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#MEJM012 We had a go at Mission:Explore! No 12...Go Barefoot today. We discover how difficult it was walking in bare feet compared to walking in shoes. The stones were cold and it took a lot of practice to balance but we were brave and gave it a go. Some of the rocks were covered in moss which felt good under our toes.

We always keep our eyes open for interesting shapes and this one is a cracker. This is the fierce fenwick river fiend!

The joy of a midweek day off. I'm doing a fiendishly hard jigsaw so I put on the Scotland Outdoors podcast - the episode celebrating International Dawn Chorus Day. In it, I learnt about someone I am astonished never to have heard of - Alexander Wilson. From Paisley, Wilson left for America in 1794, aged 27. From then he started to build up illustrations and studies of birds that would eventually be published as the 9-volume 'American Ornithology', and discovered many new species along the way. It was 13 years later that Audubon started to publish his series 'The Birds of America', which is perhaps now the best known early ornithological work (and the book that has the highest ever sale price in an auction - $8.8million). I've now read more about Wilson, but immediately his story was familiar; born in Scotland, emigrating to America, and spending his life travelling widely, studying nature, befriending a president and leaving a legacy of groups and organisations to help future generations understand and protect the world around us - John Muir was born 25 years after Wilson died, but clearly walked in many of his footsteps. The podcast item was highlighting a new book of Scots poetry inspired by Wilson's drawings and his own Scots poetry - Hamish Macdonald read 'The Specht' about the woodpecker, with a rhythm that kept the jigsaw pieces moving and has stayed with me for the rest of the day. "Wi' a dirl an' a drum in the tapmaist tree wi' a rattle and a dirl and a drum, Chapping awake the springtime day wi' a rattle and a dirl' and a drum, This is the specht, the spottit wudpecker, wi' a rattle and a dirl' and a drum, The rat-a-tat avian Black & Decker wi' a rattle and a dirl' and a drum." I'm sure to recall it next time I hear a woodpecker on the National Cycle Network. What a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

On our morning walks, we have been bringing binoculars and watching the hares in the field. To start with, we saw a leveret, then two big hares playing. We also have a video of them really close up, but I can't put it up... Today we saw a heron by the river, and a deer in a field. I watched it jumping fences and exploring the trees. By Nansie

Spending more time in the shared, tenament garden has encouraged me to look closer at the textures that can be found. Am I the only person who had never seen the lumps and bumps on blades of grass?! Normally insignificant to me, but great crags and mounds for beasties to struggle over.

16.1.19 A week off cycling. Time to clean our walking boots with the help of an ex-service man!

last night me and my dad went on a walk to the end of our 7 acres of woodland and along the stream. And I did it all in bear feet and | got a total of 75 nettle stings and stood on about 6 thistles. And on the way back we saw a dead vole it looked like it had just been killed we think it was a stout. By Meg