Kelvingrove Museum's fundraising appeal

The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow is my favourite museum. I've been going there for as long as I can remember, and it's full of great art and hosts more then 8,000 exhibits in a beautiful old building just out of the centre of Glasgow. It's always in the top three free (all public museums are free in Scotland) visitor attractions in Scotland, and I've blogged about visiting it last year, as well as blogging about one of its dinosaur exhibits.

That's why I was delighted to help them out with their fundraising appeal to revamp the West Court in the museum - one of my favourite spaces, full of fantastic natural history exhibits, skeletons, and topped off with a suspended Spitfire flying through the gallery. This is how I was helping out with the publicity yesterday - and why I hope it will help raise £10,000 towards putting new exhibits on show ! Read on to find out more about my day, and how you can help...

I'm on BBC Radio Scotland again on Friday

A very quick post: I'm featured on BBC Radio Scotland's "Out For The Weekend" programme, which will be on tomorrow (Friday) between 2 and 4pm. The whole programme is great to listen to, but my piece will be in the second hour of the programme. It was recorded last Thursday when BBC producer Helen and her son Rasmus (seen in the picture above) came out on a walk with me to find bones. Rasmus is age nine but already has an fascination with bones and is a pretty good naturalist himself.

I was also featured last week in The Big Issue, where I  wrote about how important it is to look for bones, and what you can tell you about the nature around you. It's now up on the Big Issue website here.

Newsround, Radio 4 and the Hunterian

Since I was named as one of the most influential conservationists by BBC Wildlife Magazine I've been incredibly busy with media things. This last week is probably the last of the main appearances for a bit, but what a week it's been !

On Tuesday CBBC Newsround ran a piece about me that they filmed the week before, and yesterday morning I was live on  BBC Radio 4's on Saturday Live programme with Reginald D Hunter, Andre Anderson and Juliet Russell - after which I met up with my editor Jo and Paolo Viscardi, who was the scientific advisor on my book ! This is how it went....

Where you can find me this week....

I've got another busy week coming up this week, and this is where you can find me....

• I was filmed for Newsround last week, talking about BBC Wildlife Power List and showing the amazing Martin Dougan where to find bones. That is set to go out on Wednesday at 4.20pm on CBBC (but might change !)

• I'm on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live programme on Saturday at 9.00am. I'll be in the studio at Broadcasting House ( where I was last there for The One Show, just before Christmas).

• Next Monday A week on Monday I'll have a piece about exploring for bones for the Big Issue's "Pause" column - I think it's in all the UK editions, but will have to check to make sure.

• And I've got two big talks coming up; one in England in August and one in Scotland in October . I'll post about those nearer the time !

I'll probably do a quick behind the scenes blog post about Newsround and Radio 4 next week, as well as links to watch/listen to the programmes.

Two big BBC appearances

As you'll know from my last three posts, I had a pretty busy week with doing media things last week. It began with being included on the BBC Wildlife Magazine power list, and I was featured in all sorts of newspapers because of that, then my book was shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People's Book Award, which brought more publicity as well.

During the week I got two calls, one from BBC Radio Scotland in Glasgow, and one from the BBC Breakfast programme in Manchester. I was happy to agree to both, and this is week's post about what it was like to be behind the scenes there !

My brilliant news, part three....

Okay, this has been one of the busiest weeks I can remember...I'm even in The Times today (Scottish edition and website)....and to end it, tomorrow (Sunday) morning I'll be on the sofa at the BBC Breakfast studio in Manchester, talking about bone collecting, being on the BBC Wildlife Power List, and about how it feels to have my book shortlisted for the Royal Society Young Person's Book Award !

I'm pretty excited about that. I'll be tweeting while I am down in England (a small country to the south of Scotland) and next week I'll be blogging about what that was like as well as what it was like behind the scenes with my interview with Kaye Adams on BBC Radio Scotland earlier this week ! 

My brilliant news part two...

This seems to be the week where everything is happening. I've known about this news for a few weeks, but it had to be kept quiet until it was officially announced !

