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 ScotlandA large decorated pot about 5,000 years old is being pieced together from sherds found at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney.Sophie Howarth and Sarah Maclaren run Turadh, a retreat for carers at Glenelg in the Highlands, named with the Gaelic word for sun breaking through between showers.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.A clear, dark night is forecast over Dunnottar Castle.Antoine and Elisa, from Brittany and Burgundy, make sea salt on the Isle of Skye using nothing but the sea, sun and wind.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.Before the River Clyde was deepened in the 1700s, ships could not reach Glasgow. Where was their cargo unloaded instead?Shelley Richmond, a photographer in Dervaig on the Isle of Mull, says everyone on the island seems to have at least three jobs.Places to Stay by the Water in ArgyllWojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.the Armistice ended the fighting of the First World War.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 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.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.Ebenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.Ceannabeinne Cottage: An Interview with Sonny and EmiliaDivers in Loch Tay, Perthshire, found a 2,500-year-old house built out over the water, and among its finds was butter made from cow's milk.The Open is coming back to Carnoustie in Angus in 2029, for the first time since 2018.The Old Man of Hoy, the sea stack off the island of Hoy in Orkney, has drawn some remarkable climbers over the years.The Old Forge at Inverie, on the Knoydart peninsula, is billed as the most remote pub on mainland Britain, and no road leads to it.At Skye Weavers in Glendale, every scarf and throw is made on a loom powered by bicycle pedals.The Galloway Hoard, found by a metal detectorist in Dumfries and Galloway in 2014, held silk from Constantinople buried more than a thousand years ago.A dipper was seen in Aberdeen.Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, would not join his family's lighthouse business, yet his poem The Light-Keeper looks out from the lamp room itself.A bronze war trumpet shaped like a boar's head, around 2,000 years old, was found by farm workers draining a bog at Deskford, in Banffshire, in 1816.Which Canadian city takes its name from a beach on the Isle of Mull?The overdraft was invented in Edinburgh in 1728, when the Royal Bank of Scotland let a merchant, William Hog, take out more than he had.Graeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for Hidden Scotland, drove out to Ardnamurchan Lighthouse, near the western tip of the Scottish mainland.In 1911 Henry Alexander took something to the summit of Ben Nevis, above Fort William, and brought it back down again. What was it?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.During the Second World War, the crown of Scotland was buried in a medieval toilet in David's Tower at Edinburgh Castle.True or false: the house in Skyfall, James Bond's family home, was built in Glen Etive.The Edinburgh Festival Fringe began in 1947, when eight theatre groups turned up uninvited to the first Edinburgh International Festival and performed anyway.True or false: The famous 1934 'Surgeon's Photograph' of the Loch Ness Monster is genuine.Rory Dowling, a guitar maker in Fife's East Neuk, named Taran Guitars after the Gaelic word for thunder and a hill on Harris.Shetland, Scotland's northernmost islands, is known for its wild gales at the autumn equinox.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.John Muir, known as the Father of the National Parks in America, was born in Dunbar, a small harbour town in East Lothian.Speyside's Malt Whisky Trail links eight of Scotland's most famous distilleries, with tours and tutored tastings.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.Monkstadt House, near Uig, was once the seat of the MacDonald chiefs, and Bonnie Prince Charlie came ashore on the shore below it.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.Jonny and Daisy Ames, husband-and-wife falconers on the Rothiemurchus estate near Aviemore, let visitors fly their birds, including one of the largest eagles in the world.A paper tree growing out of a book was left, unannounced, at the Scottish Poetry Library in 2011.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.Issue 13 is out now.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.A rock on the shore of Arran helped prove the Earth was far older than 6,000 years.Give a magazine subscription.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.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.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.The Fife Arms, the hotel in Braemar in Aberdeenshire, has an Art Deco cocktail bar with a story behind its name.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.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.Robert Andrew, a photographer and mountain path builder, has photographed his crew for ten years on an old Hasselblad film camera with no batteries to fail in the cold.Discover Borradill with owner and interior designer Claire MookerjeeGuess 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.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.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.Calum Gillies, an artist who grew up on Raasay, off Skye, runs a tiny gallery with his wife Leonie in the island's old telephone exchange.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.Have you been to Isle of Mull?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.