大象传媒

Mark visits the Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve in the Highlands, where a community deer-stalking scheme has just reached its first anniversary. He hears from reserve manager, Rory Richardson, about how successful it has been and meets one of the locals who has taken advantage of being able to shoot deer on the reserve for his own consumption.

At the end of last month, a tree in Lochaber known as the Skipinnish Oak was named UK Tree of the Year in the Woodland Trust鈥檚 annual competition. Experts had no idea it existed until 2009, despite it potentially being around 1,000 years old. Rachel went to visit the tree and chatted to Andrew Stevenson from the tree鈥檚 namesake, the band Skipinnish, and heard about his connection to the oak which goes back to his childhood.

Despite the days getting shorter, users of part of National Cycle Network Route 7 along the River Irvine in Ayrshire have seen their walk, jog or cycle brightened up recently. Paul English went along to find out how a collaborative project between the charity Sustrans, designers Bespoke Atelier and arts charity Impact Arts has transformed a gloomy underpass.

For 20 years Laggan Wolftrax near Newtonmore has been home to some of the best mountain-biking trails in Scotland. As it celebrates its anniversary, Mark headed out for a ride with Cristian Pizarro from the Laggan Forest Trust to hear about how it all got started and how it has grown over the last two decades.

We鈥檙e joined live by Douglas Barr, one of the directors of the Fair Isle Bird Observatory Trust. The Trust is preparing for the reopening of the world famous bird observatory in spring next year after it was rebuilt following a fire in 2019. We hear about the jobs on offer at the site and how this season has been so far for the different birds that visit Fair Isle.

Grass Roots Remedies is a co-operative based in Edinburgh that aims to promote herbal community healthcare and ecologically responsible herbalism. Rachel hears how they successfully set up a community herbal clinic in Wester Hailes in Edinburgh as well as some of the uses for Sea Buckthorn.

Our Scotland Outdoors podcast this week comes from an archive programme made in 2012 about the Stevenson Way. Starting on the Island of Erraid, just off Mull, it follows the journey taken by David Balfour, the main protagonist in Robert Louis Stevenson鈥檚 novel Kidnapped. We hear an excerpt of Mark heading out on a sailing boat from Fionnphort on Mull aiming for Erraid.