All good things...

I've been blogging now at least once a week for six years and seven months, and this is my 416th blog post here. It's been an exhausting, brilliant and amazing journey, but I've made the very difficult decision that it's time to take a break from blogging for a while.

I began blogging when I was seven because I wanted to share more about the bones I found and the places I explored around my village. When I wrote my very first blog post, which only a couple of people read at the time, I never imagined that I would create something read by thousands of people every week.

 I never ever imagined that it would lead to me appearing on television and in newspapers, that Chris Packham, CBBC Newsround and CBBC Wild would come to my house to film, that I would end up appearing on Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, that I would appear on BBC Breakfast, or spend two hours on BBC Radio Four, or even appear on the BBC alongside Sir David Attenborough. And the most amazing thing of all, though, is definitely my book.

Explaining the mystery of hair ice

In the December of 2009, I wrote one of my first blog posts on something very strange that I found on a walk. It was ice attached to a rotting tree branch, but it looked almost like candy floss and looked very delicate and pretty.

Since I first found this, I have seen them loads more times and finally got to the bottom of the mystery about these strange formations - but I've just realised I never blogged about it ! Since my village is covered in snow and ice at the moment, this seemed the right time to blog about it !

Exploring the abandoned bunker

WARNING: Even by my standards, climbing into a disused, 50 year old flooded underground structure in the remote countryside is a really dangerous idea. But you're probably going to do it anyway, so here's the rules. Never do it alone, always have someone at the top, bring a rope, phone, torch and appropriate footwear, and make sure your tetanus jabs are up to date !

This picture shows a little bit of history hidden away - and one I've been meaning to explore for ages ! In some remote woodland outside my village is a fenced off clearing, where there are three tiny structures. Two are no bigger than a tree stump, and the third looks the size of a sheep trough form a distance. This is a place that was designed to be difficult to find - and also it's a bit of local history you may find near you !

The difference between deer and sheep skulls

Two of the most common skulls  that I find are deer and sheep. There's huge variation in different types of deer and breeds of sheep - but there are some rules which can tell you which are which.

They can look very similar, because they are both herbivores with eyes on the side of their heads. So, I'm going to take you how to tell the difference between the two skulls, even if you only have a small fragment of the skull. In all of this I'm using a red deer skull, as the bigger UK deer (red, sika, fallow) are closer in size to sheep than the smaller deer (such as Chinese Water Deer, muntjac and roe) and fragments can be mistaken for sheep...read on to find out more !

Triceratops at the Ulster Museum

This week's post is partly inspired by Sir David Attenborough and Ben Garrod's one-off TV special, Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur, which is on BBC1 at 6.30pm tonight - don't miss it ! Read about it here. 

I spent Christmas and New Year in Northern Ireland. Belfast is home to one of my favourite museums - the Ulster Museum - which has a particularly cool skeleton of a Triceratops horridus. Triceratops are one of the best known dinosaurs, along with the T-rex, which I wrote about here.

Attenborough And The Giant Dinosaur

Next Sunday, there is a must see programme for bone and dinosaur lovers. Ben Garrod and Sir David Attenborough are two of the most amazing presenters, and now they are doing a TV programme together. It will be called Attenborough And The Giant Dinosaur and it will be on BBC One on Sunday the 24th of January at 6:30pm.

Apart from being a great bit of TV, there is a bit of a personal connection for me. As you probably remember, in December 2014 I was on The One Show with Sir David. It was one of the best moments of my life, as I have always wanted to meet him. When I was on the One Show sofa, they showed a pre-recorded piece of Ben and I analysing bones at Bristol Museum. Ben also presented a brilliant BBC TV series called Secrets of BONES, which I wrote about here, and has been a great inspiration to me (we first met at the Grant Museum in London) .Read on to find out more about the dig !

Mysteries from my inbox

Of the 1,214 emails I received last year, many of them are from people trying to identify bones. This can be tricky - especially as they can be from animals from other countries that I've rarely seen before !

Here are some of the recent ones I've had - many of which have me stumped ! Can you help me out or give me some clues ?