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Argyll and Bute, From the archive

Wildlife days
in Scotland.

It’s 20:54 in Scotland.
Where in Scotland?
Wildlife

Where in Scotland?

Choose a part of Scotland to see its wildlife days, or scroll on for them all.

Aberdeenshire→
Isle of Skye→
Wildlife day of the day20 hours ago

Wildlife & The Lookout.

Aberdeenshire.

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Did you know19 hours ago

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 wall, or sheep dyke, went up in 1832 as part of the island's answer to the collapse of the kelp trade. It kept the sheep out of the fields and crofts and down on the shore, and it runs for 19 kilometres right round the coast, 1.8 metres high. The sheep graze as the tide goes out and the seaweed is uncovered, then chew the cud when the water comes back in. Only the lambs are born on the grass, between February and May. The breed is an old one, too: DNA from sheep remains at Skara Brae, dated to around 3000 BC, has shown a very close match.

See North Ronaldsay · Orkney
Quiz19 hours ago

In 1911 Henry Alexander took something to the summit of Ben Nevis, above Fort William, and brought it back down again. What was it?

Did you know18 hours ago

On the Isle of Canna in the Small Isles, the northern lights are often seen, and the islanders have named four places to watch the night sky.

The four are Coroghan Beach, the Sheep Fank and Tarbert, Sanday Beach, and St Edward's Church. The Milky Way is a common sight, even on late summer evenings. The community is applying to become a Dark Sky Sanctuary, and has bought equipment to run star-gazing tours. To see any of it, plan to stay the night on the island.

From the magazine18 hours ago

The Moray Coast Trail runs 50 miles from Findhorn to Cullen, along a shore once named among the world's most beautiful by National Geographic.

This long-distance walk snakes along the shoreline from one end of the coast to the other, taking in cliffs, beaches, caves, coves and fishing villages on the way. It makes the perfect showcase for the Moray coast, with its pale sandy beaches, rugged cliffs and characterful little fishing villages. You can walk the whole trail, or simply pick a stretch for a day out with a flask. At its eastern end, Cullen makes a fine place to finish, a former royal burgh by the sea with a looming eight-arched viaduct.

Read the full story in Issue 9
This season17 hours agoPerthshireGleneaglesWalkAberdeenshireTullynessle Deer FarmActivityIsle of SkyeStalkingActivityLochaberRed Deer StalkingActivityLoch LomondStalking ExperienceActivityPerthshireClay target shooting at GleneaglesActivity

The rut is on.

October on the hill: the stags roaring at first light, and the people who can take you to hear it.

See the wildlife days
Did you know17 hours ago

From Glenmore in the Cairngorms, the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd's hill trip ends with a short session of feeding the reindeer by hand.

A herder leads the way on a walk of 20 to 40 minutes, depending on the time of year, until the group stands right among the herd, within a metre of the animals. Apart from the hand-feeding, the reindeer keep their personal space and do not like being stroked. From February to April the walk is steeper and trickier, and children under four cannot come. Dogs stay at home: to a reindeer they look like wolves.

See Cairngorm Reindeer Centre · Cairngorms
From Issue 3 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 316 hours ago

Turning Point: Traveller’s Tales to Cape Wrath

Photographer Richard Gaston's 240-mile walk from Fort William to Cape Wrath, two and a half weeks through glens, bogs and remote beaches to the north-west tip of the mainland.

Read the story
True or false16 hours ago

True or false: badgers hibernate through the winter.

From the magazine15 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

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.

Hamza, a Sudanese-British cameraman and presenter, was working on Wild Isles, the series presented by Sir David Attenborough. Only 20 pairs of golden eagles in the UK nest in trees, all of them in Scotland, and one of those pairs lives on the estate. While the birds gathered material for their nest, Hamza spent countless hours scanning the treetops through binoculars. After several days, a lot of caffeine and some methodical searching, the nest was found: a large eyrie, 1.5 metres deep, high in a Scots pine in a remote corner of the estate. That spring the female laid two eggs, and both chicks hatched.

Read the full story in Issue 06
Did you know15 hours ago

The Old Man of Storr drew 293,000 walkers in 2024, and the money from its car park now goes back into local roads.

Visitor numbers rose by 43 per cent between 2022 and 2024. To cope, the Highland Council opened Ionad an Stòir, the Storr Centre, in July 2024, with parking, toilets and a shop at the foot of the path. In its first year the site made a surplus of £450,296 after costs, and that money has gone into roads across the area.

See The Old Man of Storr · Isle of Skye
Did you know14 hours ago

A red-necked phalarope tagged on Fetlar, in Shetland, in 2012 turned out to spend the winter in the Pacific Ocean off Peru, a round trip of 16,000 miles.

The bird, smaller than a starling, flew from Shetland across the Atlantic, down the east coast of the United States, over the Caribbean and Mexico and out into the Pacific, then came home by a similar route. It is one of the UK's rarest breeding birds, with between 15 and 50 nesting males. Phalaropes turn family life round too: the brightly coloured female courts the male, and he sits on the eggs and raises the young.

Read about it