Winter in the Hills, Willow and Puddles
Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart with stories from the great outdoors.
Mark meets up with member of the Braemar Mountain Rescue Team, Bill Dallas, to chat about the things you need to think about before heading to the hills in winter.
The Robert Gordon University campus in Aberdeen sits on the North side of the River Dee. On the opposite side of the river, the university owns around 60 acres of former farmland. Laura Guthrie hears about their plans to turn it into a nature reserve.
In our most recent Scotland Outdoors podcast, Helen Needham met up with herbologist Catherine Conway-Payne at the physic garden at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. She tells Helen about some of the interesting uses for plants involved in green pharmacy.
The Scottish ski season is well underway, and Mark heads for the chair lift at Glenshee to find out what conditions there have been like and how many people have been taking to the slopes.
Maud Start is in Culross hearing about how the community there looks after one of the oldest harbours in Scotland.
Is there an upside to the recent wet weather we鈥檝e been having in the form of puddles? We hear from Dr Mike Jeffries from Northumbria University about what kinds of things make their homes in puddles and why they are import for ecology.
For the last couple of weeks, a group of volunteers and makers have been busy harvesting willow by hand in a field near Forres. Rachel went along to see them hard at work and find out what kinds of things can be made from this versatile material.
Rachel explores the East Wemyss caves where recent storms have led to an interesting discovery.