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Issue 13, the walk to the cabin

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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 ScotlandBen Loyal Cloudy in Sutherland, and the sun sets at 17:52.Watch Scotland live
  1. Red kites fed at ArgatyArgaty Red KitesRed kites, the birds of prey, are being fed at the Argaty hide near Doune.
  2. The Barra planeBarra AirportThe plane for Glasgow is due off the beach at Barra about now.
  3. WildlifeOrkneyGannets were seen near Kirkwall on Thursday.
  4. NewsOrkneyThe Pickaquoy Centre in Kirkwall is due to open its new mountain bike trails at the end of October or the start of November.
  5. WildlifeCaithnessWhooper swans were seen in Wick on Friday.
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Did you know

On the island of Barra, in the Outer Hebrides, scheduled passenger planes land on a beach, and the flight times move with the tide.

Barra Airport's three runways are marked out on the sand of Tràigh Mhòr, the beach known in English as the Cockle Strand, with wooden poles at each end. At high tide all three are under the sea, so the times of the flights to Glasgow change with the tide. Because the runways point three different ways, the little Twin Otter planes can almost always land into the wind. The first official service touched down on the sands in August 1936, and Barra is still the only scheduled beach runway in the world.

See Barra Airport · Outer Hebrides
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Just addedAdded today

We've just added Strathisla Distillery to the website.

A Speyside distillery on the River Isla at Keith, founded in 1786, whose single malt goes into Chivas Regal.

Find out more about Strathisla Distillery
Did you know

Skara Brae, a stone village on the Bay of Skaill in Orkney, was a thriving community before Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids were built.

People lived in the village from roughly 3180 BC to about 2500 BC. That is earlier than the Great Pyramid, built around 2560 BC, and earlier than the main building at Stonehenge, begun around 3000 BC. Once its people had gone, the village was lost from sight until a storm uncovered it in 1850. The houses still have their stone dressers and box-beds, and Historic Environment Scotland calls it the best-preserved Neolithic, or New Stone Age, settlement in Western Europe. Today you can walk among ten of its buildings and four of its passageways, five thousand years after they were built.

See Skara Brae · Orkney
Weather for itFor today's weatherGlasgowInn DeepRestaurantAberdeenshireThe Creel InnRestaurantPlocktonPlockton InnRestaurantDumfries and GallowayThe Globe Inn, DumfriesRestaurantDumfries and GallowayThe Steamboat Inn, CarsethornRestaurantFifeThe Kinneuchar InnRestaurant

A pint by the fire.

Cold and wet enough out there. The pubs with a fire lit and good food.

See all the pubs
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

Scotland's first surfer is said to be William 'Willy' Tait, a fisherman from Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, who saw surfing on television and went south to find it.

The surf photographer Sam Howard, who spent a year and a half photographing more than 85 Scottish surfers for his project In Scotland We Surf, tells the story. Willy travelled south in search of the waves he had seen on screen, 'bringing the first surf board back to Scotland'. For a couple of years he surfed on his own, until another local from 'the Broch', as Fraserburgh is known, took an interest. Together they built a board so the two of them could go out in the water together. Sam calls Willy '80-years-young', and he says small groups have been surfing in Scotland since the late 1950s.

Read the full story in Issue 06
Hidden Scotland, the magazineThe magazine

Issue 13

The autumn and winter issue is here.

Get Issue 13
WildlifeThis weekSeen 7 times · Dumfries and GallowayWhooper swanSeen 6 times · Hamilton GardensDipperSeen 4 times · East LothianPink-footed gooseSeen 3 times · DriftwoodGolden eagleSeen 3 timesOtterSeen 3 timesBeaverSeen 3 times · KillinRed deerSeen twice · FortroseGannetSeen twice · AngusPine martenSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Dunain CottageRed kiteSeen once · Dumfries and GallowayBarnacle gooseSeen onceMinke whaleSeen onceGrey sealSeen onceRed squirrelSeen onceMountain hareSeen once · HighlandBadgerSeen onceRed grouse

The wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.

Whooper swans are big wild swans with lemon-yellow bills that come to Scotland's lochs and fields each autumn for the winter, and this week they were the animal reported most often in Scotland: 7 sightings, the latest in Dumfries and Galloway. 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
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.

Just addedAdded today

We've just added Yarrow Stone to the website.

A Latin memorial of the 400s or 500s to two British princes, in the Yarrow valley in the Scottish Borders.

Find out more about Yarrow Stone
Did you know

Loch Ness, in the Highlands near Inverness, holds more water than all the lakes of England and Wales put together.

Loch Ness isn't the biggest loch in Scotland by area: that is Loch Lomond, at 71 square kilometres. What Loch Ness has is depth. It runs for about 37 kilometres and reaches around 230 metres at its deepest, so it holds 7,452 million cubic metres of water, more than any other loch in Scotland. The water is murky too, because of the peat in the soil around it. And for all that depth, it is not the deepest loch in the country: that is Loch Morar, further west, at 310 metres.

See Loch Ness · Inverness-shire
1.45pmJust now

Red kites, the birds of prey, are being fed at the Argaty hide near Doune.

Red kites were brought back to central Scotland in the 1990s, and in 1998 this farm near Doune had the first chicks hatched in the area for over a century. The ranger-led visit begins at quarter to two and lasts about an hour and a half, from a hide a short walk up from the car park.

Argaty Red Kites
From the magazineThe printed copy of Issue 07Issue 07Autumn / Winter 2023-24

Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway raised £4 million in a little over six months to buy its hills for a nature reserve.

Langholm, a traditional textile town, had been in economic decline when the Langholm Initiative set out to buy 5,200 acres from the Buccleuch Estate. With backers such as the John Muir Trust and the Woodland Trust, it raised £4 million in a little over six months and created the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve. After a second fundraising push in 2022, the reserve doubled to 10,500 acres, with peatland restoration and new native woodland among its plans. 'It’s been a total whirlwind few years with two epic community buyouts helped by thousands of people,' says Jenny Barlow, the estate manager.

See Tarras Valley Nature Reserve · Dumfries and Galloway
1.35pmJust now

The plane for Glasgow is due off the beach at Barra about now.

Barra's runway is the sand of Traigh Mhor, which the sea covers twice a day, so the timetable is set by the tide and changes every few days. It is the only airport in the world where scheduled flights land on a beach. The time is the airline's timetable for today; the airport's own board has the last word.

See Barra Airport