Anyway - I am SO proud that my book has been shortlisted as one of the six contenders in the running for the 2015 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize, awarded annually to the best science book for children aged up to 14. (That is, books aimed at people up to 14, not written by them, although mine is both)

The winning book will be chosen by groups of young people from over 100 schools and youth groups across the UK, and will be announced at a dinner in London in November. It's a huge achievement just to be on the shortlist, and it shows how amazing my editor Jo Bourne and publisher Octopus are. Here's the full shortlist.... and I have one more bit of great news this week, and I will announce that in the next few days !

My brilliant news, part one....

Sooo....it's been a busy week !

I did say last week that I had some news to announce: I'm in the BBC Wildlife Magazine's "Power List" of the most influential conservationists. I'm ranked at #40, which is a bit of a surprise since I'm not even one of the top 40 most influential people even in my own house, but thank you to everyone at  BBC Wildlife Magazine for including me, and for the panel of experts for choosing me as well ! And a big congratulations to the other brilliant teenagers Findlay Wilde and Georgia Locock who are on the list - they are both amazing naturalists and bloggers.

I'm appearing tomorrow (Thursday) on BBC Radio Scotland to talk about this with Kaye Adams at 11.30am, which I'm really looking forward to. My second bit of news probably won't be announced until a bit later in the week, possibly even at the weekend. But here's some of the news coverage from this week !

The One Show, and meeting Sir David

As most of you will know, this has been quite an amazing week for me, because a film I shot with Ben Garrod at Bristol Museum earlier this year was being shown on BBC1's The One Show - and not only that, but also I was invited down to the studio to appear live on the sofa with Sir David Attenborough !

I know a lot of my readers are outside the UK, so it's worth saying that The One Show is a very big show over here: it goes out live from Broadcasting House in London at 7pm on BBC1 every weekday, and is watched by about 5.2million people (or about the whole population of Scotland !) The One Show had made all my travel arrangements for me, so this is how my day went !

Filming a bone mystery for The One Show

BBC presenter Ben Garrod and I had been talking for a while about maybe doing something together, and earlier this year we finally got the chance with a piece being shown on tonight's The One Show (BBC1 at 7pm !)....AND.... I'm going to be live in the studio  with Sir David Attenborough (one of my heroes !) to discuss the clip  !

I love bone mysteries, and the one in Bristol was a brilliant one. During WW2, Bristol Museum was bombed, and when the damage was being cleaned up, bones were just thrown together in whatever box came to hand. Now, 70 years later, one of these boxes were being opened by curator Bonnie Griffin, and Ben and I were on hand to work out what was in there !

Look out for me on The One Show tonight !

Okay, so a MASSIVE announcement ! Watch The One Show on BBC1 at 7pm tonight (Monday) to see me, bone expert Ben Garrod and curator Bonnie Griffin investigating an 70-year old bone mystery at Bristol Museum. And I'll be in the studio live afterwards to talk about bones with the amazing Sir David Attenborough !

I'm travelling down from Scotland to BBC Broadcasting House in London for the live show, but I'll be tweeting as I travel. At 7pm there will be a blog post here about the behind the scenes filming, and later in the week I'll blog about what it was like at the One Show studio meeting Sir David.

Behind the scenes filming on CBBC WIld

So...as I revealed earlier in the week, at 9am today my piece on CBBC Wild will be broadcast. I haven't yet seen the final version, so I hope you like it ! It all began a couple of months ago when a friend on Twitter sent me a tweet saying that the CBBC (children's BBC, if you're outside the UK) wildlife show were looking for young naturalists, and suggested I put my name forward. I've been on TV before (most recently on Winterwatch this year) and it sounded interesting, especially if it got more people my age interested in bone collecting. 

I got an email back saying that I was already well known at the BBC's Natural History Unit in Bristol (where most of the wildlife programmes are based, including Winter/Spring/Autumnwatch, and Ben Garrod's Secrets of Bones), and  I'm not sure what the exact selection process was, but a few weeks after that my parents got a call to arrange a date for filming. There were lots of forms to fill out, and the BBC got permission to film in one of the woods around my village, then in the middle of August, at 9am, the three person crew of Ruth, Abi and Steven arrived !

