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 ScotlandCalgary Bay, Mull Bright in Argyll and Bute, and the sun sets at 16:23.Watch Scotland live→
The Cairngorm funicularCairngorm MountainThe Cairngorm funicular, the mountain railway up Cairn Gorm, is running again this morning after its yearly maintenance.
Due this weekWatch Scotland liveRedwings and fieldfares, the thrushes that come to Scotland for the winter, are arriving about now.
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.
NewsSutherlandLinks House in Dornoch is starting night-time wildlife safaris with thermal cameras.
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 6 timesOtter
Seen 5 times · Birnam Place, DundeePink-footed goose
Seen 5 timesDipper
Seen 5 timesCommon seal
Seen 4 times · East LothianGannet
Seen 4 times · Loch VoilRed squirrel
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 deer
Seen twice · DumfriesRed kite
Seen twice · StornowayGrey seal
Seen twice · HighlandBadger
Seen twice · EdinburghRed grouse
Seen oncePtarmigan
Seen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagle
Seen once · HighlandOrca
Seen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmon
Seen onceMountain hare
Seen 6 timesOtterSeen 5 times · Birnam Place, DundeePink-footed gooseSeen 5 timesDipperSeen 5 timesCommon sealSeen 4 times · East LothianGannetSeen 4 times · Loch VoilRed squirrelSeen 3 times · Highland CouncilWhite-tailed eagleSeen 3 timesWhooper swanSeen 3 times · Isle Of North UistBarnacle gooseSeen 3 times · AppinPine martenSeen 3 timesRed deerSeen twice · DumfriesRed kiteSeen twice · StornowayGrey sealSeen twice · HighlandBadgerSeen twice · EdinburghRed grouseSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · Argyll and Bute CouncilGolden eagleSeen once · HighlandOrcaSeen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmonSeen onceMountain hareThe 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: 6 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 ScotlandPerthshire WildlifeDes Hacket, Urban Programme Manager at the charity Future Woodlands Scotland, says trees in towns and cities can cut flooding and energy bills and even boost our mental health.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.The Cairngorm funicular, the mountain railway up Cairn Gorm, is running again this morning after its yearly maintenance.Redwings and fieldfares, the thrushes that come to Scotland for the winter, are arriving about now.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 Scottish Antique & Arts CentreOn today around Scotland.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.CillWojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool is on the shortlist for Venue of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards.Andrew Cowderoy, who runs Boath Cabin near Nairn, says the place to go on a rainy day is Culbin Forest, where the Scots pines give shelter from wind, rain and snow.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.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'.A common seal was seen near Lochmaddy.Glen Dye, an estate in Aberdeenshire, is one of many in Scotland giving old estate workers' homes a new life as holiday cottages.What does the name of Cape Wrath, the north-west tip of mainland Britain, mean?The story goes that the grassy mound in the middle of the 17th fairway at Cruden Bay Golf Club is a grave from a battle in 1012.Why Slow Travel Could be Here to StayEbenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.This is Rosemarkie in autumn.Easdale, a car-free island near Oban, holds the World Stone Skimming Championships in a flooded slate quarry.Isobel Hutchison, who grew up at Carlowrie Castle near Edinburgh, walked across Iceland after her plan was met with derision, and became known as 'The Quiet Explorer'.Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, spent nearly a year and a half of her teens living in Dundee.Subscribe to Hidden Scotland.The poet Robert Burns stayed in Cullen, on the Moray Firth, in 1787, and Robert the Bruce's wife is said to be buried at the town's Auld Kirk.The concrete pylons along the causeway to Cramond Island were a boom against boats in the Second World War.True or false: the palm trees along the waterfront at Plockton, in Wester Ross, are real palms.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.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.Sam Heughan, the star of Outlander, grew up in rural Galloway, where most of his family's friends were musicians and craftspeople.For 21 years, from 1883 to 1904, Ben Nevis, above Fort William, had a staffed weather observatory on its summit.Dryburgh Abbey was founded beside the Tweed.On a clear night in Galloway Forest Park, in Dumfries and Galloway, more than 7,000 stars and planets can be seen with the naked eye.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.The wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan was a 17-year-old schoolboy on the Isle of Mull, washing pots in a restaurant, when he was offered a job filming in Sierra Leone.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.Places to Stay in ArgyllEvery August in South Queensferry, near Edinburgh, a man covered from head to ankles in burrs walks the town for nine hours or more.From Glenmore in the Cairngorms, the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd's hill trip ends with a short session of feeding the reindeer by hand.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.Some couples who elope to Scotland end their wedding by sharing a drink from a quaich, the traditional Scottish drinking vessel.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 Old Man of Hoy, the towering sea stack off the island of Hoy in Orkney, has a tall tale attached to its first climb.Loch Affric, in the Highlands, has appeared in which Hollywood film?Scotland's national poet is known as the Makar, from the old Scots word for 'maker', used mostly for a maker of verses.The Kelpies, at Falkirk, honour the Clydesdale, the working horse that powered Scottish industry.The Black Shed: An Interview with Blair HunterA dipper was seen in Aberdeen.Morvern Graham, an artist and storyteller, says that moving from the city to a solitary cliff-top house above the North Sea transformed her life and her work.Monkstadt House, near Uig, was once the seat of the MacDonald chiefs, and Bonnie Prince Charlie came ashore on the shore below it.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Learning to row is 'required education' for island children in Stromness, Orkney, as the photographer Jim Richardson found when he went out with them.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.True or false: John o' Groats is the most northerly point of mainland Britain.The youngest prisoner of war held at Edinburgh Castle was six years old.Donald Dinnie carried two boulders weighing 332kg together across the width of the bridge at Potarch, on Royal Deeside, in 1860.Issue 13 is out now.In 1892 Tommy Dewar set off round the world to sell his family's whisky, and threw bottles into the sea along the way.Legend says the rare fairy foxgloves on the walls of Dundrennan Abbey, in Dumfries and Galloway, only grow where Roman soldiers once trod.Pink-footed geese were seen near Birnam Place, Dundee.Give a magazine subscription.Guardswell Farm, in the Sidlaw Hills of Perthshire, has no wifi or TVs, because Anna Lamotte, who runs it, finds escaping the screen so restorative.Alexander II died in 1249, thirty-five years into his reign. Where is he buried?Some good places to go, newly added to the site.For Jeni Iannetta of Bad Girl Bakery, the first stop for food in Inverness is the Victorian Market's food hall, and not just because her bakery is there.V&A Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show is on today.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Discover Borradill with owner and interior designer Claire MookerjeeOur 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.George Grassie, a baker in Blackwaterfoot on the Isle of Arran, makes sourdough loaves that slowly spring back after he pushes his fist into them.Before the River Clyde was deepened in the 1700s, ships could not reach Glasgow. Where was their cargo unloaded instead?Some good places to stay, newly added to the site.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.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.The NuckelaveeHave you been to Isle of Lewis?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.At Baern Café in St Monans, in the East Neuk of Fife, leftover kimchi juice goes into the sourdough and corn from the soup becomes a sweetcorn and tarragon lemonade.Guess where this is?Each August, the Fife fishing town of Pittenweem holds a week-long arts festival, with artists showing their work everywhere from front rooms to garden sheds.Laura Wilson, who runs The Dundonald guesthouse in Culross, Fife, opened The Mercat café and shop in the old village butcher's because her guests kept asking where she found things.Rory Dowling, a guitar maker in Fife's East Neuk, named Taran Guitars after the Gaelic word for thunder and a hill on Harris.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.None of the three Maclean brothers had a background in rowing, yet in 2019 Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan became the fastest and youngest trio ever to cross the Atlantic.