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On Tuesday I headed up to the Cairngorms for work. On the way I read a letter in the RSPB Nature's Home magazine from someone recommending bicycle as a way to birdwatch...I agree completely, and went on to hear my first cuckoo of Spring, and several willow warblers, as I rode the Speyside Way (NCN7) between Aviemore and Boat of Garten.

We couldn't dig down into the ground as there were too many roots. We decided to build the pond higher. We used rocks from an area of the Waterworks that used to have old buildings on it.

Last year was paved with the good intentions of completing my John Muir Award. I was to follow in the footsteps of 4 of our adult volunteers who had done theirs through Sustrans' Citizen Science programme. This is part of the Greener Greenways project, part-funded by SNH since 2013, aiming to improve and enhance biodiversity on traffic-free sections of the National Cycle Network. There are about 600 miles of traffic-free NCN in Scotland which often act as green corridors linking up fragmented habitats and, as such, they provide a great arena for people to see and record wildlife. What can I say? I started, I stalled and I have regrouped in 2018 determined to start afresh and to spend the summer discovering, exploring, conserving & sharing the NCN. I will be surveying bumblebees and butterflies, learning new birdsong and flowers, picking up litter, and recording my wildlife sightings as I travel the country supporting our routes volunteers. And I will be telling people about it...here and on Twitter. I started with a butterfly-fest. On the morning of the sunny Bank Holiday Monday, NCN754 along the Union Canal in Edinburgh was awash with newly-emerged Orange-Tip butterflies as we litterpicked along the towpath with Scottish Canals. Feeling my luck was in, I headed straight to the Roseburn Path (NCN1) in Edinburgh for my weekly UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme survey, thinking I'd find them there too. But it's a different habitat, and there was nothing nothing nothing. And then there was this. A Comma. The first one I have seen there in 3 years of surveying, and only the second one I have seen ever. Smuggy McSmugface. Where will the Award take me from here?

John Muir Award staff based at the Glasgow Science Centre had the opportunity to visit The Tower. "It's amazing how gaining a new perspective helps trigger different conversations. How green is our city? Are we making the most of bluespaces such as the River Clyde? Can historical industrial areas re-wild?" 'Sustainable Cities and Communities' is one of The Global Goals.

20/03/18 Peebles we went to Peebles we went to Kailzie gardens and had a walk around a pond and then we went to the dark tunnel for a walk and saw Neidpath Castle on the way back to the mini bus then on the way back to college we stopped at Innerleithen for an Cauldwells ice cream.

Plenty of blossom this year for the early insects.