The Spring Equinox and Geese
Mark Stephen and Euan McIlwraith with stories from the great outdoors.
Our midweek Scotland Outdoors podcast guest this week is Kerri Andrews, author of Wanderers, A History of Women Walking. Although there is much literature from throughout history written by men about walking, that doesn’t mean women weren’t keen walkers too, as Kerri explains.
You may associate geese with autumn, the season when they arrive in Scotland from the north to spend the winter here. But although spring is when the geese begin to leave, their departure heralds that longer days are just around the corner and there’s light at the end of the tunnel as Mark tells us.
Plus, we also find out more about geese and the Caerlaverock Wetland Centre near Dumfries that is home to thousands of barnacle geese during the winter months.
Saturday is the spring equinox and Euan brings us a tale from Orkney all about the significance of this point in the year.
And we find out about what is actually happening in the sky on the equinox. Dr William Taylor from the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh joins us live to explain.
Mark is on the final leg of the Formartine and Buchan Way on his bike. He cycles from Maud to Peterhead along the spur of the former railway.
For the past year, presenter and blogger, Pennie Latin, has been keeping a journal of her recovery from breast cancer. Pennie has recorded some of her experience for Out of Doors and this week is the first part of her looking back on the major surgery she had last March.
And this week’s mystery bird has a musical sound to it.