Is this a pine marten on my trail camera ?

As you know, I've been filming with my trail camera for about a year now. I got this video last night, with my camera which is filming a spot just outside an overgrown disused graveyard in the middle of a wood. But it isn't clear and I need some help working out what it shows ! 

Keep a close eye on the bottom of the wall on the left. Is that a pine marten ? You can hear something as well, but it's very indistinct, so you'll have to turn your sound up. 

Watching the salmon run

The salmon run is one of the most amazing things to see. I'm lucky because at this time of year  you can watch the salmon migrating back up the river that flows through my village. But how can you see salmon swimming up a river ? Because they jump right out of the water to climb up waterfalls !

I was busy for a lot of last week (the second week of my half term) so I didn't get to go up the river to look for them until Saturday. There had been heavy rain the night before, and the current in the river was much higher than normal, and this is what I found when Dad and I walked up.

Congratulations to the "Secrets of Bones" team !

Big congratulations to Ben Garrod and all of the team who worked on "Secrets of Bones" ! Last night, after I flew back to Edinburgh from SOMETHING COOL I CAN'T TELL YOU ABOUT YET, I heard that "Secrets of Bones" had won the award in the presenter-led category at the Wildscreen Festivals.

I've known Ben through email and Twitter for ages, and we met when I was down in London last summer. I blogged about Secrets of Bones throughout the series, did an interview with him at the time, and who knows, we might end up doing something in the future. You never know !

The other thing I have learned from doing TV work this year is how much of a team effort it is, and how many really skilled people it takes to direct, plan, produce, film and do the sound for TV. I know one of the team who worked on "Secrets of Bones" (Abi) because she also was on the CBBC Wild crew who filmed me.

Congratulations to the whole team !

My guest post on Cathy Cassidy's blog

When I was giving a talk in Bath two weeks ago for the Bath Children's Literature Festival  I met the author Cathy Cassidy who was giving a talk at the same time as me. Mrs Cassidy is the author of 25 pretty amazing books mainly for young teenage readers.

She asked me if I'd like to do a guest post on her website about becoming a published author at a young age, and I was really happy to say yes. You can find it here on "Cathy Cassidy: Dreamcatcher"

Searching for the red deer rut

The rut is the one most amazing wildlife events in Britain. It is when the red deer stags (males) round up the female red deer (hinds) for mating, and fight over them with other stags. The stags actually change shape slightly at this time of year and grow a thick neck mane, and you can hear roaring in the woods from miles away.

The rut is also one of the scariest times to be out in the woods when you at in a dark wood at twilight and hear strange roaring from both sides of you, or - and this happened to me yesterday - when you see a huge angry stag roaring and coming towards you, armed with a massive set of 10-point antlers. Read on if you want to know what happened next !

Bath and back

So: Bath was amazing. It was something I had been looking forward to since April, when I was first asked to give a talk at the Bath Children's Literature Festival. I've given talks about my book and about my bones before, but this one was definitely the most enjoyable one I have given so far.

Giving talks is amazing and scary all at the same time. You get to meet  a lot of really great people who are interested in wildlife and bones, and who either enjoyed my book or who are looking forward to reading it. The scary bit comes from having to prepare for it, wondering if people will turn up, and wondering if you'll remember everything you'd like to say !

My whale vertebra

This is a shorter than normal post than I normally write for this week, because I've been preparing for my talk at the Bath Childrens' Literature Festival tomorrow (I'm actually writing this post from my hotel in England). So I thought I'd write a quick post about a very interesting bone I was given.

It was a gift from the man who runs the village shop, who found it in Oban, on the west coast of Scotland, when he was about my age. I live about as far away from the coast as it is possible to get in Scotland, so I'm always excited by bones from sea birds and mammals. This one is particularly interesting, and is so massive it has to go on top of my display cabinets with my cow and pig skulls.