Five cool mysteries from yesterday's walk

I'm in the last few weeks of my school holiday (Scottish schools go back earlier than English schools), and yesterday I had planned to explore a new wood high on the moors which needed to start with a steep climb up the hill. But as I set off I could see the rain coming in over the hills, and I knew it was going to be a long, exposed walk to the wood, so instead I decided to go back to Suicides Graves, which is a large red deer wood I've explored many times before.

So dad and I went looking for deer and bones and we took a loop through the wood, starting with the south east edge, moving along the south, then cutting back through the middle of the wood to look for frogs. ( I found loads !) On the walk we found five pretty cool mysteries: can you solve them ? (Click on "Click to see the answer" under each one to reveal what it was !)

When roe deer antlers "go back"

When my room was being changed with new display cabinets for my bones in the summer, I moved this skull that had been hidden away on a high shelf, back on top of my display cabinet. It is from a roe buck (male) but is different to how you would think it would look. 

Some bone collectors like to have perfect skulls but I like weird or misshapen skulls as much, because they tell a story of the animals life. Here the nose bones have gone, and the antlers are more bent back than all my other roe buck skulls.  When the antlers are in velvet, they are more soft and can bend because it is not getting enough nutrients, but when they are out of velvet the antlers are hard and can't bend. 

Strange bones #14: Two weird bone pathologies

'Pathology' is the study of what is left behind after death, but scientists also use 'pathology' to describe anything unusual on bones. After writing about my buzzard skeleton last week I went back to look at Storm which is a bird skeleton I collected in 2011 in Suicides Graves Wood. 

When I collected Storm there were black feathers about, so because of that and because of the bone size I guessed it was probably a corvid (crow) but I didn't know what type because the skull was missing.While looking at Storm's skeleton I spotted something unusual which I am going to write about this week, together with another metatarsal which dad picked up on a walk and brought back to show me.

Strange bones #13: the weird skull groove

This is a bit of an unusual post because it's something I can't work out so I need your help !

A couple of weeks ago dad was stalking the red deer in Suicides Graves wood and he found this skull in the valley near what I call Jake's Island. It was an incomplete young adult roe deer buck lying int he grass near the edge of trees, but what was more interesting was this unusual mark on the top of the braincase. What could have caused this ?

Strange bones #12: the mystery metacarpal

This bone might not like a mystery at all if you know a bit about bones. But there are two big mysteries:  what animal is it from, and how did it get there ?

Dad found it two weeks ago when walking in Suicides Graves wood. It was in the south-west corner, maybe quarter a mile away from where I found the red deer calf bones, and it was well inside the wood itself, away from the fields. It is easy to see it is either a metatarsal or metacarpal (which is a lower leg bone) from an animal like a sheep or deer but that doesn't solve the mystery.

The archeological bones, part 1: the puzzles

This is a story that is too big to say in one blog post so I'm going to spread it over three weeks. It all began when I got an email from a bone collector called Jen who lives in Dundee not far from me. She said that she was moving to Africa and she had some old archeological bones and asked if I wanted them because none of the universities did. I said yes, definitely, and about two weeks ago she came round to my house to drop them off before she moved and meet me and see my bone collection.

(This is one of two big sets of bones I was given this summer. The other came from Ric and I am still working through them but I am going to write about them too.)

I have never had archeological bones before and I asked some questions about the bones but probably not enough. She said some of the bones were 1,000 years old. She brought them in a big box and inside the big box there were sandwich bags of different groups of bones.

Ben's theory about the golden eagle

This week's post is different because it's about someone else's work, not mine. When I wrote about my golden eagle skull a few months ago, I wrote that it had two sets of injuries, one on the back of the head and one on underneath the skull. At the time I thought the first injury was caused by a blow, and the second one underneath was caused a different time by a shotgun pellet.

Ben Garrod, who is a zoologist and skeleton articulator wrote on my Facebook fan page that he had a different theory. This post is about his theory and how I tested it.

Strange bones #11: The buzzard skull that wasn't

On Tuesday me and Dad went on a walk in Suicides Graves wood. First of all we went down to the south-east corner where there is sometimes a herd of red deer, but although we saw lots of tracks, we didn't see any deer. Then we worked west through the wood, following red deer tracks and paths, and looking for bones.

