Deeside Nature Festival

23-26 May 2025

A celebration of wildlife

Fàilte / Welcome

Welcome to the Deeside Nature Festival 2025, a wonderful amalgamation of local individuals, organisations and businesses drawn together to celebrate the natural heritage of Deeside in the Eastern Cairngorms, and coordinated by us, Wild Discovery.

We are thrilled that our small festival in 2024 is growing arms and legs and the overwhelming positive feedback for an event in 2025 has been very uplifting.

The Deeside Nature Festival is a celebration of nature and an opportunity to connect as many people with the natural world as possible. Those connections may present themselves in a variety of forms from direct observation of wildlife right through to the expression of nature through the arts. We have endeavoured to bring together as large a spectrum of events as possible over the long weekend and hopefully something for everyone.

Our goals are simple:

To connect people with nature
To promote the natural heritage of Deeside
To support rural livelihoods and green initiatives

Dan and Rachael of Wild Discovery with guests

The whole festival is organised in a voluntary capacity and while there may be charges to some of the events hopefully you will agree that this only reflects the value of the expertise and experience you have attended, and knowing that a fundamental aim of the festival is to promote rural livelihoods and green initiatives.

The 2025 festival is still in the developmental phase and we expect to start populating the programme in the new year. In the meantime you can click on the button to see the full programme of events that ran in May 2024.

May 2024 Festival Programme

Do you want to run an event? Click here

If you would like to be involved then you can download our ‘Event Providers’ form using the button or contact us as explore@wild-discovery.com

 
            Event
            Date 
           
        Location 
        Duration 
        Cost 
       
            Programme coming soon
            TBC
          
    TBC 
    TBC 
    TBC

Event Details

Details of the individual events will be listed here in due course. This will include date, time, location, cost (if applicable) and how to book.

Red Squirrels occur throughout the upper Deeside glen

Local Information & Resources

We have many local resources that may be of use to you whilst exploring the Eastern Cairngorms.

The Cairngorms & Aberdeenshire

The festival is located fully within the Cairngorms National Park and for all information relating to the National Park check out their website.

It is also within the county of Aberdeenshire covered by Visit Aberdeenshire.

If you are looking to undertake some independent exploration then we thoroughly recommend the Scottish Ornithologists Club app ‘Where to Watch Birds in Scotland’. It contains a monumental amount of information of specific sites and species and can be downloaded to your smartphone for use in the field. There are 16 sites listed on the app that fall within the geographic remit of the festival so plenty of places to explore!

Ptarmigan on Cairnwell by Dan Brown, Cairngorms

Ptarmigan (c) Dan Brown

Braemar

The Braemar village website is packed full of relevant local information from accommodation options, food and drinks venues including supermarkets and a host of information about local walks, places of interest, events and more.

If you are wanting to explore the local area independently then Braemar has its own nature trail and walking trails. A pamphlet covering these is available from the Visitor Hub which is located in the village mews in a wooden kiosk or downloaded.

Key locations for the festival are:

The Braemar Village Hall

The Braemar Mews

Braemar Duck Pond car park

Braemar Walking Route Leaflet

Ballater

The Ballater village website is an excellent resource for anyone visiting or contemplating staying in the village.

If you are keen to explore the surrounding trails independently then you can access a paths pamphlet online.

Key locations for the festival are:

Tourist Information – Ballater Station

Village Green, Church Square

Ballater Walking Route Leaflet

Aboyne

Information about Aboyne can be found on the Visit Aberdeenshire website site.

Other Useful Information

Getting there and around

Public transport

Deeside is serviced by an arterial road, the A93 which runs from Perth to Aberdeen. This route is also serviced by the 201 bus which runs from Aberdeen to Braemar. The bus timetable can be found here.

The closest train stations are Aberdeen and Stonehaven. The 201 bus can be caught from outside Aberdeen train station to access the upper glen.

Public car parks can be found at the following locations (note, some require payment and although most are set-up to take card payments sometimes they don’t work so it’s worth having some coins with you just in case):

Braemar village centre +*
Mar Lodge Estate, National Trust for Scotland +
Balmoral car park, Crathie
Ballater village centre +*
Aboyne village + (* charging point here)
+public toilet at or adjacent to car park
*electric car charging point

Watching Crossbills at Keilloch with Wild Discovery

Public Toilets

This is a very useful website! https://www.toiletmap.org.uk

Phone Signal

Be prepared! Check if you are likely to have phone signal: https://www.signalchecker.co.uk or https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/mobile-coverage

Other information

Taking part in an event is at your own risk and you must speak to your event operator if you feel there is any situation affecting the safety of those people attending the event.

Please note that we believe that the information provided on the website is correct at the time of writing however we recommend that you check any relevant details prior to arriving.