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March 2018 and another informative video of the Executive Team’s tree planting escapade with Forth Rivers Trust. Stuart (the man with whom you shouldn’t try to shake hands or high five 🤣) explains what we’re doing.

March 2018 and the Beast from the East was still evident in much of the higher ground and the Executive Team were going to plant trees (Alder and Willow to be precise). This was part of a volunteering day with Forth Rivers Trust at Auchtubh (according to my google map!) With other volunteers and Trust staff we carted posts, wire netting and tree saplings to their new homes near the river. It was an absolutely glorious day, with blue skies as far as you could see and lots of fun and laughter (and no high-fiving 😂) as this training video evidences. P.S. if you ever want to purchase a dry voler it’s called a post rammer 😬

Anyone who knows me knows I love dogs! So here are 🐶🐶 + Loch Lomond (Firkin Point) + ☀️ What a magnificent playground 👍🏼

I do love Puffins so while on the Isle of Mull I took a trip to Staffa Island. Some fun, surprising and alarming facts! 1) The name Puffin is thought to come from ‘puff’ 😂 2) The scientific name, Fratercula arctica means "little brother of the north" in Latin. Little brother as in 'little friar' referring to the black and white plumage 😂 3) On average a Puffin catch is around 10 fish per trip but the record in the UK is a whopping 62 fish at once! 😳 4) Most puffins live to at least 20 years old, do not breed until they are 5, lay only 1 egg each year, keep the same mate and use the same burrow as in previous years. And there’s no sexism in the Puffin world; male and female share the duties of incubating the egg and rearing the chick. 😊 5) The greatest natural predator of the puffin is the Great Black-backed Gull. A gull can catch adult puffins in mid-air. 😱 6) Us humans’ over-fishing has caused disaster for Puffin colonies as has our introduction of foxes or rats as Puffins do not have adaptations to avoid them. Puffins choose isolated islands to breed because there are no large predators on the ground to disturb their nesting. Uncontrolled tourism can be harmful to puffin colonies because they need solitude to breed. People who get too close may scare off parents from their duties of feeding their chick. Oh no! I was very close 😳

I’m leaving the beautiful Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park to share a few videos...I don’t think it breaks the John Muir Award rules? 😬 I visited Mull and saw 🐬🐬, 🌊🦅 🦅 and since I wasn’t in any rush I had paused long enough to spot this glistening shelled gastropod! Do you think the word gastropub came from them? 🤷🏻‍♀️ A history of Scotland written in the 1800s describes how snails were used as food items in times of plague 🤢 Slugs are also gastropods...just without shells.

Participating in the #StepCountChallenge has encouraged me to walk to and from work along the NCN7 and the River Leven. There’s such a huge variety of birds swooping and chirping as I walk along. I don’t know all the bird varieties but I’m sure I spotted a bright blue kingfisher speed past me along the embankment. This bird I did recognise...a Heron. Some facts...almost 1m high, a wingspan of almost 2m and about 63,000 birds in the UK. They eat 🐟, baby 🦆, 🐸 and 🦎

Late May and it was warm enough out for the Executive Team to try wild ⛺️ at Loch Chon. I don’t think there are many teams that I have been part of that I feel comfortable enough to let them see me in the morning pre-shower and mussed hair 😲 What fun! Stuart showing me how to put up a tent and lighting a BBQ. Fortunately I did know how to open a bottle of pop 😜 The early morning brought amazing views and sounds of Loch Chon; including very noisy squabbling geese and the start of the midge season.