-
Continue reading →: Conival and Ben More Assynt
Following the inspiring nature trail with Peter and Jeremy the day before, I wanted to get into the hills while the weather was fine and see if I could indeed slow down and enjoy the journey as much as the final destination. So setting my sights northward, I drove the…
-
Continue reading →: Gairloch visit – the nature trail
On Monday 6th May I spent the day with Peter Cunningham and Jeremy Fenton. We walked along a nature trail in the area around Charlestown and An Ard, just south of Gairloch, an area Peter claimed as a biodiversity hotspot in Wester Ross – I was to be in for…
-
Continue reading →: Regeneration
Behind on blog posts, I’ve lots of thoughts from my last week in Gairloch, and will hopefully get them out this week. But in the meantime, excited to be reading this tonight…
-
Continue reading →: Hedgerows
Ten years ago, not long after we moved into the house we currently live in, we cut down a massive hedge in our garden. It was wildly overgrown, and took up around 4-5 ft of garden space, that we needed for swings, slides and children! Today, a pond and river…
-
Continue reading →: Rewilding Scotland
As I contemplate spending next week with Peter Cunningham in Gairloch, who spends much of his time thinking about populations of wild salmon, sea trout and recently herring, I’m drawn to think about rivers and the impact we can have in ensuring a rich depth of biodiversity. I first considered…
-
Continue reading →: The birds, the bumblebees and the butterflies
When planning this sabbatical, one of my key targets was to do something that would bring benefit to the school. I had already envisioned that I could create series of lessons for STEM classes, perhaps using the Merlin app to identify birds in Easter Craiglockhart hill, and chart population changes…
-
Continue reading →: Beinn A’Ghlo and the montane areas of Tayside
Probably the thing my Advanced Higher Physics classes will remember most about their time studying Physics at the highest level in Scottish secondary education is not quantum physics or general relativity, but the excitement of a Wikipedia Speedrun at the end of a busy double period. My son even put…
-
Continue reading →: Butterflies, bees and ID apps
Easter Craiglockhart Hill is very close to Watsons, and is the ideal location to explore our local wildlife with students. I’ve arranged a meetup this coming Wednesday with Jim Heath, chair of FECH, to explore the hill and look at options for how students could get out of the classroom…
-
Continue reading →: Using our ears…
As we walked through the stunning Keukenhof tulip gardens in Holland yesterday, my wife turned to me and said, “Do you hear that? I recognise it!” I had no idea what she was talking about. She got her phone out and checked with her bird listening app. Sure enough, her…
-
Continue reading →: Sabbatical to do list
The plans for the next few months are starting to take shape: