I’ve really enjoyed watching Winterwatch this week – did you see the stand off between the fox and the eagle ! So, this week my blogs all about Rocket Seeds and The Big Garden Birdwatch .

At  school we made bird hides, (they were like dens) and bird feeders from balls of lard and seeds. I love doing Forest School, it’s great being out of the classroom in the fresh air. Although there were lots of us noisy kids and the weather wasn’t great we still saw jackdaws, wood pigeons, sparrows and blackbirds.

In cubs we made apple bird feeders and the cub leaders dared us to try a mealworm ! It tasted horrible. We were given bird spotters sheets to complete and return next week. Apple bird feeders are really easy to do – stick seeds, like sunflower seeds, in an apple thread through a couple of sticks and hang it up on a tree with string. Easy !

Despite having a bad cold, we went to Bakewell on Saturday and braved some really cold weather, including a snow storm on the drive home. My mum was on a photography course, so me and my Dad went for a walk. We saw dippers, a woodpecker, deer, buzzards, a treecreeper and a kestrel or it might have been a sparrowhawk.

We met up with my mum and Guy Badham the photography teacher for lunch – I quizzed him about his wildlife spottings in Derbyshire; he was really nice and had a phenomenal knowledge of wildlife photography. Check out my mum’s photo of a heron catching a trout – I think he bit off more than he could chew!!

It was great to watch astronaut, Tim Peake talk about the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the International Space Agency’s rocket seed science experiment. The seeds will be sent back down to earth – how cool. Our school has registered and I can’t wait to do our bit for science; there’s still time to sign your school up here. If I could speak to Tim Peake I’d ask him about gravity – how do you water plants in space and how do you weigh them down?

You can watch his message here:

I was really chuffed to be sent Adam Frost’s book called ‘Real Gardens’ from Adam, who I met at Parliament  – it’s amazing, a really good quality book and I’m looking forward to sitting with my Dad and reading it. The book is all about his seven amazing Chelsea Gold Medal-winning designs. I saw his garden at Chelsea in May 2015 and it was fantastic. Adam is an RHS Ambassador too and he champions gardening at secondary schools and young people getting a job in horticulture.

There’s not much happening in our garden at home at the moment; however my Dad is busy building the third raised bed. It’s been a bit easier to build than the other ones, he’s had to move lots of stone and rubble and it’s partly dug over. We are still thinking about what to grow there this year.

I’ll post some photos of my garden soon – but we’re waiting for some dry weather – when will that be ????