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Scotland Outdoors

Alpacas, Robins and a Christmas Treasure Hunt

Scotland Outdoors

BBC

Nature, Society & Culture, Science

4.7756 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2025

⏱️ 83 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Farmer Simon Johnson offers tours and experiences with alpacas. Rachel heads to Bowbridge Alpacas in Fife and begins by taking a look at some alpaca babies sheltering from the cold.

It’s National Robin Day on the 21st of December. Mark meets Ian Broadbent in Aberdeenshire to chat about the songbird and its small but mighty reputation.

Rachel joins Dr Andrew Hoolachan in Glasgow, the wettest city in the UK. Andrew explains why it’s important to consider how we live with the rain and shares findings from his report: ‘Living with rain – planning for everyday life in Glasgow.’

Mark takes the Cairngorm Mountain funicular to a windy plateau and examines snow with Mark Diggins of the Scottish Avalanche Information Service. Mark discusses the changing conditions in the Cairngorms.

The Spey Viaduct near Garmouth in Moray has partially collapsed. Rachel visits the bridge with Melanie Newbould of the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust to find out why it is so important to the outdoors community.

Maud Start and Sarah Wann explore the streets of Edinburgh on a festive treasure hunt.

In Sweden, Out of Doors has a counterpart in Naturmorgon, an nature and ecology focused radio programme. Rachel and Mark are joined by one of the presenters, Jenny Berntson Djurvall to discuss how Naturmorgon tells Sweden’s stories.

Mark travels to Fife to meet Johnnie Balfour, who is reducing emissions on his farm by grazing cattle all year round and moving them regularly.

Calum Maclean has been swimming the length of the River Tay, one day per month across 2025. Linda Sinclair kayaks alongside Calum for his final swim of the challenge.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:07.0

Hello, Greg Jenner here, host of You're Dead to Me, the comedy podcast that takes history seriously and then laughs at it.

0:13.4

This Christmas, forget about socks. We've got the best present of all.

0:17.2

Dead people!

0:18.2

All that sounds like zombies. Sorry, it's not zombies. Let me start again.

0:21.8

In our new family-friendly podcast series,

0:24.0

Dead Funny History,

0:25.0

historical figures come back to life

0:26.8

but just long enough to argue with me,

0:28.7

tell their life stories,

0:29.7

and sometimes get on my nerves.

0:31.8

You're dead to me.

0:32.8

Dead Funny History.

0:34.1

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:37.1

This Scotland Outdoors podcast from BBC Radio Scotland.

0:46.8

Hello and thank you very much for choosing to listen to this.

0:49.5

We make a couple of Scotland outdoors podcasts every week and one of them is actually built from the live programme we do

0:54.9

for BBC Radio Scotland which is called Outdoors.

0:58.2

And this week a nod on a wink to the festive season.

1:03.5

This week I was driving into deepest, darkest Aberdeenshire

1:07.5

a place called the Forest of Burst.

1:09.9

And the route I took is through Fington and you you go past a farm, which I think is called Maryfield. And I was there about a month ago. And on the left-hand side of the road, there was high fencing. And behind that, there were free-range turkeys. Lots and lots of free-range turkeys, happily gobbling away, feeding on insects and things.

...

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