Did you know that you can listen to many of your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds?

Like Desert Island Discs, where you can hear castaways like Cher, Gareth Southgate and Nick Cave,

and enjoy longer versions of the music they've picked.

Good things come to those who don't wait.

Listen to your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds.

Hello and thank you very much for downloading the Scotland Outdoors podcast.

As you can hear the blackbirds singing in the background, they are just thoroughly enjoying

the spring day.

I'm Mark Stephen. He's your Macalbeth Ruth spring day is an odd way of putting it it was 20

degrees last week today it's been snowing it's a mixed bag yeah it was

basically driving in to do this and it was snowing quite heavily it was melting as

since it hit the road those puddles at the side of the, but each puddle was limned with this bright yellow line,

and that was the birch pollen that had fallen on it and then blown to the edges.

Which is great if you don't suffer from a hay fever.

Well, far better on the puddle than me, I reckon.

Now, if you find a new species, you get excited about it.

True. Very rarely happens in Scotland, almost never.

But if you found a new mammal or a new bird, the excitement would be just intense.

Oh, it just it would climb and climb and climb. It would be national news. People would be waving flags.

However...

If it was for fish, maybe not. People don't get too excited about new species of fish.

But Ron Greer, who's a retired fishwised biologist, gets very excited.

...