Exploring the shoreline

Last year I went with my family on holiday for a few days on the west coast of England, which is a small country to the south of Scotland. It was a quiet spot, but it was next to the beach and as I live about as far away from the sea as it is possible to get in Scotland, I was hoping to go beach combing and to look at the wildlife.

This year I was back there again for four nights - but this time I had an expert guide in Sophie Bagshaw, who is a pretty cool naturalist herself. We spent most of that time on or near the beach - and this is what I learned and found !

Learning about Tyrannosaurus

I've had a lot of T-Rex action this week. I was planning to write this post anyway, but while I was away on holiday there was this tyrannosaurus skeleton nearby (above), and my brother Sam bought a model of a T-Rex skeleton as well - and I saw Jurassic World at the cinema today ! 

 Tyrannosaurus is the biggy - one of the largest land predators ever known, one of the most studied (because lots of specimens have been found), and the best known dinosaur. Bone evidence is often the only way to understand how they lived - but this week's blog post is about something I've always found a bit weird about them.

Nine great activity ideas for the summer

Summer's here: my school broke up yesterday! (Scottish schools break up before those in the small country to the south of Scotland). I've got a lot of stuff planned for this summer, and I'll blog about those later in the holidays

If you are ever bored and looking for something to do, I have nine great ideas that I'm going to share with you. I have done all of these and they are great fun ways get out with your family during the summer. So here they are....

Nine things I have learned about predation

One of the longest experiments I have done recently was recording the decomposition and predation of a fresh dead roe deer. I began it back at the start of December, then moved my trail camera away at the end of spring. In between, I recorded hours and hours of videos of what happened to the body as it was left in the wood. For the first month, the answer was not very much - but the next two months made up for that !

One warning at the start: I know a lot of children read this blog, so be prepared that this post shows a lot of images of decomposition. None of them are too bad (well, one is a bit), but just be warned before you click on any videos...

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.

A 200th birthday and a surprise visit

My village, Braco is 200 years old this year, and to celebrate I've already written special blog posts this year about Ardoch House, the sawmill, the Ardoch House murder and the Roman Tunnel, with more to come later in the year.

The high point of this year's celebrations was a  street party yesterday , and the unveiling of a special mosaic which is now on the school wall. I've got a little secret contribution to that mosaic, and as well as a massive surprise last night which has given me lots of new skulls to write about !

Braco 200: The complete history of Ardoch House

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that Ardoch House is a massive fascination of mine ! It began because I used to search for bones on the old Ardoch Estate, which is the nearest wood to my village, and I discovered the old ice houses there. After I blogged about that in 2011, Mr Forbes in Canada emailed me, because he had visited the old Ardoch estate in 1984 while researching his family history, found the derelict house, but when he came back in 1989 the house had completely vanished !

 I blogged about the mystery of where it had gone in 2012, and did some more research at RCHAMS shortly after. I also blogged about the old Roman Fort, which was next to the house, and how I found an ancient tunnel, as well as researching the Ardoch House murder. Every time I have done a new post I have had emails from people who have been researching their family history, and found a connection to Ardoch House.

Since then I have done a lot of research through newspaper archives, so I decided to put everything I found in one place, which I will update whenever I find something new. I know it's not bones or wildlife - but I'll be back to that with my next post !

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.

Finding the badgers

For a long time, whenever anyone asked what wildlife lived near me, I always used to say that there were no badgers nearby.  Even though I had often seen badgers dead by the motorway, about 15 miles south of here, I always assumed that there weren't any nearby.

I had asked the local gamekeepers, all of whom denied seeing anything nearby, and I had kept my eyes open but never saw anything even close.  Even after I found the dead badger about a mile from my house, I didn't get much further. It was only in the last few months that I decided to take a closer look...and this is what I found !