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Prompted by a bird walk coming up on my local path in Edinburgh, I let some local volunteers know that myself and my colleague, Hannah, would be heading out for a litterpick. It was lovely to be joined by a couple of them after a long time of not getting together because of fluctuating Covid restrictions. We talked hillwalks, wildlife, wassailing, being a TV extra and more, while collecting 12 bags of litter from route 1 over a couple of hours. Hannah and I went back out a few days later to finish off some bits we didn't get to, and picked up another 3 bags' worth, while also having some work chat that otherwise would have had to be online. It's so good to be getting outside more to volunteer and work...it brings good health to us and the routes!

It had been a long two years of anticipation, with postponements and cancellations and, in the end, a tense wait to see if indoor Covid restrictions would be lifted 4 days before the concert date, but the Lost Words Spell Songs finally came to Perth on Friday night and it was worth every second of the wait and more. Spell Songs is a two-album ‘musical evolution’ of the books The Lost Words and The Lost Spells, written by Robert Macfarlane and illustrated by Jackie Morris as a response to nature words being removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. The Spell Songs singers are an ensemble of world-class musicians stretching from Orkney and the Hebrides to Senegal, via Pathhead and Manchester, and their songs are in turn heart-wrenching, beautiful and totally uplifting. Friday’s concert sang us songs of birds - jays, snow buntings, curlews, swallows, skylarks, herons, kingfishers, goldfinches, swifts - and more, while Jackie Morris painted foxes and otters and oak leaves in the background. It was my first return to a big venue, and to live folk music and art since the pandemic started and I wasn’t the only one entirely moved by the whole experience. The next day we heard that the third date in their five-date tour had to be cancelled because of damage to the venue caused by Storm Malik. There’s something tragic about their voices – so strong in support of preserving nature and protecting the environment - being silenced by one of the extreme weather events that are increasing due to human-influenced climate change. At the end of our concert, Kris Drever had said that pre-pandemic he’d thought that his job was to go to different places and play music to people, but had realised over the last two years that it is actually to play music *with* people - I’m so pleased that I was able to be one of them this time.

I reckon I have about 20 more hours to do for my Explorer Award and I have bold intentions to finish it before I take a short career break in April. So it was great to turn over to February on our new calendar yesterday and find this. A daily reminder as I head for the kettle, that I have birds to find!

The last of our bird ID walks was in Edinburgh last Sunday. Our bird ID trainer, Scott, was very excited when I arrived at the meeting point, having just seen a goshawk flying over Haymarket. The sightings carried on with a pair of displaying sparrowhawks as our 12 participants arrived, and in total we totted up 21 species between the start of the Roseburn Path (route 1) and the Ravelston Dykes access ramp. The ramp is always a hotspot for flocks of small birds, and didn’t fail us this time with a group of seven bullfinches, long-tailed tits, siskins prising open the treetops for seeds and greenfinches starting to sing. We also recorded 13 species for the RSPB Birdwatch during the first hour of the walk. When I logged on to work the next day, lots of volunteers had emailed to tell me what they’d seen during their Birdwatch surveys on the National Cycle Network – a flock of 20 redwings, bramblings, kestrels and much more. I hope, for all our participants and volunteers and me, these January outings are just the start of a good year of bird-spotting.

A week or two ago, I joined our Renfrewshire volunteers in Paisley on their weekly litterpick. Every week this group clears a mountain of litter from routes 7 and 75 - so much so, that they would have appeared in a BBC documentary this month if Covid hadn't got in the way. In winter, with the vegetation dieback, it's much easier to see and remove historic litter and that day someone pulled a prize out of the bushes - an 80s Pepsi can! With a pull-tab ringpull and the instruction on the top 'Avoid Litter. Dispose of properly.' Beautiful. And now disposed of properly.

This week we were finding 3D shapes in the woods. We found loads of shapes most were cylinders but we also found lots of other shapes. Very oddly we found a square based pyramid, that was the ladder! Logs, trees and branches where mostly cylinders while rocks and stones where spheres. Some people found rocks that looked like triangular prisms and others found sticks that were irregular shapes. We had a great time in the woods finding 3D shapes!

This week we were having a clean up of the woods we were clearing paths, putting the logs back in the circle and picking up litter. The woods are now so clean, the paths are clear and our seating area is in a perfect circle. It was hard work but worth it!

Been a bit up and down over the last month with staff absences, but today was the first time of getting out with the Kinghorn rowing club at Kinghorn Loch. The youngsters had a great time, and listened intently to the instructions given, There was also a bit of a history lesson, talking about how King Alexander III of Scotland died between Kinghorn and Burntisland. We took a drive past the memorial on our way back to the school. Next week, we will split into groups, with some rowing and some exploring around the loch and the woods. Getting out on the water is a great way to see wildlife and wild places from a different perspective, and the group are excited to see how this experiences progresses.