Sunflowers, Sea Eagles and Surfing

Available for 29 days

Mark catches up with another of the finalists in BBC Scotland’s Make a Difference Award environmental category. Midlothian Wildflowers started as a small group of people from the Bonnyrigg and Rosewell community carrying out some guerilla gardening. Julia Pennycuik from the group tells Mark how it grew from there and why it’s been nominated for the award. This weekend Grantown on Spey in the Cairngorm National Park becomes Greentown on Spey as an environmental awareness festival is held in the town. Rachel spends some time with one of the groups involved, Wild Tribe Highlands who take children on outdoor adventures in the hope they can build a life-long connection with nature. Culbin Forest on the Moray Firth was one of the locations used recently in Christopher Nolan’s epic film adaptation of The Odyssey. Phil Sime went along to find out that it’s not just a dramatic film location, but also an important home to rare lichens and plants. The recent wildfires in the Cairngorms had a huge impact on the people living in the Glenmore area with initial evacuations and many businesses closed for the duration. The fires also obviously had a huge impact on the flora and fauna, and it will take some time for parts of it to recover. Earlier this week Mark went to meet Dr Sarah Henshall, Head of Conservation with the Cairngorms National Park to hear about how things look now. Balgone Estate in East Lothian grows a rather striking crop at this time of year, sunflowers. But as Rachel hears from general manager Alex Humphreys, they can be quite tricky to get right in our Scottish climate. We chat live to Duncan Orr-Ewing, Head of Species and Land Management with RSPB Scotland about a recent project to satellite tag Sea Eagles in Western Scotland to investigate how the eagles interact with livestock. Our Scotland Outdoors podcast this week features Mark’s trip inside the Tay Road Bridge as it marks its 60th anniversary. We hear an excerpt of him exploring the engineering of the impressive structure. And Rachel meets up with a group of Aberdeen surfers. Wavy Quines is a female only surfing group who tell Rachel about how they got started and try to show her the art of surfing on Aberdeen beach!