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 ScotlandEdinburgh Castle Clear in Edinburgh, and the sun sets at 16:16.Watch Scotland live→
StarsLoch TullaA clear, dark night is forecast over Loch Tulla.
SnowWatch Scotland liveSnow is forecast on the summit of Ben Wyvis on Wednesday.
On todayShetlandSpitfire Girls opens in Lerwick tomorrow.
NewsOrkneyThe Pickaquoy Centre in Kirkwall is due to open its new mountain bike trails at the end of October or the start of November.
WildlifeCaithnessAn orca was seen in Wick on Saturday.
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Hidden Scotland
The places worth the journey, and the help to get there.
WildlifeThis week
Seen 8 timesRed deer
Seen 7 times · Birnam Place, DundeePink-footed goose
Seen 6 timesOtter
Seen 5 times · EdinburghDipper
Seen 5 timesCommon seal
Seen 4 times · East LothianGannet
Seen 3 times · Highland CouncilWhite-tailed eagle
Seen 3 timesWhooper swan
Seen 3 times · Isle Of North UistBarnacle goose
Seen 3 times · AppinPine marten
Seen 3 timesRed squirrel
Seen twice · DumfriesRed kite
Seen twice · StornowayGrey seal
Seen twice · HighlandBadger
Seen oncePtarmigan
Seen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagle
Seen once · HighlandOrca
Seen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmon
Seen onceMountain hare
Seen 8 timesRed deerSeen 7 times · Birnam Place, DundeePink-footed gooseSeen 6 timesOtterSeen 5 times · EdinburghDipperSeen 5 timesCommon sealSeen 4 times · East LothianGannetSeen 3 times · Highland CouncilWhite-tailed eagleSeen 3 timesWhooper swanSeen 3 times · Isle Of North UistBarnacle gooseSeen 3 times · AppinPine martenSeen 3 timesRed squirrelSeen twice · DumfriesRed kiteSeen twice · StornowayGrey sealSeen twice · HighlandBadgerSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagleSeen once · HighlandOrcaSeen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmonSeen onceMountain hareThe wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.
Red deer are Britain's largest land mammal, and in autumn the stags roar through the rut, and this week they were the animal reported most often in Scotland: 8 sightings. 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 ScotlandDid 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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Graeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for Hidden Scotland, would rather walk the quiet sands of Huisinis than famous Luskentyre, on the Isle of Harris.Snow is forecast on the summit of Ben Wyvis on Wednesday.The flight between Westray and Papa Westray, two of the Orkney islands, is the world's shortest scheduled flight, timed at two minutes including taxiing.Cullen skink, the creamy haddock and potato soup, takes its name from the little town of Cullen, on the Moray Firth.True or false: the sticky postage stamp was invented by a bookseller from Dundee.Chris Dyer, an archaeologist from Hertfordshire, came to Shetland for a job in 2006 and now opens his smallholding on the island of Bressay to visitors.Every issue we have printed.The 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.The concrete pylons along the causeway to Cramond Island were a boom against boats in the Second World War.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.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.Wojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.Roasted Grapes, Burrata and Smoked Venison CrostiniStewart Christie & Co in Edinburgh's New Town, the oldest bespoke tailor in Scotland, has customer ledgers going back to 1720.J.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.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'.True or false: in 1527 a Scottish historian wrote that he had seen for himself barnacle geese growing from shells on driftwood.House of Gods, a hotel just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh's Old Town, takes the look of its rooms from the Orient Express.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Ebenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.Gunsgreen House, the grand house overlooking Eyemouth harbour in the Scottish Borders, was built by the smuggler John Nisbet, who filled it with hidden passageways and a one-of-a-kind tea chute.For 21 years, from 1883 to 1904, Ben Nevis, above Fort William, had a staffed weather observatory on its summit.Scotland's national poet is known as the Makar, from the old Scots word for 'maker', used mostly for a maker of verses.True or false: the palm trees along the waterfront at Plockton, in Wester Ross, are real palms.The Old Course at St Andrews, in Fife, closes to golfers on Sundays, and on some Sundays the town comes out to stroll and picnic on it.Sherlock Holmes was based on a real Edinburgh surgeon, Dr Joseph Bell, and Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the stories, told him so in a letter.Morvern Graham, an artist and storyteller on a cliff top above the North Sea, grew up on folktales told on a rocky shore.Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, spent nearly a year and a half of her teens living in Dundee.The Marshall family of Marshall's Farm Shop at Kintore have won the Royal Northern Agricultural Society's Good Farming Practice Award.Brodick has the only island country park in Britain, and it runs from the seashore to the mountain top.Half of One, Isle of Skye.Euan Ramsay turned the old farm buildings of Newhall Mains, on the Black Isle, into a hotel with its own grass airstrip.Easdale, a car-free island near Oban, holds the World Stone Skimming Championships in a flooded slate quarry.Tom Lewis, whose family owns Monachyle Mhor, the pink farmhouse hotel in Balquhidder, has a mantra: they don't own a table their guests can't dance on.What is thought to be a Viking-age assembly site, dating to around the 11th century, was found under a car park in Dingwall, in Ross-shire.The whisky bar at Dornoch Castle in Sutherland has been named Whisky Bar of the Year at the 2026 Scottish Licensed Trade News Awards.Wild salmon leap the Falls of Rogie, in Ross and Cromarty, every autumn.Every August in South Queensferry, near Edinburgh, a man covered from head to ankles in burrs walks the town for nine hours or more.James Taylor, from near Auchenblae in Kincardineshire, started which crop in Sri Lanka in 1867?The earliest written story of a monster near Loch Ness, told of St Columba, puts the beast in the River Ness, not in the loch.