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The photos show two different stages in the life cycle of the same fungus - Coral spot. The light pink blobs grow in spring/early summer and are then replaced by hard, dark red growths that will survive through winter. Classed as a plant pathogen, coral spot is usually too weak to infect healthy trees and tends to be found on damaged or previously infected branches.

Yet another fungi...

Yesterday was Tree Day so I spent the day at the Centre for Wildlife Gardening hanging out with Hamish the cat, doodling on wood with pyropens and using a saw and axe to make a mallet out of holly wood!

Another great day was spent planting trees in Sligachan as part of our conservation phase of the John Muir Award. We managed to plant 100 trees, in a variety of species, including birch, ash and hawthorn. Cathryn taught us how to screef the ground to make a suitable patch for planting a tree. We then dug holes, planted the trees and secured biodegradable tree guards around them.

We have been collecting different leaves and using them to identify the trees we have on our school grounds. We have used an app on the iPad called 'British Trees' by the Woodland Trust. There are several questions to answer where we have to identify the colour, shapes, pattern and various features of the leaves. The app will then tell us the correct tree (if we answered the questions correctly!) SO far we have found oak leaves, maple leaves and cherry tree leaves. We plan to learn more about these specific trees and map them out on our school grounds.

We have been identifying trees by their leaf shape and have also read the book ' Leaf Man' by Lois Ehlert. The book gave us some ideas to make our own pictures out of different leaves and using other natural objects such as acorns, sticks and sycamore seeds. Some of us have been matching the leaves we found and some of us have been learning the names of the trees they are from. All of us have been creative and have made pictures using leaves of different shapes, sizes and colours.

Whilst we were checking up on our hedgehog after it's rescue...we decided to go off the path and wander through the woods looking for the hedgehog. We did not find it but we did find a small den that must have been made by an animal, not a human. We discussed what could possibly make this and decided that it could be a hedgehog den so we decided to leave it in peace in case there were sleeping hedgehogs inside it. This spontaneous mini-adventure made us more aware of hibernating animals and the importance of looking after our environments.