Using Google Maps to plan walks

For the last three or four years I have done most of my exploring in the same five woods. Although they are great woods to find bones and watch deer and other animals, they were starting to get a bit boring, so this year I have been trying to find new woods to explore near my house.

I have a customised 1:25,000 scale Ordnance Survey map which is centred on my house, which is amazing and shows all sorts of details. But for exploring in forests, you need satellite pictures as well. Here is why:

The monkfish skull and my new fish skull

This is a skull that I was given almost two years ago by Michael Fox (the one that wrote this book). We  had swapped some other skulls then he sent me this one without telling me what it was. I guessed it was some kind of fish or shark when I first saw it, and then he told me it was a monkfish !

Although I haven't written about it for ages, I thought of it this week because I have been finishing off rotting down the fish I found on this walk in January.

The otter incident

This is a story from two years ago, about an amazing skeleton I almost got and why I didn't and how I almost got into trouble instead.

It began when me and Dad were driving to Glasgow to see Star Wars in Concert (which was awesome) when dad spotted something at the side of the road, about a mile outside the village, next to a bridge that goes over a river.  He wasn't sure what it was, so he pulled over and we went to have a look at it.

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.