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.More than 500 carved stone balls, some thought to be 5,000 years old, have been found, mostly in north-east Scotland, and nobody knows what they were for.Glasgow's Britannia Music Hall was one of the first 300 buildings in the city wired for electricity in 1896.Far Out, Yet Still So CloseFor Mandy Maria, an artist who draws Scotland's mountains in soft pastel, a walk is almost psychedelic, because colour is what she notices most.The Brough of Birsay, a tidal island off Orkney's West Mainland, can only be reached by a narrow causeway at low tide.The Three Chimneys at Colbost began life as the village shop.The Old Man of Hoy, the towering sea stack off the island of Hoy in Orkney, has a tall tale attached to its first climb.Subscribe to Hidden Scotland.Donna Stiven came to visit a friend in Glenelg, in Lochalsh, in 1973, and stayed on to make candles in a village where wearing jeans made her a hippie.The oldest Harrier jump jet in existence is being cleaned at the National Museum of Flight for the 60th anniversary of its first flight, on 9 November.Hideaways in PerthshireA dipper was seen near Craiglockhart, Edinburgh.The walled garden beside Raasay House has been brought back to life by the islanders.Taransay, the uninhabited island off Luskentyre Beach on the Isle of Harris, was chosen as the setting for the TV series Castaway 2000 partly because nobody lives there.The village of Findhorn, in Moray, is the third to carry the name.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.Learning to row is 'required education' for island children in Stromness, Orkney, as the photographer Jim Richardson found when he went out with them.The Scullery: A Slow Stay in the Yarrow ValleyThe Isle of Eigg was bought for its people in 1997 with money given by the public.Burns set the witches' dance in Tam o' Shanter at Alloway Auld Kirk, where his own father lies buried.Jillian McEwan farms cashmere goats near Lunan Bay in Angus, and at Easter the tiny kids are dressed in hand-knitted jumpers.There are more than eight hundred ancient monuments within six miles of this field.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.St Conan's Kirk, on Loch Awe in Argyll, was almost fifty years in the building, begun by the architect Walter Douglas Campbell and carried on by his sister.The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool is on the shortlist for Venue of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards.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.Gannets were seen in Edinburgh.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.Graeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for Hidden Scotland, fitted a broch, a cathedral and a castle into a single day on the island of Lismore, off Oban.Ellis O'Connor, a landscape painter who lives on the Isle of Skye, has taken art residencies in places as wild as the Faroes, Orkney, Svalbard and Shetland.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.Archaeologists excavating the Iron Age broch and village at Old Scatness, in Shetland, uncovered a carving of a bear.Issue 13 is out now.Old Tom Morris, four times winner of the Open, was born on North Street in St Andrews in 1821, the son of a weaver.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.Jupiter Artland, a sculpture park set in meadows and woodland just outside Edinburgh, is explored on foot with a map of its artworks.Give a magazine subscription.Church Hill House in Kingussie, in the Cairngorms, was once part of the Highland Folk Museum, which had its home there for more than sixty years.The cinnamon buns that sell out first at 101 Bakery, in Edinburgh's Southside, are accidentally vegan, which is what keeps them light and fluffy.Which headland is the most westerly point of mainland Great Britain?Some good places to go, newly added to the site.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Katy Fennema spent 13 years as Associate Principal Oboe of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra before coming home to Braemar to be the Fife Arms hotel's Whisky Ambassador.V&A Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show is on today.This is Cluny House Gardens in autumn.Pink-footed geese were seen near Birnam Place, Dundee.The youngest prisoner of war held at Edinburgh Castle was six years old.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.Discover Borradill with owner and interior designer Claire MookerjeeIn 1892 Tommy Dewar set off round the world to sell his family's whisky, and threw bottles into the sea along the way.Guess where this is?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.In winter, the storyteller Morvern Graham takes a flask of coffee to the top of a rock above the North Sea at high tide to watch the waves.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.Red deer were seen near Tobermory.The Isle of Arran is split by the Highland Boundary Fault, so it has both Highland and Lowland scenery in just 55 miles of coastline.Have you been to Isle of Jura?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.Rory Dowling, a guitar maker in Fife's East Neuk, named Taran Guitars after the Gaelic word for thunder and a hill on Harris.