Special visitor drops in to Rosehall Primary School – but who was it?
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Rosehall Primary School, which won a national nature prize for a plan to create a safe space for red squirrels, welcomed a special visitor last week.
Mike Henderson, a volunteer advocate with the Red Squirrel Survival Trust, made a trip to the school.
School representative Sarah Forrest said: "Mark and his family holiday in the Highlands every year, making the long journey from Kent. As soon as they arrived, he got in touch to arrange to visit the school and talk to the pupils about squirrels."
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The school, which has a soft toy squirrel called Walnut as its mascot, was one of only 25 schools in the UK to scoop an inaugural OVO Foundation Let's Go Zero Nature Prize in May this year.
Judges were impressed by the school's plan to create a safe habitat for red squirrels in a small wooded area outside the main classroom.
Sarah continued: "Mike was really impressed with the squirrel area the children created. The pupils have a strong eco-policy and were keen not to use new materials so recycled old posts and trays to make a feeding area.
"The children asked lots of questions and he was foxed by one from P7 pupil Tommy Rooney who asked: 'Why are squirrel eyes black?'
"We discovered the answer was that, as a member of the rodent family, their eyes differ from human eyes in that the black bit – the pupil – takes up the whole of the eye."
The pupils have been made honorary members of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust in recognition of their work, and were each given a squirrel badge, bag and jigsaw puzzles.
Mike also brought a bag of Kentish cobnuts, a type of hazlenut traditionally grown in Kent, as a treat for the squirrels.
