With lots of shouts of urrgggghhh! we dissected barn owl pellets.

When owls catch voles and mice they really enjoy eating the meat but they cannot digest the bones so they save them up, create a sort of ‘furball’ full of bones and spit it out - that’s what an owl pellet is!

When you start looking closely into these pellets you find an amazing selection of bones - some skulls, leg bones, pelvic bones, teeth and claws!

We could identify several vole skulls, some mice and even a rat (we think!).

We’ve finished now for the summer so a huge thank you goes to all those involved in the Minsterley Eco Club.

Have a great summer!

It was a noisy session with lots of banging but we eventually produced two wonderful bat boxes.

We decided to position them in the school grounds so one of them faces south and the other faces north, to encourage bats to use them all year round.

Bat boxes are easy to make but once they are in place you should not open them. To inspect a bat box you need a special licence so if you suspect a bat is using them contact your local wildlife trust. You can still watch to see if any come out at dusk though!!

This week we made wormaries however the worms were in short supply! It had been very dry and the ground was baked hard.

Anyone know any good worm charming techniques?

Did you know there is an annual worm charming contest in Cheshire? Fancy entering?

We also worked hard weeding our new flower beds and watering the plants.

It was interesting to see most of the grasses were green whereas the flowers were brightly coloured - a sign that grasses are pollinated by wind but flowers have to attract insects for pollination.

We used the dried specimens to create colour collages as a visual reminder of the local meadow. Hope the cows enjoy it as much as we did!

The selection was huge - more than ten different types of grass and flowers such as red and white clover, dandelion, sheep sorrel, bugle and even an orchid!

Who can guess how the dandelion got its name?

What a fantastic session. We were invited by a local farmer to see a wild flower meadow before it was grazed by cattle.

Armed with sweep nets and pots we headed off to see the meadow. It was a sea of colour and swaying stems. We collected samples of as many different grasses and wild flowers as we could.

A damselfly was spotted, along with a bumblebee and a fox hole with three cubs peering out of it!

Week 7 was the last week for some of the group so we held a celebratory bug hunt to try and find out how many minibeasts we had attracted to the school grounds. We had great fun looking under the logs in the log pile, shaking trees and peering at the ground.

Woodlice, worms, ants, beetles, butterflies and a frog were uncovered during our search.

The school was sent an information pack by BBC Breathing Places Schools which contained some free seeds.

These seeds were Sunflower, Pot Marigold, Corn Poppy, Cornflower and Borage.

The children decided to create a wild flower bed and so got digging - again! The ground was prepared and the seeds sown but only inbetween discovering ants eggs, tasting wild garlic and finding fungus!

Although it is a little late in the season to be planting a hedgerow the children in the Eco club were committed to providing the shrubs the necessary care such as regular watering.

Hawthorn, hazel and field maple were among the species planted and watered in. This involved digging a trench, finding the root collar and firming the saplings in.

Of course we discovered lots of worms and even a pill millipede whilst we were digging!

Hawthorn blossom usually heralds the onset of summer, the end of frosts and cold winds. Unfortunately, in these days of changeable climate, May blossom is appearing earlier and earlier- click here to see this year’s records on the nature’s calender website. The first May blossom spotted was on the 21st March! Are we going to have to change the name of this attractive flower?

Towards the end of April, look out for the first dragonflies of the year. The Common Blue and Large Red Damselflies are the first to appear, followed swiftly by larger species such as the Broad-Bodied Chaser. Take part in a national dragonfly survey with the British Dragonfly Society by clicking here.

Our summer migrants are due to appear - look to the skies for returning swifts, sand martins and swallows and listen out for chiff chaffs. All these birds have flown incredible distances from southern Europe and Africa. They’ll be with us now until September, when their breeding season ends and they head south once more.

There’s less to do now that Spring is well underway, just keep on top of little jobs like path clearance, maintain Forest School basecamps and vegetable gardens, but above all, get outside and explore.

I’ve used my copy many times, to check the names of strange fungi I’ve spotted; to find out what that strange bird was on my bird table and to plan my trip to the coast later this year.

It may sound like a cliche, but it really is a treasure trove of ideas and information. If it doesn’t make you want to go out for a walk in the countryside, then I don’t know what will.