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 ScotlandThe Old Town, Edinburgh Clear in Edinburgh, and the sun sets at 16:14.Watch Scotland live→
StarsIsle of MuckA clear, dark night is forecast over Isle of Muck.
SnowWatch Scotland liveSnow is forecast on the summit of Ben Macdui, Britain's second highest mountain, tomorrow.
On todayShetlandTomorrow, Spitfire Girls is on 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.
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.
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 times · StrathmorePink-footed goose
Seen 6 timesOtter
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 times · StrathmorePink-footed gooseSeen 6 timesOtterSeen 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.
Pink-footed geese come to Scotland in their tens of thousands each autumn, flying in long skeins between the fields and their roosts, and this week they were the animal reported most often in Scotland: 6 sightings, the latest near Strathmore, Blairgowrie. 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 WildlifeRory Dowling, a guitar maker in Fife's East Neuk, named Taran Guitars after the Gaelic word for thunder and a hill on Harris.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.A clear, dark night is forecast over Isle of Muck.Snow is forecast on the summit of Ben Macdui, Britain's second highest mountain, tomorrow.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 CentreElizabeth Tindal, a Dark Sky Ranger in the Galloway Forest in Dumfries and Galloway, says most of the light pollution in her park comes from the moon.The Marshall family of Marshall's Farm Shop at Kintore have won the Royal Northern Agricultural Society's Good Farming Practice Award.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.The month Mary Queen of Scots spent in Jedburgh in 1566 was a turning point in her life.Wojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.A white-tailed eagle was seen near Ullapool.Lorna Freytag, an artist and illustrator in Oban, collects acorn cups and bits of fallen lichen for her art on walks through Dunollie Wood, Scotland's rainforest close to town.The whisky bar at Dornoch Castle in Sutherland has been named Whisky Bar of the Year at the 2026 Scottish Licensed Trade News Awards.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.Before planes landed on Traigh Mhor, the beach at the north end of Barra belonged to the cockle pickers, and they never left.James Seton carved his initials and his wife's above the door of Greenknowe Tower in 1581, and the original iron gate survives.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'.Jillian McEwan farms cashmere goats near Lunan Bay in Angus, and at Easter the tiny kids are dressed in hand-knitted jumpers.Ebenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.Where did Stone Age farmers most likely bring the Orkney vole from?Glen Dye, an estate in Aberdeenshire, is one of many in Scotland giving old estate workers' homes a new life as holiday cottages.Jarlshof, at Sumburgh in Shetland, holds more than 4,000 years of homes on one headland, from Stone Age farmers to a laird's house of the 1500s.Lindores: The Farm Above the TayThe little ferry between Glenelg and Kylerhea on Skye is the last manually operated turntable ferry in the world.True or false: marmalade was invented in Dundee, after a Spanish ship carrying Seville oranges sheltered from a storm in the harbour.The islanders of St Kilda, in the Outer Hebrides, sent messages to the mainland in little wooden boats, set adrift for the sea to carry.Alan Keery, chef at Nàdair in Marchmont, Edinburgh, wants Scottish cooking to leave haggis bonbons and deep-fried Mars Bars behind.Woodside Lodge: The Jewel of Loch GoilThe glasshouses of Kinloch Castle, on the Isle of Rum, once briefly housed alligators.The writer Robert Louis Stevenson began Treasure Island during a rainy family holiday in Braemar, on Royal Deeside, in the summer of 1881.True or false: The famous 1934 'Surgeon's Photograph' of the Loch Ness Monster is genuine.Spey Bay, where the River Spey meets the Moray Firth near Elgin, has the longest shingle beach in Scotland.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.Mills Observatory, on Balgay Hill in Dundee, is billed as the only full-time public observatory in Britain, and its dome is made of papier-mâché.John Muir, known as the Father of the National Parks in America, was born in Dunbar, a small harbour town in East Lothian.True or false: the house in Skyfall, James Bond's family home, was built in Glen Etive.Rowing the Pacific in 2025, the Scottish brothers Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan Maclean kept things in perspective with an audiobook about Shackleton's Antarctic mission.Burns set the witches' dance in Tam o' Shanter at Alloway Auld Kirk, where his own father lies buried.The Edinburgh Festival Fringe began in 1947, when eight theatre groups turned up uninvited to the first Edinburgh International Festival and performed anyway.Princess Margaret was born at Glamis Castle, in Angus.Every issue we have printed.William Munro Ferguson makes the UK's most northerly cider in the old stone stables at Novar, a Highland estate on Scotland's northeast coast.