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Keep Scotland Beautiful's Spring Clean campaign is always a time to mobilise volunteers on the National Cycle Network - the vegetation is yet to go wild, the weather is improving and people are coming out of any winter hibernation. We have about 10 litterpicks happening for Spring Clean this year, in Edinburgh, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, and are collecting a phenomenal amount of rubbish from the routes and removing it from the habitats of the wildlife that lives there. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered at any of them.

I went to see the Birds of America exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland last week. It was fantastic. It told the story of one of the world's most famous and valuable books - John James Audubon's Birds of America, a four-volume series of illustrations of 469 bird species of North America from the 19th century. It referenced his interactions with Scottish naturalist, Alexander Wilson, as well as his time in Edinburgh, which allowed him to achieve publication of the series through the people he met here. There were wild turkey families, mockingbirds fighting off snakes, and the magnificent - and possibly imagined - Bird of Washington. All in life-size and carefully restored. It made me think about the ways people choose to share their knowledge and experience of the wildlife around them and what they are discovering. Very John Muir Award! The prints are extremely light-sensitive so will be returned to dark storage drawers after the exhibition. I feel lucky to have seen them.

Picture one is of a recent picture I took of tadpoles I'm raising to be froglets that picture was taken today 6/04/22 the other 3 were taken on 3/04/22 a few days after I got them home, but as you can see they've grown a lot in just 3 days their gills have gone they are more tadpole shape and a lot more active. What I have noticed in the tadpoles now is that they come to the surface to make bubbles and pushes them to the side of where ever they happen to be and to do that they actually swim upside down and sort of try to breath a single breath into a bubble. I have no clue why they are doing that but this is the greatest thing about learning is that I can study them and come up with a hypothesis of why they do that behaviour and see previous studies to see if I'm correct

Today, we started planting different flower seeds for our Bee Bed. We started off by mixing compost for our plant pots. We chose bee-friendly flowers such as borage, scabious and sunflowers. We put them in the farm greenhouse and watered them well. We will keep nurturing them each week and watch them grow!

Once we had collected our logs and created the log piles we started with the planting. It was great to see the variety of plants that have been grown from seed in the Flower Power Poly Tunnel. We had Celandine that were already bursting into their bright yellow flowers while the foxgloves we planted were small but mighty with the potential to climb high into the sky over the coming months! Add to this the Wood Avens and Primrose and we are sure to see colour bursting into this area in the near future. We talked and shared our ideas and thought it was very 'cool' that the visitors to the Burrell not only had amazing things to look at inside the collection but also as they look out into the woodland and beyond for years to come.

There were new constructions going up everywhere today and we don't mean the the newly refurbished Burrell! Today would see us constructing first class accomodation for mini beasts and small mammals to whom the woodland floor is their home. Working with Senior Countryside Ranger Allison Greig and Countryside Ranger Fiona we talked as we worked learning about how the log piles we were created would provide safety, shelter and all round great habitats for the woodland creatures. We dressed the area with wild flowers that would look great for the people looking out from the Burrell while also making a huge contribution to our pollinator friends!

The Elderbank Explorers are famous! A fantastic article in the local newspaper The Irvine Herald. The report is about The Explorers and their Litter pick adventure with the Irvine Clean Up Crew and The Family Learning Team. Here is what they printed. Youngsters from Elderbank Primary School’s explorers group have been out and about over the last week, collecting 14 bags of litter on their recent pick around the town. The group received help from Irvine Clean Up Crew, which was much appreciated. This work was completed as part of their efforts in the John Muir Family Award – ran by the John Muir Trust. This is a community focused conservation charity dedicated to the experience, protection and repair of wild places across the UK. This award offers an opportunity for families or organisations to work towards a shared goal, helping improve parent-child and inter-generational relation-ships, boost confidence and simply enjoy spending time together outdoors.