A Winter Solstice Special

Scotland Outdoors

BBC

Nature, Society & Culture, Science

4.7 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2024

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mark and Rachel are joined by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Professor Catherine Heymans who can tell us what’s actually happening to earth to make the days so short.

Mark finds out whether our garden birds are impacted by the short days, and he also visits the Nature Scot Forvie National Nature Reserve where despite the dark and cold, new life is arriving as seal pups are being born.

While we’re experiencing our shortest day, Antarctica will be marking their Summer Solstice. Rachel chats to Maggie Coll, a wildlife monitor with the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust who manage Port Lockroy. She tells us what conditions are like there and tips to cope with 24-hour daylight.

Joining us in the car park is Professor of Human Geography at University of Edinburgh, Hayden Lorimer. We chat to Hayden about the different ways people have marked the winter solstice throughout time. And we also discuss the best ways to cope with the short days and lack of light.

Our Scotland Outdoors podcast this week features the last instalment of our Kidnapped series. We hear an excerpt as Mark nears the end of his journey along the Stevenson Way.

And Rachel meets storyteller Jackie Ross at the East Aquhorthies Stone Circle near Inverurie to hear some tales of the winter solstice and some superstitions linked to this time of year.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, so I'd like to tell you where you'll find more just like it.
0:05.5	I'm Izzy Lee Poulton, an assistant commissioner for BBC Sounds, which means I'm involved in the whole podcast making process.
0:12.0	Whether that's developing fresh formats or facilitating eye-catching artwork, I helped project manage all the details that make our podcast stand out.
0:19.0	At the BBC, we've got access to storytellers
0:22.0	and experts across a huge range of subjects. It could be psychologists, comedians, celebrities or
0:27.7	journalists. No podcasts or day looks the same here. So no matter what you like, check out BBC
0:33.4	Sounds. There's probably another podcast on there that you're absolutely love.
0:38.1	This Scotland Outdoors podcast with Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart from BBC Radio Scotland.
0:47.9	Hello and thank you very much for choosing to listen to this. As we say every week,
0:51.7	we do a couple of Scotland Outdoors podcasts every week. One of them's based on the live program that we do for BBC Radio Scotland.
0:58.2	And this week we're embracing the dark and looking ahead to the light because this is the winter solstice.
1:06.5	Out of Doors with Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart from BBC Radio Scotland.
1:16.1	It does not matter where you are, whether you're out walking the dog, standing in the kitchen, making a cup of tea, lying in bed even.
1:22.9	Can you feel that?
1:24.2	You feel that shift?
1:25.5	Just in about three hours, Santa's little elves who are currently knocking their pants in
1:30.3	will be the furthest they will ever get this year away from the sun. For this is the winter solstice. Good morning. I'm Mark Stephen. She's Rachel Stewart. Yeah, good morning. And actually the fire feels really appropriate today. Not so much for the heat, but for the light. It's actually burning rather ferociously. Well, you can hear it. I mean, listen, it's, of course, when I step towards it, the wind drops, but I mean, it's like a blast for us this morning. Yeah, it is. And it keeps throwing the sparks in my direction. So it's a bit Oochia boy. Yeah, yeah, aye, aye, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:01.6	But yeah, yeah.
2:02.6	But yep, as we said, it is the winter solstice or midwinter, the shortest day or the longest night,
2:07.6	which means that after today the days will start to get a little longer.
2:10.6	So that takes a wee while to notice, isn't it?
2:12.6	So effectively, to be honest, we're kind of ignoring Christmas this year, and we're going full winter solstice.
	...

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