Corbetts, Snowdrops and a Talkative Raven

Mark meets Christopher Valentine-Allan who is growing mushrooms for the restaurant market in a repurposed nuclear bunker in Edinburgh. Rachel learns the art of grass whistling with listener Mike Hendry and his sons, 7 year old Innes and 10 year old George. Mark and Rachel are joined by BBC China Correspondent Laura Bicker who has just returned from a trip sailing to Antarctica on the Bark Europa tall ship. Rab Anderson has recently released a fully revised and definitive edition of the Scottish Mountaineering Club’s original guidebook that describes the best walking routes on Scotland’s 222 Corbetts. Mark catches up with Rab near Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh to discuss The Corbetts. The Brechin Buccaneers have won Cricketer magazine’s UK’s Greenest Cricket Ground competition. Rachel chats to Tanya Aldred from the Cricketer and Grant Hutchison from the club. In this week’s podcast excerpt, Mark is near Glen Prosen with Amy Buckley and her Raven called Fable who has a large repertoire of vocalisations. Helen Needham chats to Sarah Morbey an organic farmer in Aberdeenshire who, after growing wheat successfully on her farm, would like to establish a local grain economy for people in her area. Last year, residents in Comrie in Perthshire got together to save thousands of snowdrops which they feared were about to be destroyed by new flood defence work in the area. Now, they plan to make Comrie the first snowdrop village. Rachel meets Andrew Ryalls who has become a bit of a master planter.

You can listen to Corbetts, Snowdrops and a Talkative Raven online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Corbetts, Snowdrops and a Talkative Raven is an episode from Scotland Outdoors by BBC.

This episode is 83:36 long.

This episode was published on Mar 14, 2026.

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