We found a lot of bones, including something that was either a lamb or a red deer calf, but nothing worth bringing back. That was until we were at the edge of a clearing when dad spotted this at his feet. We searched around but couldn't find any other bones near it.

The puzzle of the three-legged deer

This might look like a boring collection of bones to you, but it shows something quite strange. These are bones I have known about for a while. I first wrote about the red deer body in May 2010 (the picture is the big one under "the three dead red deer") and it wasn't until a year later that I noticed something strange about the bones and collected them. I called this collection "Yvette" because it was the 25th set of bones and I name them alphabetically.

Strange bones #10 - what is this ?

This is something that is a real mystery - can you help ?

I found this about three weeks ago at the Gleneagles wood (which I wrote about going deer stalking in). We found it under a tree at south east corner of the wood, just by a clearing. When I first saw it I thought it was just a piece of wood and not worth bringing home but dad thought it might be interesting. It's been at home for three weeks now and we still don't know what it is !

Strange bones #10: the zigzag bone

On Friday, Dad was out walking in the wood where I found the mortar bomb to check whether it had been blown up where it was (it hadn't, but it was gone). As he was walking back through some fallen trees he spotted something lying on top of the ground that he had never seen before.

He picked it up and brought it back and this week I am going to write about it.

Strange bones #9: a horribly broken bone

There is a wood on a moor near my house which I started exploring last year. It is difficult to get to, because you need to cross a field, go down into a steep valley cross a stream and up the other side. The wood is on a steep hill, and some of the ground is very wet and soggy making it difficult to get through.  The good thing about this wood is that it has lots and lots of bones in it, no-one goes there apart from me and dad, and it is where I saw my first crossbill.

This week I am going to write about a bone that dad found there last year. It is very weird, and unlike any other bone I have seen.

Strange bones #8: The Autumnwatch mystery !

This is another special post about being filmed for BBC Autumnwatch, and I need your help !

When Chris Packham came to talk to me, he showed me a bone that had been sent in by an Autumnwatch viewer who lived in Warwickshire in England. She didn't know what it was and Chris asked if I could help. It had been found on a farm years ago, and she thought it was maybe from a reptile. He showed me the bone while I was being filmed and it's going to be part of the programme on Friday night.

A trip to RSPB Vane Farm

Last month me Mum Dad and my baby brother Sam went to the RSPB reserve at Vane Farm, which is in Fife in Scotland. We've been RSPB members for over a year but we hadn't gone before. It was a beautiful sunny day and I saw loads of things.

Does anyone know what this is ?

Does anyone know what this is ? I found it yesterday in a new wood I was exploring which is very remote and no-one has been there for years.

Strange bones #7 - the strangest bone yet ?

I've had this bone for ages but it's only been this week when I've worked out exactly what it is. It's the strangest bone I think I have because me and dad couldn't find any other pictures of it at all.

Years ago, me Mum and Dad were in the Pheasant woods, and I think it was the first time we were ever in Duck Skull Valley. Duck Skull Valley is a valley between three sets of woods which is great for watching roe deer in the winter. It has a small lake in the middle, and I was exploring the lake when I found a duck skeleton right next to it with all the bones in a pile.

The shot red deer stag

I found this red deer skull about three months ago. I found it in a poachers pit in Suicides Graves wood.

Poachers are people who shoot deer without permission of the person who owns the land to steal the meat. Sometimes they work during the night so no-one can see them or catch them. Sometimes they shoot the deer with a gun, sometimes they use a crossbow, and sometimes they use big dogs to hunt deer.

My unicorn skulls !

I have two unicorn skulls ! Really !



I found this skull in Titus Well wood. It was the first complete sheep skull I found. When I first saw it, it was upside down and it wasn't until I picked it up I realised it was a sheep. But it only had one horn !

Strange bones #6 - the odd skull

I found this strange bone about a month ago, at the edge of Suicides Graves wood. When I first picked it up, it confused me because of the size. Then I realised it wasn't an entire skull, only half of one, and that helped me work out what it was.

Strange bones #5

This is a bone I found on a walk last week in the Pheasant Woods. It's a very unusual bone. I have found two like it before, and it took a while to work out what they were.

The first time I found this type of bone was on a walk near the geese lakes. In a small wood, I found it next to some other bones, and I kept it because it was unusual. It was in a loop like a small horseshoe that was bent, and the ends had points.