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Gannets were seen in Edinburgh.The wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin searched more than a million trees on Glen Tanar Estate, in Aberdeenshire, to find one golden eagle nest for the BBC.Stephen and Carol Grieve bought two near-derelict buildings in Crail, in Fife, for £250 in 1965, and turned them into Crail Pottery.The cliffs at Eshaness in Shetland are built from what a volcano threw out 395 million years ago.Foraged Kelp Miso RamenNone 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.True or false: the Picts, the people who carved Scotland's Pictish symbol stones, vanished overnight.Cultybraggan, near Comrie, was one of only two maximum-security camps in Britain for German prisoners.A former sailor and diver spent years researching the people buried at a ruined church near Oban, then made the signs that tell their stories himself.Montrose Air Station Museum, in Angus, stands on the site of Britain's first operational military airfield.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.Half of One, Isle of Skye.CillThe Ceilidh Place in Ullapool is on the shortlist for Venue of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards.When the pandemic closed Kj's Mountain Café in Aviemore, she started again as a baker in her home town of Grantown-on-Spey, fourteen miles away.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.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.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.A common seal was seen near Lochmaddy.What does the name of Cape Wrath, the north-west tip of mainland Britain, mean?The real Madame Doubtfire was Annabella Coutts, an Edinburgh clothes seller who lived in a basement with 30 cats.Why Slow Travel Could be Here to StayThis is Rosemarkie in autumn.Subscribe to Hidden Scotland.Misty Isle Boat Trips has sailed from Elgol on the Isle of Skye to Loch Coruisk since 1969, and one of its early customers was the film director Alfred Hitchcock.From Glenmore in the Cairngorms, the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd's hill trip ends with a short session of feeding the reindeer by hand.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.Dryburgh Abbey was founded beside the Tweed.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.Places to Stay in ArgyllA 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.Loch Affric, in the Highlands, has appeared in which Hollywood film?Fiona, an islander on Fair Isle between Orkney and Shetland, ran the shop and post office, taught art and led the island's fire unit, all at once.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.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.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.Legend says the rare fairy foxgloves on the walls of Dundrennan Abbey, in Dumfries and Galloway, only grow where Roman soldiers once trod.Glenhurich Lodge, a former hunting lodge in a remote glen near Strontian, in Lochaber, has also served as a schoolhouse.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.Róis, a jeweller in Glasgow, keeps at least 200 jars of sea glass in her studio, gathered from 68 different places around Scotland.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.Bill Gault became the last of Scotland's lighthouse keepers in 1998, when he turned off the light at Fair Isle South Lighthouse in Shetland.Pink-footed geese were seen near Birnam Place, Dundee.Give a magazine subscription.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.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.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.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.Hugo Macdonald and James Stevens opened Bard, their shop of Scottish craft, on two floors of Scotland's oldest customs building in Leith, Edinburgh.Before the River Clyde was deepened in the 1700s, ships could not reach Glasgow. Where was their cargo unloaded instead?Keny Drew, a stained glass maker based in Crail in Fife, trained as a photographer and now puts screen-printed images into his glass.Some good places to stay, newly added to the site.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.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.The NuckelaveeHave you been to Isle of Lewis?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.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.Guess where this is?Banjo Beale quit his job in advertising in Australia, arrived on the Isle of Mull as a broke backpacker and became a cheesemaker.