, dark night is forecast over Dunnottar Castle.The Scottish Antique & Arts CentreThe sheep of North Ronaldsay, in Orkney, live almost entirely on seaweed, kept on the shore by a stone wall that runs right round the island.On today around Scotland.On today around Scotland.Orkney and Shetland belonged to Norway until 1468 and 1469, when they were pledged to Scotland for a royal wedding dowry that was never paid.Alice Varley, a volunteer with the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, says rescue is like a team sport, except nobody knows when the matches will be.Before the River Clyde was deepened in the 1700s, ships could not reach Glasgow. Where was their cargo unloaded instead?Wojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.Places to Stay by the Water in ArgyllJ.M. Barrie, from Kirriemuir in Angus, gave Peter Pan to a London children's hospital, and a special law lets it earn from the story for ever.The tune that greets the US president began in a poem set on which Scottish loch?The Chapel Royal at Stirling was thrown up in a hurry for one christening.the Armistice ended the fighting of the First World War.Elizabeth Tindal, a Dark Sky Ranger in Galloway Forest Park in Dumfries and Galloway, counts a stargazing chat with a 10-year-old boy among the best conversations she has had.Norsemen who broke into Maeshowe, a 5,000-year-old tomb in Orkney, covered its walls in graffiti, including 'Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women'.How big was the official crowd when Scotland played England at Hampden Park, Glasgow, in 1937?Ebenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.Neil Hammond built Dun Brewing at Glenelg, in Lochalsh, in 2018, between two Iron Age stone towers and on land that once held his wind-turbine business.The Duke of Atholl's own regiment, the Atholl Highlanders of Blair Castle in Perthshire, has been described as the only legal private army in Europe.The Victorian public toilets in Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, are so grand that they have become one of the town's most celebrated sights.At Skye Weavers in Glendale, every scarf and throw is made on a loom powered by bicycle pedals.Ceannabeinne Cottage: An Interview with Sonny and EmiliaNick Gardner, who climbed all of Scotland's Munros in his 80s, asked to see a mountain as a small boy and was taken to Bradgate Park in Leicestershire.On his first day as a volunteer at a dig on St Ninian's Isle, in Shetland, a 15-year-old schoolboy found a hoard of Pictish silver.The Open is coming back to Carnoustie in Angus in 2029, for the first time since 2018.Corrour, on Rannoch Moor in the Highlands, is the highest mainline railway station in the UK, and no public road leads to it.The air-filled tyre was first patented in 1845 by Robert William Thomson, a 23-year-old from Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, more than 40 years before John Boyd Dunlop's.A dipper was seen in Aberdeen.On the Isle of Muck, west of Mallaig, the photographer Jim Richardson climbed the highest hill three times to get his portrait of the island's laird.Fingal's Cave, on the uninhabited island of Staffa off Mull, inspired Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture after the composer visited in 1829.In 1911 Henry Alexander took something to the summit of Ben Nevis, above Fort William, and brought it back down again. What was it?The Britannia Panopticon in Glasgow, billed as the world's oldest surviving music hall, is said to be where Stan Laurel first appeared on stage, in 1906.Thomas Blake Glover, from Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, helped found the company that became Mitsubishi and was honoured by the Emperor of Japan.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Scotland's national poet is known as the Makar, from the old Scots word for 'maker', used mostly for a maker of verses.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.When Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, died in 1922, every telephone in North America fell silent for a minute in his honour.Before Kylesku Bridge opened in Sutherland in 1984, crossing the strait there meant catching a small ferry, and cattle herders are said to have swum their livestock across.Shetland, Scotland's northernmost islands, is known for its wild gales at the autumn equinox.Monkstadt House, near Uig, was once the seat of the MacDonald chiefs, and Bonnie Prince Charlie came ashore on the shore below it.Jack Blackwell worked at Noma in Copenhagen before opening Dōr, his shop in Kelso, in a former florist's that had been cold and damp for over 20 years.Allan MacRuari, the cunning chief of Clanranald at Castle Tioram on Loch Moidart, in Lochaber, was a thorn in the side of every clan around him.True or false: the village of Beauly, near Inverness, got its name when Mary, Queen of Scots, called it 'un beau lieu', a beautiful place.A paper tree growing out of a book was left, unannounced, at the Scottish Poetry Library in 2011.At Eòlach, in Glenelg in Lochalsh, the chef Verity Hurding serves caramelised beech leaves and spruce-tip lemonade in the house she grew up in.Issue 13 is out now.A rock on the shore of Arran helped prove the Earth was far older than 6,000 years.June Richard welcomed weightlifters from all over the world to her garden to lift the Inver stone, now at the Braemar Highland Games Centre.Give a magazine subscription.Pink-footed geese were seen near Strathmore, Blairgowrie.There is a Gaelic blessing carved over the door at Carnasserie, and it names the ancestor of the Campbells.Lara Messer, a Glasgow photographer, found a craft chocolate bar in her bag on a train home and went on to start Bare Bones Chocolate.The royal family's nine-hole golf course on the Balmoral estate, on Deeside, opens with a hole flanked by statues of whom?Some good places to go, newly added to the site.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.Bars and restaurants in the Cairngorms.In 1892 Tommy Dewar set off round the world to sell his family's whisky, and threw bottles into the sea along the way.Di Gilpin arrived on the Isle of Skye in 1983 with a tent, wool and her knitting needles, and later designed knitwear for Paul Smith and Nike.Burns set the witches' dance in Tam o' Shanter at Alloway Auld Kirk, where his own father lies buried.V&A Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show is on today.Discover Borradill with owner and interior designer Claire MookerjeeGuess where this is?Ewan McKinnon leads the Arran Mountain Rescue Team, whose volunteers look after Goatfell, the island's so-called honeypot hill.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Some good places to stay, newly added to the site.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Polly Cameron, whose family has had The Dell of Abernethy near Nethy Bridge since the 1960s, says the way into the Cairngorms is to slow right down.Have you been to Isle of Mull?Alan Waldron, who makes bagpipes by hand on Broad Street below Stirling Castle, took his first piping lessons in Gibraltar in 1991.Friends of the lighthouse keeper John Boath and his wife Hazel phoned ahead whenever the couple moved on, so the next cottage down the road could come out and wave too.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Mary, Queen of Scots is said to have shocked her courtiers by playing real tennis at Falkland Palace in Fife wearing trousers rather than a dress.