The three-antlered deer and other cool finds

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you will know that I've had to be in hospital this week for an emergency appendectomy. (The appendix is a tiny organ whose only purpose in humans is to either do nothing or try to kill you,).  I am out of hospital now and thank you to everyone who left a comment or send me an email.

A week ago, before I went in to hospital, I was out exploring near the pine marten wood. I wanted to see if there were signs of pine martens in the two other woods to the south which are quite isolated. While I didn't find any signs of other pine martens there, I did find a load of other cool bones. Read on to see what I found last week and at other times !

Finding great bones in old ice houses

I was going to write about something else this week, but I had a really good walk yesterday and found some great new bones.

In the village where I live there used to be a big country mansion called Ardoch House in the woods which I call the Pheasant Woods which was built in the early 1700s. It was knocked down about 30 years ago but you can still walk round where it used to be. The house was built before there was electricity or freezers so they used ice houses to keep ice in. Ice house are built near lakes or lochs, and in winter ice was taken from the lake and stored.

Yesterday me and dad were walking through the old estate and we decided to explore the old icehouses and I made some amazing finds.

Four different corvid skulls

Corvids are a family of birds that include all the big black ugly ones, like ravens, crows, jackdaws and rooks, as well as some prettier birds like magpies and jays. These are big powerful birds that can knock buzzards out the sky and kill them, and I heard about a sparrowhawk that was killed by a crow.

There are over 120 species of corvids, but only eight live in the UK. They eat whatever they can find, even meat, but they don't have a hooked beak to rip animals over, so they have to wait until the carcasses are opened up before they can eat. That is why you see so many on motorways to eat the roadkill.

I have five corvid skulls, but two are from the same bird, and this week I am going to write about them.