Many different factors conspire to make the Scottish landscape as beautiful as it is, or for making any given walk particularly memorable. The different seasons, the colours, the quality of light, the wildlife, the list goes on. But few prompt walkers to wax quite so lyrical about the benefits of hillwalking as the cloud inversion – those joyous days when the cloud level is so low that the higher ground pokes up through it. Joyous, that is, for the lucky folk standing on the higher ground. For anyone standing on the lower ground it’s another matter entirely. Because in cold…

Scotland’s rugged west coast is, I would suggest, uniformly magnificent. And yet, as you travel through this amazing place there are some locations that rise above even that lofty baseline. Some are famous, most are not. And in the case of the nots, they’re often the kinds of places you unwittingly stumble upon while on your way to see something else. As a case in point, earlier this year I paid my first ever visit to the Isle of Mull. I’d heard plenty in advance about its history, its hills and its geology, so I already had a list of…

Bogs are hard to love. Indeed, if you hear the word ‘bog’ then what might spring to mind, other than the lavatory, is something that grips your boot and refuses to let it go as you step away. Or perhaps you instantly picture a place that is difficult to navigate through on a compass bearing because you can rarely walk in a straight line. Or perhaps, if you’ve ever been unlucky enough to actually fall into a bog, you imagine something that is very smelly indeed. Faced with such bad press it’s not surprising that bogs can be viewed rather…

Spending time outdoors in natural places is universally recognised as being good for both our physical health and our mental well-being. Getting children outdoors and exploring the natural world is in their best interest, but it is also in society’s best interest for a healthy, well-informed, environmentally-aware population. The onus is on parents and educators to try to ‘interpret’ the natural world for our kids, so that they can understand their place within it and recognise how vital its protection is. That can be as cheap and easy as making daisy chains, collecting conkers or blowing on dandelion clocks. Encourage…

The natural world, like the human world, is awash with celebrity. A lists, B lists and everything underneath. It’s entirely imposed upon it by us, of course, and for better or worse it tends to be how conservation works, with some animals and habitats being ‘causes célèbres’ and others being……well…..the opposite. On the one hand we have the animals that tabloid newspapers might describe as ‘sexy’. In Scotland that might be eagles, otters, red deer. The animals that seem to have their own publicity machine to grab headlines, get their images shared on Twitter and generate public interest with relative…

I think it’s safe to say I’m more interested in nature now than I was 15 years ago. That’s when the outdoors went from being my hobby to being my passion. But even before then I had a passing interest in nature, and tended to notice the obvious wildlife on my walks. That interest has since grown exponentially, such that I now also notice the smaller and better camouflaged creatures around me. And yet, in all my years of hillwalking, biking, camping, of being out & about in Scotland’s wild places, there’s one small and camouflaged creature in particular that…

If you had to describe each Scottish season using just one colour, which would you choose? Well, firstly, let’s overlook the fact that every season can feel like October in some years and let’s assume there are the traditional four. Would you perhaps choose the verdant green of grass or trees for summer? The rusty brown of leaves or bracken for autumn? The harsh white of frost or snow for winter? But what about spring? If you had to sum up the season of regrowth in one colour, what would you choose? I’d like to nominate yellow. Not because of…

As you drive the single track road along the Trotternish peninsula’s east coast, you’re probably intermittently snatching glances out to sea or up at the hills. And who could blame you? It’s beautiful! You could therefore be forgiven for not noticing the signs indicating roadside maintenance as you drive through Flodigarry, but there’s no missing the sharp bump and sudden lurch downwards on one side of your car as you pass a certain spot on the road. This short stretch of road is riddled with bumps and cracks because it’s been hit by a landslide. Nothing unusual in that, you…

In the last few weeks we’ve enjoyed (or suffered, depending on your point of view) some colder interludes where the temperature has fallen below freezing. As a result, ice in its various forms has been a conspicuous companion on many of my bike rides and walks this past month. It mightn’t have the hypnotic beauty of falling snow, but there’s something equally beguiling and enchanting about the secretive way ice appears on the ground from out of nowhere. There are too many varieties of ice to do justice to here, so I’m taking a look at a select few of…