Look out for me on CBBC Wild this Saturday !

So my news for this week is that I'm appearing on the first episode of the new series of CBBC Wild this Saturday ! It's on at 9am on the CBBC Channel, and my bit is one of the weekly segments about young naturalists.

I spent two days filming with Wild last month at my home and the woods around it. I've done filming before, but it was really exciting going out with the crew and narrating a typical day for me. I was filmed finding two skeletons, cleaning bones, working with my trail camera, rearticulating part of a skeleton, and laying out Roger (the skeleton I blogged about last week).

Today I met Prince William and Kate

So, I don't know you what you did today, but today I presented my book to Prince William and Kate, the Earl and Countess of Strathearn...

It's been a secret I've been keeping for about two weeks when I was first asked to do it. Prince William is the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, and is second in line to the throne. In England they are called the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, but in Scotland their title is the Earl and Countess of Strathearn, and Strathearn is where I live. They were visiting around Crieff today, and my school was their first engagement, and when I would get to meet them. !

I'm featured in the Telegraph magazine today

I did an interview in January for the Telegraph Magazine as part of an article on child bloggers and it's finally been published today. It is a lot like the piece I was featured in for The Times in August. I am one of five bloggers featured. You can see it here online.

Like the Times one, I have good and bad thoughts about it. It's great to be featured, but there were mistakes in the article. Most importantly I don't have a bald eagle skull (underlined for anyone involved with CITES). I do have a golden eagle skull, and I went to a LOT of effort to make sure I was allowed to keep it by law.

I don't live in Perth (which is a city, I live in Perth and Kinross, which is a county), I don't know why Professor Black was researching furcula so I don't know whether it was part of a 15 year old murder investigation - the murder thing was just what Professor Black had been doing when I did the interview, and the thing I said about Jenson Button was really about when bone experts like Professor Black visit my blog.

I'm in The Times today (with a video) !

This weekend is a special weekend because I'm in The Times Weekend supplement today ! Today I'm going to write about what it was like to be photographed (together with a video of it !) and tomorrow morning I'm going to write about another post my advice to other kids that want to start blogging.

It all began when I got an email from the journalist Anna Moore who said she wanted to write a piece about child bloggers. She phoned about a week later and did an interview and asked me questions about when did I start and why did I start. Then the next week a photographer came to take the photographs. Here's a timelapse video of the whole photoshoot from start to finish:

The bomb story is in the newspapers ! (Updated)

The story about the world war II bomb was in the newspapers this morning. You can read it in the Scottish Sun, the Scottish Daily Mail and on the Sun website ! Thanks to journalist George !

UPDATE: It was also in the Perthshire Advertiser ! See the newspaper pieces below.

Remember I'm on Autumnwatch tonight ! (Updated)

Updated ! -  I've added the piece from the Perthshire Advertiser and the video of my clip from Autumnwatch below !

Remember tonight I'm on Autumnwatch ! It was planned to be on the Autumnwatch Unsprung, but now I'm on the main one on BBC1 at 8.30pm ! If you missed it you can watch it on iPlayer at this page (my bit is at about 46 minutes in)  watch it below !

Today I was filmed for BBC Autumnwatch !

For the last week I have been keeping a big secret, but now I can tell everyone. I am going to be on one of the BBC Autumnwatch Live programmes ! It was filmed today at my house with the main presenter Chris Packham.

One of the Autumnwatch producers emailed me about three weeks ago asking if I wanted to go on and asking me a bit more about my bone collection. Then last week it was decided that it was definitely going to happen. This morning when I woke up I felt really nervous and excited. I was excited because it is exciting to go on TV but I was nervous because it can be difficult and scary getting filmed. Last night I sent a message on Twitter to Chris Packham and he replied and said nice things about my blog so that helped too. 

I'm in the newspaper again!

Yesterday I was in my local paper, the Perthshire Advertiser, with a story about when I got the VIP trip to Perth Museum. I only found out when I came home from school at lunchtime today and it was a nice surprise and I think I look good in the paper.